tv MTP Daily MSNBC May 13, 2021 10:00am-11:00am PDT
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ever you have at home, knorr sides can turn nutritious veggies into mouthwatering meals. ♪ veggies taste amazing with knorr. if it's thursday, president biden addresses a panic at the pump amid the fallout of that massive ransomware attack on vital u.s. fuel pipeline that led to a run on thousands and thousands of gas stations across the east coast. plus, as house republicans oust liz cheney from leadership for sounding the alarm about trump's role in the january 6th riot, a group of house republicans is desperately trying to rewrite history about that day and the storming of the capitol. and president biden meets with top senate republicans at the white house as he plows ahead with efforts to advance an ambitious and, yes, expensive agenda any way he can.
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welcome to wednesday. it is "meet the press daily" and i'm chuck todd. we've been watching a full-court press from the white house to address this panic at the pump, which now resulted in some 12,000-plus gas station as cross the southeast reportedly running out of fuel. all of this comes after that cyberattack which temporarily shut down a major fuel pipeline. we've seen a vicious cycle of panicked buying, alarm, mixed messages and, yes, mixed information. just moments ago president biden delivered remarks about the situation, assuring americans the colonial pipeline operations have been restored and it will will be reaching full capacity soon, but he also warned this is going to take time. >> i want to be clear, we will not feel the effects at the pumps immediately.
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this is not like flicking on a light switch. this pipeline is 5,500 miles long. it had never been fully shut down in its entire history. so fully and we have to -- now they have to safely and fully return to normal operations, and it's going to take some time and there may be some hiccups -- like i just had -- along the way here. >> is the president also said he would not engage in any retaliatory cyberattack on this suspected russian group of criminal hackers. the president's remarks come as this administration have taken numerous steps to try to address this issue with presidential remarks, briefings from republican officials and a sweeping order on cybersecurity. >> the majority of the more populated areas will likely see relief in the next couple of days. this is a temporary situation.
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nobody needs to take on more than what they absolutely need. >> we're not wasting any time and haven't been since -- even over the weekend -- in taking the steps we need to mitigate any shortages. >> we are in the lead in the public/private partnership in an all-of-government effort to raise the cyber hygiene of private city and, of course, within the federal.gov environment as well. this threat is not imminent. it is upon us. >> obviously, any time there's pain at the pump, whether it's from price shock to long lines, it's been a potent political issue and can get weaponized quite easily. and now it's clear things snowballed on just about everyone, white house included. curiously, all of this happened despite repeated assurances from government and local agencies saying, there's likely not to be
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a disruption. nothing to see here. pipeline would quickly restart the operation, as it now says it has. so what the heck happened? this entire episode is raising serious questions about everything from the state of our cyber defenses, which is clearly weak, to the vulnerabilities in our infrastructure, clearly many. not to mention the state of our misinformation -- or eke woe system filled with misinformation, and toxin particle political forces that fuel it and weaponize any mini crisis. so for more i'm joined by our chief white house correspondent peter alexander, lindsey reiser joins me from ft. mill, south carolina, right along the border of the two carolinas where gas has been tough to dry. our senior reporter and expert on how misinformation spreads and michael leiter, former director of the national counterterrorism center. michael, would like to start with you. this is what the presidency can be about sometimes. the you don't get to pick the
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issues, the issues in crises pick you. does the white house have a good sense of how this spiraled out of them and why their warnings were not heeded? while their call for calm didn't work? >> yeah, chuck, that's a good question. it's clear that it had not worked to this point, which is probably why you heard from the president in the scheduled remarks we saw in the last hour or so really addressed this after a parade of you different members of his cabinet came forward to try to fight this effort. and concludes what's been a challenging week for the white house, jobs numbers and inflation numbers about prices rising more broadly and this issue of pain americans are feeling at the pump, which is why president biden came out and really tried to use the bully pulpit today in his best effort to calm the fears about the fight of gas and gas supply at the time. here's what he said within the last hour -- >> don't panic, number one. i know seeing lines at the pumps
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or gas stations with no gas can be extremely stressful, but this is a temporary situation. do not get more gas than you need in the next few days. as i said, we expect the situation to begin to improve by the weekend and into early next week and gasoline supply is coming back online and panicked buying will only slow the process. >> of course, he also called on gas station owners, calling on them not to take advantage of consumers with price gouging and the like also overnight. the president and this white house announcing a series of executive actions it's taking to try to combat this action, have federal agencies work more closely with private companies, creating a rating system, chuck, the same way they almost rate restaurants in new york city or vehicles, this would be a better way to keep a sense of the software used for the cybersecurity systems going forward. but the white house does have a real challenge here and trying to address it right away.
