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tv   Katy Tur Reports  MSNBC  July 28, 2021 11:00am-12:00pm PDT

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it is good to be with you. i'm geoff bennett and as we come on air, president biden is in pennsylvania delivering a speech about his buy american proposal. let's listen. >> people are not vaccinated. the pandemic that we have now is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. so, please, please, please, please, if you are not vaccinated, protect yourself and the children out there. it is important. and carlo, having been a significant consumer of health care myself and my family, vi
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often said this, and i mean it from the bottom of my heart, thank your daughter for me. if if there are any angels in heaven, they are male and female nurses, and that the god's truth. doctors let you live, but nurses make you want to live. and tell her thank you, thank you, thank you, having spent time in icu, and i really mean it. i want to thank congresswoman wile for the support of her district. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] as they say up in scranton, she is bragging on y'all. they don't say y'all up there, but in delaware. you do, because you have family from alabama. and, you have been a tireless champion for the working men and women of lehigh valley. helping us to pass the tax cut for families with children, and
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the people are seeing is it now in their bank accounts, showing up in the bank accounts every month, and working with our administration to expand home care for seniors. we have a generation that is a sandwich generation, between the child and the mom or dad needing help, and they need help. provide better care for caregivers and i want to thank bob casey who is a friend of mine who champions this cause in the united states senate for elder care. you know, john mack started this iconic american company in 1890. but things really didn't get off of the ground until four years later when he brought his brother william down from scranton. so, it goes to show you, you want to get things moving, bring a guy from scranton to get it going. mind if i take my coat off? i am going to take my coat off.
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you know, folks, we are getting things moving. we really are. you are. when i started my campaign for president, and the gov is still there, and i didn't introduce you, and i apologize. you are the governor of the state, and one of the best governors of the state. thank you. and a good friend. when i said that i was running, when i announced my campaign, and not many people took it seriously, i said that i was running for three reasons, and one to restore the soul of the country, and a sense of decency and honor, and secondly to rebuild the backbone of the country. hard work and middle-class folks who built this country. and i want to point out that
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unions built the middle-class. that is not a joke. the unions built the middle-class. by the way, in case you regret anything, i just want you guys and women in the union to know if it weren't for the uaw in 1971, i never would have won. if you think that i am kidding, we had the largest percentage in delaware back then, including michigan, because we were a small state and big plants. so before you get upset, remember, that you are to blame how i got here. so, folks, i think that a lot of us come from similar backgrounds. moms and dads and brothers and sisters and family, and people who get up every day and work hard, raise their families and pay their taxes, and serve the communities and serve their country. and that is why i moved so quickly to pass the american
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rescue plan shortly after i got elected. because we needed to act quickly and boldly to save job, save businesses and save lives, and we did. we have added over 600,000 jobs per month since i have taken office and this is over 3 million jobs all totaled. it is the fastest growth to this point than any administration on record because of you all. we have brought this economy back from the brink, and checks in people's pockets and shots in people's arms and tax cuts for working families with children, and we designed our strategy not only to provide a temporary boost, but to lay the foundation for the long term boom that brings everyone along, because when i arrived in office, we have had a long time since the
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federal government had worked hard for working people. things have been great for big corporations, great for the very wealthy and the folks at the top. those 55 major corporations for the past three years paid zero in federal taxes, making over $40 billion. they had no complaints, but when i put my hand on that bible on january 20th, i took the oath of office, i made a commitment to the american people that we are going to change the paradigm, so working people could have a fighting chance again, to get a good education, to get a good job and a raise, and to take care of that elderly parent and afford to take care of their children. stop losing hours of their lives stuck in traffic because the streets are crumbling and waiting for slow spotty internet to connect them to the world. that's what the economy that we
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are building is all about, because given half a chance, and think about this, given half a chance, the american people have never ever ever ever let their country down just given half a chance. i mean it. [ applause ] you may have heard that in washington now, just on the phone, looks like we reached a bipartisan agreement on the infrastructure deal which is a fancy word for bridges and roads and transit systems and high speed internet and clean drinking water and capping the orphan wells and half a million of them, and a modernized grid to build, and guess what? a lot of those abandoned wells are leaking methane, and guess what? the same union guys that dug the
