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Meet the Press - January 31, 2021

Michael Osterholm, Brian Deese, Adam Kinzinger, Eddie Glaude, Jr., Amy Walter, Al Cardenas and Ashley Parker

CHUCK TODD:

This Sunday, vaccinating America.

GARY CROOKS:

On a national level it's just, it's a disaster.

CHUCK TODD:

Vaccines in short supply.

ANDY SLAVITT:

It will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

CHUCK TODD:

And with new, more dangerous strains hitting the U.S.

DR. ANNE RIMOIN:

This virus is mutating, and it's mutating fairly quickly.

CHUCK TODD:

Can the vaccines stay ahead of the virus?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

I'm telling you the darkest of the darkest days are yet ahead.

CHUCK TODD:

And are we fighting the virus the right way? My guest this morning, epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm. Plus, Covid relief. President Biden is struggling to get Republican support for his $1.9 trillion package.

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

Covid relief has to pass. There's no ifs, ands or buts.

CHUCK TODD:

Are the Democrats about to give up on bipartisanship too soon? I'll talk to President Biden's chief economic advisor, Brian Deese. Also, party split. Less than a month after the Capitol insurrection, more Republicans decide to stand by their man --

SEN. RAND PAUL:

Democrats are wasting the nation's time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office.

CHUCK TODD:

-- than to oppose him.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY:

What is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offense. If not, what is?

CHUCK TODD:

I'll talk to Adam Kinzinger -- one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach -- about his drive to return the party to more traditional values. And what should Republicans do about Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting congresswoman who has many members concerned about their own safety? Joining me for insight and analysis are: Eddie Glaude, Jr. of Princeton University, Amy Walter, national editor of the Cook Political Report, Republican strategist Al Cardenas and Ashley Parker, White House bureau chief for The Washington Post. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.

ANNOUNCER:

From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.

CHUCK TODD:

And a good Sunday morning. We are covering a number of big stories today, including the growing divide in the Republican Party and President Biden's efforts to try to win some bipartisan support for his Covid relief package. But we're going to begin with the pandemic itself. The good news is cases are plateauing, but the bad news is that they’re plateauing at an extremely high level of transmission. There are more vaccines coming on line: Johnson & Johnson joining Pfizer and Moderna. But distribution problems are leading to long lines, months of waiting before every American who wants a vaccine show can get one. New strains of the virus -- from the UK, from South Africa and from Brazil -- have now been identified here in the United States, and the South African one in particular appears to be more resistant to some of the vaccines out there. This New York Times map shows the extent of the problem. Basically, we are all living in high-risk areas for catching this virus. So, joining me now is Dr. Michael Osterholm, he’s an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm, welcome back to Meet the Press. You know, earlier this week you and I --

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

-- you and I spoke about this current race against these mutant strains and about the vaccine distribution, and you seemed to -- you said something that really stuck with me. So I want to show this screen of this is the efficacy rate of the first doses of the three -- of the vaccines. Moderna at 80%, Johnson and Johnson, 72% and Pfizer at 52%. Again, all the first dose efficacy rates. Do you believe we are now at a point where we may have to call an audible here on how we distribute the vaccine?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Well, first of all, let me just say that I have been one of those saying that we need to make sure that we have both first and second doses of that and follow the FDA approval process. But let me say right now, we do have to call an audible. I think it's no doubt about it. The fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks. And if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tells we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country. England, for example, is hospitalizing twice as many people as we ever hospitalized at our highest number. And so we do know that if we look at these first doses, that, in fact, we can even get higher numbers than you just laid out by the time of the third week after vaccination. So we still want to get two doses in everyone--

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

-- but I think right now in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can to reduce a serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead.

CHUCK TODD:

If this decision -- if, if the Biden administration agrees with your call here, they basically have to make this decision right now. The second dose appointments --

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

They do have to.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah, the second dose appointments basically have already begun or are beginning. So they have to do this right now. Do you think we have, do you think the -- as you know, look, everybody's nervous because there's no perfect solution here. Do you think they're ready to do this or do you think they're going to get cold feet?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Well, I think it's going to be tough. I mean, imagine where we're at, Chuck, right now. You and I are sitting on this beach where it's 70 degrees, perfectly blue skies, gentle breeze. But I see that hurricane five, category five or higher, 450 miles offshore. And, you know, telling people to evacuate on that nice blue sky day is going to be hard. But I can also tell you that hurricane's coming. So I think we have to understand that because of the surge, we do have to call an audible. And again, we're not going to deny anybody their second dose, and actually the data we have supports the longer you wait, the better you may do anyway with your vaccine. So we do know that if we get a number of first doses in people, particularly 65 years of age and older, we can really do a lot to reduce the number of serious illnesses and deaths in this next big surge which is coming.