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>> peter, they got a triple whammy over the last ten days. the worst-than-expected jobs report, the higher-than-expected percentage of inflation increase and now this gas shortage here. you talked to these senior folks. ment. how concerned are they this will mess up their bipartisan partnership or going it alone, how worried are they their partnership will fragment here. >> currently they're trying to make the case this is temporary when it coombs to jobs, the american rescue plan, as it's making its way across the country, there will be more hiring because of inflation and it's a temporary situation and same with the rise in gas supply and issue here. but it's obvious the concern and potential vulnerability you see
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for the white house. you now see the way it's resonating among republicans. former president trump, who compared him to jimmy carter, although, according to mr. trump, president biden is worse because he created these crises, compared to carter, he insists, only mishandled them. the white house did put out this presence for the very purpose and feel strong will he they will get it under control. but the longer this lasts and more it becomes a message this calcified that america is struggling to address it, the more it does reveal a challenge to them. >> they have a massive ecosystem issue here, particularly on the right, that i think is impacting the entire country. peter, thank you. let's check in with lindsey reiser on the border of north and south carolina. . as you have been out there, i'm wondering if you got a better sense of why these folks didn't believe these warnings that said hey, don't panic buy.
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everything is going to be okay. >> chuck, nobody's admitted to me they're panic buying. they're blaming everybody else, all of the other panic buyers, is saying they are seeing people fill up gasoline bags. and we saw the product consumer safety commission yesterday warning against that on twitter, which is unfathomable. but we thought the issue might be alleviated somewhat when we saw the pipeline reopened last night and anecdotally we thought that first thing this morning as well. there were a stretch of four key gas stations that were all out. this particular qt got another truckful. that only lasted five hours. we did not even see it, incredibly long lines down the street, but we saw a lot of trucks filling up, penske and others. and there are other measures being taken. transit system locally are offering free rides and we know the federal government has
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waived epa regulations and jones act, for example, so foreign vessels can transport oil. and even though the federal government say it's a temporary issue, tell that to cars pulling up looking for gas, wondering how they will get to work. the people i talk to say they're trying to conserve gas and figure out how they can work for home and they truly can't believe this is happening in their community, chuck. >> lindsey reiser in the carolinas for us, thank you very much. that brings us to brandy zadrozny, one of the leading experts of tracking misinformation, particularly when it happens online. this rising level of mistrust that is already out there, how easily a crisis like this gets almost used and manipulated by the misinformers. the what have you seen out there, and how much could this have contributed to the panic button? >> so, you know, this is what
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happens when half of the americans get their news from social media, especially facebook. these platforms are absolutely dominated by media manipulators like newsmax and daily wire, whose entire business model is, like you said, an attempt to politicize every issue. we saw it with dr. seuss, vaccines, storms in texas. we've seen it again and again. we are seeing it here now. these manipulators were also giddy getting this stuff out and it's really moved on social media. there have been articles, and especially one video made by a serial plagerist, now works for newsmax and turning points usa, a far right political organization, and one video in which he says this is all biden's fault. equates it to the keystone pipeline. that's been viewed over 550,000 times at this point. so people are seeing this stuff. we know this is how people get their news.
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it's having some effect. we are also seeing it move through private spaces, whatsapp messaging group, private chats. so i'm surprised somebody didn't tell lindsey, or maybe i shouldn't be, but it is having some sort of effect here. >> i'm curious, the major social media companies, facebook and twitter, tried to get aggressive labeling misinformation. did they at all try to get on top of the misinformation circulating about this hack? >> i mean, i haven't seen warning labels for this specific instance. we do know that they are behind because of covid, they say that, they're struggling to keep up. the hard thing about this too is a lot of misleading content is misleading so it's hard to sort of fact check things that are just sort of implied or things that are framed in particularly partisan ways.
