good wednesday morning to you. craig melvin here. american diplomacy on the move. literally. right now, president biden is in the airheading to the united kingdom. it's his first foreign trip as commander in chief. he is stepping on a very different global stage compared to his time as vice president. there's a raging global pandemic, shaken alliances and what the british ambassador to the united states just called a, quote, trust deficit. we will see his first meeting with vladimir putin since becoming president. this morning, he is laying out his goal for the trip. >> strengthening the alliance, making clear to putin and to china that europe and the united states are tight, the g7 is going to move. >> back here at home, there's a

pothole in the bumpy road to passing one of his major agenda items, infrastructure. president biden pulled the plugs on the talks with the lead negotiator. there is a plan b. right now, a senate committee is holding an interesting hearing on a complicated issue. sure college athletes be able to profit off their name, image and likeness? i will talk to two-time nba champion chris bosh, before he became a megastar, he was a top college basketball player. he has a lot to say about this issue. stick with us for that. first, to our team following president biden's first foreign trip. matt bradley and shannon pettypiece. shannon, start with you. the president emphasizing that his first foreign trip is about rebuilding our relationship with our allies, restoring confidence in the united states as a

partner. explain the stakes and just how does he plan to do that. >> reporter: the administration is very aware of the concern among america's allies about whether or not the u.s. can be a trusted negotiating partner, whether the u.s. is going to be there to take a leadership hole on these big issues like climate change. that, of course, comes after four years of former president donald trump really battering a lot of these alliances with his america first strategy and this nationalist approach to diplomacy. the administration says that part of this trip is about repairing those alliances because in order to tackle these big issues, they say, like climate change, like the growing economic and military threat many countries see from china, like russia as they have this, in order to tackle those, they need a united front of the democracies in the west. they say it is no accident that

going into this summit with vladimir putin, biden will have spent almost a week with america's closest allies and one of my colleagues a few moments ago asked biden about that meeting and whether he thinks he can have an affect on putin from it. here is what he had to say. >> do you expect putin will work out any kind of understanding with you on the cyberattacks? >> who knows. it's going to be a subject of our discussion. >> reporter: the president there saying, who knows. that might be one of the accurate assessments of what could come out of this meeting, because biden is joining the long list of u.s. presidents who have tried and so far really failed to be successful at improving relations with russia significantly. administration officials saying, don't expect too much. we will see, hoping they can deescalate tensions there. >> okay.

matt, historically, the united kingdom has been our closest ally. how has that special relationship, as it has been dubbed, been shaped over the last four years? when president biden meets with boris johnson, what's the expectation about how it moves forward? >> reporter: well, everything is up forknows is the motto for th weekend. there's been a lot of beef lately because president biden has weighed in on the brexit issue saying he didn't like how it was playing out with northern ireland. biden, of irish heritage, considers that issue to be something he feels he can criticize the uk on. barack obama got in trouble when he weighed in and said that he thinks britain should vote against brexit. all of this as boris johnson has been a champion of brexit, long

before he became prime minister. it was back in 2019 that biden said that boris johnson was emotionally and physically identical to president trump. i'm not sure if that insulted or flattered the british premiere. it's something that will stick in his craw as he meets with president biden this week. a lot of these leaders will be greeting this, pleased that it is joe biden they are seeing but not president trump. but while joe biden is different from president trump in terms of attitude, in terms of his composure on the international stage, he really is pursuing a lot of very similar policies, similar policies to the ones that president trump pursued and that obama pursued before president trump was president and which joe biden helped him do. he was one of the point men on foreign policy under barack obama. a lot of these leaders are expecting change, but they are not expecting that much change.

