tv Morning Joe MSNBC May 14, 2021 3:00am-6:00am PDT
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house members saying, it didn't even happen. >> yeah, so, a lot of republicans were telling me and i know telling you, kasie, if we can get passed this leadership fight, if we can get past the cheney problem, this is going to be for the national party a black eye, a pr disaster. but if we can get past it, we can talk about joe biden. we can talk about what we want to be talking about, about democrats. but kasie, you're pointing out, they're nowhere near that. there's recidivism on one, kevin mccarthy, the house republican leader is out trying to deny that something happened. and others are saying that it didn't even happen at all. and so, no progress in turning that page, where other republicans want it to be, which is a message about democrats and about president biden. >> right. all right, mike allen, thank you very much. we really appreciate it. they were not tourists. thank you for getting up "way
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too early" with us on friday morning. don't go anywhere. "morning joe" starts right now. but now things are getting better every day. vaccinated friends and family are able to take off their masks, which we just learned! as we got off the plane, and here i had gone out to buy one that was coordinated with my outfit. so you can't win. so businesses are reopening. you know, we're getting back to those things that we lost for so long. hugging the people we love. i mean, how great will that be? i mean, haven't we all missed that just most of all? >> nice to see you. literally. nice to see you. >> oh, my gosh. good morning! and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, may 14th, and joe,
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we start today with this great news. and you can see that jill biden actually finally matched her mask with her outfit. that's like my luck. i finally have matching masks. don't need them, if you're vaccinated, even indoors. it's amazing! it really is such an important thing for the government to say. you know, willie, for quite some time, there's been a question of whether science was going to be matched by the government from the right over the past month or so, a lot of people asking the question from the left, will democrats catch up with the science. will democrats catch up with medical -- the medical advice. and yesterday, they did. obviously, they believed they needed to be very cautious, needed to take extra care. but yesterday, finally, americans got the word, if
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you've been vaccinated, it's time to go back to living the life you lived before covid. >> wow! >> yeah, i would like to point out, i never got the matching masks. i just reached for whatever gross mask was in that basket by the door as i leave the house every day. that's a different story. >> that's true. >> you're right. the cdc came out and said what we've been waiting to hear for 14 months now. rolling back its guidance on masks and social distancing. federal health officials announcing americans who are fully vaccinated can stop wearing masks in most settings outdoors and indoors. >> if you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. we have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy. >> i think it's a great milestone. a great day. it's been made possible by the extraordinary success we've had in vaccinating so many americans, so quickly.
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to date, we've given out 250 million shots in 114 days. if you've been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask. let me repeat. if you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask. but if you have not been vaccinated or if you're getting a two-shot vaccine and you've not got your -- you've only had your first shot, but not your second, or you haven't waited the full two weeks after the second shot, you still need to wear a mask. the rule is very simple. get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. >> some states reacting immediately to the new cdc guidelines with at least eight governors already adjusting their state's mandates. but the governors of new york, new jersey, north carolina, and virginia, all democrats, said they are going to review the guidelines first before making
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changes. that is something many retailers plan to do, as well. some saying they were caught off guard by the announcement. joe, this is obviously all new, so states will take some time and figure out what works for them. businesses who have had that sign, you have to have a mask to come in, will have to decide whether or not they want to continue that policy. but the news is great. unequivocally great news from the cdc that now we can take this massive step to returning back to normal life. >> yeah, it really is great news. and what have we learned? at least for the preliminary studies, we've learned if you take the vaccine, chances are overwhelmingly good that you're not going to get covid again. if you do get covid, it's going to be most likely asymptomatic. we've also learned that outside, if you're outside, just -- there is no need to wear a mask, unless you really feel comfortable wearing that mask, there's just not -- there's not a medical reason to wear that
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mask. i was up in boston a couple of days ago, willie, doing what i usually do. going up and cursing the boston red sox, because i've been to four games this year. the red sox have lost all four. >> wow. >> yes. i know. >> i'm sure they're happy to see. >> no. in fact, last night in the first inning, barnicle texted me after the red sox scored seven runs. he said, we have taken a vote among everybody in the stands and it is unanimous. you and your immediate family are to stay away from fenway. but anyway, i'm going to slip in, i'm going to wear a bad over my head like the old new orleans saints fans and hopefully -- or i can be like bobby valentine, who by the way, running for mayor of stamford, connecticut. how exciting is that? i can go in and wear a mustache or disguise. but anyway, i was sitting in the stands, and, you know, i actually talked to a couple of people that were involved with the team and they said they had
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been following closely what happened in texas, where they jammed, you know, capacity crowds in arlington to the early games. and they said, we've been looking closely and we just don't see, you know, we don't see anything that came of that. because it was outside. so, i mean, every day, we're learning more and more about this virus, but certainly with 125, 150 million americans getting their vaccines and with -- we're going to talk to philip bump in a second, the slowdown of vaccines itself, has appeared to slow down, and we're steadying off at 2 million a day. we're moving -- you know, we're not getting to herd immunity, but, man, we're improving every day. it is so great to hear the government say what a lot of us were starting to think, you know, come on. we got vaccinated. everybody we're around got vaccinated. why are we still wearing masks?
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and you would see some people wearing masks the size of massachusetts a few days ago in public life. and you're like, what are you doing? what are you doing? you've been vaccinated. everybody around you has been vaccinated. let's get real. and yesterday, they did. >> i'm going to still wear them on planes and -- i think there's still value with them. there's still some problems with some people getting coronavirus. but we'll still talk about the value of the vaccine with that. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire, who was at the white house yesterday for president biden's rose garden address. also with us, national correspondent for "the washington post," philip bump with some analysis on how vaccinations are ramping up again. and director for the center for infectious disease research and policy and a professor in the medical school at the university of minnesota, dr. michael osterholm. and joe, within this
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conversation, there is the vaccines, if they help, if people still get the coronavirus with the vaccines, and ultimately, putting this economy back together again for the people who have been locked out. >> mika, i'm so glad that you talked about planes, because i've got a masters in broad generalities. but let's be specific about this. if you're on airplanes, on buses, on public transportation, you're still expected to wear the mask. and actually, for your own health, you should still wear the mask. i've got to say, in the future -- i haven't gotten the flu in a year, why am i going to stop wearing a mask on planes? >> that's right. >> that just makes good, common sense. >> it's a good idea. >> and let's bring in dr. osterholm, who has gotten this thing right all the way through. and it's so great to have you with us, dr. osterholm. i'm curious about some more caveats to yesterday's general announcement.
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what should americans take away from what they heard president biden say? >> well, first of all, it's incredibly good news. and it's news that we're not surprised by from a science standpoint. we now have six studies which actually show that once you're vaccinated, the likelihood of getting re-infected, and more importantly, serving as the person that might transmit to others is very, very low. so this is based on good science and we're moving forward. the challenge we have is the next step. the next step is we still have 42% of the u.s. adults have not been vaccinated. 64% have only had one dose of the two doses they need. and the challenge is going to be now, we're worried that everybody is going to say, i've been vaccinated and everyone will drop their masking. the next question is going to be, how will we know if someone has been vaccinated? if you're sitting close to someone at a restaurant or next to them in a theater, how are you going to know that they're not just kind of fibbing a little bit about whether they're vaccinated or not? and i think that's going to be the really next big question is,
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do we do these immune passports? you know, i gave up my eyeballs and my fingerprints to clear so i could get on and off an airplane sooner. will people do that, so you can feel confident that the person you're sitting next to without a mask is, in fact, vaccinated. >> dr. osterholm, as you think through this a little bit, we've been thinking about this since this news came down yesterday, how do you know if someone is vaccinated or not, isn't that now the problem of the unvaccinated? in other words, if i'm vaccinated, my risk of contracting the disease again is very low and if i get it, the symptoms won't be as bad, is what we hear, anyway. so isn't that a concern more for someone who's unvaccinated than someone who is? >> it actually is, you're absolutely right. but the problem is when you have 42% of the u.s. adults not vaccinated at all and 64% that only have one dose, we could still see substantial transmission of the virus in these smaller groups. cases of 50, 60, 70 people getting infected.
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so we want to make sure that they don't get infected too. so i fully support the administration's efforts to get more people vaccinated. i think they really deserve tremendous credit for what they've done in the last was o transition team on covid-19. and we had debates back in november and december. in fact, should the president put out a hundred million dose goal in the first hundred days, and he said, yes, and the administration went to work with the industry and they did a remarkable job of getting us 250 million doses out in 114 days. so i think this has been great news. we just have to get the remainder of these individuals vaccinated, or we could still see substantial activity in this country. look no further than the seychelles, the most vaccinated country in the world right now. and grant you, their vaccines might not be quite as effective, but they're in a lockdown as we speak this morning, just because of the fact in that unvaccinated group, we're still seeing real transmission issues.
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>> you know, jonathan lemire, you were at the white house when the president made this address yesterday in the rose garden. and there's been slight criticism along the way that perhaps the administration is too careful, perhaps the cdc is behind the science and is, you know, holding back on setting us free, but at the same time, it does instill confidence, because when they come out with an announcement like this, you know that all the, you know, everything is in place and the science is perfectly aligned with the policy. and it can be a moment that is truly celebrated. there's an issue of trust that i think this administration is trying to reinforce in everything they do. >> mika, that's right. and from the first moments of this president's term, they've been very conscious of the message and imagery being put forth about the president himself and the white house staff and how they are conducting themselves. remember on january 20th when
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president biden sat behind the resolute desk to sign executive orders, he was wearing a mask. and in recent weeks, there has been growing pressure, a little push to say, okay, people are being vaccinated. when is it time to send a different signal? and they said all along, they're waiting for the cdc to take this step. and i was here yesterday when it came down. in fact, president biden was in the oval office with a meeting with republican senators to talk about a potential infrastructure package when word was given that the cdc had made this announcement. and president biden and the six senators all took off their masks, right there in the oval office, a nice symmetry to what we saw there in january 20th. it was the first time that the president has been maskless in the oval office, except for when he was alone or around his immediate family. and then we heard from them earlier, the president and the vice president striding to the rose garden, no masks, and it
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was an exultant president biden. and there was a message, we still need to be concerned. there's a possibility that a variant could spread that the vaccine might not handle as well. but yesterday with the president and the vice president, all the white house staff who had been vaccinated, they were without masks. all the reporters who were there, who had been fully vaccinated, we all took off our masks. and the president was certainly using it as a moment of triumph, sort of a milestone moment, and was quick and running really contrary to his predecessor, shall we say, was not doing some chest thumping. it was not a victory lap for him or the administration. he was quick to praise the scientists, doctors, nurses, hospitals, health care workers who were administering the vaccines and most of all the american people for following the guidelines allowing the nation to get to this point. >> and jonathan, that's great news. any negative reaction when you took off your mask? people who hadn't seen you in a year or two in the white house or -- no, no!
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actually, jonathan, on another point that's very important to me but not the rest of america, i know that you and the council of eight last night at fenway voted to ban my family. i can tell you little jack scarborough asks you, lift the ban. lift the ban. we want to go see another red sox game. >> he's obsessed. >> first of all, i'll say, when my father first grew a beard, my sister said she liked it because the beard broke up the monotomy of his face and i think the mask did the same thing for me. a heartfelt appeal, maybe, your children, little letters, tearstains on them, perhaps that will allow us to reconsider and allow you to join us again at fenway. >> well, you know, as alex said, follow the science.