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wells, they can make the same union wage capping those wells. and i'm working with the democrats and the republicans to get it done, because while there is a lot that we don't agree on, i believe that we should be able to work together on the few things that we do agree on. i think it is important. listen to physical infrastructure. i also put forward a thing called the build back better plan. with investments that are going to really, if i said to you, you could have the following, and we are going to build you a lot of new roads or bridges or i could make sure to educate your kids so they are the best educated population of america, and what is the best impact on america? the best education in the world, so i am insisting on free
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kindergarten, and two years of free community college, and the studies show that no matter the background that a kid comes from a single mom or dad and on what we used to call the welfare or in trouble or middle-class household, and the kid coming from the background and deprived who is going to be hearing by the time they get to first grade, a million fewer words spoken, a million fewer spoken and that means behind the eight ball from the start, and so what we found out you put kids in school at ages 3, 4, 5, it increases by 58% the chance, no matter the background. they'll make it through high school and qualify to go on to community college. folks, we need more affordable child care. there are a lot of women not
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working today because they can't get back to their jobs, because they have no one to take care of their children, and they can't afford it. i was a single dad for five years. when my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident and my two little boys were badly banged up. i commuted back and forth to washington, because i couldn't dare leave and move to washington. because i didn't have my family to help me take care of my kids. i was making a good salary. $42,000 a year then. what? i couldn't afford care. day care for my children. elder care. how many of you know somebody has a mom or dad that needs help. just because they are getting older, and maybe still has their home. would rather stay in their home, increase their mental state, a put them in a position that is
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better for their health, but you can't figure out how to keep mom home alone, and how to do it or dad. elder care is a good piece of this. paid leave. we are one of the only industrial countries in the world, and you don't get paid leave if you have a sick son, daughter, mother, wife, husband to take time to take care of that. bring more people into the workforce and enhance the productivity and raise wages, and bring down the cost for working families. i was born up in scranton and lived nup -- lived up in
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baltimore, but my dad had a expression when he got down to wilmington, and he had scrubbed the inside of boilers and for the kyle corporation, and finally got to the place where we get to the place after five years where we could afford the buy a small house, and actually six years. my dad used to say, remember, joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. it is about your dignity. it is about respect. it is about your place in the community. he said it is about looking your wife in the eye and say, "honey, it is going to be okay" and mean it. and so, when everybody does well, including the wealthy, everybody. today, i'm here to talk about a
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commitment that is sacred to me. essential to our efforts to keep things moving. it is a straight forward solution. support and grow more american-based companies. put more americans in union-based jobs, and secure critical supply chains and confront the climate crisis that is all about jobs. i can sum it up in two words -- buy american. buy american. most people don't know how informed they are, most people don't know that for literally
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almost a century there has been a law on the books in america called the buy america act. it is supposed to make sure that when your government spends your tax dollars in buying goods that they have to be goods that were built, purchased in america. but the previous administration didn't take it so serious and previous ones and not just the last one, and quick to say, you know, we have a lot of money to spend, and we have to buy, and the government is going to buy everything from buildings to aircraft carriers to trucks to whatever it is. but we can't find an american company that can do it all. so we are going to have to issue a waiver. we'll hire the american company, but that american company is going to have a subsidiary overseas where non-americans
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work and it is much cheapered and they can make more money, and they are going to say that we have to have that as part of the chain of building the product. the result has been tens of billions of dollars did don't to jobs and businesses and communities like this one. in recent years, buy america has become a hollow promise. my administration is going to make buy american a reality. and i'm putting the weight of the federal government behind that commitment. we have made it, in the white house itself, we put in a made in america office to oversea not the agency, but in the white house, itself, to oversee these efforts. my first cabinet meeting, i told all of the cabinet members, if their agency wants to issue a waiver for the department is
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going to buy trucks or hoses or whatever it is, they have to buy something that has been made in america. you can't give the exceptions, and if we can't find one that does, they will get the nozzles overseas, because they don't have over here that can make them, et cetera, and i said, if you give the exception, you have to tell the white house specifically why the exception, and if you still want a waiver, they have to post the request on publicly, so american manufacturers all over the united states, and businesses have a chance to look up now in a new facilities, hey, they are looking for companies that make nozzles, and companies that make the following whatever, and we make that. we make that.