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so it really is a challenge. but what we know is the fact is i just looked up the top post on facebook right now over the last three days about the colonial pipeline, and it's from televangelist franklin graham, fox news, sean hannity and ben shapiro. that tells you labels or no how far this misinformation is spreading. >> some of the leading misinformers in america and congratulations, facebook. anyway, brandy zadrozny, always on top of this, thank you. which brings us to our counterterrorism expert michael leiter. i want to begin with something we heard from president biden when he said he wasn't going to retaliate on this, at least right now, or at least retaliate in a cyber situation. first of all, do you view this as a terrorist attack on the united states with what happened with this pipeline? >> i don't, chuck. it certainly could have been.
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but all of the reporting right now suggests this was a purely criminal enterprise trying to get money out of colonial pipeline. this happens every day, hundreds of times a day to american businesses and don't think we have any indication at this point there was a political motivation behind the attack. that doesn't mean there aren't political interests at play both here and overseas and it doesn't mean there's not political responsibility to some extent both here and in this case likely in russia for the inability of the russians to get their arms around these actors. but right now i don't think it is terrorism, i think it's a pure pecuniary motive, trying to get money. >> yes. now looking at this from your former vantage point, considering how this ended up ar spiraling, if you will, leading to panic, leading to gas lines,
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basically leading to a mini moment here of instability, how much does that suddenly concern you if a nation state decides, boy, we found out it's presidente pretty easy to create a destabilizing situation in america with the government? >> when we woke up at the beginning of the virus and said we don't produce our ppe here. and this is something like that we're waking up to and we have seen in cybersecurity for more than a decade. the critical infrastructure, water, electricity, oil and gas is vulnerable to cyberattack. although we do a decent job of trying to figure out where those weaknesses are, you don't always know until after the fact. the weakness for one company in
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this case can have enormous repercussions. i think the lesson here is we are always less secure than we think we are. if we have an attack, it's going to be really hard to predict where those waves go and what the ultimate outcome is, which is why we have to have greater security, greater resilience, greater redundancy. i think we are seeing unfortunately something which can replicate itself in telecommunications and other critical infrastructure and it's very hard to know where it goes once you have that effect. >> bloomberg is reporting -- and other news organizations have not matched it yet, including us, but they're reporting colonial pay have made the ransom and they put the number at $5 million. the united states government says don't pay these ransoms. the we know the private sector not only pays these ransoms, and some small governments do, you
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can now buy insurance on it. haven't we -- doesn't this end up perpetuating the problem? >> it does, but this shows the difference between the pure government issue and private sector interest. of course, the white house says we would rather not say pay a ransom because it encourages the next attack. however, if you're running a pipeline, the cost of remediating and cost of the lost operations that you have could easily make $5 million look like a drop in the bucket. and the pressure that they are under to get those operations going, it would not surprise me. as you said, in many cases, companies are insured so the cost is passed along to the insurance industry, which is then passed along to the rest of society. there are efforts in government to try to limit the payment of ransom, but it's very, very hard and ultimately for companies,
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you can say all you want, you want to do the right thing for the country, but they still have to do the right thing for their particular business interest, which may well have occurred in this case. >> let me ask you about this gang that may have done this, or however they're being described, with eastern europe, maybe loose ties to russia. is this something that we should hold the russian government accountable for or is this like akin trying to hold the american government accountable for the mob in the 1930s? >> i think it's got to be some combination. of there's got to be a degree of cooperation across law enforcement, which is very, very spotty between the u.s. and russia. and more broadly, this isn't just about russia. this is about broad international cooperations to go after the criminals. the fact is the fbi can't show up with the rest of these guys. we need cooperations from the russians and we need cooperation from other countries as well.
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so i think we do have to bring elements of state power to bear to pressure the russians to do more within their own borders, but is it one piece of it? there are actions that would have to be taken on our side as well to make sure we're not living in glass houses. >> michael leiter, former director of the former counterterrorism center, always great to get your perspective and expertise on this. thank you, sir. >> thanks, chuck. >> you got it. hope to see you as a wizards' playoff game. up next -- as republicans ouster liz cheney and at the same time kevin mccarthy said no one in this caucus was questioning the 2020 results, capitol hill republicans were trying to rewrite history on what really happened. stay with us.