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follow the math. you just look at the numbers. it does not bode well for us at fenway. so, anyway, philip bump, speaking of numbers, speaking of reversing the curse or whatever we're speaking about, and most people aren't sure. and i don't think at this point even i'm sure, you had a really fascinating article yesterday in "the times" saying the vaccination slowdown has slow downed. i'm like, wait a second. this is "the post," a double negative, what? and i read it and not only did i see the good news that people are -- you know, we're steady now at 2 million day, but i actually even saw some numbers in there that republican vaccine hesitancy was going down pretty significantly. and even the republicans, at least in this survey, were saying, yeah, i think i'm going to get this shot. >> -- not only the fact that all
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the americans who want to get the vaccine are able to get it, but the americans who didn't want to get it, who were continually saying they were unsure whether or not they want to get it. since january, people were saying, now we want to see. now we've reached the point, okay, you've had enough time to wait and see. and a lot of those folks are now getting vaccinated. the percentage of people saying they are receiving the vaccine in these polls is increasing. and to the point that you raised, the number of people who weren't going to get it is decreasing, and there was a substantial part of the population who said they weren't going to get it. as soon as the johnson & johnson pause go into effect, essentially, we saw the number of daily vaccinations start to decline. for the past two weeks or so, that's held pretty steady at about 2 million a day. which is good, which means the slowdown itself has actually stopped. and we'll probably see that uptick over the short-term now that kids are able to -- i shouldn't say kids, 12 and up are able to get the pfizer vaccine. that suggests that there's still going to be demand in that audience, where they can go out and get the vaccine, as well. so we can probably anticipate for the short-term, this will
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continue. >> dr. osterholm, when you look at the announcement yesterday, how much of it do you expect, talking about all the people that you know was about getting people to go get the vaccine? i mean, obviously, there were many other factors involved and the cdc does belief it's safe to go indoors, if you've been vaccinated without a mask. but do they expect, do they hope now to see a rush of people to go get the vaccine so that they, too, can participate in everything that we've been doing for most of our lives, up until 14 months ago? >> well, surely, we hope they will go get the vaccine. i think we recognize, we still have work to do, particularly in those individuals who don't believe that covid is real, that, in fact, the vaccines are necessary. we have some real work to do there. but surely this gives everyone a major incentive why to get vaccinated. and i think as we see more of the kids getting vaccinated, we'll realize that family events now can be held, you know, without worry about getting
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infected. i think by september, we're going to see the recommendations down to two years of age to get vaccinated. so we surely should look at next fall for being a great school year. so i think this is the excitement and we want to build on that excitement to say, this is not just a science issue, this is an issue about how you live your life. you know, we've had to die with this virus for the last 18 months. now we're trying to figure out how to live with it. >> yeah. so dr. osterholm, i want to ask you about these so-called breakthrough infections. that's people getting covid, even after they've had the vaccine. we're hearing records that bill maher has it, a member of the yankees' leadership. is the medical thinking that you get the vaccine and if you still get covid, that vaccine is still protecting you? or is there any concern around these cases? >> well, there surely is some concern, but let's just remember that a vaccine that's even 90% effective means that, in fact,
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not just that 10% will get infected, but they're not perfect, but they're darned near perfect. clearly, if you are vaccinated and get re-infected or infected for the first time getting the vaccine, generally speaking, the illnesses are milder. some are not, but generally speaking, they're milder. but what we're trying to do is put our lives back together. remember, each year, about 38,000 people in this country die from influenza. that's about a hundred day if you average it across the entire year. we don't shut down businesses. we don't, basically, require masks, we don't close schools for that. we're now approaching those numbers in this country from how many people die from covid. part of it, we're coming back and trying to figure out how to live with this virus. that's not an excuse not to get vaccinated. that's not to say that we couldn't have some real problems in the future. and dr. walensky was very clear about that yesterday and said that these recommendations could change if, in fact, we see
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variants emerge that minimize the impact of the vaccines or that we have these pockets that jonathan lemire just talked about that could occur. so we're not really out of the woods yet on this recommendation. but we've got to keep getting people vaccinated. and knowing that if you do have a breakthrough infection, they're going to be rare relative to the number of people who get vaccinated. and generally speaking, they're much milder. >> yeah, rare and more mild. doctor, really quickly before we let you go, what are the numbers again, the latest efficacy numbers for j&j, moderna, and pfizer? do you have those? >> well, in terms of efficacy, remember, those are numbers that are basically gotten in the studies that they do where they really hand pick the people to be in the study, the healthiest of people. we don't have definitive numbers yet just on what happens in everyday life. for example, there are 12 million people in this country
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who are immune compromised or have some immune deficiency that might put them at a higher risk of not being successfully vaccinated, but in the high 80s, low 90s. comparable to some of our very best vaccines. it's been remarkable in terms of what it's done. the other thing we're looking at very carefully is how long the vaccines last. at this point, at the six-month point of following up people, the protection from the amount of antibody they have is very, very good. and the final piece, of course, is, we're always watching these variants. you know, i've said from the beginning here that the variants remind me of the song from "the fifth dimension," this is the dawning of the age of aquarius. since february, we have been living with the dawning of the age of variants. that could be a game changer down the road. we'll follow it. the evidence doesn't support that these variants will overtake our vaccines, but we've got to watch that very
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carefully. >> dr. osterholm, through all of this celebration yesterday, there were a lot of parents with kids under 12 years old that said, wait,t about us? what do we do? i've got a kid that can't be vaccinated yet and may not be for some time. what is your message to those families? >> it's very personal for me, because all five of my grandchildren are under age 12. so i get it, completely. and let me just say that the good news is that the studies are ongoing right now. as i mentioned a moment ago, i expect by september, we may have the data that would allow the fda to approve these mrna vaccines, clearly down to age 2. which would be great news. and i really do believe we have the potential for next fall to get us back into schools, day care, and so forth, in a way that we did before the pandemic. >> in the meantime, do you think they should stay masked up, dr. osterholm, the kids who haven't been vaccinated. >> they surely can and should. i think the channel we have, of course, with the kids, as you
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know, masking young children is a challenge in and of itself. getting young children to do almost anything is a challenge, but masking in particular. so this is clearly not an ideal situation where those are the ones that we want masked. you're right. >> michael osterholm, you've been such a great bellwether for us throughout this. we appreciate you coming in this morning again. good to see you. >> thank you. >> joe? >> so philip bump, i want to go back to you and talk about how more americans are considering taking the vaccine and also, i want to reflect a little bit politically on some things that happened yesterday. that actually suggest we might have a coming together from the left and the right, back to normalcy. even before the announcement from the cdc and the biden administration, you had randi weingarten with the teacher's union saying, we've got to get the kids back in school, got to be in school five days a week,
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which i saw as a good sign, because local teacher's unions, especially, have been dragging their feet, a lot of them have on this issue. you had ron desantis at the same time, and of course, ron desantis has been aggressively out there, ahead of the science, for much of the last year. but saying the same thing. we've got to go back to school in the fall. of course, that's nothing new for him. that's what he was saying last fall, as well. but i thought it was a good moment when even political adversaries from different sides were finally saying the same thing on covid. and you even had franklin graham, a guy who -- let me politely say it, some of his statements during the trump administration were disconnected from reality, when it came to politics. yesterday, urging evangelicals
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to please get out and get the shot, to take care of the health that god had given them. it appears we're slowly but surely inching towards consensus on all of this. and i wonder if you have anymore insights on why those republican numbers are going up, as well? >> it's a good question. and when i looked at the poll numbers yesterday, it wasn't exactly something i was expecting to see. i've become used to this pattern of seeing republicans having this increased hesitancy that was fairly stubborn. a few weeks ago, i looked at the poll numbers and didn't see the same kind of downward decline. i can't way what's changed, of late. obviously, it's good news. it doesn't appear to be something that was a change in the polling. there was a change in the question of the polling, but it doesn't seem to be related to that. perhaps it is, that we have over the course of the past six months or seen so many people. we've had 150 million people get the vaccine. pretty clearly, if there was
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something substantially wrong with the vaccine, it would have emerged by now, just simply by virtue of scale. perhaps that's part of it. there is this idea that we're getting back to normalcy, we're seeing the case numbers decline and deaths decline. and even if we don't get to herd immunity, where this thing is entirely stamped out, to the point that's made previously, even just pushing those numbers lower is good news and gets us back to normal and makes our kids safer and things along those lines. so all of that together may be having an effect. i think there will still be holdouts over the long-term. there is a lot of energy put in casting doubt on the government over the course of the past 12 months. that will be hard to turn around. but obviously the trajectory right now is good. >> good, yeah. all right. "the washington post's" philip bump, thank you so much. mika, it was so funny, yesterday, when i had tweeted out something about randi weingarten and desantis in the
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same tweet, i knew it would be triggering, when you have any common ground, even if they're coming from wildly diverse -- the moment they cross over, seize on that. and my gosh, let's hope that we can find more of that in the days and weeks moving forward, because obviously we want everybody -- everybody to be healthy. we want everybody to be safe and we really want everybody's life to return to normal. and it looks like we're getting there. >> we're getting there. i think in the days and weeks moving forward, we'll also be having a lot of conversations about bringing people back into the workplace, how does that happen? what if there's disagreement about that within? and the changing workplace. and also, as kids are going back to school, i think we'll be looking at sort of where we all stand on a mental healthy level in terms of really the impact that this incredibly challenging year or so has had on young people and on families. so later in the show, dr. anthony fauci will be our guest coming up at 7:00 eastern time,
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right here on "morning joe" to continue the conversation about the science behind this decision. now to developments in the middle east. where thousands of israeli troops are gathered at the gaza border today preparing for a possible ground invasion of the hamas-ruled territory. the violence reached a new level this morning, with israel carrying out its most intense attacks yet in response to palestinian militants firing hundreds of rockets into israel since wednesday night. israeli tanks and artillery fired at gaza on the ground where air strikes and rocket attacks continued from above. in a statement yesterday, a hamas spokesperson said bombing israel was, quote, easier for us than drinking water. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu also addressed the violence, saying israel would, quote, act with full force against its enemies. at least 119 palestinians and
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seven israelis have been killed in this latest conflict. the victims include children. israeli troops have not entered gaza with force since a two-month war back in 2014. and joining us now, former nato supreme allied commander, retired four-star navy admiral, james stavridis. he is chief international security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc. also with us, longtime foreign correspondent, martin fletcher, who is reporting for nbc news in tel aviv. martin, we'll start with you. and give us the very latest. it's good to see you upon very terrible news. >> hey, good morning, mika, and everybody else. it's been a terrible night here. there were about 200 missiles fired from gaza into israel, at the same time, israel has been attacking, bombarding gaza, about 150 fo fighter jet attacks
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inside gaza. this is the fifth straight day of very, very severe fighting. israel's targets so far have been mostly hamas targets, things like hamas police stations, military facilities. facilities are the palestinians are making those long-range rockets that they're hitting israel with. but there was a new development last night, that israel's targeted what they called the underground city of gaza. there's a whole network, a very sophisticated, complex, warren of tunnels underneath the city of gaza that hamas has been building in order for -- for these kind of moments, they have their operational control centers there. it's where they store weapons, it's where their fighters can move around the city at will, underground, unobstructed by israel. at the same time as this is happening, israel is building up its troops on the ground. there's two infantry brigades, one mechanized brigade at the border fence, waiting for the orders to go into gaza.
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i don't think at this point anyone really thinks that's going to happen. but with that wall of words that you mentioned, the hostility between the hamas spokesman and the prime minister netanyahu basically saying, we're going to go on with this fighting as long as we need to, everyone is assuming it will go on until at least the middle of next week. and at the same time, we can't forget the fighting inside israel. which is fairly new. like the worst fighting ever between israeli arabs and israeli jews inside the towns of israel. this is a development that is new, very frightening for israelis, and even when the fighting in gaza ends, as it will, because after all, this is about the fifth or sixth round of fighting between hamas and israel, it all ends after a few days, this is new, jews and arabs fighting in israeli cities, that's going to be tough to get that genie back in the bottle. >> and admiral stavridis, what else is new, according to our good friend, david ignatius, is
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just how fragile the political situation is on both sides. let me read from david's column that's in "the washington post" this morning. what feels different this time is the fragility of israeli and palestinian politics. the israeli military is as powerful as ever, but the country's political fabric has frayed during recent years of electoral impasse and interim government. the palestinian political mess is even worse. the palestinian authority is corrupt and feeble. power floes even more to hamas militants, whose military strategy is to terrorize civilians. and if you dare talk about both sides in any way, of course, you get villenized by political factions on both sides. but the -- david is right, though. the reality here is, admiral, that benjamin netanyahu is fighting for his political life. he has absolutely no no political incentive to bring
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this to a peaceful conclusion. and you can say the same about hamas, who took control and were revealed to be horrible at even running basic government services and were corrupt and so, they have no incentive to back down either. instead, they have incentive to say that we can throw missiles at israeli civilians, like drinking water or something like that. so you have a political situation on both sides where neither side has any incentive to actually protect the civilians. >> indeed, joe. and just to put it in perspective for an american audience, these numbers sound small to us, like 120 people, 150 people killed. remember, the total population here between israelis and palestinians is just over 10 million. so this is already a 9/11-level event in this country and in
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this territory. 200 million in america would be headed to bomb shelters based on comparisons of population. so this is a very significant uptick in violence. and you're absolutely correct. the incentives are running in the wrong direction right now. so for netanyahu, he wants to maintain his grip on power. and he can look strong, sending the military forward, for the hamas, they are seeking to show that the fatah in the west bank are, as you say, corrupt and incompetent. what's going to happen? i think martin is right. it's unlikely we're going to see an actual incursion of a significant ground force into gaza. this is one of the densest places on the earth. the u.s. marines, toughest of fighting forces will tell us, there's nothing worse than what they call the three-block war.