CHUCK TODD:

If we don't do this, let me paint for you one sort of nightmare scenario that I'm fearing, which is by the time that, that some of us get to the place in line where we're going to get a vaccine, that the vaccine available to me won't be able to deal with the strain that is circulating around this country. How likely could we be in that scenario, say, by the start of summer?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Well, I'm not sure that that's the scenario I'm most worried about. I think that the B117 or the U.K. strain is going to become the dominant strain. And fortunately, that one has not shown its ability to evade the protection from the vaccine. But its ability to cause many more infections and much more serious illness is there. So I think right now, that's the priority I would look at. When you look at the data on the other variants, we're very concerned about the ones from South Africa and Brazil that may, in fact, lead to evasion of the immune protection from either natural disease or from vaccine. But even if you look at the vaccine trials in South Africa, for example, what was missed in the J&J trial, no one who had the variant infection who was vaccinated died. So it may actually attenuate the serious illness and not just fully prevent it. So I think right now we have to concentrate on, is what's gonna be the surge. Imagine, Chuck, right now, at 120,000 to 130,000 people hospitalized at one point, we saw our health care system literally on the edge of not being able to provide care. Imagine if we have what has happened in England, twice as many of those --

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

-- cases. That's what we have to prepare for now. That's why I think we're putting forth -- the other thing we have to do is just prepare people. You know, we're all loosening up right now. You know, we see the case numbers coming down. We all want to end our pandemic fatigue and our pandemic anger that don't believe the pandemic's even real. We got to turn that ship around, too. You know, we're really good in this country at pumping the brakes after we wrap the car around the tree. You know, what we have to do now is also anticipate this and understand that we're going to have change quickly. As fast as we're opening restaurants, we're likely going to be closing them in the near term.

CHUCK TODD:

How blind do you feel right now to the various strains that might be circulating? I mean, I've seen some epidemiologists say that, you know, we don't know what we don't know because we've done such a poor job of surveillance. I know there's some fears that, you know, we think there's a South African strain, a Brazil strain, people are worried about a Chicago strain and a Los Angeles strain. How worried are you about what we don't know and can't see right now?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

I'm very concerned about that. But I think the good news is, is that I actually see action being taken with this new administration, unlike we've seen before. And so there really are efforts right now to, in fact, get us that kind of surveillance system in place as quickly as possible. And frankly, we need the Congress to pass the president's relief act because that’ll help us also do more of this kind of work. So, and right now, we're flying blind. But I'm more optimistic we're going to have the data.

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

But as you've seen, these viruses have come up quickly, and they have actually caused us more and more surprises. And just expect the unexpected in the days ahead.

CHUCK TODD:

If you can't have a K95 mask or an N95 mask, would you double mask? I know you, you're a little concerned about some of the double masking ideas. What do you do if you don't have a K95 mask to use?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Well, when we talk about double masking, remember, what we're really talking about is just trying to prevent the virus from being excreted by me into the air or me inhaling the virus from someone else in the air. And it's both a function of face fit and face filtration. Think about your swim goggles. When's the last time anybody leaked at the lenses? They leak at the, at the fit. And so what we're concerned about is that many of these face cloth coverings do have already compromised fit or filtration capacity. If you add on another mask, you may actually make it tougher for the air to move through the two cloth area, and then at that point, it causes more air to actually leak around the sides, which actually enhances your ability to get infected. So I'm not saying that some couldn't be used in a better way. But at the same time, there are many that actually, you may do more harm. Let me just say right now one thing that's really, to me, very important is we see up to 25% of people who wear it under their nose. You know, that's like fixing three of the five screen doors in your submarine. You know, what's going on there? We've got to get people to start using these right. That would help right there tremendously.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah, well, if you've watched any football games, in particular --

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Yep.

CHUCK TODD:

-- a lot of these coaches are the biggest, are the biggest ones who forget to put this mask over their nose. Dr. Michael Osterholm, as always sir, thanks for coming on and sharing your expertise with us.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM:

Thank you. Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

Let’s turn now to the split inside the Republican Party and the grip Donald Trump still has on the GOP. Most viewers are old enough to remember Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham all distancing themselves from the former president, only to find that distance -- or maybe it's Mr. Trump's popularity with base Republican voters -- makes the heart grow fonder. Either way, it's made President Biden's efforts at unity on things like Covid relief difficult, if not impossible. Whether Donald Trump is a symptom or a cause of the party's populist shift, despite the obvious failures of 2020, Republicans have decided it's in their interest to stick with him for now, if they want the majority of Republican voters to stick with them.