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contact us, and they can't take it overseas. and now, we are also going to be -- today, if you manufacture a vehicle, and if it is purchased by the federal government, the law says that, and there is about 600,000 vehicles that the federal government owns by the way, and replaces and buys, and substantially all of the vehicle, substantially all should be made in america. because of the loopholes over time, you know what substantially all means today? 55% of it was made in america. then go ahead and get all of the rest of it purchased other places. to me, 55% is not substantially all. and this is actually a double whammy. first, 55% is not high enough, and secondly, contractors don't have to tell us the total domestic content of their
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products, but they just have to say they hit the threshold, and nobody is checking. well, they have a new sheriff in town, and we are going to be checking. i am serious. i am deadly earnest. today, i am directing the budget office to issue a rule to raise the amount of domestic contact to be considered made in america from 55% to 75%. substantially all is going to mean substantially all, and instead of taking the contractors at their word that they hit the threshold, we are going to make them give us the detail to do more to support american manufacturing. we want to be the ones to making the innovative parts of every product, and the ones to support more jobs and more small businesses. for example, i had a tour today,
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and lovely lady showing me in the parts where the second stop we made and she said, but we are having a little problem, because we are finding that we don't have the computer chips that we need to go into the engines, et cetera. basically we don't make them anymore in america. so i got together with a group of 20 republicans and democrats, and we passed the new piece of legislation. providing that south korea and taiwan open up plants here in the united states hiring american employees to make those computer chips so that we are not held hose taj. -- hostage. in case you not noticed, ford motor company had to stop producing some vehicles, because they could not get the waivers.
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so in my office, we are going to produce some products where we need stronger and more resilient supply chains, and talking about the components of the semi can conductors, and the pharmaceutical ingredients and enhanced batteries and other things, and starting in the early days of the pandemic, it can put american lives and livelihoods at risk. so when we need it the most, and short on protective equipment, and ventilators and other equipment, we could not get the job done, and were short on basic equipment. i know that a lot of you in the factory stepped up to make ppe at the time. that was a noble service, but it is not a long term solution. yes, we will keep trading with the allies, but we need to have a resilient supply chain of our own so that we are never again at the mercy of countries for critical goods ever again, ever. you know exactly what i am talking about right here.
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you can see the production slow down as i said, and you have had the hours cut because of the shortage of the computer chips and semiconductors, and these chips are more than just vehicles, because they are enable so much of the modern lives and the smartphones and the televisions and the medical equipment, and this is why we are investing $50 billion to have the best chip manufacturing in the world come and build factories in the united states of america. it is passing the senate, and it is called the chip plan, and it is bipartisan, because as many republicans are concerned as democrats. it is not just semiconductors, and it is to buy products from the company in bethlehem, up the
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road, or down the road, i am used to being in scrantonment and it is bringing along with it. good jobs, and a homegrown capacity to respond to the pandemic, and prepare for the next one. and by the way when i say buy american, and i mean all america, and include the communities that have been historically left out of procurement, and when the contracts go to black and brown businesses and territories and also agriculture. part of the problem is that a lot of the companies don't know that these opportunities exist to be part of it. we have to know, and -- i used to have a great friend who was a great friend who play for providence college back in the day when they had great teams, and his name was pete mclaughlin and he had a heart and he passed
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away, and academics were not his thing and he was streetwise and he said, joe, you have to know how the know. you have to know how to know. you can walk into the library of congress and one of the greatest libraries in the world, and if you don't know how to use the card catalog, it is all happenstance. you have to know how to know. so we started a new manufacturing contracting office in the small business administration to help the small and medium-sized businesses to bid on the contracts and my department of commerce is helping the government agencies to connect with new domestic suppliers in every state, and that is how we will build a future that is made in america. one more reason this is going to be making a big difference. each year, the federal government purchases more than $600 billion in goods and services. the congress passes laws for purchasing things, and as president p i get to decide where we spend them.