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fighting in very intense, dense situations. there's an underground network of tunnels, as martin informed us. all of that mitigates against an actual invasion. so, bottom line, what should the u.s. be doing at this point? i think the administration has got it about right, which is, number one, to appreciate the importance of this, in terms of local impact. number two is to push hard for mediation, perhaps getting the egyptians, the jordanians, our close arab allies into that game. and also, trying to play it relatively even-handedly, but recognizing there are 2,000 missiles that came out of gaza against israeli targets. they're not going to simply sit back and let that occur. dark days ahead, unfortunately. >> martin, you've been covering this conflict for many years. you've seen it all. what strikes you, beyond the fighting, internally, merchandise of israel, among arabs and jews.
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what strikes you as different in terms of the conditions around this? and where do you see this heading? >> well, you know, it's unclear where it's heading. the difference this time, i think, is that the israeli/ir arabs have been radical i'd in sense. israel is now heading maybe, god forbid, to its fifth elections. four elections in two years. prime minister netanyahu has basically remained in power by whipping up the right wing to vote for him. and the arabs are part of the whipping boys. the arabs have been radicalized. they haven't got jobs, many of them. they're young. don't forget, they're emerging from a year and a half of covid isolation. there's a lot of excitement. all of the mobs that are attacking israeli jews are young people. and all of those jewish mobs that are attacking palestinian israeli arabs, they're also young people. this is a moment of truth, if you would like, for the fabric of israeli society.
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the emphasis has always been in this very difficult divided country to bring together jews and arabs live together in peace. and it's falling apart right now. the mayor of one of the israeli jewish cities near tel aviv, we're approaching stifl war. this is a success for hamas. hamas has succeeded in this fighting to divide israeli jews. and to pick up what you were talking about, another major success here on the other side is for prime minister netanyahu, who was in great danger of being thrown out by an anti-netanyahu coalition that was beginning to form, the dependent on arab party support for the government. they wouldn't be part of the government, but they would vote for it in parliament to support it. now, that's falling apart. and the right-wing element of that anti-netanyahu coalition has said, we're not going that direction. we want a partnership with netanyahu and with likud.
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so this is a major success for prime minister netanyahu. >> yeah, i mean, i don't think it can be underlined enough. the winners here are hamas. the winners here are benjamin netanyahu, who was again, just as a reality, who was after all of these electoral draws, appeared to be being pushed out of power by a coalition that no longer exists because of what's happened over the past week or so. so martin, as a service to our viewers that obviously we've been following news over here, we've been following american domestic news, liz cheney, the republicans, have been following gas hacks -- i mean, a lot of things have been going on over the past week or so. can you explain how this began with east jerusalem settlements and evictions and then how that led to a court case and before the court case was moving, rockets started being fired into
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israel. and it just seems like everybody just leapt -- didn't even wait for the court, they were just leaping at the chance to start this battle. >> well, actually, you pretty much summed it all up just now. that's your description of what happened is exactly right. and the issue now is to what extent will it -- how can you stop it? how do you continue with a -- how do you return to a peaceful society inside israel? the way it developed, as i mentioned earlier, was that palestinian arabs or israeli arabs, or whatever you want to call them are frustrated, angry. they've been marginalized increasingly by the political rhetoric in israel, that i mentioned netanyahuwhipping up israelis. all of that is real. but nevertheless, it all came as a complete surprise. it has been a shock for israel that the society fell apart so quickly. but i should emphasize that, as
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i mentioned, it's the young people. it isn't the -- it isn't widespread among arab society that the entire country is rising against the jews. it's not that bad. it's mobs on both sides. jewish mobs and arab mobs against each other. there's one little development to this, one little -- in the lining, is that in jordan, today, there's -- right now, there's a whole caravan of jordanians approaching the israeli border to express their support for israeli arabs. so the fear, of course, would be, while this at the moment is between israeli arabs and israeli jews, will it spread? obviously, the hope is not and there's a lot of international pressure now on israel and hamas to stop the fighting immediately, led by america, led by egypt, and other arab countries. but, you know, the rhetoric as we mentioned earlier from the leaders is they want to keep fighting. they want to keep going. and they have every -- it shows
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every sign that this will go on for a few more days, at least. >> all right. martin fletcher, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate it. and admiral, before we go, there have been many people that have been criticizing the benjamin accords this week. i think that's silly. wherever you get a chance to get israeli leaders and arab leaders together. i think that's significant. i think it's significant for long-term peace throughout the middle east -- but we do see. we do see the blind spots in that here, because that strategy was isolating the palestinians. that strategy was making peace with everybody around, but not the palestinians. here we find ourselves some position where we need somebody that can talk to palestinian leadership and figure out a way to bring both side to the table
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and we just don't have it after the last five, ten years. >> that's right. and that's the other looming tower in this situation, is iran, which supports hezbollah, which has 35,000 rockets, just north of israel. how are they going to play? and the whole idea of the abraham accords, of course, was to bring arabs and israelis together. this is putting a spike in the middle of that in some of the nations like the uae and others who signed up for the abraham accords are having a little bit of buyers' remorse watching what's happening unfold. so this really complicates the politics to include iran. >> so we have a whole other issue to talk to you about. your analysis with the latest on the cyber attack on the major fuel pipeline. so admiral, if you could stay with us, we would greatly appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," as we mentioned, dr.
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anthony fauci will join the conversation on the heels of new mask-wearing guidance from the cdc. plus, president biden met with a group of republican senators a to the white house yesterday, in an effort to reach a bipartisan deal on infrastructure. senator roger wicker was in the room and will be our guest. we're looking forward to that, joe. >> yeah. >> yeah. it's going to be great talking to rog. we came in together, i want to say 1964 -- i'm not that old -- 1994. and it's going to be really great. it's important to see how those talks are moving along. and obviously, mika, i need to get his name right. i had benjamin netanyahu on my mind and i called it the benjamin accords. it's the abraham accords. and my gosh -- >> i heard that. >> yeah, you're like, the benjamin accords, it's like, did they do -- like the abc, the chuck accords next? >> it's all right. it's been a long week.
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>> yeah, but at the same time, it is so important to talk about, again, you look at this globally, look at the fact that we have moved towards getting more arab states talking with israel and that's a positive. but right now, we need to figure out how to talk to the palestinians. and that is one thing that the abraham accords doesn't speak to, and that's, as the admiral said, that's our next looming tower in this challenge. we'll be right back. >> we'll be following this. be r. >> we'll be following this finding new routes to reach your customers, and new ways for them to reach you... is what business is all about. it's what the united states postal service has always been about. so as your business changes, we're changing with it. with e-commerce that runs at the speed of now. next day and two-day shipping nationwide. same day shipping across town.
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company paid using cryptocurrency. bloomberg reporting that the payment was made last friday, just hours after the attack began. nbc has not confirmed the timing of the ransom payment, but we can confirm it was just under $5 million. cnbc's brian sullivan joins us with more. sully, good morning. what else can you tell us about this? >> i mean, that is the most amazing part of the story, willie, is not only that they paid the ransom, according to numerous reports, but that they paid it a week ago. remember, we only heard about this last friday night. really, the news didn't start to hit until sunday night or monday morning. people thinking, what is the colonial pipeline and why do i care? well, we now have learned why we care. it is the most important energy artery in the united states, by far. about 45% of all the fuel in the southeast up to new york comes through this or flows through this. and actually, the ransom was paid on friday. still, the company had to shut
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down the pipeline. we still, willie, don't know why they had to shut it down. what was the threat? what power did the hackers actually have over the pipeline? these pipelines are all automated. they're controlled by software. could they reverse the flow? could they cause a spill or worse? either way, the u.s. government has encouraged companies, willie, who increasingly are under attack from these so-called ransomware attacks. basically, we're going to take control of your system. give us money, and then we'll free your systems from our hack. the u.s. government does not encourage companies to pay for it, much less say that they paid for it. to your reporting and to others, the colonial pipeline did not say it, it has been uncovered through numerous reports. "the new york times," nbc news, bloomberg, et cetera. but truly, a remarkable story, given that a week on, we still have gas shortages. half the gas stations in virginia and more than half in north carolina have approximately zero gallons of gas to sell.
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>> so, sully, this one spilled out into the open because of everything you just said, because the gas stopped flowing, the gas station has shut down, there were long lines to get gas. but what was your sense as we talk to business leader about how often this is actually happening in ways we never see or hear? >> it happens a lot. and willie, it happens a lot more than you know. my colleague, eamon javers, nearly once a week he is on cnbc talking about a u.s. company or a global company -- because this is not a u.s. issue, this is a global issue. the majority of the hackers, it is widely believed, either come from russia or from a former russian eastern block nation. do they have the tacit support of vladimir putin? do they operate under sort of a state sponsorship or just independently? these are huge questions that president biden, anthony blinken and others are going to have to address. in fact, darkside, which is the
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name of the hacker coalition, which did this, reportedly, has said that there are three other companies, one in scotland, a couple of other nations that they have targeted for these types of attacks. and they want to be paid in cryptocurrencies. your audience hears a lot about bitcoin. well, all the reports suggest that the $5 million in ransom, willie, was paid in bitcoin. how come? well, it's fungible, it is nontransparent, it's very easy to keep secret. and, well, it's also been going up in price. but these ransomware attacks have become more common. the new cold war probably isn't going to be ships and planes and missiles. it's going to be hackers and servers and computers and it's a big deal, because a lot of your viewers' private information has become compromised over the last few years. and now corporate america is under attack. and by the way, these companies, u.s. companies, have no
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obligation to report any of this to the federal government. the president signing an executive order yesterday, trying to change that. trying to bridge the gap between maybe some of the government agencies, nsa, fbi, cia, et cetera. and the pipeline. by the way, you know who overseas pipeline cybersecurity, willie? what government agency do you think is the boss of pipeline cybersecurity? any clue? >> tell me, sully. >> it's the tsa, the same folks who check our i.d.s at the airport. and there's a lot of pushback right now on capitol hill about why is the tsa overseeing cybersecurity for the pipelines? so that will be the next leg of that debate. >> yeah, that may change. brian sullivan with cnbc, brian, thanks so much. admiral stavridis, even as we've come on the air this morning, there's a new report, ireland's health authority has said friday it has shut down its computer systems after experiencing a
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significant ransomware attack. imagine, admiral, you're a hacker sitting somewhere in russia or somewhere in eastern europe and you're watching this play out and you're saying, this group, darkside, got into the colonial pipeline, disrupted the flow of fuel in america on the east coast for an entire week, and got 5 million bucks out of the deal. how do we blunt this? ow do we stop this? how do we harden our defenses against this? >> well, first and foremost, i'll tell you when i was supreme allied commander, this is what kept me awake at night. i had to worry about afghanistan, libya, piracy. what really worried me was exactly this. we are vulnerable. it is a significant concern, particularly for critical infrastructure. look at what russia did. and this was russia going into ukraine and dropping half their electric grid. this is a very real set of threats. so what should we do about it? i think the administration has taken some steps with this new
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executive order. your correspondent mentioned a moment ago, it's based on something called the solarian commission, which looked very broadly at every aspect of national security. number two, we need a cabinet-level official. we have somebody in the pipeline to move into that slot. a retired air force brigadier general and a cyber expert, chris english. and thirdly, we've got to look at the international aspects of this. you mentioned ireland. we can work with our allies, partners, and friends to focus on this. i'll close by saying, you know, this is an old model that vladimir putin is using. queen elizabeth in the 1600s had letters of mark issued to what we would call pirates, but they were given a cover by the queen. here you see vladimir putin providing protection. we're going to have to go after these firms directly with our offensive cyber and address it
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very directly, in my view, with president putin. >> admiral, i wanted to ask you about offenive cyber, because we obviously are always reporting on defensive measures that we have to take. do we have the capability if north carolina does something to impact part of our infrastructure, to shut their electrical grid down? do we have -- i mean, do we have -- because we -- you know, it's so interesting. we spend our childhood watching the news and listening to people counting nuclear missiles on our side and the soviet side. we're always looking at where the united states stands with other countries when it comes to conventional and nuclear weapons. but what about cyber weapons? do we have the ability to make other countries hurt? do we have the ability to shut other countries down, to sow chaos and confusion if they don't back off? >> you're on the right analogy, which is nuclear weapons. the short answer to your question is, yes, so does
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russia, so does china, to a lesser degree, nations like north korea, iran, israel is very capable in this regard. so these weapons, if they come in and shut down an electric grid of a nation. if they shut down a pipeline, as we've seen. if they take out our radars fur our air traffic control. if day go after our financial systems, the chaos, the destruction is very real. and yes, we have it, but therefore what we need are deterrent regimes sort of saying to russia and china, don't use those tools because we can and we will respond. that's why we never use peculiar nuclear weapons in the cold war between the u.s. and the soviet union. that's the direction we need to move, thinking about effectively arms limitation talks about cyber. it's hard, because it's more difficult to preview them. you can see a nuclear weapon coming, but it's something we have to do.