we spoke with the uk ambassador to the u.s. she said similarly that this is a problem that isn't going to be solved easily. there's a lot of distrust between the u.s. and the rest of the world. craig? >> most people see the united states as a beacon for democracy. i think there has been a bit of a trust deficit with the united states over the previous years. people were very distressed in the uk and europe about what they saw on 6 of january. that doesn't shake a fundamental belief in transatlantic cooperation and a fundamental belief that the united states is a champion of open societies. >> reporter: if president trump proved nothing else, it's that no matter what president biden says and does on the global stage, the american voter is fickle. and leaders can expect someone

like president trump to undermine everything that was promised. >> shannon, stay with us. we need to talk about another part of the president's agenda. president biden's push for the bipartisan infrastructure bill has hit quite the roadblock. the white house and lead senate gop negotiator shelley moore-capito have ended the negotiations. that doesn't mean it won't happen. there's a bipartisan group of senators trying to see if they can come up with a deal. a group of house lawmakers are working on their own option. garrett haake is on capitol hill. shannon pettypiece is with me here. garrett, it was a few days ago you openly expressed and explained your skepticism. it seems as if you may have been right. now you have this bipartisan group of senators trying to work out a deal. i understand you just spoke a couple of senators in that group. what did they tell you?

>> reporter: that's right. i managed to catch up with a couple of them, including joe manchin, the other west virginia senator picking up. this group met for three hours last night. they have released no details of their plans, except they are trying to build on what capito started. find something that gets closer to the president's goals. but without raising taxes. it's a very difficult alchemy they are trying to put together. manchin and romney expressed optimism about their chances. >> the template she has is something everybody is working off of. >> reporter: it got rejected by the white house. >> everybody had a good meeting last night. it was productive. >> reporter: if this doesn't work, would you be willing to go it alone with a democrat only option? >> i never give up. >> we will talk to other members and see if we can get enough support to have the necessary

votes. we will not raise taxes. >> reporter: craig, hope springs eternal on these talks. given the two sides' red lines, everyone might agree on the money they want to spend, but if they cannot agree on where it comes from -- you mentioned the house bipartisan discussions that are going on as well, also doesn't talk about the pay for part of this equation, it's going to be very difficult to see where bipartisan agreement comes from. >> shannon, what do we know about how optimistic the administration is about this new senate group? >> reporter: well, i mean, they obviously see this as their plan b, their plan c, maybe a plan d as well here. they are trying to frame this as part of the legislative process, that things don't always go smoothly, no deal is a deal, nothing looks like it's going to come together until all of a

sudden it comes together. the white house said the issue they had with the republican plan was that it didn't include enough new spending. white house officials said that biden wants to see a significant amount of new spending. he doesn't want money that's been appropriated for other things like covid relief to just be shifted over to infrastructure projects. of course, you heard garrett lay out, how are we going to pay for this? everybody might agree we want new stuff. if nobody can agree how to pay for it, that's going to be the deal breaker at the end of the day. the white house saying that they want to pay for this. they see taxes or even increased enforcement of the irs, so collecting taxes people owe as a reasonable request from republicans. the republicans were saying they were not going to go there. the two sides definitely seem to be on different pages here. the white house understands the clock is ticking. they really have until august recess to move something

through. while it might sound silly outside of washington, in washington terms this is the window they have to achieve a big domestic legislative item for the course of the presidency. next year, we get into 2022, midterm elections. republicans could take the house. there your domestic agenda pretty much stalls. this is their moment. they know this. they are pushing forward with this and saying, we're not going to waste more time on this republican path. let's see what other options are out there. >> shannon pettypiece there at the white house. garrett haake on the hill. thanks to both of you. right now, people across the world are desperate to get a coronavirus vaccine. here in the u.s., nbc news reporting hundreds of thousands of doses of the johnson & johnson vaccine may be close to expiring, sitting on shelves unused. we will look at why. we will go to live to alabama

with one of the worst vaccination rates in the country. a big hearing on the hill. it's about whether college athletes should make money off their own name and image. we have a very special guest on that issue, two-time nba champ chris bosh standing by. fans got to know him in college as the ac rookie of the year. he wrote that he sometimes had trouble figuring out how to pay for groceries or get to the store at all. his message to the ncaa and to young athletes next.