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what we, i mean, i have to purchase what is called for. but i get to, and i'm the one who makes decision, the administration, makes the decision of how to spend that $600 billion. if american companies know that we are going to be buying from them, they are going to be more inclined to hire and make key investments in the future of their companies like you are doing here. my build back better plan has incentives for electric vehicle adaptation, and increasing the clean energy that our government buys, and the buy american rules can help to guarantee a reliable market. i saw the work that you are doing in the heavy duty electric work here like the heavy garbage trucks here, and there are more than 600,000 vehicles in the federal fleet including the majority of which, and the largest portion of which are at the post office.
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as we work to electrify them, and they run out, and electrify them, we are going to be making a market for vehicles for electrifying, and creating good jobs and innovation to electrify the transportation sector and clean up the environment at the same time, and we will be expanding my made in america initiative to help cities, towns and tribes to get a better deal when they buy a made in america product. it helps the towns. the taxpayers, as well as all of you on the floor of this significant place. it really does. for a lot of folks out there who are looking at how fast and how dramatically the world is changing, and world economies are changing. i mean, who would have thought that 20 years ago you would have been making electric garbage trucks here. seriously, think about it. but they accept it as gospel that working folks are not, are, are going to be left behind and not able to keep up.
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just the opposite. it is the opposite. hard working americans are the ones who are going to be making it happen. we have to invest in you. you are the most productive workforce in the world here. given half a chance. there is not a single thing that you can't do. so, i reject out of hand and i have been criticized for this for some time, but i reject out of hand this defeatist view that modernization and globalization, that we can't have good paying union jobs in america. right here, on this factory floor, you are making a product that are fighting climate change, and that is why i want to hear climate change, and i think jobs, and manufacturing future and our economic future and our solutions to the climate crisis are going to be made in america. creating good jobs. that is what it means to build back better. we came out of the economic crisis, the worst since the depression.
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stronger than when we went in. america is one of the few that we get smacked and knocked down and we get up and we come back better than before we got knocked down. i am not joking, because think about the course of history in america. that is why in the american rescue plan, we passed shortly after we got back to office we are investing considerable sums to go into cities is and towns and looking for towns in the southwestern part of this state can now apply for funds to cap those wells that are leaking methane, and clean up the abandoned coal mines and bring in employees to abandoned coal mines and get help to trapping them. back in 2009, and let me close with this, back in the so-called great recession, the president asked me to be in charge of managing that, and then president trump, and excuse me, freudian slip, that is is the
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last president, and he caused, and president obama, when i was vice president, and that was on the rocks, and a lot of americans thought that it was not worth investing in them, because the american worker was not that good, and blah, blah, blah, and i remember the heat that i took, and some of you may remember as well when i stepped up, and rescued the automobile industry, and my name was taken in vain on television shows why is biden so committed to the automobile industry, and the fundamental mistakes were not made by workers, but they were made by management. today, a lot of the folks who said that we should not rescue the auto industry are the same folks who are saying that we don't need to buy american. what those people don't realize is that if you give the american worker a fighting chance, there
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is nothing they won't do. and if you give the american companies and communities a chance, there is nothing they can't build. just look around. from the steel that raised our cities to the trucks that will carry the economy forward to workers who are the heart and soul and spine of this nation, it is here in this region and you, and not hyperbole, but it is you. that is why i told every foreign leader, and i just got back from europe meeting with the heads of state, and one said to me, and i said that america is back. and he said, for how long? the head of state, and i said, you know, i want to tell you something, it has never ever been a good bet to bet against america, and we never fail when we decide to do something. so, today, i am placing my bet on america, and i know that you are all going to make sure that it pays off, because it will pay off with good jobs, long term
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employment, and the ability for america to once again reassert the role as the most powerful economy in the world, and that is as important as the size of the military, and as anything else that we do, and if we think that we are not in the race, well, guess what, take a look at china. take a look at china. i spent an awful lot of time with xi jinping, and he doesn't believe democracies can succeed, and vi spent a lot of time with him over the last five, seven year, and guess what, just came back from a conference with putin, and he thinks same thing. well, i have news for them. autocracies will not succeed if
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we do what we can do as a democracy. democracies, and if you notice, and it is not a joke, a lot of the rest of the world is hedging their bets whether to move towards autocracy or to stay with democracies. and we have it all, folks. we have everything that we need in this country to not only for today, but for my grandchildren to be in the situation where we are still the most powerful physically and most powerful economic nation in the world that treats other nations decently and maintains peace. that is who we are. that is who we are. we are the most unique nation in the world. that is not a joke. every other nation was put together by ethnicity or religion or geography, and not america. america is the most unique nation in the world, and
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literally we are based on the idea. an idea. that is what formed america. the idea was, and it sounds corny, but it is absolutely true, no other nation has this as an organizing principle that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are endowed equal and endowed with inalienable rights with the pursuit of happiness, and we believe it. we have not accomplished, but every generation has moved us closer and closer to inclusion. and that why america's real power is not in the exercise of our military power, but people follow us because of our example. that is why the rest of the world follows us, and it is about time that we get back up to reassert who we are. this is the united states of america.