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>> it's mutually assured destruction. we had it for nuclear regime and we need to have it for cyber regime. it's just that -- and if china, russia, and the united states are all on the same page there, we don't see these sort of same things happening in the future. thank you so much, admiral. greatly appreciate you being here. mika? it is now the top of the hour and we have a lot to get to this morning. joining us now is the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and chief medical adviser to the president, dr. anthony fauci. dr. fauci, thank you for being with us. i think we would like to hear it from you what the new rules are or rules being allowed on wearing masks. and then what are the calve caveats? >> well, first of all, the rules
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are, the new guidelines, if you are fully vaccinated, you do not need to wear a mask not only outdoors, but even indoors. and the big change is the indoors. that's a major step towards trying to get us back to a degree of normality, which will be progressive as we get further and further into the late spring and early summer, as more and more people get vaccinated. that's really the big change. the caveat is, you want to make sure that people who have not been vaccinated don't all of a sudden decide, well, they're not going to be wearing masks because they see the vaccinated people not wearing masks. the best way to get to a safe situation where you can get along safely without a mask is to get vaccinated. so although the main purpose of this guideline change was not necessarily as an inducement for people to get vaccinated, we hope that, actually, it will have a secondary effect, that it does. even though that was not the
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primary reason for doing this. >> so another twofer for you. what's the situation if you don't know if someone's been vaccinated. how do we navigate that? and what about these breakthrough cases of covid. is there any concern about those? people who have been vaccinated, but still get it. >> you know, mika, if you look at the numbers and the denominator of that, that's still an extraordinarily rare event. because, you know, you often see a report that 4,000 people have broken through. but you've got to have the denominator, which is tens and tens and tens of millions of people who have been vaccinated. so although you don't ever want to see a breakthrough, they occur. and they will continue to occur. because even the best vaccines, the ones that are 94 and 95% effective, they're still going to have 5 or 6% of people who would be vaccinated and not fully protected. the one interesting thing is, if you look at the profile of the
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people who have breakthroughs, more often than not, they really have no symptoms. i mean, they get infected, they get a test. the symptoms are either not present or mild, and they do very, very well. so vaccines, you know, can benefit you in a couple of ways. one, it can prevent you from getting infected. but also, if you happen to have a breakthrough infection, it prevents you from getting serious disease. >> good morning, dr. fauci. it's willie geist. i wonder if you could pull back the curtain a little bit and tell us how you arrived at this day. a lot of people think, maybe we could have done this a month or two months ago. it seems like we were doing okay with vaccinations. what was it about the day that you saw or the conditions that you were looking at that said, okay this is the day we can take this step. >> it was a cdc decision. and as i have said and we have emphasized all along, willie, the cdc is a science-based organization.
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they accumulate data and make decisions based on the data. some people will say, well, maybe they wait a little too long or not. you can always argue that. but under these circumstances, what we were seeing over the past several weeks was a continual decline in the number of daily cases when you do a seven-day average. they're down to in the 30,000, which is about a one third diminution from a few weeks ago. number two, as more and more data come in, it becomes clear how spectacularly effective these vaccines are. i mean, every time you look at the real-world effectiveness studies, not only in the united states, but in other countries such as israel and qatar and others, the vaccines are really extraordinarily good at protecting individuals. and then it's very, very easy to wind up getting vaccinated. it's so easy right now. so for those reasons, they said, we're going to take that steps for people who have gone ahead and got vaccinated to say, we're
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going to be stepping towards normality. and we want to do it gradually. and this is an important step in that direction. >> do you hope, dr. fauci that this announcement yesterday will push some people who have been hesitant to get the vaccine to go get the vaccine? i don't want know what the latest number is, but the most recent we had was that 35% of americans were fully vaccinated, and many more than that have had the first shot, at least. but is it your hope, is it the cdc's hope that the opportunity to go into a restaurant or a bar without a mask might drive some people to go get vaccinated? >> willie, as i had mentioned, the fact is, that was not the primary motivating force for making the change, but we hope that we're going to have the secondary positive effect of people who are not vaccinated saying, well, look, vaccinated people now within the veil and protection of good public health practices can go indoors and do the things we didn't have the
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recommendation before can do it now, so maybe it's a good idea to get vaccinated, particularly because it's so easy to get vaccinated right now. you could walk into pharmacies. now we even have adolescents, 12 to 15 years old that can get vaccinated, in several pharmacies, 15,000, i now believe, are now fit to be able to take kids as they come in. so hopefully this will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated. >> i have to say, i have a 13-year-old daughter. it's been amazing how quickly she and all of her friends could get an appointment. many of them are already vaccinated, have their first shots. i'm concerned, dr. fauci, about a concern i heard from parents yesterday, where this national celebration went up who have kids under the age of 12. my sister, for example, has two little boys who are under 12. they didn't feel like they could fully participate in this, because they're worried about the safety of their kids until they can get vaccinated. what is your hope? what is the outlook for even younger children to get a vaccine? >> well, willie, we're doing those studies right now and
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they're called age de-escalation studies. and that is, you get children at different age brackets and do a test to make sure it's safe in those individuals. highly, highly likely it'll be no difference than anybody else. but you want to do the test, because in general, children are vulnerable. you go from 12 to 9, if that looks good, 9 to 6, 6 to 2, that looks good, and then 6 months to 2 years. and after that, i believe by the end of this calendar year and probably sooner, that kids of virtually any age could get vaccinated. >> so do you think maybe elementary kids can get vaccinated before the school year in the fall? >> i don't think so, willie. i believe that high school kids, adolescents, certainly will be able to be vaccinated by the time we get to the fall year, but i think it's going to take until the end of the calendar year to get elementary school kids vaccinated. >> okay. dr. fauci, mike barnicle is joining us now and has a question for you.
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mike? >> so dr. fauci, first of all, we all watched a clip of you with senator rand paul the other day, and on behalf, i think of everyone here, we want to thank you for both your patience as well as your service to the country. but the question i have for you is, as summer approaches and as the weather gets warmer and with the president's wonderful announcement yesterday, we still have to deal with 50 states and 50 states, various policies on masking or not masking. on crowds or no crowds. so, does the summer weather, is that going to increase the effectiveness of what we're going through now? are more people going to be more receptive, do you think, to adhering to policy, getting a vaccine if they don't have a vaccine and going along with wearing or not wearing a mask? >> you know, we hope so, but, you know, we've been burned before, because you remember at this time last year, we thought the summer was going to bail us
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out of this difficulty that we were in. and as it turned out, things actually got worse during certain parts of the summer. so we know, you're absolutely right. we have 50 separate states. they all have the capability of doing things their own way. but we hope that everybody pulls together. and the thing that we hope they pull together with is to really put an emphasis on why it's so important to get vaccinated, not only for your own safety, for that of your family, but for the entire community. the communal spirit to get such a high proportion of people vaccinated that this virus will essentially go down to such a low level, it will not be of concern to anybody. >> dr. fauci, it's jonathan lemire. forgive the white house lawns crew behind me. i want to piggy back on what willie asked about in terms of children. those 12 and under, who can't get vaccinated yet and won't for some months. i just want to -- they should still be wearing masks, correct? but secondly, the parents of those children, even those who
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have been fully vaccinated, is there any concern that they, if they are now maskless, could be, even if not getting sick themselves, passing the virus to the children? and we know that the virus doesn't hit kids that hard, but i was hoping you could kind of walk us through how parents should be thinking about that part of the behavior in this new era with masks. >> well, if you go back and look at some of the earlier recommendations of the cdc, they say that if you have a parent that is vaccinated and is with their own child in the house, unless that child has an underlying medical condition that makes them likely to have a severe outcome, that in the setting of a home, where you have a vaccinated parent, you don't need to worry about having the child masked or you masked. when a child is outside and not vaccinated and interacting with other people, either in an outdoor or in an indoor setting, you want to make sure the child is masked.