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right now, an idea that people have a lot of opinions about is at the center of a big hearing on capitol hill. it's all about college athletes. the senate commerce committee is asking one big question. should college athletes be able to profit off their name, image and likeness? nbc's sahil kapur is at capitol hill. he is following this for us. sahil, what are we hearing from lawmakers and perhaps more interestingly the witnesses like the ncaa president? >> reporter: the senate commerce committee is exploring a topic today that has sparked a heated debate across the country, specifically whether college athletes should be able to profit off their name, image and likeness. there are a variety of opinions.

one panelist was cory booker. he is a former college athlete, played football at stanford. he is calling for a student athlete bill of rights that allows athletes to be compensated for the money they make. that includes revenue sharing agreements with the institutions. the flip side of this, as offered by the ncaa president, is that this would be dangerous for college sports. he said it would turn students into paid employees of their institutions and it would be harmful to sports at institutions that don't generate the kind of money that baseball -- i'm sorry, that basketball and football do. let's have a listen. >> together we have an exceptional opportunity. i think, frankly, a historic opportunity to change the national landscape for college athletics. while preserving all that college sports provides to our students and our communities, we can also support and encourage our students nil activities by

giving them unique opportunities in life. >> reporter: this comes as states like connecticut are advancing legislation at the state level to allow athletes to be compensated. the ncaa president is argue, don't go too far or this could become a problem. one way or another, i would expect this to continue for some time, because while there are a number of proposals in congress, there's not a piece of legislation that appears ready to move, certainly not ready to pass the house and senate. >> sahil, thank you. we threw up the screen the states considering name/image/likeness legislation. if we could put it up so folks can get a good look at what sahil was references. these are the states that are considering it as we speak. i want to bring in chris bosh. he is a entrepreneur, a writer, music executive and by the way,

a two-time nba champion set to be inducted into the hall of fame. and he has a brand-new book. it's called "letters to a young athlete." it just came out about a week ago. mr. bosh, thanks for your time this morning, sir. >> thanks for having me. i appreciate being here. >> back during march madness this year you wrote a piece. it was called, it's madness we don't pay college athletes. you wrote in part, i still remember trying to figure out how to get groceries when we didn't have the money to buy them or when we didn't have a car we could use to get to the store. can you walk us through more about what your experience was as a college athlete and how the ncaa rules against profiting off yourself affected you personally? >> well, of course. the first thing that i love doing is to describe the usual day for a student athlete. that usually entails weight

training, practicing with your team, going to your classes and mandatory study hall. i don't know if they still do those things now. i haven't talked about eating or i haven't talked about a social life. it's almost like these kids are -- our young men and women are working two full-time jobs and after -- i remember walking home after a women's basketball game, not having a car, and then not having a couple of dollars in my pocket to get something to eat, even if i did want to. having those feelings are strange. especially when you know you will play on espn the next day or that you can see new buildings going up across universities and you are struggling. there's a quote i like in that passage that i wrote is that, as opposed to penalizing the student athletes and the

universities for giving that kid a jacket because it's illegal, we should figure out how to stop him from being cold. i'm not saying it's an easy solution. but it's something that we have to continue to talk about and try to figure out in this country. >> there are no current players in the hearing that's happening right now on capitol hill. no current players. do you think that congress can get a real sense of what college athletes need if they're not hearing directly from the athletes? >> you know, i don't think so. i'm going to give credit to the student athletes who have led different pushes. i'm sure there are many organizations out there that want to be heard. i would definitely challenge congress to make sure we are hearing from the source, to hear these experiences from these talented athletes so that we can figure these things out. i don't want this to continue.

i don't want student athletes to feel like they are stuck between a rock and a hard place of competing, trying to get an education and trying to have fun, because they are in a mode of their lives when you can do all three. like i said before, it's a very, very complicated topic. i just want the conversations to continue. i do want congress to hear from these student athletes and hear their stories. >> in that piece you wrote that -- you mentioned that things are tougher for female college athletes who don't generally get the same coverage or even as we have seen equitable facilities to use as athletes. do you think a change like this would be an equalizer on that front? >> i think so. that is a part of the conversation as well. i think it all came to a head when -- like you were referring to, we saw the vast difference between the facilities for the women's and the facilities for the men's.