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god bless america and you all. >> a bang of the binder on the lectern. we have been listening to president biden speak at a manufacturing plant in pennsylvania about the promise of america there at the end and the economic policy and the infrastructure plan and the po -- proposal to get american companies to manufacturer products, and on a day when fully vaccinated americans wear masks again indoors on places where there is a high covid transmission rates. we will keep an ear if he takes questions, but let's bring in shannon pettypiece who is there in pennsylvania, and rehema ellis who is in ridgewood, in new jersey, and the co-director of the vaccine development at texas children's hospital dr. peter hotez, and i wanted to ask you, shannon about infrastructure, because the
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president addressed it in the remarks of after weeks of intense negotiations, and appears a bipartisan infrastructure deal, and so bring us up to speed. >> yeah, i mean, apparently, he is getting the same information that we are getting that there does seem to be a deal that the democrats have agreed to the latest proposal from the republicans, and the latest caveat, geoff, that there are a number of times that we have heard of the deal that is close or days away, and we will see if indeed this is the deal that we have been waiting for, and could provide a big boost to the president to try to get a little wind in the sails to get the message beyond this latest development of the masks which have become a visible sign of the president's setback against this pandemic. >> and rehema, heading to you over there in ridgewood, new jersey, and great to have you with us, and what are you hearing from the folks about the
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revised guidance that fully vaccinated people should wear masks again indoors where people have high transmission rates? >> well, it is interesting, because people have different opinions here, and it is in part because new jersey has one of the nation's highest vaccination rates and still covid positive testing rates are going up. and today, phil murphy says that he is recommending that people follow the guidelines from the cdc, and mask up when inside whether vaccinated or not. what do people think about it here? take a listen. >> i work with the public and if i can prevent someone from getting sick or someone prevents me from getting sick, it is fine. it is temporary hopefully. >> i am vaccinated, so ideally, i would not like to wear the masks again, but if it is for the safety of others and for our
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country, i do recommend wearing masks. >> a 24-year-old young man and his friends said to me that they think it is all about fear. people being afraid, and not necessarily that it would help in terms of reducing the positive covid cases, and still another mother of a 3-year-old said to me, and these are her words that wearing a mask indoors is a hel of a lot better than the lockdown than we were in before, and so if that avoids a lockdown, fine. >> and dr. hotez, i will get your reaction of this clip on the other side. >> and seeing new science that demonstrated for those who are vaccinated, that they could in fact transmit, if they are one of those rare breakthrough infections. >> so, because of that, the virus has really changed, and that is really triggering the change in the cdc guidelines.
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>> but do you understand why people might feel a little whip sawed between the last announcement and this one? >> yeah. it is thoroughly understandable. >> so, doctor, policy is one thing, and changing communication is another one, and so coming across is something wrong with the vaccinated or something wrong with the vaccine, when the truth is that it is the unvaccinated people who have put the rest of us in danger. >> yeah, that is right. so, because we have had so few americans vaccinated in many parts of the country, it has allowed this delta virus to accelerate. the key message here is that the vaccines were designed to stop symptomatic illness and keep people out of the hospital, and nothing has changed even with the delta variant, and that is the case that these vaccines are saving lives and keeping you out
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of the hospital, and that is robust. the one piece that has changed is that with this delta variant that has been allowed to accelerate, it has the ability to replicate in our noses and mouths at much higher levels. so what is happening is that the original virus lineages, the vaccines stop both symptomatic illness and stopped the virus replication in the nose and the mouth. with this delta variant, there is so much virus there, there is shedding in vaccinated people, even though they are not getting sick, and that is the reason of the recommendation of the wearing the masks in the areas of the high transmission, and the problem is it is not a 10-second sound bite, and it takes a few seconds to explain it. >> one thing that causes concern is when dr. walensky says a few replications away for the vaccine to be rendered ineffective, and what is your understanding of how far away is that?