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but in the context of the home of a vaccinated parent, they shouldn't not worry about that. dr. anthony fauci, thank you very much. incredible day. still a lot ahead of us, but a major milestone and we appreciate your coming on the show this morning to explain it to our audience. >> thank you. >> thank you. let's bring in the cofounder of axios, mike allen now. and mike, joe mentioned this earlier on the show. you recently spoke to reverend franklin graham, son of the iconic evangelical preacher billy graham about convincing his followers to take the vaccine. let's take a listen. >> nothing is more important to you than saving souls? >> no. i want people to know that god loves them. he will forgive you. and god will accept you into his presence. i want people to know that covid-19 can kill you, but we have a vaccine out there that
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could possibly save your life. and if you wait, it could be too late. >> mike allen, explain the importance of this message from this man to his followers who perhaps weren't really behind the whole vaccine effort, perhaps because of donald trump, and by the way, happy friday. >> happy friday, mika, and it is a happy friday liberation friday, from our masks. remarkable moment there. in that clip, we heard the reverend franklin graham using the cadence and the grammar of an altar call, saying, this is a way to save your life before it's too late. and mika, you know the polling. 45% of christians say they won't get the vaccine compared to 30% of all people. so a massive gap there that franklin graham, who has been one of the most visible, prominent supporters of donald
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trump, saying, hey, trumpers, hey, christians, this is a place that you need to listen to me. and he recently was down visiting at mar-a-lago with donald trump and is hoping that by going on axios, on hbo, that he can reach people and say, this is something where you need to listen to science, listen to your preachers, and get the jab. >> hey, so, mike, do you have any insights on why reverend graham made the move that he made, obviously over the past four or five years, as i've said before, he hasn't always been reality-based in his views on politics. he's -- he has been a faithful follower of donald trump, to extremes. so, this is obviously important move. i was talking yesterday how
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distressed i was that so many of my friends and family that i grew up in, in southern baptist churches across the deep south, were not following reality. they were following facebook. so i think this is really important, regardless of what anybody said in the past, this is really important now, and i'm glad he did it. can you tell me, did he give you any insight what moved him to this point? >> he did, joe, and it's from seeing it. so it was samaritan's purse, which is part of the graham empire, he's president of samaritan's purse, that charity has its own air force to do relief around the world. you can remember those white tents, haunting, right, reminding us at the very
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beginning of the pandemic how this was changing america and the world. those were samaritan purse's tent. reverend franklin graham was on site with those. his white tents were in italy at the same time. so he sees what happens when people don't get the shot and when they believe facebook instead of science and that's what he's trying to break through. at a time when a lot of churches are closed and he says that he thinks that that has hurt, that people are more likely to listen to just what's out there than someone who is trying to bring them trustworthy information. that's why he sat down with me for an hour at his inner sanctum in north wilkesboro, north carolina, to say, christians, listen up, pay attention, save your life. >> that is quite a message. mike allen, thank you very much on this friday. have a great weekend. we'll be watching axios on hbo this sunday evening. back to israel now, where
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the violence with gaza has taken new turn. israeli ground troops are now gathering at the gaza border, preparing for a possible invasion. the violence reached a new level this morning with israel carrying out its most intense attacks yet in response to palestinian militants firing hundreds of rockets into israel since wednesday night. in a statement yesterday, a hamas spokesperson said bombing israel was, quote, easier for us than drinking water. this as infighting has local leaders concerned about a, quote, civil war. here's what u.s. secretary of state antony blinken had to say yesterday about america's position in the conflict. >> look, we've been very clear about the basic principles involved here, starting with the proposition that israel has a right to defend itself from these rocket attacks and the
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fundamental difference between a terrorist organization and hamas that is indiscriminately targeting civilians and israel, which is defending itself and going after those that are attacking it. >> let's bring in right now retired four-star general, barry mccaffrey. he is obviously an nbc and msnbc military analyst. so, general, first of all, what's your take on what our secretary of state said about the conflict? >> well, i think we're trying to maintain some distance in the conflict. we're on the verge now of a fourth war between israel and hamas since they took control of the gaza strip. the suffering there obviously is intense. a couple of million people penned into a very small area. the israelis have gone after them with more than 350 air strikes so far. they're adding artillery and tank fire. and as you mentioned, they're
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right on the verge, possibly, of committing three brigades to a ground incursion. and meanwhile, hamas has fired a couple of thousand rockets at the israelis. most ineffective, because of iron dome and israeli defense features. but, you know, israel can't live like this. the main airport is closed down, economic life has ground to a halt and there's no economic solution in sight. and poor israel has done very badly politically on trying to deal with the internal threat now. 20% of the population of israel are arab and they're starting to identify with the struggle between the idf and people on the gaza strip. >> so the -- this obviously began with evictions in east
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jerusalem. we have leverage with them, they are allies of ours, we are allies of theirs. and it seems that these settlements keep popping up. that's not to excuse hamas, a terrorist organization that continues to say they're going to drive israel into the sea. at the same time, can we not have a stronger hand with our ally and do everything we can to stop them from continuing to expand settlements, as benjamin netanyahu has, time and again, which we know, our state department knows, and benjamin netanyahu knows is going to provocative palestinians. and start some sort of conflict central point. there's an increasing sense of vigilanteism among many israelis
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of the right wing, this whole settlement process, particularly in the west bank. and the israeli police actions in east jerusalem and around the great mosque have been triggering points for a pushback with the palestinians. but at the same time, you know, we look internally in israel they've had four governments in two years. so there's a vacuum of political decision making in israel, also. this is on the version of an all-out war. and yesterday there were three missiles fired out of southern lebanon. so the israels if they're not careful will soon face a two-front war, lebanon and gaza. but internally, there's tremendous violence in some of these mixed cities, where they see themselves not as co-equal political rights of the
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israelis, but as an impoverished minority population. this is not a good situation. i don't think the state department is going to muscularly intervene. >> general, i want to underline a point that i made last hour, just so nobody misunderstands what i'm about to say. i was pleased with the abraham accords. it was great to see countries like the uae and israel draw closer together. i think the region is safer when those countries draw closer together. but we have to recognize the blind spot, not only of that, but of u.s. policy for some time has been to not have any good faith partner on the palestinian side. and in part because of that, i will say neglect on our part, you have a corrupt palestinian leadership. so we, right now, we're faced with dealing with a corrupt
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85-year-old palestinian leader or a terrorist organization that fires missiles into israeli neighborhoods, hoping to kill civilians, and continuing to say they want to drive israel into the sea. how do we move back to the position where we actually have a partner that has somebody they can work with on the palestinian side? because until that happens, we can't use our force. we can't use our influence to stop these sort of tragedies from unfolding before our eyes. >> well, of course, it's a dilemma. i mean, at the end of the day, the israelis have given the palestinians no way out of a box. we're watching, for example, inside the gaza strip now, given covid and the air strikes, the collapse of their health care system. our remaining tools are the
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amount of aid we give the israelis. some $3 billion worth of primarily military aide every year. so in the short run, i don't think there's a vacuum of political leadership in israel. their right wing is increasingly out of control. hamas and the plo are both corrupt and effective political organizations. and we end up with this intense level of suffering in part of the palestinians, as you mention, the palestinians no longer have strong support from saudi arabia, from egypt, from jordan, from other arab actors who have focused more on iranian shiite threat from across the perngs gulf. so i'm very pessimistic about the outcome of this latest flare-up in violence. >> all right, retired general barry mccaffrey, we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you, sir. >> we know it's a little early where you are. we greatly appreciate you waking
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up. it means a lot to us. mika? >> still ahead on "morning joe," there is no infrastructure deal just yet, but president biden and some republicans are expressing optimism after a meeting yesterday. we'll take a look at where those bipartisan talks stand. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. orning joe." we'll be right back. we've got 'em on the ropes. the billionaires buying elections. the corporate special interests poisoning campaigns with dark money, frantic to preserve big-money politics as usual. because the for the people act is on the verge of becoming law. reining in corporate lobbyists, finally banning dark money, and protecting our freedom to vote. billionaires and special interests, your day is nearly done. because it's time for the people to win. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful.
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free fries when you get vaccinated? um, i got vaccinate. you're saying i could get this, your delicious fries -- wait a minute, but there's also a burger element to this? let me check with bill, is it too early in the day to eat -- it's not? this could be breakfast? okay. i want you to look at this and think about, again, some people love hamburgers, some don't, really want to respect all ways of life, but if this is appealing to you, just think of
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this when you think of vaccination. mm. vaccination. mm. i'm getting a very good feeling about vaccination right this moment. >> you know, i've got to answer a question there, as you're looking at this, willie, there are a couple of truths, eternal truths. one is it's never too early in the morning to hug your kids and tell them that you love them. it's never too early in the morning to pick up the phone and call somebody and say, hey, i just want you to know that i was thinking about you. and it's never too early in the morning to eat a hamburger, mika will tell you. >> sure. >> when i am in an area that has a whattaburger or a crystal burger, i'm eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. that's my diet. >> so gross. >> but that gave may great idea, willie. and make we can reach out to the
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coach. i'm thinking, if we can -- because alabama's numbers are a little down. i'm thinking, if we can get dreamland ribs and coach saban, too great tastes that go great together, put them at bryant denny stadium and tell people in 'bama that you can get your dreamland ribs for breakfast, coach hands with coach saban or fist bump, whatever he's comfortable with for a vaccine shot. we just solved the problem, right? >> 100% vaccination in the state of alabama. coach saban has been really good on this. he was doing masking psas way back last year. i will say, watching mayor de blasio eat that burger on tv, i was wonder if there was a way i could go have the vaccine taken out of my body if that would somehow reverse that. but is it retroactive? like, i got my vaccine a couple
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of weeks ago? can i go get now the free fries and the burger? is this for new vaccines -- >> there's this argument i make about student loans. you going to forgive student loan debts now? what happens to the people that paid for 30 years. now we're talking about the hamburger. next time i see de blasio, i'm going to say, give me my burger! i got my vaccines. this is not fair! this is socialism. i want my burger now. >> run amok. >> we have got to take care of -- >> did you notice that he asked -- >> we've got to reach out to alabama, by the way. >> joe needs to zip it. >> i'm sorry, mika, go ahead. >> did you notice that de blasio asked, you know, is it too early to have a burger, but he was chomping away on the fries. he didn't think it was too early for the fries. >> never too early for fries, either. >> never. >> okay. so gross. jonathan -- >> i have -- and mika will tell you this, willie, i got a deep fryer right beside my bed, at 3:00 in the morning, if she's wearing the headphones, i get
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the fries, throw them in, phew! >> you want them fresh! >> listen -- >> please, don't talk about our personal life. >> what am i supposed to do at 4:00 a.m. if i wake up and i'm hungry? eat grapes? no! i need the fries. >> meal times are a social construct. who says you can't eat a burger of fries at 9:00 in the morning or at midnight or the middle of the night with a deep fryer next to your bed. we make the rules. >> joe eats in bed. >> we were talking about crystal burgers and the fine people at crystal who, by the way, god's chosen hamburger makers, along with whattaburger, but they sent us a ton of crystal burgers, and you know, we got off the show at 9:00 a.m., i think i had like half of them. they sent us like 40 and i just -- it was one movement, too, wasn't it? it was like homer simpson eating
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donuts in hell. >> when they put them in that big sack when you're at crystal, and they don't even count them, i don't think, they hold them up and they say, that's about right, that's about heavy enough and they hand it to you through the drive-through. >> it's unbelievable how long you guys can go on like this. let's put the deep fryer aside for a second. yeah, no, i don't eat those. no burgers. it's not a good idea. they're not good for you. >> it's a great idea! you're right, you're right, it's not a good idea. it's a great idea >> they're not good for you. nope, nope, it's not. nope. okay, now to jonathan lemire. we're going to talk about the bipartisan meeting at the white house yesterday, where i don't think they were serving burgers and fries, i'm not sure. >> they should have. >> jonathan lemire -- oh, my god, those two. how did the president and senate republicans fair yesterday? >> well, first of all, mika, i will note that when the president had his first and so
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far only foreign leader meeting, the prime minister of japan came in a few weeks ago, he served him burger and fries. and all of this talk has made me very, very hungry. >> oh, my god. >> but there were no refreshments in the oval office meeting yesterday. but there may have been some progress towards a bipartisan deal. it is too early to say. but both sides, the president and the six republican senators, senator capito of west virginia, taking the lead there, said there was some movement. they felt encouraged by where they were. and that the republican senator were invited to come back here to the white house next week with a counter offer. now, there's still a lot to be worked out, including how this could be paid for, whether the republicans were willing to go up enough on their number to satisfy what the white house and democrats want. there's a pretty big gap right now. but at least for this part of it, the hard infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, there is a chance of maybe some agreement. at the very least, the white house believes this is a good faith effort to kind of reassure moderate democrats that they're
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doing all that they can, if they do have to eventually turn to reconciliation and do it on a party line vote, if they can't come to a bipartisan agreement. but there's at least some hope, as a final thought here, at least some hope that this part of it, the hard infrastructure could be done with some republican support and then the democrats can go it alone with reconciliation for the family plan, the health care, child care, that reinventing of government services aspect to what biden is calling his infrastructure and jobs plan. >> all right. we shall see, jonathan. obviously, joe manchin will have a lot to say with that. he's skeptical now even of reconciliation, but maybe they can figure that out. with us now, let's bring in one of the republicans who met with president biden yesterday and can tell us whether they were serving hamburgers there. senator roger wicker of mississippi. roger, always great to see you. i've got this venn diagram. i don't know if you heard willie and me talking about hamburgers
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and i'm trying to figure out what states have crystal burgers and whattaburger. do y'all have that in mississippi, too? >> absolutely, we have both of them. but joe, please don't make me watch bill de blasio eat breakfast -- i mean, i love to be on your show and love the publicity, but let's let that be the last time, please? >> okay, sir. >> you know, roger, this is where america is coming together. not only is a good old guy from mississippi feel that way, most people on the upper east side feel that way, as well. so we are, as i said on vaccines everything and, we're coming together as a country. speaking of coming together as a country, it was so exciting to me to see you and other republicans sitting down with democrats. see if we can't come together with infrastructure bills. when we served in congress, we were able to work with
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democrats. we balanced the budget quite a few times together. >> those were the days! >> i'm curious, how was the meeting yesterday? how was the meeting and are you feeling hopeful that maybe a deal can be carved out here? >> it was a good meeting. and i'll tell you, jonathan just gave a very accurate report. first of all, we made history. the president announced, as the meeting began, that the cdc has lifted the mask requirement. so the question was, is this the last meeting where we'll have to wear masks in the oval office. and president biden said, actually, this can be the first meeting. so we all -- we took our masks office and made history there in the oval office. but then we got down to business and i'll tell you the things we have in common, republicans and
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president want to build roads, bridges, we want to add broadband to that great heartland of america that includes alabama and mississippi and ports, rail, clean water infrastructure. we all want to do that. and i think that's what most americans think of when we talk about infrastructure. and so we have a plan that we've given to the president. obviously, he would like to plus it up a bit. i think he knows that to get it through the republican majority -- through the majority of republicans, it can't be anything approaching what he's asking. but we got down to brass tacks. we're going to exchange specifics in the next few days and we've agreed to give the president a more concrete proposal and he'll get back to
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us. i think we can get it done. so, roger, i think -- it sounds like y'all are agreeing on a lot of the needs, a lot of the infrastructure needs. obviously, joe biden has been talking about, the biden administration has been talking about raising taxes for people making over 400,000. raising corporate taxes, substantially. i know joe manchin and some more moderate democrats have said they're okay going from 21 to 25% on corporate taxes. do you think it's possible that any republicans -- i know what mitch said, but do you think it's possible that any republicans would even agree to bumping up corporate tax rate from 21 to 25%, maybe closing some of the loopholes? >> well, i don't think so. and i hope not. and i'll tell you why. we really believe, and i think the statistics bear this out. the economy was roaring back in february of 2020.