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there are a group of house republicans who are desperately trying to rewrite history. just hours after ousting liz cheney from her leadership role yesterday over her refusal to back trump's lies about the 2020 election, those lie that's led to the january 6th riot, republicans on the house oversight committee went out of their way to minimize and actually defend, believe it or not, what happened on the capitol january 6th in what can only be called an attempt to gaslight the american public. these republicans claim trump supporters were the real victim on that day. no, there was not an insurrection, don't believe your lying eyes, and rioters were just normal tourists. we're not making this up. let's listen to what these members said. and then while they are say saing it, we will show you what actually happened. >> the truth is being censored and covered up. as a result the gop are being harassed across the country. >> it was trump supporters who
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lost their lives that day, not trump supporters taking the lives of others. >> usa! usa! usa! >> if let me be clear, there was no insurrection and to call it an insurrection in my opinion is a bold-faced lie. if you didn't know the footage was a video from january 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit. >> for more on what this means for the gop and all of congress, leigh ann caldwell joins me now. and that last comment came from a fairly new member down in georgia, andrew clyde, and i believe you had an opportunity to try to catch up with him today to see if he really meant what he said about this idea it was just a bunch of tourists walking through the capitol that day. >> i did, chuck. so it was at an event this
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morning with republicans honoring police officers. it's national police week. he was standing there with about two dozen republicans honoring these police officers. afterwards i went up to ask him to clarify and to explain what he meant yesterday. let's watch this exchange. do you stand by your statement yesterday that yesterday -- when you said yesterday was like a capitol tour? do you stand by those statements? >> do you regret saying that? five people died, including police officers that you're here today, honoring police officers. the. >> if you're honest in your statement -- >> what's wrong about it? that's what you said. >> think about what you just said. you didn't take what i just said in context at all. >> can you explain to us -- explain to us -- >> you go listen to what i said.
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>> we did. do you believe january 6th was an insurrection? . >> we gave representative clyde many opportunities to clarify or explain what he meant, so we chose not to. so we have to take his words from the hearing yesterday at face value. this came moments after i asked leader mccarthy -- excuse me -- what he meant about no one is questioning the legitimacy of the election when you have examples like that, when polls are showing that most republicans don't believe president biden is the legitimate winner. so when congresswoman cheney talked about a reality problem within the republican party, this is what she's talking about, chuck. >> i have to say, this is an actual member of congress -- i guess he's a little more well behaved than marjorie taylor greene, but i'm confused. it is so are the bizarre to me
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to have members of congress behave this way to the press, and i know that it is good politics on the fringe right ring to attack the media or to be snarky like this, but how much of an attitude change have you noticed with this new crop of elected officials? >> it's really night and day, chuck. this member replaced doug collins, who ran for senate in georgia and lost. also from georgia, representative marjorie taylor greene, for who the second time at least that we know of in the past month, have gone up to representative alexandria oscasio-cortez very aggressively asking her to debate her ideas on the green new deal. i will say that the house of representatives, in particular, the senate is a different situation, but after january 6th, with this new set of republican freshmen, many of them who are on the fringe,
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tensions are at an all-time high. trust is at an all-time low. and it is bearing out on the house floor on a daily basis and we just keep seeing these skirmishes. and it's really starting to impact legislation and the mood up here, chuck, is something i have never seen before, the complete dissolution of any sort of comedy whatsoever. >> i remember when we talked about this five, ten years ago and congressional reporters would say, they're not caning each other like they did in the 19th century. i don't think any of us want to joke about that because it sometimes feel like some of these members might actually turn to violence the way they react, so it's not worth joking about. leigh ann caldwell on capitol hill, thank you. coming up -- what all of this means for the future of the republican party, as president biden is about to meet with top senate republicans, while the white house is hoping to find a bipartisan deal with the
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some of your colleagues say, we supported you from, congresswoman cheney, you made your point, now drorp it and let's focus on the future. >> it's an ongoing threat, so silence is not an option. leadership is about leading, and it's about telling the truth, and it's about making sure people understand how important