those are other things that need to be spoken about as well. when i was at georgia tech, our women would practice every day at 5:00 a.m., every day at 5:00 a.m. that was such -- i'm sure a strain on their body, a strain on their mental fatigue, their mental health and these are -- they have to go to class. they have to practice. we need to have better tools in place to help aid these student athletes. i give much respect to the women who play sports. they have sacrificed much more than we have. >> there are some athletes, as you know, like tim tebow who have been critical of the idea, broadly saying it takes away from the team mentality. what would you say to those critics? >> i would disagree respectfully. at the end of the day, we are

talking about something that is an amateur sport but it's a billion dollar industry. if you are coming in a situation to where you don't have any money but you see that the stands are full every game, that's got to be kind of -- it's got to be disheartening. let's be frank, i am from a different part of america than tim tebow. i'm going to have different values, different ideals. i'm sure he probably had a couple dollars in his pocket because his family could afford it. a lot of student athletes in these positions are coming from an area of poverty. they are the breadwinners for their family. the hope for their family. just like in my situation and many others, they are some of the first to go to college. they are some of the first to get a higher education and be able to compete on a national level in their respective sport. i respectfully disagree. it's because i went through that experience. very short, but i shared that

with other student athletes and i know they feel the same way. >> let's talk about your book while i have you here. it focuses on life after the game. how to use what you learned from sports in the next stages of your life. what led you to write the book? what do you hope readers get out of it? >> for those who don't know, i was in a position where i had to retire from the game because of a medical conditions. i had pulmonary embow liembolis. and a blood clot. i had to stop playing the game i love. i found myself in a moment of reflection. i was able to think about those stories, those values i feel helped me be successful throughout my life and career. i've been lucky enough to have that thing to find it and to find mentors and find friends and to find coaches and

teammates and they have given me as well as the experiences, they have given me so many things to be thankful for. i'm reverse engineering my success in the hopes that not only young athletes but everyone out there who is trying to accomplish something great, this is the book for you. i feel you can find something in here that will motivate you to continue to keep going. it's full of gems you can take for yourself. these are things i utilized in my life that i have seen success with in becoming an nba player and a champion and a gold medallist in the game. i want people to take it and use it for themselves. >> i would be remiss if i did not ask you, while i have you here, who do we like in the playoffs? >> it's a good one. i think the nets are the favorites for everyone. they are playing well right now. i have been telling people about the suns. i want to see good basketball

played. i would love to see chris paul, the old, grizzled, savvy vet win. >> another sign we are getting old, when chris paul is old and a vet. that's a different conversation. >> i know. >> chris bosh, they can beat the nets. thank you. book looks fantastic. appreciate your time. be well. >> i appreciate you. you do the same. covid cases in the united states on a decline. some states just can't seem to get their vaccination rates up. we will look at the mistrust in alabama where less than 30% of adults are vaccinated.

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[announcement on pa] how far would you go for a togo? this morning, it's looking less and less likely we will hit that ambitious vaccination goal set by president biden. he wanted at least one vaccine dose into the arms of 70% of adult americans by the 4th of july. with less than a month to go, it means more than 15 million

adults will need to get a shot. right now, the pace of vaccines has dropped below 400,000 a day. that's really putting the spotlight on states with the lowest rates. nbc's ellison barber is in one of those states. she's in alabama, which has the second lowest rate in the country, second only to mississippi. ellison has been talking to folks. 29.4% of alabama fully vaccinated. where you are, dead last in the state. the vaccinate rate 14.5%. what are people telling you about why they are or are not getting the shot? >> reporter: yeah, you look at those numbers and it's staggering. the least vaccinated county in one of the least vaccinated states in the country. people we have spoken to who have opted not to get a vaccine, they have given us different reasons for why they have made

that decision from skepticism to just outright conspiracy theories. we met one man who was hesitant, on the fence about whether or not he was going to get a vaccine. then his mother contracted covid-19 and passed away. that changed everything for him. antonio is the oldest child of catherine brundage. people loved her and the food she made here. >> she was a family person, real family oriented. she did love people. >> reporter: when she got sick, she was about to get vaccinated? >> when she got sick this thursday, they had an appointment the following tuesday. less than a week away. >> reporter: when did you get vaccinated? >> i got vaccinated two days after my mom passed. she passed the 21st.