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the 2017 tax cuts that lifted a burden off of people that want to create jobs, they were just kicking in and the economy was roaring. i would like to get back to that. and i think what kerstin sinema and joe manchin realize, and i think really a lot of democrats realize, we can fund this $600 billion plus of infrastructure without tinkering with that 2017 bill that really gave us a lot of job creation. in february of last year, job participation was way up among minorities, among veterans, among females. and the unemployment rate was 3.5%. when you and i were in kid economics, they taught us that you couldn't get below 4% unemployment. but we were below 4%.
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so let's leave those tax cuts in place. let's look at the other ways. and i'll tell you, the president doesn't want to raise gas taxes, so we're with him on that. he's drawn a red line there. we've drawn a red line on incomes taxes, but i think we can finance it a better way. but the main thing is, we can get a robust, huge infrastructure package for the american people and we can do something big in washington, d.c., still, on a bipartisan basis. and we need to show the world we can do that. >> yeah, you know, roger, we had talked briefly at the beginning in passing about when we came into congress together in '94, balanced the budget four years in a row. and i've been saying on this show for several years that i've been warning of inflation for 25 years because of big spending,
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because of deficits, because of the debt. as you know, both parties have been spending wildly and out of control too much over the past decade or so. and here we are, $27, $28 trillion. i'm wondering, are you -- do you agree with larry summers and democratic economists that this time inflation does pose a pretty big threat to us. and when you look at that services on the debt, are you fearful if we go back to 3, 4, 5, 6% interest rates that suddenly servicing the debt is going to become just an absolute monster for us? >> two things, we had to come to the rescue of the economy back in march, with the cares act. and it was hundreds of billions
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of dollars, and another larry that i listen to a lot, larry kudlow, was meeting with a group of us in the capitol and he said, don't be afraid of the t-word. the depression that we risk is so severe that we're going to have to spend over a trillion dollars, and we did. but that's why the larry summers caution is why i was so concerned about this rescue act. i think the economy is coming back. i don't think we needed that much of a deficit spending so the president had to do it on a 51-50 basis in the u.s. senate with reconciliation. so i agree with you, absolutely, the debt risk's becoming unmanageable. you know, we've had debt for a while, but it gets unmanageable. and as interest rates creep up and as inflation occurs, which we're seeing now, we really
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expected this. >> we can't underline it enough for people who are viewing, watching right now that, yes, servicing this massive debt is manageable when interest rates are as low as they are, but if they tick up 2, 3, 4 percentage points, it becomes an even bigger budgetary process. roger, before we let you go, america is opening back up, people will be getting on the road. put on your cap of a representative for the state of mississippi. where should people go visit in mississippi this summer, other than my childhood home in rudy, mississippi. >> let me tell you, joe -- >> where should people go? >> i was in downtown meridian just last friday and it's beautiful. things are coming back. had a great meal at a local eatery and it was terrific. i think, you know, i think the eyes of the sports world are
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going to be on oxford, mississippi, this weekend. vanderbilt ranked in the top three in the nation, is going to be playing baseball at ole miss. we need to win that series in order to host. and i'm just so sorry that the crimson tide really didn't quite scratch this year in college baseball. >> it was okay, roger, we will somehow get by and survive. thank you so much, senator roger wicker from mississippi. it's always great to see you, buddy. >> joe, with thank you. >> all right, mika? >> all right. let's bring in former chief of staff to the dccc, adrienne elrod, she was a senior aide to the hillary clinton and biden presidential campaigns and former senior adviser for the white house oversight committee, kurt bardella. adrienne, i'm curious, one thing that's really curious to the democrats in all of this is the
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family parts of the bill. how will that -- how will that play out given -- trying to get this to a bipartisan outcome. because i could see that being where there might be a lot of friction. >> yeah, just listening to senator wicker, they are reading some of the top lines that came out of this meeting. that's where the rub is. i think you can certainly find bipartisan agreement on roads and bridges, i mean, all you have to do is look at the colonial pipeline and the bridge that goes over i-40 that connects tennessee and arkansas that is shut down because of infrastructure repairs. you know, we need to repair our bridges and roads. that's not an issue. the real issue is the care economy. that is something that the biden administration has really stressed needs to be a part of this bill. paid leave, addressing racial inequities. so the question becomes, is that where republicans are starting to go in terms of where they want to compromise? i think the biden administration
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is not going compromise very easily. i mean, joe biden has spent over three decades in the senate. he's used to working with republicans. he's used to working on bipartisan solutions. but i don't think this white house is going to settle on only having hard infrastructure in this legislation. you know, there's a lot of other issues that democrats and frankly our country needs as a whole, including paid leave. so i don't think they're going to compromise very easily, but it's just so refreshing, mika, to see democrats and republicans sitting in a room, having a civil conversation, coming out of a meeting at the white house, feeling optimistic about where this bill may go. such a contrast to where we were at this point last year. >> and that and being able to have the masks off. mike barnicle is with us this morning. mike? >> hey, kurt, listening to senator wicker, it was a pleasant conversation, and yesterday at the white house was a pleasant conversation.
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there was some sense of optimism after that meeting yesterday in the white house, but even today with senator wicker, there's a huge gap in terms of the funding requests that the biden administration has on the table for infrastructure and i think what senator wicker was alluding to, they were going nowhere near to approaching that money. do you think the republicans will end up doing the old just the freeze the ball game and not move forward and hopefully that the democrats will continue to try to negotiate with them for months and months and months and not much happens in the end. or do you think the biden administration just says, you know what, we had a nice conversation, but you're not approaching where we want to go, so we're going to go on our own. what's going to happen? >> i think president biden is doing the right thing and the smart thing by having these conversations with senate republicans, by inviting them to offer their own counterproposals and specifics. that's one of the things that we haven't heard from republicans, really, in a long time, are
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actual policy specifics. we know what they're against. pretty much anything that democrats are for. but let's actually see on paper what they want to do. and one of the things, too, and we can't forget this, mitch mcconnell has already told us how this story is going to end. he has said that it is his job, his goal to stop the biden administration. to stop their agenda. to not let anything happen. to defeat the democrats. so we know how this is going to end, but what biden and i think is doing, and this has been reflected in the high approval ratings he has, he is making a demonstration very clear to the american people, he's reaching out, being bipartisan, doing everything they can to be inclusive. at the end of the day, if republicans don't want to be a part of that, that's fine. the policies that biden and the democrats are championing are incredibly popular, even with republicans. the american people want these projects, they want these bills, they want these proposals and the administration will deliver on them. and if they want to spend the
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next two years defending why they opposed plans that are popular, that's a conversation the democrats will allow them to have. >> so adrienne, you have republicans that are going in, that are sitting down with joe biden. the lead leadership, fwu the party is pretty united now behind kevin mccarthy, a guy would went in and while they were sitting there negotiated supposedly in good faith and the second they got out of there, he texted a fund-raising text to
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all of his people calling joe biden corrupt and telling him, a socialist, it was such a bush league move, but it left me wondering how does anybody negotiate with that? >> yeah. i mean, joe, that pretty much sums up the republican party today, especially the republican party that governs the republican party of the house. look, i think kurt just hit the nail on the head. you don't necessarily -- first of all, joe biden is impassive as long as he gets joe manchon and kirstin sen ma on board, he can pass this without one single republican. but, again, what is the definition of bipartisan legislation these days? the majority of the american people, both republicans and democrats want this infrastructure package passed. and just because there are representatives in congress who tend to not be able to get their priorities straight, i.e. kevin mccarthy, just because they
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don't support it doesn't mean that it doesn't receive bipartisan support. so i think, you know, the white house is certainly going to negotiate in good faith. they would love to have a republican vote or two, but they don't have to have it as long as they keep the majority intact. i think you're going to see the biden administration, you know, be willing to perhaps compromise a little bit here and there, but ultimately when it comes to the bones and the real meat of this proposal, i don't think there's a lot of room to wiggle and negotiate in a frankly don't have to because this is what the american people want. >> so the final question, kevin mccarthy is just playing politics there? maybe he wants to get to a negotiation with biden. does it feel like he can even see him? because of how toxic politics are these days without insulting
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him? again, it's a bush league move and i'd be ashamed if i were in his position and acted that unprofessionally after meeting with the president of the united states. but in the senate side, you do have people like roger wicker, mitt romney who will work with democrats, susan collins who will work with democrats, todd young who will work with democrats. ben fass who will work with democrats. there are ten republicans in the senate that will work with democrats and you can look at bipartisan legislation that is out there right now to find out who those ten are. the question is, the real question is, if they do that, if they get to 60, will nancy pelosi be able to hold -- if there's a compromise, will nancy pelosi be able to hold all of
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her democrats together and pass it through the house, as well, if they compromise too much on the senate side? >> yeah, that's a really good question, joe. and it's a valid concern. but i do think that democrats are going to be smart enough here that if somehow democrats are able to cobble together a coalition that includes that many republicans, that there is such value there and moving that forward and showing that they can actually get things done under the leadership of president biden. but i think that the strategy here is pretty simple and it's work with them when you can, don't let them hold up your agenda. don't let them delay or slow walk your agenda. make a very clear public demonstration that you gave an honest and sincere effort. and if it doesn't work, go at it alone, get it done. i think at the end of the day, nobody is voting in 2022 is going to remember the vote count of anything that happened in 2021. what they're going to care about
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is what the results were, how it affected their real life, what the bottom line is they're seeing and their own paycheck and their own homes and their own lives and their local economies. and as long as democrats hold true to show that they can deliver for the american people in a tangible way, they will walk away from this looking very good regardless of whether they get republican support or not. >> kurt, thank you so much. adrian thank you, as well. it's always great having you on. we appreciate it. have a great weekend. so, mika, the reality here is, joe biden gave the speech a couple of weeks ago and it was a sweeping speech, one of the most progressive speeches i think any president has given since lbj. but right now, if he's going to pass that legislation, forget getting to 60 votes. he has to get to 50 votes and that's senator cinema and that's senator joe manchon. he has to do that and to get
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those democrats on board, he has to do what he's doing right now which is putting forward a good faith effort to bring republicans on board. i think it's too early. forgive me for always being optimistic. but i think it's too early to say this is impossible. don't listen to what they say. listen, look at what they do and right now they're meeting. right now they're trying to forge compromise. let's see if it happens. it could. >> and the president is doing his best to show this process and to make everyone feel like they're on the same page and that he is open-minded and trying to connect with republicans who are willing to do so. we have more just ahead on the u.s. taking a huge leap towards normalcy with the new cdc
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from prom dresses to workouts ♪♪ and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. now as you're thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need make sure you ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination.
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but now things are getting better every day. vaccinated friends and family are able to take off their masks which we just learned. i got off a plane and here i had gone out and bought one that coordinated with my outfit. you can't win. businesses are reopening. we're getting back to those things that we lost for so long. hugging the people we love. i mean, how great will that be? i mean, haven't we all missed that most of all?
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>> great to see you. literally, nice to see you. >> oh, my gosh, good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, may 14th, and, joe, we start today with this great news and you can see that jill biden actually finally matched her mask with her outfit, that's like my luck. i finally have matching masks, don't need them, even indoors, it's amazing. >> it really is such an important thing. willie, for quite some time, there's been a question of whether science was going to be matched by the government from the right over the past month or so. a lot of people asking the question from the left, will democrats catch up with the science. will democrats catch up with
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medical -- the medical advice? and yesterday, they did. obviously, they believe they needed to be very cautious, needed to be -- take extra care. but yesterday, finally, americans got the word, if you've been vaccinated, it's time to go back to living the life you lived before covid. >> wow. >> as i pointed out, i never got the matching mask. i reached for whatever gross mask was in that basket by the door as i leave the house every day. but that's a different story. the cdc came out and said what we've been waiting to hear for 14 months now, rolling back its guidance on masks and social distancing. federal health officials announcing americans who are fully vaccinated can stop wearing masks in most settings outdoors and indoors. >> if you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you have stopped doing because of the pandemic.