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these fundamental principles are, and i think that is incumbent on anybody who's elected, anybody in leadership, tell the truth. >> can you be a conservative and disagree with the president about the 2020 election? >> i don't think it's helpful. i think we should be focused on making sure that we have integrity in our elections going forward. that's what i've always said. >> so there you go, what you just heard is the state of play right now signed the republican party, particularly on the house side. joining me now is a former member of the house republican congress, virginia republican barbara comstock and brendan buck, former aid to republican house speakers paul ryan and john boehner. barbara comstock, i know where you stand on this issue. you're in fact one of the signers of this letter of a slew of longtime and well respected conservatives who would like to see the republican party sort of move away from donald trump, or
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you guys might want to start a third party here. but at the end of the day, we are where we're at here and how -- how small is this anti-trump wing now in the party, and are you worried it's almost too small to be effective? >> well, i'm staying within the party and fighting. the group is a coalition of people who have a variety of views on that, but the point, as liz pointed out, is for conservatives to respect the truth. and these two members who you just highlighted are two of -- unfortunately, too many in congress now, have no connection with the truth. it sickens me as somebody on the committee who oversaw capitol police that for years as a staffer and counsel and then as a member of counsel worked with
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these people and to have the disrespect from these members, who they are the natural dissolution of trump. naked, raw, trumpism. sore loserism. trump says everything just as bad as stupidly as they do. but when you see it in a different suit by marjorie greene, it looks a little worse but it's every bit of the same as what donald trump says. and you can't just keep excusing this fringe. and in georgia, i know in the very red districts there are a lot of people who are very conservative and respect the constitution and are not total idiots like these two. i would beg them, if you go out there, it will not be hard to beat these people. yes, they will raise a lot of money, but, please, somebody stand up and primary people like this who have no respect for our police. what about back the blue?
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no respect for the law. ment they don't understand the law. it's like putting a preschool in an algebra class. the they don't know what they're doing. >> brendan buck, i want to play what kevin mccarthy said yesterday. i know a lot of us are still shocked former president trump hasn't chided him for these comments, but let me play what he said. >> i don't think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. i think that is all over with. we're sitting here with the president today. >> you have worked in and around and seen kevin mccarthy up close. you know, does he really think he can say that on the grounds of the whitehouse, wink and nod on one side, and then somehow appease the right that wants what it wants? what is he trying to do here, and is he doing a good job of whatever it is he's trying to do? >> apparently he thinks he can. that would be the great thing for kevin mccarthy to have said
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right after the election and said all the way through. but kevin had clearly made a calculation, and i think you understand this, that they need donald trump on their side to win the election. so what he's been doing all along is trying to keep the peace in the party. i don't know, obviously, after what we have seen in the last week, possible. but his focus is on becoming speaker of the house. he thinks if donald trump turns on them, they're in big trouble. as you saw in the georgia senate elections, he's very capable of chaos. he's very capable of telling republican voters not it turn out, so he's been trying to keep the republicans close. but kevin wants to be seen as the state's leader and he wants to be liked more than anything. when he's standing at the white house, yes, i know he wants to say the right thing. i just wish he had been more consistent going forward. the reality is there's to middle
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ground anymore. i learned that the hard way. in today's politics, you have to make a decision, or are you or against donald trump? and i wouldn't be surprised if donald trump came after him for what he said. >> barbara comstock, in our home state of virginia, republicans have a nominee. democrats are hitting glenn youngkin for say election integrity is somehow the number one issue. he's trying to distance himself from trump now, right, as soon as he got the nomination. what is the line for you, is he doing enough? he is he speaking out against drp enough or is he wirnging and nodding too much to the base. >> listen, glenn is a friend and i can tell you of the candidates running, he was one of the least trumpy. in fact, when trump came out and endorsed him, i suspect that was an undisited endorsement. in my case, trump sent over an
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unsolicited robocall that i never use, didn't go out. but this is a case where donald trump tries to claim credit but the trump in heels woman lost miserably. he's somebody i do support and i know he's going to be strong on economic issues. he's got a great family. and he brought a lot of new people to the party who are not necessarily trumpy people. that's one of the things he said, he went outside that normal course of people. it wasn't the normal be trump supporters that he got. i know going forward you will need to have candidates stand up on their own two feet and push back against you have to, some kind of trump loyalist. even trump loyalists have failed when trump has endorsed them. kris kobach was a trump loyalist that lost a republican state of kansas, and we now have a democratic governor. of course, the famous case environment ray moore in