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>> right now, the two doses of the mrna of the moderna and the johnson & johnson vaccines are pretty robust, and in some cases the neutralizing antibody which is a marker of protection goes down against the variants, but the key is that we don't want the new variants to emerge, because eventually one may pop up where the vaccines don't work very well, and right now, we are not facing that situation, so it is more of the warning or the concern that we need to step up to vaccinate the population. we can vaccinate our way out of it, but we are failing to do it in the south, and now that schools are opening for instance, i am worried that we will see a lot of unvaccinated young people get sick. >> and shannon, as we are talking about the vaccines and
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the masks, there was a little back and forth between the house speaker nancy pelosi and kevin mccarthy about it. >> any backlash over the response of the masks? >> it is the official capacity of mandate of him, and i have nothing to say about that except that we honor it. >> and leader mccarthy says it is against the science. >> well, if she is so brilliant, can she tell me where the science in the building changes between the house and the senate? can she explain to me when the cdc says that only vaccinated people need to wear a mask in hot spots, and can she explain where d.c. is a hot spot, and where that is? >> so with that as a backdrop, shannon, we both reported you and i and the white house team we expect president biden to announce tomorrow, a requirement
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that federal workers either have to provide proof of vaccination or rigorous testing, and explain this. >> they are careful not to call it a mandate, because there is an option, that you could get tested once a week or several times a week, and wear a mask, if you don't want to be vaccinated, but other than that, they want to see all federal workers vaccinated and going further than where they were at further in the week to have all of the v.a. health workers vaccinated which is a requirement. and a shift in strategy here from this carrot to the stick approach. for weeks the administration had maintained that the carrot approach, and incentives and lotteries and celebrity endorsements and the community outreach would get more people vaccinated, and well, we have seen the number of new vaccines plateau for most of june and july, and the number is stuck. so now, you are clearly seeing,
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and of course, with the spread of the delta variant, the shift towards the stick approach, and the mandates, and the people who are closest to the administration say to look for more mandates from local companies and state and local governments once we get to the full fda approval to give some entities cover legally or from the public relations standpoint once it is fully approved by the fda. >> and dr. hotiz, pfizer is suggesting that a third dose of the vaccine can strongly protect from the variant, and this is coming from pfizer, and when i read it, it is like coming into the car dealership, and of course, they are going to try to sell you on the car, and a drug company is going to try to sell you on the drug. and what is that showing? >> it is one slide up in the company presentation, and you to remember that these public relations materials are meant for the shareholders and not for you or me.
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i looked at the data, and reasonable that there is a bump in the virus neutralizing antibodies in the delta variant, and not the same as clinical protection, but i am confident that if we gave a third booster, it would have benefits both against the individuals especially who are on immunosup immunosuppressive therapy, and also to halt asymptomatic infections. the second dose is holding up well against the asymptomatic infections, but a breakthrough in the symptomatic infections, and so this may halt that, but it has to be presented to the food and drug administration, and the fda will have to sign off on the data. >> my thanks to the three of you. now, back to breaking news to
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capitol hill where it is shaping up to be finally infrastructure day. after weeks of negotiations, the bipartisan infrastructure group have announced they have reached a deal with the democrats and the white house, and according to chuck schumer, the senate could begin the multi step process to pass the bill as soon as tonight. with respect to infrastructure, senators are making good progress on both tracks of legislation. the members should be prepared to vote on clture to proceed on the bipartisan bill as early as tonight. >> joining us is white house correspondent leigh ann caldwell, and what more do we know about the deal, and when could we have a the text of the agreement? >> hey, geoff, we are still waiting to hear what the details, but we know some stuff.