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

I support passing Covid relief with support from Republicans, if we can get it. But the Covid relief has to pass. There's no ifs, ands or buts.

CHUCK TODD:

President Biden, claiming that he still wants to win some support from Republicans, is threatening to move a Covid relief package through Congress with special budget rules that require just a simple majority.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS:

He called me this week. I gave him my view that I think that it is important that it be bipartisan.

CHUCK TODD:

Retiring Senator Rob Portman, who also received a call, telling The Washington Post, "Taking a go-it-alone approach sets the wrong tone right off the bat.” But to what degree can President Biden work with a Republican Party that has remade itself in the image of Donald Trump? Republican leaders have whipsawed from criticizing him just weeks ago --

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY:

The President bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters.

CHUCK TODD:

-- to courting his support.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY:

Everybody across this country has some responsibility.

CHUCK TODD:

On Thursday, House Leader Kevin McCarthy made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to mend fences. Then there's Senator Lindsey Graham.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM:

All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.

CHUCK TODD:

Now Graham is leading the president's impeachment defense.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: To my Republican colleagues, there's no way in hell we're going to retake the House and Senate without President Trump's help.

CHUCK TODD:

Just two weeks ago, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell was "pleased" by the impeachment effort.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL:

The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.

CHUCK TODD:

But on Tuesday, McConnell and 44 other Republicans voted to toss out the impeachment case as unconstitutional. Now, Mr. Trump is supporting primary challenges to House Republicans who voted for impeachment, like third-ranking Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Trump ally Matt Gaetz at a rally in Cheney's home district.

REP. MATT GAETZ:

You can send a representative who actually represents you. And you can send Liz Cheney home.

CHUCK TODD:

And Republicans, so far, have been slow to criticize Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has embraced QAnon conspiracy theories. Greene has been under fire after a 2018 video surfaced in which she suggests 9/11 was a hoax.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE:

The so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon. It's odd, there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon, but anyways, I'm not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy.

CHUCK TODD:

Saying the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax and taunting a Parkland shooting survivor.

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE:

I carry a gun for protection for myself, and you are using your lobby and the money behind it and the kids to try and take away my Second Amendment rights.

CHUCK TODD:

And indicating support on Facebook for calls to execute prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI:

The enemy is within the House of Representatives.

CHUCK TODD:

And joining me now is the director of President Biden's National Economic Council, Brian Deese, essentially the president's chief economist. Mr. Deese, welcome to Meet the Press. And let me start with this. With Congressional Democrats preparing the budget reconciliation process, and my apologies to viewers for the Washington speak there, but a way to pass your Covid relief bill with 50 votes, a simple majority. Why shouldn't Republicans who did want to work with you guys look at that as a way of saying, “Oh, they're not serious about negotiating on a bipartisan basis. They already have their plan to go it alone. We don't really have -- we don't really have much say here.” Why should Republicans believe there's still room to negotiate?

BRIAN DEESE:

Because we are in a unique moment of economic crisis, and it requires a unique response for everybody to come together. We saw that the economy last year fell more than any year since the demobilization after World War II. More than a million Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance last week. Thirty million Americans said that they didn't have enough food to put on the table this week. This is a unique crisis. It's a unique health crisis, a unique economic crisis, and it's one that calls on all of us to work together with the speed that we need to put a comprehensive response in place. So, I think there's a lot of reason for everybody to work together. That's what the American people are looking for and expecting. That’s certainly how the president is approaching this.

CHUCK TODD:

There’s a -- just before you and I got started in this interview, a group of 10 Republicans put out a letter. You've probably just been alerted to it yourself. Essentially, 10 Republicans, which we know is what you would need to avoid a filibuster and do this without having to use a parliamentary maneuver, they’re, they are going to unveil their framework for a Covid relief plan tomorrow, and they're requesting a meeting with President Biden. Your reaction?

BRIAN DEESE:

Well, we've been engaging with members of Congress from both parties and both houses over the course of the last week or two. We’ll continue to do that as we go forward. And the president has said repeatedly he is open to ideas, wherever they may come, that we could improve upon the approach to actually tackling this crisis. What he's uncompromising about is the need to move with speed on a comprehensive approach here. We have a virus crisis. We have an economic crisis. We have to get shots in people's arms. We have to get the schools reopened so that parents can go back to work. And we need to provide direct relief to families and businesses across the country who are really struggling here. So, we need to act comprehensively and we need to act with speed, but we're going to continue to have conversations as we go forward.