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alabama. having a trump endorsement, yes, you can make your life miserable if your opponent has it, but just stand up and fight for the conservative principles we all care about, and i think people will see when you're a genuine person, you have a hard for service and you care about your constituents. . donald trump is not that person. >> barbara comstock and brendan buck, longtime republicans. barbara, former member of congress and long time aide. i have to cut it short. we have breaking news. we're expecting the cdc in just a few minutes from now, 2:00, going to announce a big move. this will lift all mask and social distancing restrictions indoor and outdoor for all americans who have been fully vaccinated. the white house was just alerted president biden will deliver remarks later todayford rose garden about the country's overall response but with the headline being just that, no
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more indoor/outdoor mask restrictions if you have been fully vaccinated. to understand what this means, let's bring in our nbc news physician dr. kavita patel, and she's also a former obama white house poll distributor. dr. patel, there are a lot of caveats in here. you certain lir going to have government buildings that still have specific requirements, certainly private companies may have specific requirements. but what does this mean for the average fully vaccinated person? >> yes, chuck, this is as close to normal as we could have expected. i will be honest, i'm a little surprised. it feels like we went from outdoor masks are gone but if you're in a crowd outdoors, still wear them and there was never really a discussion even about indoor masks. bottom line, if you're fully vaccinated, two weeks past the second dose or two weeks past a one-dose shot, you can take off that mask and you do not have to socially distance. you said there were caveats --
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health care facilities, et cetera, local and regional guidance. i do think this is going to pose a problem kind of on the ground, so i'm eager to see how the cdc works with other agencies to give directions, tools. i promise you, all of our phones will be ringing to look for that advice. but this is a huge step and endorsement since the vaccine is so effective, so effective. you should think of it, chuck, to get as many americans vaccinated as quickly as possible. what more incentive could you have than taking that mask off, basically everywhere. that's big, huge. >> so if you were -- i'm going to ask you, look, if you're say running a network news division or a bank, would this be the impetus to say, okay, all of my vaccinated employees, back to work. come on back. is this the -- is this that sort of -- have we dropped a flag?
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is that what this means? >> yeah, it is. i think we've been seeing -- janet yellen herself, secretary yellen saying the recovery of the economy will again upon what we do to recover from covid. you heard many people, consumer price index, we had a number of reasons to do this, plus health and science and safety. but you're absolutely right, chuck. i think where there will be hesitancy -- we know two-thirds of large employers are talking about vaccine mandates, vaccine requirements and we've also seen mostly red-state governors said no, no mandates ever, no vaccine passports. but, chuck, you got to ask if you're walking into a walmart with my parents shop, they're vaccinated and they're still likely to wear a mask because they don't know and trust that others are going to self-regulate or be honest. so i believe psychologically, we're still going to be in between. but if you're in a large network, large employer of any kind or even small employer, this should be good news. those small businesses that have
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been strangled because they're trying to figure out how to put ten people in a restaurant with full staff, this will be a welcome relief. i do worry, we have some parts of the country where cases are increasing so i think this caveat for local and regional guidance becomes critically important. >> i was just going to say, look, the numbers have been remarkable. there's only good news in the last two weeks, right? mostly good news but, let me tell you this. do you expect a mini surge in the next six weeks because we're basically now -- there's an even greater amount of people going, ripping off the mask and going out? >> not a surge but i think there will be pockets, especially where we've seen states -- governors who refused vaccine shots and mississippi and alabama at 18% vaccination. you will see those areas start to have an increase in cases. however, i think what the cdc is
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also signaling, and we will hear more from their director, they they the rate of vaccinations we're at 60% or 70% of americans getting one shot july 4th and 60% of americans having had one shot, chuck, that's getting us closer to that infamous herd immunity and that's science. if one person gets infected, how likely are they to infect one person? those are the reasons and rational. i'm eager to hear more, that if you're fully vaccinated, it will mean taking off that mask. the. >> absolutely. let me bring in peter alexander. he's at the white house for us. peter, the tone of president biden's remarks is this -- as i asked dr. patel, is this the announcement the unofficial, okay, let's go back to the office, folks? >> i think we're getting the first indication of that when we hear from cdc director rochelle walensky in a matter of minutes now. as sources shared with nbc news,