i got an appointment the 22nd. got vaccinated the 23rd. >> reporter: would you have gotten vaccinated if -- >> i don't know. i was in the air about it. i don't know. i know that definitely pushed me towards getting the vaccination. >> reporter: dr. karen landers, this state's top health official, told us that it is almost certain this state will not reach that 70% goal that president biden laid out by july 4th. she told us it might never happen in this state. vaccines are readily available all across alabama. she thinks that the problem right now is misinformation. she says she's trying to combat it every day, just talking to people one on one, getting out in front of the media every week. sometimes every single day. it is an uphill battle. she says she thinks of every alabamian as her own patient. she's not ready to give up on

this fight no matter how bad those numbers look right now. craig? >> ellison barber there in phoenix city, alabama. thank you. i want to bring in dr. gupta, a pulmonologist, a global health policy advocate. let's start with ellison underscored in the falling vaccine rates. how concerned should we be? do we perhaps have enough people in the u.s. already vaccinated to give us some peace of mind? >> good morning. it depends. let me start by saying, if you are vaccinated in june of 2021, you are -- if you aren't vaccinated, you are at a higher risk of being hospitalized. it is more dangerous and transmissionable.

come the fall and winter, we will experience a triple whammy in alabama and tennessee where vaccine uptake is low. we are seeing that combination of variants, more transmissible, more dangerous. that low vaccine, variants and the seasonality component of covid, that's going to cause surges in select zip codes. we should be concerned not for national but for regional surges. >> the new variant, responsible for less than 10% of cases in this country, but prevalent in the uk and india. how woried should we be about this new variant, dr. gupta? >> we are rest our hats on the fact that the pfizer vaccine,

for example, which has been studied relative to this delta variant, if you get fully vaccinated with pfizer, likely the same with moderna and same thing with astrazeneca, that you are protected from the worst impact from this delta variant, will not end in the hospital most likely. that's a great thing. the problem is that we have high rates of unvaccinated populations in places throughout the south. we should be concerned. 6% of cases we think are because of delta variant here in the u.s. as we speak. it's likely higher. it's going to increase over time. >> i want to ask you about this new report from nbc news investigative reporter laura stickler. many johnson & johnson vaccine doses may be close to expire, piling up on shelves. without a plan to redistribute them, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of these johnson & johnson doses will go to waste. it's because of the fda order back in april pausing

distribution due to safety concerns. made a lot of folks nervous about getting it. what should we do with these doses? >> we should did he donating them to the covax facility through w.h.o. the world health organization is collecting vaccines to distribute them to africa, asia. we should do that now with these vaccines. that's what we should be doing. we should lift the export ban on vaccines, ending lotteries. we should -- it's not a good look that we have lotteries here to auction off vaccines, bribing people with a million bucks. yet, many countries, peru,

india, they need these vaccines. >> dr. gupta, appreciate your perspective and your analysis. thanks. programming note here. dr. fauci will be joining my colleague chuck todd this afternoon on "meet the press daily" today 1:00 p.m. eastern only on msnbc. democrats rallied outside the supreme court this morning to push their voting rights plan. we will look at how they are trying to build support when things look bleak. speaking of voting rights, a plan to punish one of the companies that came out against georgia's restrictive new voting law backfired. in a big way. coca-cola's ceo was one of many business leaders who criticized the law. leaders in north carolina decided to take coke on.

the commission voted to remove coke machines from county property to send a message. coca-cola doesn't own those vending machines. a completely separate independent bottling company in north carolina does. this week, that company told county commissioners the ban would impact their business and the livelihood of the 37 employees who live locally. they said they were asking, quote, respectfully for the county to reconsider the ban. one resident put it more bluntly saying, if you sit on the board of commissioners and you would refuse any company to bring economic development to our county, you are a moron. the county then voted to rescind the ban. to rescind the ban. [singing] oven roasted cooold cuts cooold cuts