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the house and the senate republicans and democrats separately were briefed by the leaders in their party about what is in this bill. they left those respective meetings relatively optimistic about the negotiations that came together. we also know that this was a $579 billion proposal. that has been decreased to $550 billion, and trying to figure out exactly what was on the chopping block there. the big question is if this is going to pass the key procedural vote expected to take place as early as this evening that will need 60 senators including 10 republicans if all 50 democrats support it. my sources are saying that they do expect ten republicans to support it, and all 50 democrats to support it as well. so that is a very good sign. as far as the text the of the legislation is concerned, we are told later this afternoon and this evening that legislative
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text could come out, and geoff, we want to remind the viewers that this is the first step of the voting process that could take more than a week of this legislation once again throughout this process, but if it is passing as the key vote tonight, that is one significant step in this process. >> yeah. and leigh ann, doing my own reporting on this, one of the things that i heard is that during the negotiations too many cooks in the kitchen and if you put up that graphic of the senators there, they were all acting in good faith, but too many people, and too many viewpoints and perspectives, and i am told that this came together last night, and you had steve rishetti, and rob portman, those were the two that stepped in and finalized the deal, and is that what you have heard, leigh ann? >> yes. it does, geoff.
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there are even more people involved. so that is the bi-partisan, and they had a deal last week, and then you had the powerful committee cheers not a part of the bipartisan group, saying, we are not okay with this, and senator schumer was not okay with it, and it blew up everything, and they had to reopen the negotiation again, and now, what it seems is that the white house is involved and on board, and senator portman ushered this in on behalf of the republicans and working closely with the white house, and also the committee chairs seem to be tentatively on board and hold their nose to vote for it, and see how the process moves forward, geoff. >> i would ask you the last time that senator schumer called for the test vote, he failed. does he have the 10 votes of the republicans and mcconnell's blessing? >> i have heard that mcconnell has blessed the package in that there is enough republicans to vote for it.
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my sources say that we probably should not count on more than 10 or 11 republicans, but enough to allow it to pass. once again, this is a significant achievement, but they still have quite a road to go. geoff? >> leigh ann, i feel like i am asking you to dump the reporter's notebook on us. >> thank you, geoff. >> and so say it goes through the house, and you have progressive interests in the house, and what is the dynamic there? >> yeah, it is going to be interesting, because the progressives say they will vote for this legislation if there is a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure legislation close behind it or in the house chamber at the same time and that is including paid family leave, and child care and elder care and two years of community college, and two years of
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preschool, and a lot of things that the progressives want, and they are wanting strong climate change proposals or initiatives to really tackle the crisis right now. so, you know, progressives have not endorsed this yet. they will see it is, but most key to them is this other $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill that they want alongside this bi-partisan transportation bill. >> thank you, leigh ann caldwell. >> thank you. and now, coming up, how the cdc's new mask guidance is being played out across the country where it is still being met with skepticism. stay with us. epticism. stay with us. rashida: wait, was this the right wall? or last minute gift shopping rashida rashida: i'm putting a bow on it! wow.