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she's likely to say this is the day we longed for. this is the vj day, victory day, day where americans vaccinated can return to their lives in most instances. but obviously, the real challenge for this white house, for this president, has been the best way to communicate effectively what the science is on this without going too far, right? before the president took over, there was a lot of concern the last president, former president trump was not obviously in line with the science. the concern was the white house was going a little too far with the restrictions it had in place, given what we knew about the science and science right now. in many ways this is the sort of rip your mask off day, one the president can share with america. as you said to the doctors moments ago, there's only been good news on this the course of the last several weeks. obviously i. there's vaccine hesitancy going forward here but today president biden announced
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yesterday in the south auditorium, steps away from where i was in the room, we now hit 215 million vaccines administered. they announced 12-year-olds to 15-year-olds are authorized to get the shots and puts them on a much better course, they believe, to hit the 70% mark, where 70% of adults have at least one shot by july 4th. it does accelerate the process and in many ways a chance the white house believes to communicate the reward of being vaccinated as they try to push forward. >> let me bring in stephanie ruhle, who is, of course, our business correspondent on nbc news side, hosts an hour on the msnbc side. stephanie, this obviously, the cdc recommendations suddenly give a lot more cover to businesses. it felt as if most companies were pegging opening -- fully opening by labor day. does this move everything up? are we looking at june 1, july 1 now reopening of sort of the
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office, the american office, if you will? >> chuck, it definitely moves things forward. but you've got to think, for businesses, for retailers, for offices, this is still complicated. even states like texas, where you saw some mask mandates lifted by the government, those businesses pointed to the cdc saying yep, we're here with the government, we're going to stick with the cdc. the fact the cdc is saying that, that changes things. for offices, for businesses, they can still control things quite a bit. they are able to ask your employees if they have been vaccinated. they can try to require -- but there's legal issues around that -- where it's going to be more complicated and types of businesses that are more vulnerable, think retail, think hotel. it's hard to control who comes in and out in monitoring this. it's difficult. but as far as is this when we rip the band-aid off, i wouldn't say rip it off but definitely speed it up.
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>> stephanie, what's your sense of vaccine passports, vaccine mandates, things like that? how anxious is the private sector to find a way to essentially use those tools both to reassure their own employees and reassure customers? >> from a management perspective, they would sure like to do that in the same way you and i can't bring our qods to public school kindergarten unless they prove they're vaccinated. however, these businesses all know how complicated it is. they know there are people with medical reasons and religious reasons so to say, yep, we're definitely doing this to mandate it, on one level it's a private business, they can say no shirts, no shoes, no service. but on another there are a lot of legal issues around here that would make it easy. they would love to mandate it. it makes it much easier to keep employees and customers safe but it's one of those easier said than done. >> dr. patel, this is a big moment, a huge momentum thing,
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right, when it comes to indoor mask wearing. we don't need it if you're fully vaccinated. the next big thing would be removing travel -- removing this for travel. perhaps not not having to wear mask in an airplane. how long before we're at that point? is this a post-herd immunity, and whatever we decide that looks like? is this maybe in six months, and maybe on travel, not for a while. >> i think because of the international nature, what we learn from not having these restrictions in place around public transportation and travel with passengers, and now we know with origins some of the cases in the united states weren't what we thought they were, chuck. i think travel is going to be later, but my bigger kind of milestone is children getting vaccinated. 12 to 15 already starting.
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look, if you've got younger kids, what do i do? social distance from them where i don't wear a mask? that's just not really practical or feasible, right? i do think children have -- a plurality of children having access to the vaccination will be the next milestone so we can properly release some of these thresholds. that's why schools, you're hearing weingarten and others saying we won't have to in schools. this pandemic in africa, we're saying cases rise in other countries, and that's why i think they'll be cautious about international travel and you'll see the cdc putting out language requiring testing and masks required on all domestic and international travel. >> peter, this is a good news day when it comes to the pandemic and this new guidance from the cdc.