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obama starting, closing guantanamo bay. nbc news has learned he has been taking steps toward the goal. he seems to be using a different approach than his former boss. courtney kube is following this. he is using a much more under the radar approach to minimize, i guess, potential political fallout. what are you learning? >> reporter: that's right. you mentioned that the previous administration, the obama administration, they tried to close the guantanamo bay facility. he issued an executive order right after taking office, president obama did. they had a very aggressive approach with a goal to close it quickly. that was met with a lot of tension, primarily from capitol hill. there is a law on the books from

the national defense authorization act that says no detainees can be brought to u.s. soil. that's one of the biggest hurdles the administration will face. during the transition time, the biden team was hoping to take a very aggressive approach. one thing they were planning to do was appoint a special envoy charged with closing the facility, with getting rid of the 40 doe detainees, bringing to a civilian super max prison facility. early on, they realized that this was going to be a lightning rod of an issue. they began to take a different tact. that was to quietly work behind the scenes under the radar to close the facility. the way that they are going about that is they are trying -- they are figuring out which detainees can be transferred to other countries and then make it more of a -- an effort to work

with congress and make this more known to the public. as of now, there are 40 detainees left at the facility. nine are eligible to transfer to other countries. the biden administration has to work out the way that they will be transferred, the rules under which they will be held. without a special envoy, that falls to a bureau at the state department. that is one of the things the people we spoke with said, there needs to be a point person on that. what we expect is that once they whittle the population down, we may hear a higher profile game appointed to that special on -- envoy. we will hear more about it. >> keep us posted. thank you. what would you say if i told you congress is actually close to a bipartisan deal on one of the biggest issues facing this country right now? might sound crazy. we have new reporting that a deal on police reform is

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simple records. never tire. >> democratic congresswoman val denings jumping into the senate race. she was orlando's first female police chief. if she wins the primary race she will face off against republican senator marco rubio. she is already facing heat from them calling her pelosi's puppet. and new election news. terry mccollum overwhelmingly won the nomination. and we could be on the verge

of police nomination. there has been a sticking point called qualified immunity. leigh ann caldwell. how soon could we see a deal? >> i have always been the most optimistic about bipartisan talks on police reform. things are looking good actually. my sources tell me the biggest sticking point, qualified immunity is mostly settled. once they have that down and if they have that down, that really clears the way for them to reach a broader agreement on all parts of this legislation. my sources also tell me that they could start drafting legislation and have legislation released in the next week or two. so everyone i'm talking to is extremely optimistic about it. they warned that things could still fall apart. nothing is settled until

everything is settled. but, craig, at this moment it's looking good. >> i understand you just got back from this rally at the supreme court, members of congress and activists got together to urge the senate to pass the "for the people act." i have a feeling they were focusing on one senator in particular. >> at the rally they switched their attention from senator joe manchin who said he would not vote for the act and tried to blame republicans for blocking this legislation. after the rally aspoke to senator warknock and this is what he told me about mitch mcconnell. i think the statement made by the republican leader yesterday who said he doesn't even want to support john lewis suggests they don't understand the moment we are in and that the people are

not going to allow this to happen. we will keep fighting. >> while they are blaming republicans, the reality is that senator joe manchin is a big blockade to democrats moving forward on this. without joe manchin, republicans can say there is bipartisan objection to this legislation. i asked what their objection was with joe manchin, they detailed having many conversations with him trying to get him to change his mind. the public pressure of this rally for joe manchin will come at the end of the mont when the senate is expected to vote on the "for the people act." >> leigh ann caldwell with a busy wednesday. thank you as always. thank you, as well, for joining us.

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strengthen ties with allies after backlash of four years of donald trump. and he will have a summit with vladimir putin. >> making clear to putin and china europe and the united states are tight and the g7 is going to move. >> collapse between the president and republican shelly moore capito gives way to two bills in the senate. two senators trying to pick up the baton on a potential deal while democratic leaders leave the option of going it alone on the table. and there are signs of hope for the police reform bill as tim scott and cory booker and karen bass are nearing an agreement on the issue of qualified immunity for officers. joinin