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as david leannhart from the "new york times" writes the parts of the country that would benefit the most from a new crackdown on covid-19, including more frequent mask-wearing, are also the places least likely to follow cdc guidance. many of these communities have been rejecting the advice of medical experts for months on both masks and vaccines. and if you want to get a sense of how partisan the issue has become look no further than the house floor earlier today when a new mask mandate was met with extreme opposition from republicans. >> it's absolutely absurd what this body is doing in the people's house. it's an embears president. it's a mockery and the american people are fed up! they want to go back to luv. they want to go back to business and back to school without their children being forces to wear masks. >> and with us now is pbs white house correspondent and moderator of "washington week" and michael steele joins us as
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well. amiche, we'll start with you. they have made a point to build a wall between politics and credibility but the unintended consequence of that it's left the administration flat-footed when it comes to messaging and we saw it this past week with the cdc messaging with masks that's been widely criticized as being confusing. >> that's right. the biden administration and president biden have really underscored that they are going to follow the science and not let politics play into this, but we have to underscore that the people who benefit the most from the cdc guidance that was updated just a day ago are the same people who are least likely to follow that guidance, the people who are unvaccinated and people who don't want to wear masks, largely republicans, largely white male conservative voters who are looking apt these guidance and thinking that there's some sort of conspiracy against their freedoms. the original sin of this pandemic from a government standpoint was politicizing it. it was this idea that president biden's predecessor, former
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president trump, that he politicized the idea of wearing masks, that he floated all sorts of issues when it came to what could actually treat coronavirus and then finally when the vaccine that he had been pushing scientists to develop, when it was finally ready, he didn't do the real work of trying to convince his supporters to get vaccinated and left states flat footed when it came to distributing the vaccine so the biden administration is having to contend with the idea that they are having to tell vaccinated people, people if you told you'll follow the rules you'll be able to get this great thing in july which is a sense of normalcy and your masks off, that is all now being reversed. you can see it when you talk to sources at the white house here, when i talk to sources at the white house. can you hear the frustration in their voices, the concern in their voices because we're now nowhere near where the president wanted to be in this part of summer. >> and michael to y ha miche's great point, a whopping 45% of unvaccinated americans who are
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not at all likely to get a covid vaccine are republicans. compare that to just 12% of the same group who are democrats, and i think yamiche and i were both in the briefing room back in 2020 when donald trump used to hold the hours long briefing and it was the day they announced the cdc recommendation for wearing masks and president trump at the time said it's volume trip. i don't see myself doing it. the idea that i'd be wearing a mask and meeting with other presidents and presidents, i just don't see that hang and you can say, you can argue that that's the moment where this became political. help us understand how it stayed political, all of this, this whole pandemic. >> yeah, i think yamiche and her reporting puts it all very straightforwardly. it stayed political because a lot of republicans huing to the maniacal medicine of donald trump continue to spew the lie about the masks and that got wrapped up in this concept or ideas around conspiracies, you
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know, perpetrated by crazy qanoners out there like marjorie taylor greene so you had this reinforcement of the negative narrative. the biden administration coming in the gate hamstrung from a shortened, you know, truncated, you know, transition with -- with the outgoing administration because, again, trump's team didn't want to cooperate, had to hit the ground running with very little runway to sort of rebuild, to re-brand and recommunicate on this particular narrative. the other problem, and you -- you reported on this and you covered it in the earlier segments is that you have also the cdc putting out information that at times doesn't seem well-defined so that just makes it easier for the numbnuts out there to clamor on about oh, see they don't know and now they are coming for your bibles and they are knocking on your door to ask
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you if you want a vaccine and it gets wrapped up in a whole new ball of crazy and, unfortunately, here we are. the vaccinated are going to have to learn how to deal with the unvaccinated, and that could lead to a lot of tensions this fall across the states as this thing continues to explode because you've got it being pushed out by a lot of people who just refutes to get vaccinated or even wear a mask. >> let me ask you this, michael steele, in the minute that we have left. you understand republican messaging better than most as the former chairman of the rnc. the how can democrats best sort of rob republicans of that opening, of stepping into that void created by this sort of confusing messaging about masks and sort of move forward. >> well, i think first off you've just got to -- you know, the administration has to nail down the cdc and just put the plan on the table and just kind of be very straightforward about what that is, the second thing is you're not going to -- to
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move to y ha miche's roaring, you're not going to move a lot of these white male republicans off of this point. they are stuck with trump on this, and they will stay with trump on this, so it's play to everybody else, and you can have some success there, but it's going to require a constant message and some steady hand in leadership. >> all right. michael steele and yamiche al krindor. thanks for spending the hour with us. my friend and colleague ayman mohyeldin picks up the coverage next. d colleague ayman mohyeldin picks up the coverage next ♪ when technology is easier to use... ♪ barriers don't stand a chance. ♪ that's why we'll stop at nothing to deliver our technology as-a-service. ♪
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good afternoon, everyone, i'm ayman mohyeldin in new york. 47 days after president biden and a group of senators from both parties announced the framework of a deal, the senate is set to vote tonight on a bipartisan infrastructure bill after senators from both parties resolve some of the outstanding issues. senate majority leader chuck schumer mailed the announcement just moments ago. >> tonight i'm intending to ca

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