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we have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy. >> i think it's a great milestone, a great day. it's been made possible by the extraordinary success we've had in vaccinated so many americans so quickly. to date, we've given out 250 million shots in 114 days. if you've been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask. let me repeat, if you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask. if you haven'ted waited the full two weeks after your shot or if you're not vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask. the rule is very simple. get vaccinated or wearing a mask
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until you do. >> some states reacting immediately to the new cdc guidelines with at least 8 governors already adjusting their state's mandate. but the governors of new york, new jersey, north carolina and virginia, all democrats, said they are going to review the guidelines first before making changes. that is something many retailers plan to do, as well, some saying they were caught off guard by the announcement. obviously this is all new so states are going to take some time and figure out what works for them. businesses who have that sign you have to wear a mask to come in will have to decide whether they want to continue that policy. but the news is great that now we can take this massive step to returning back to normal life. >> yeah, it really is great news. and what have we learned? at least with the preliminary studies, we've learned that if you take the vaccine, chances are overwhelmingly good that you're not going to get covid again. if you do get covid, it's going to be most likely asymptomatic.
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we've also learned that outside, if you're outside, just there is no need to wear a mask unless you really feel comfortable wearing that mask. there's just not -- there's not a medical reason to wear that mask. i was up in boston a couple of days ago, willie, doing what i usually do, going up and cursing the boston red sox because i've been to four games this year. the red sox have lost all four. they would -- yes, i know. >> happy to see that. >> they're -- no, in that case, last night in the first inning, barnacle texted me after the red sox scored 7 runs. he said we have taken a vote among everybody in the stands and it is unanimous. you and your immediate family are to stay away from fenway. but, anyway, i'm going to wear a bag over my head like the old new orleans saints fan and hopefully -- or i can be like
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bobby valentine who, by the way, running for mayor of stamford, connecticut. how exciting is that? >> very cool. >> i can wear a moustache for a disguise. but, anyway, i was sitting in the stands and i actually talked to a couple of people that were involved with the team and they said they had been following closely what happened in texas where they jammed capacity crowds into arlington to the early games. and they said we've been looking closely and we just don't see, you know, we don't see anything that came of that. because it was outside. so, i mean, we're -- every day we're learning more and more about this virus, but certainly with 125, 150 million americans getting their vaccines, the slowdown of vaccines itself has appeared to slow down and we're steading off at 2 million a day. we're moving -- you know, we're not getting to herd immunity, but, man, we're improving every
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day. it is great to hear the government say what a lot of us were start to go think, you know, come on, we get vaccinated. everybody we're around got vaccinated. why are we still wearing masks? and you would see some people wearing masks the size of massachusetts a few days ago in public life and you're like, what are you doing? you've been vaccinated, everybody around you has been vaccinated, let's get real. and yesterday, they did. >> i'm going to still wear them on planes and -- i am. i think there is a -- there's some value for them. we'll talk about that. there's still some problems with some people getting coronavirus, but we'll still talk about the value of the vaccine with that. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lamere who was at the white house yesterday for president biden's rose garden address. also with us, director for the center for infectious disease research and policy and a professor in the medical school at the university of minnesota,
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dr. michael osterholm. joe, within this conversation, there is the vaccine. it will help if people still get the coronavirus and ultimately putting this economy back together again for the people who have been locked out. >> i'm so glad you talked about planes because, you know, i got a masters in broad generalitities. so let's be specific about this. if you're on airplanes, if you're on buses, if you're on public transportation, wear the mask, you still are expected to wear the mask and part for your own health, you should still wear the mask. i haven't gotten flu in a year. why am i going to stop wearing a mask on planes? that just makes good common sense. >> it's a good idea. >> and let's bring in dr. osterholm who has gotten this thing right all the way through. it's so great to have you with us, dr. osterholm.
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i'm curious about some more caveats to yesterday's general announcement. what should americans take away from what they heard president biden say? >> well, first of all, it's incredibly good news and it's news that we're not surprised by from the science standpoint. we now have six studies which actually show that once you're vaccinated, the likelihood of getting reinfected and more importantly then serving as the person who might transmit to others is very, very low. so this was based on good science and i think we're moving forward. i think the challenge we have is the next step. the next step is we still have 42% of the u.s. adults have not been vaccinated. 64% have only had one dose of the two doses they need. and the challenge is going to be now we're worried that everyone is going to say i've been vaccinated and everyone will drop their mask in. so the next question is going to be how are we going to know if people are vaccinated? if you're sitting close to someone at a restaurant or next to them at a theater, how are you going to know that they're not fibbing a little bit here
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about whether they're vaccinated or not? and i think that's going be the next really big question is do we do these immune passports? i gave up my eyeballs and my fingerprints to clear so i could get on and off an airplane sooner. will people do that so you can feel confident that the person you're significant next to without a mask is vaccinated? >> we've been talking about this since this news came down yesterday, exactly what you're saying about how do you know if someone is vaccinated or not. isn't that now problem of the unvaccinated? in other words, if i'm vaccinated, my risk of contracting the disease again is very low and if i get it, the symptoms won't be as bad is what we hear, anyway. so isn't that a concern more for someone who is unvaccinated than someone who is? >> it actually is, you're absolutely right. but the problem is when you have 42% of the u.s. adults not vaccinated at all and you have 64% that only have one dose, we could still see substantial transmission of the virus in
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these smaller groups. cases of, you know, 50, 60, 70 people getting infected. so we want to make sure that they don't get infected, too. so i fully support the administration's efforts to get more people vaccinated. i think they really deserve tremendous credit for what they've done in the last 114 days. i was on the biden/harris transition team on covid-19 and we had debates back in november and december, in fact, should the president put out a hundred million dose goal in the first hundred days and he said, yes, and then the administration went to work with the industry and they did a remarkable job of getting us 250 million doses out in 114 days. so i think this has been great news. we just have to get the remainder of these individuals vaccinated or we could still see substantial activity in this country. look no further than the most vaccinated country in the world and grant you, their vaccines may not be quite as effect ifr, but they are in a lockdown as we
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speak just because of the fact that in that unvaccinated group, we're still seeing real transmission issues. >> dr. michael osterholm, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. coming up, senator kirstin gillibrand will join us. she joined the conversation, straight ahead. she joined the conversation, straight ahead i love you. drive safe. ok buh bye mommy. you guys ready? you sure you got everything? drive safe. we all say it; chevy can help you do it. with chevy safety assist standard on the new equinox and trailblazer part of the chevy family of suvs. drive safe. bipolar depression. it's a dark, lonely place. this is art inspired by real stories of people living with bipolar depression. emptiness. a hopeless struggle. the lows of bipolar depression can disrupt your life
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with the policy and it can be a moment that is truly celebrated. there is an issue of trust that i think this administration is trying to reinforce in everything they do. >> mika, that is right. in the first moments of this president's term, they've been very confident of this messaging and imagery being put forth by the president himself and the white house staff and how they are conducting themselves. on january 20th when president biden sat behind the desk in the oval office, he was wearing a mask. in the recent weeks, there has been a growing pressure on them to say people are being vaccinated, when is it time to sends a different signal. and they were saying all along, they were waiting for the cdc to take this step. president biden was in a meeting with republican senators to talk about a potential infrastructure package when word was given the
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cdc had made this announcement. and president biden and the six senators took off their mask in the oval office. a nice symmetry. and it was the first time the president had been maskless in the oval office except when he was alone or around his immediate family. it was an exaltan president biden. he said look, there is some concern about pockets of unvaccinated americans where perhaps a variant could spread that the vaccines would not handle as well. they're still trying to ramp up those efforts to be certain. however, yesterday with the president and the vice president all the white house staff who have been vaccinated, they were without masks, all the reporters who were there, they were vaccinated. and the president was certainly using it as a moment of triumph, sort of a milestone moment and
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it was quick. it was not a victory lap for him or the administration. he was quick to praise the scientists administering the vaccine and the american people for following the guidelines. >> coming up, the latest from the middle east after another nice of violence there. we'll get a report from israel next on "morning joe."
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. now to the gomts in israel. the violence reached a new level this morning with israel carrying out its most intense attacks yet. in response to palestinian militants firing hundreds of rockets into israel since wednesday night. israeli tanks and artillery fired at gaza on the ground while air strikes and rocket attacks continued from above. in a statement yesterday, a what mags spokesperson said bombing israel was, quote, easier for us than drinking water. israeli prime minister netanyahu
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addressed the violence saying israel would, quote, act with full force against its enemies. at least 107 palestinians and 7 israelis have been killed in this latest conflict. the victims include children. israeli troops have not entered gaza with force since a two-month war back in 2014. joining us now, former nato supreme allied commander riermd navy admiral james freedis. also with us, long time foreign correspondent martin fletcher, who is reporting for nbc news in tel aviv. martin, we'll start with you and give us the very latest. it's good to see you upon very terrible news. >> good morning, mika and everybody else. it's been a terrible night here. about 200 missiles fired from gaza into israel and at the same time israel has been attacking,
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bombarding gaza at 150 fighter plane attacks, bombing attacks on targets inside gaza. they've been attacking -- this is the fifth straight day of very, very severe fighting. israel's targets so much so far have been mostly hamas targets. things like police stations, military facilities, facilities where the palestinians are making those long range rockets that they're hitting israel with. but there was a new development last night, that israel's targeted what they called the underground city of gaza. there's a whole network, very sophisticated complex of tunnels underneath the city of gaza that hamas has been building in order to -- for these kind of moments they have their operational control centers there. it's where they store weapons, where the fighters can move around the city at will underground, unobstructed by israel. now, at the same time that this is happening, israel is building up its troops on the border.
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.its two infantry brigades at the border fence waiting for the orders to go into gaza. i don't think at this point anyone will really think that's going to happen. but with that war of words that you mentioned, the hostility between the hamas spokesman and the prime minister netanyahu basically saying we're going to go on with this fighting as long as they need to. everyone is assuming it's going to go on at least until the middle of next week. at the same time, you can't forget the fighting inside israel, which is fairley new. it's like the worst fighting ever between israeli arabs and israeli jews inside the towns of israel. so this is a development that is new, very frightening for israelis, and even when the fighting ends as it will because i thought this is about the fifth or sixth round of fighting between hamas and israel. this is new. jews have fighting in israeli cities, that will be tough to get that jeanie back in the bottle.