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should we expect now a pivot from the biden team to vaccinating the world to figuring out how we help india put this out, how we try to essentially get the rest of the world on a path that we're on? >> reporter: i think it would be premature to say we would see a pivot just yet. the white house will say they're in the process already of trying to help, obviously, with astrazeneca shots being sent to other countries, their efforts trying to support the crisis obviously taking place in india right now. but i think the president, as we'll hear from him at 3:35 today in the rose garden, he will try to thank americans for the role they played in that and thanking americans for the great effort, saying we're not there yet but thank you for being part of the process, and you can go out and get your vaccines. we're seeing all the unique ways the different states are playing a role in this effort. just yesterday, as you saw, ohio
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governor mike dewine announcing each wednesday they'll have a drawing where the winner gets $1,000 if you've gotten a shot. while there are concerns they won't reach whatever that herd immunity threshold is, they do believe if they can make significant progress still -- and we're still not there yet, that 70% number of vaccines in american arms by july 4th is still out ahead of the president -- they think that can make a real difference in the progress in the future for fighting the potential of variants, which have the potential to keep developing overseas where there is a real problem still. >> i tell you, if that lottery works in ohio, i think you'll see a copycat of that, probably particularly in the southern states. they could use some catching up there. stephanie ruhle, it was interesting to hear dr. patel talk about international travel there, and it got me thinking that there might be some things
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that never come back. there are two things in the business world that happened, and i wonder if it's going to be forever changing. the biggest thing, obviously, is business travel and the idea of videoconferencing, video meetings. is that a part of the business sector that may not come back? >> well, it will come back somewhat, but chuck, you know that business travel is not going to come back in the way that it was, and this is a huge hit to the travel industry. it's one of the reasons hotels are suffering and the airbnbs of the world are doing so well. think about it. business travel, those are the people paying full fare for those flights, full fare in hotel rooms. what hotels do, they subsidize your and my personal travel. that's how they're able to offer cheap rates because they know they have that big business vent. it's going to come back somewhat, but we've seen in the
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last year businesses have figured out how to be more productive with less, and business travel isn't going to be as important. we've learned in zoom, you can see people's facial expressions, you can make that connection. people are going to want to go back on some level, but it's not going to come back, at least in the short term, as it was. we'll see retail, restaurants, live events, use this guidance. my youngest kid is still too young for the vaccine. if a business says, come on over, we're fully vaccinated, i might be up for that, wouldn't you? >> right. and that's the thing when i have one kid vaccinated and another one on the waiting list here, that is one of those things. well, gee, three-fourths of us can go, but not -- you're right, making families feel comfortable should be an interesting opportunity there. a lot will be permanent, some of
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it we don't know what that permanence is just yet. if you're not fully vaccinated, get fully vaccinated and you can rip off your mask. my friend jeff bennet will pick up the coverage in the next hour. pick up the coverage in the next hour eeds. next-generation servers with superior network reliability. because the more you do with 5g, the more your network matters. it's us...pushing us. it's verizon...vs verizon. and who wins? you. since suzie's got goals, she'll want a plan to reach them. so she'll get some help from fidelity, and she'll feel so good about her plan, she can focus on living it.
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that delicious scramble was microwaved? get outta here. everybody's a skeptic. wright brothers? more like, yeah right, brothers! get outta here! it's not crazy. it's a scramble. just crack an egg. this academic year has been, um, challenging. but i think there's so much success to celebrate. woman: it's been a year like no other. man: yet, for educators across california, the care, compassion, and teaching has never stopped. woman: addressing their unique needs... man: ...and providing a safe learning environment students could count on. woman: join us in honoring the work of educators. together, we will build a better california for all of us. ♪ ♪ ♪ together, we will build a better ♪ ♪ ♪
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i'm jeff bennet in for katy tur. breaking news just in from the white house, the covid vaccine and the cdc. the cdc is ready to start its briefing any minute now, and we expect the director of the cdc to make guidance. fully vaccinated americans no longer need to wear masks or social distance indoors or outdoors. we also learned president biden will speak from the rose garden at 4:35 eastern on the pandemic response. we'll, of course, bring you those remarks when they happen, but first this new guidance. there are caveats to this new mask-free guidance including health care centers, public transportation and businesses that have their own mask rules. but obviously this is huge news after a year of masks. joining me now for more on this are nbc news correspondent monica alba, nbc correspondent miguel brewster
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