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>> yeah. and admiral, what else is new according to our good friend david ignatius is just how fragile the political situation is on both sides. let me read from david's column in "the washington post" this morning. what feels different this time is in the fragility of israeli and palestinian politics. the israeli military is powerful always ever. but the country's political fabric has frayed during recent years of electoral impasse and interim government. the palestinian political mess is even worse. the political authority is corrupt and feeble. power flows even more to hamas militants whose military strategy is to terrorize israeli civilians. and this is if you dare talk about both sides in any way, of course, you get -- you get absolutely villainized by political factions on both sides. but david is right, though. the reality here is that
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benjamin netanyahu is fighting for his political life. he has no political incentive to bring this to a peaceful conclusion. you can say the same about hamas who took control and then will appeal to be horrible at running even basic government services, were corrupt, so they have no incentive to back down wg, either. so you have a political situation on both sides where neither side has any incentive to actually protect the civilians. >> indeed, joe. these numbers sound small to us, like 120 people, 150 killed, remember the total population here between israelis and palestinians is just over 10
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million. so this is already a 9/11 level event in this country and in this territory. so 200 million people in america would be headed to bomb shelters based on comparisons of population. so this is a very significant uptick in violence and you're absolutely correct, the incentives are running in the wrong direction right now. so for netanyahu, he wants to maintain his grip on power and he can look strong sending the military forward. for the hamas, they are seeking to show those in the west bank are incompetent and corrupt. i think it's unlikely we will see an incursion of significant ground forces into gaza. this is one of the densest
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places on the earth. the u.s. marines, toughest of fighting forces will tell you there's nothing worse than what they call the three block war, fighting in intense dense situations, if there's an underground network of tunnels, all of that mitigates against an actual invasion. so bottom line, what should the u.s. be doing at this point? i think the administration has it about right, which is number one to appreciate the importance of this in terms of local impact. number two is to push hard for mediation, perhaps getting the egyptians, the majority danans, our close arab allies into that game and trying to play it relatively even handedly, but recognizing there are 2,000 missiles that came out of gaza against israeli targets. they're not going to simply sit back and let that occur. dark days ahead, unfortunately. >> admiral, thank you both very
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much for your reporting and analysis this morning. and coming up, it's something you don't see often. a democrat and republican standing side by side on capitol hill. we'll talk to senator kirsten jilly brand. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right,
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assault from the military chain of command to an independent prosecutor making a huge difference here. and senator gillibrand joins us now. also with us, republican member of the house armed services committee congressman mike turner of ohio. since 2007, congressman turner has led the fight to eradicate sexual assault from the military and his cochairman of the military's sexual assault prevention caucus and he will be leading this bill in the house. first of all, hello, no masks. this is so refreshing. it's so great to see you, kirsten and to see both of your faces and to see a democrat and a republican standing side by side. so what a great start to the weekend. kirsten, when is there long. >> hopefully soon. we now have 61 bipartisan
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cosponsors. we probably have over 70 supporters of the bill. so we hope we can get a floor vote up or down so we can start the process of making this law. this is something that we worked on for nearly a decade. unfortunately the scourge of sexual assault in the military hasn't changed. it continues to grow with the rate of prosecution and the rate of conviction continues to decline. so we are not moving in the right direction at all. so this bill, we believe, does two things. one, it creates a system where more survivors can trust it because it's an unbiassed, trained military prosecutor who makes the decision about whether a case should go to trial and, two, i believe it will end in more convictions and more serial rapists going to jail which sends the message to change the climate that these crimes are not tolerated. >> and you think the difference is taking that investigation, that overview from inside the military. what was happening or what was your worry, why do you think
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it's so important to make that separation that this will make a big difference? >> well, we just had a report out of ft. hood that said the climate, the command climate was very toxic. and, in fact, it was permissive for xhul harassment and sexual assault. so what we see is that for survivors, both male and female, if they look at the chain of command and they look at the climate, they see they're not taking care of the well being of the troops. and so they want this decision to be made by somebody who is highly trained, a lawyer, a criminal justice lawyer, someone who has experience and somebody who is not within that chain of command so they have no buy crass. they don't know the perpetrator, they don't know the accuser, and we believe and they believe that if you create this professionalized system, people will have more faith in it. >> senator, congressman, good morning, it's willie geist. good to see you both. nice to see a bipartisan legislation and agreement on issues like this. congressman, what was it about this issue that interested you
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and how bad is the problem for people who haven't delved it as deeply as you and senator gillibrand have? >> sexual assault is a basic violation of someone's human rights. and i think we all have stories from our constituents of people who have been victims of sexual assault. i think what's been important here is senator gillibrand has worked diligently on a piece of legislation that tries to resolve the issue of how do we change the prosecutorial system and at the same time making certain that we preserve the institutionlty, equal protection issues that we bring together all of the tools that are necessary for the chain of demand command to be supported. we have general millie taking it out of the chain of command, former secretary gates. you also have others who are coming to the table saying as a result of her work, she listened to people in the house, the senate, academics, the military, people in the legal community because it's a legal issue and brought everyone together to
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bring forth the piece of legislation that is bipartisan and you don't see it much in washington, d.c., but you see it here. it's a tremendous amount of work on senator gillibrand's part and i am very pleased to be able to endorse and support her efforts. >> senator gillibrand, there are 61 senators behind this. it looks like you've cleared the threshold of the filibuster here. there is some opposition, including from senator jim imphff, the top ranking republican on the senate armed services committee. and he says he doesn't like this because it takes the prosecution outside the chain of command. how do you answer the criticism of this legislation? >> well, you know, we've diligently pursued so many other reforms over the last eight years, over 200, in fact. and it's not dented the problem. we still have 20 estimated sexual assaults a year. we have less cases going to trial and less cases ending in conviction in terms of our rates of prosecution. and so it's not getting better. and commanders have
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responsibilities. they have to train the troops, they have to win wars. and we've heard from so many jags that if you have a service member whose rates in afghanistan, the last thing that commander wants is to look at a case file and make complex decisions when he's trying to prosecute the war in afghanistan. it's asking someone to do something they are not trained to do, that they are not well positioned to do. this change is something that service members support, that our commanders support, not only general millie, but admiral mullin has come out, general miller has come out from the marines. so we have this broad base of support at this point and in the senate, one of my coleads is joni ernst. and she is a former combat veteran. she's the only female republican combat veteran in the senate. and she's lived this, not only has she been a commander, but she's a sexual assault survivor
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and she has a daughter about to graduate from west point. so the perspective of so many people is in this legislation and we have people in the house, as well, colleagues such as congressman turner, jackie spear, who has been working on this for a decade. and so we are all collaborating now to one place where we believe this one change will make a difference. and it's overwhelmingly supported by the u.s. senate. >> congressman turner, there's so many friction right now with the vote going on right at this second, actually, to replace liz cheney. i'll leave it at that in terms of the level of friction is high. but this is something that is actually moving through. can this be built on for more bipartisan action between democrats and republicans? >> absolutely. in order to have bipartisan legislation, you have to have bipartisan work. and that's what has been so incredible and what senator gillibrand has done. she's listened, she's taken into account what the objections were and the concerns were and what
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we have today is a much better piece of legislation than the number of pieces of legislation that have floated around capitol hill on this issue of the chain of command and prosecution. this preserved a lot of the precedent issues at ucmj and make you certain the rights of the accused are protected. but at the same time, we're going to get to the heart of how do we make certain that people are going to do the perpetrators of the heinous crimes are prosecuted. >> congressman, we're certainly glad you're here but at the same time, there is something going on right now maybe where you should be which is the republican confidence vote to make elise stefanik the chair. >> i'm headed there and i'm for elise, absolutely. >> and why is she better to lead the party than liz cheney was? >> you know, it's about i think the transition of the topic we're talking about now. it's people who will listen, people who will get the job done, people who will work.
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we've got too much legislation being rammed through or people who are just pardoned in their own positions. the whole process of legislation and legislating is a dialogue. and that's making certain we have that conversation. i think elise is certainly suited to lead that. >> but the position liz cheney was that the election was free and fair. do you disagree with her about that? >> no. but that's actually not -- she's actually survived the vote on that issue. there really is a number of issues that transexpired afterwards. i think today it's good for us to focus on what senator gillibrand has done and the fact that there is bipartisan work here and bycamera work and the senator personally reached out and we had a discussion about the subject matter of this bill, the work that has been done, substantively what this does. that's the type of work that the american people expect and that's what we're seeing on capitol hill today. >> no question about it. liz cheney is objectively more conservative than elise stefanik is. why on that measure do you think
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elise stefanik is better than liz cheney? >> i don't judge people on rank of conservative or liberal. can you do the job? are you dedicated. what senator gillibrand just accomplished was a tremendous amount of work. to take this piece of legislation, this issue, take everyone's concerns into account and bring forth a piece of legislation that's better because it represents all of the voices and the concerns, those are the type of leaders that we need and the process that the american public expects. >>. >> senator gillibrand and congressman mike turner, thank you very much for coming on to talk about this important topic. >> thank you. >> thank you, mika. up next, the head of a key teachers union calls for student toes return to the classroom full time this fall. that's next on "morning joe." e . that's next on "morning joe. without worrying if it's too late,
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>> we've done a great job. >> when you test, you have a case. when i test, you find something wrong. >> right. the testing is out of control. >> why does that matter when everyday americans are still losing their lives. >> maybe that's a question you should ask china. >> why are you saying that to me particularly? >> i'm saying that to anybody who would ask a nasty question. >> this isn't nasty, some form of presidents even keep their thoughts to themselves!
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>> former president barack obama describes it as chaos. what a hell of a year it's been. just horrible. hard to laugh, but my god, we've been through so much. the cdc yesterday advising that vaccinated people don't need to wear masks or socially distance at all. it is a significant development for getting kids back into classrooms, that's for sure. the head of the nation's second largest teacher's room, randi weingarten, is calling for full schools opening the next academic year. >> we can and must reopen schools in the fall for
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in-person teaching, learning and support, and we must keep them open fully and safely five days a week. >> the united states will not be fully back until we're fully back in school, and my union is all in. >> as school systems work to get back to a traditional, in-person schedule and teachers and families scrapple with the pandemic's impact on their children's education, as part of our 50 over 50 series this morning, we're taking a look at some of the trail blazers in the field of education. let's bring in chief content officer of "forbes" media and editor of "forbes," randall lane and "morning joe" producer "know your value," daniella preair bravo, co-author of earn it and contributor with me with this "forbes" list. randall, my gosh, we're two weeks away from the big list. we've been in a huddle with the
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team and it's just -- it's turning out to be unbelievable, the amount of submissions and also these incredible women we're honoring and looking at and studying. >> it's really hard. we have accumulated more than 10,000 nominees. and we're getting there but we could have 5,000. the stories are so incredible. >> it really is amazing. i think we touched on something where women over 50, 60, 70 have arrived and they're keeping on. we're going to start top of our list today is a woman whom i adore. she's 76 and she's got a million different firsts in her life. first president of an ivy league institution, but also president of the rockefeller foundation. >> first woman to do that. i mean, a, she was the president
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of fen, first woman president of fen, and she took them from maybe bottom ivy league, first look who they let in to a true international institution. doubled spending, tripled the endowment. and she changed the relationship where she made penn a true force to west philadelphia, built a school there, integrated the university into the local community and in doing that, really changed how people look at higher education across the country. >> so daniella, number two on our list, just a baby comparatively. we have women of all ages over 50. anna maria chavez is 52. tell us about her. >> anna maria is the ceo and executive director of the national school board association. this represents over 50 million students across the u.s. and lobbies on behalf of school boards. she's the first woman of color to lead the girl scouts of the u.s. she was a girl scout herself. there she expanded the
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organization focused on financial literacy and s.t.e.m. education. she's also worked in government under the clinton administration and also under janet napolitano. she also served as chief strategist officer for the external affairs of the national council of aging and in 2016 named fortune's world greatest leader. very long resume. randall, can you imagine a more important role with this last year, especially as we're getting kids back to school and her being so influential in how we do that? >> that's exactly right. i mean, she talks about this, how every kitchen table has become classroom in this last year so the idea, you know, that school boards have become the center of education in ways that have never existed before because the entire community has become a school. what's going to happen as we heard we transition back to september for normal schooling, she's going to be right at the center of that. >> all right. we're also looking at ann
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williams aisome, chair in child studies at the chair of services at fordham university. daniella, give us a sense of her. she's our unsung hero today. >> there she developed programs and research with policies for lives with at-risk families. her career has been dedicated to improving child welfare and addressing inequalities in education. she's also the former ceo of harlam children's dome, a role she received when she was 50, helps improve access to education and break cycles of generational poverty. she also worked for more than a decade at new york city administration for children services and this is somebody who grew up with a single mom in queens so she knows the barriers of struggling communities and has used education really as a tool of empowerment and has made it her life's work to gain equal access to education.
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>> and, randall, we're looking at lauren, lorene powell jobs today, she's 57, founder and president of the emerson collective. tell us about her. >> this is one of the most important people, not just education but in all sorts of types of investing. married to steve jobs, inherited -- now the richest woman in california. being married to maybe arguably the most disruptive thinker the last 100 years, she bought that sim philosophy to education. she has an incredible initiative where she they had open-source data where they tried to reinvent the high school experience. you see her doing that across all of her initiatives. she's an incredibly important person and somebody who just -- when she started turning 50, just became one of the most important people in the whole field of education.
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>> all right. "forbes" randall lane, thank you very much. and daniela pierre-bravo, thank you as well. go to "know your value".com or forbes.com and click on 50 over 50 to learn more. we've been looking at these women to give you an example of amazing women over the age of 50 who are achieving significant success and paying it forward. we're talking about 60s, 70s and 80s and going strong and soaring. it's an important message for all women that there's a very long runway. the big list is going to be announced in just a few weeks through "forbes." that does it for us this morning. much stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi, there, i'm stephanie ruhle. it is friday, may 14th. a huge and exciting day for this country. i can't even believe what we're reporting. more than 400 days after the cdc
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first told us to start wearing masks, it now says we can finally start taking them off, as long as you're vaccinated. the cdc is dropping mask recommendations even indoors, even in large gatherings. last night rachel maddow asked the cdc director point-blank about the decision. check it out. >> how sure are you? this feels like a really big change. >> we're sure. it is a coalescing of all of the evidence now that tells us really it is safe to take off your mask. >> almost as soon as the cdc made their recommendation, states started scrapping their mask mandates. more than half a dozen states have already gotten the ball rolling in terms of changing their rules and we expect more in the coming days. i want to bring in nbc's ali vitali, dave gutierrez in new york city and e
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