CHUCK TODD:

Why can't you do both? There was this idea proposed, and the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki seemed to shoot it down. But let me ask you about it here, which is this idea: look, you've got -- you're preparing the groundwork for budget reconciliation. You know there is -- parts of your $2 trillion plan that does have bipartisan support, maybe they're basically the money for vaccinations, the direct checks with some means testing. There's probably a trillion dollar deal you could do with 60 votes. Why not do that, and then get the rest of it through budget reconciliation? Since the timing, it wouldn't, I don't think, have a timing problem here, would it?

BRIAN DEESE:

We have a real urgency to act and to act comprehensively. You know, we're losing -- you know, we're seeing a million people added to the unemployment insurance rolls each week. And we need to act comprehensively. One thing we've learned over the past 11 months is a piecemeal approach, where we try to tackle one element of this and wait and see on the rest, is not a recipe for success. So, we need to move forward comprehensively and we need to move forward with speed. And, in that context, there's plenty of room for making modifications including people's ideas, but we do need to act comprehensively here.

CHUCK TODD:

I'm going to put up some figures here. This is the, all of the Covid relief bills that have passed since the start of this pandemic. It's up on screen here. We have the first one, the $2 trillion one, of course, was in mid-March. A $900 billion one from before. You're proposing another $2 trillion here. Do you know when you add it all up we're looking at five and a half trillion dollars in one calendar year? From March to March, assuming you get your $2 trillion. How much more do you think the government's going to have to pump in, after you pass your Covid relief bill?

BRIAN DEESE:

Well, the goal in putting together the American Rescue Plan here was to look at what is it going to take to finally have a comprehensive approach to getting us to the other side of this crisis? So, if you look at the elements of that plan, be it the investment in getting schools reopened or the investment in a comprehensive vaccine distribution strategy to actually get shots in people's arms, this is our assessment of what we will need to actually get to the other side of this year. So, we think if we act now, and we make these investments -- these are, these are real investments. But the real question we have to focus on is: what is the cost of not acting now? And we've seen studies -- the Brookings Institution just this week showed that if we don't act, growth could be 4% less. Moody's projected 4 million fewer jobs this year, if we don't act. So, we have to do big things here because this is an unprecedented crisis, but really the cost of inaction, the cost of failing to do this or delaying for another month or another period of time here really outweighs the cost of taking this action.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to ask you a question about the GameStop situation here. What is the bigger concern, do you think, for the government? The rights of the individual traders that were basically stepped on a little bit here by Robinhood and what happened in the immediate aftermath, or is the larger problem the idea that we've legalized gambling in the stock market and that stock options are something that probably never should have been legal?

BRIAN DEESE:

I could tell you the SEC is focused on understanding fully what happened here. And their focus is on protecting retail investors and also the integrity of the market. But there is a bigger issue here, which is that what's happening on Wall Street does not reflect what’s -- the lived experience for most American families. Most American families today are worried about: are they going to have a job a couple of months from now. Or if they've lost a job through no fault of their own, how are they going to put food on their table today? They're looking in their local communities and asking are these businesses going to survive that have been the glue of their community for so long. That's the real economic challenge we have, the real economic crisis. And we need to focus on steps that are going to help those people, those communities and help bring economic support, economic security to that part of the economy.

CHUCK TODD:

So, it sounds like you think short selling is bad for the economy. Is that something that should be legal?

BRIAN DEESE:

Well, we’re going to have -- we're going to look at those issues and certainly understand fully this particular, this particular episode and the broader questions there. Our immediate focus here is on taking the action we need to put a floor under this economic crisis. Again, a million people a week are filing for new unemployment insurance claims. The urgency here is to take action, to get them direct relief and to get this pandemic under control.

CHUCK TODD:

Brian Deese, the chief economist for President Biden. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your views with us. Thank you, sir.

BRIAN DEESE:

Happy to do it.

CHUCK TODD:

When we come back, it's his party and you can cry if you want to. I'm going to talk to Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger who hopes to save his party from Donald Trump from within. Stay with us.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back, the loneliest place in American politics these days might be what used to be called the so-called Republican establishment. The ten Republican House members who voted to impeach President Trump have become targets in their own party, with four already censured by State or County Republican organizations and others facing primary challenges. Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of the ten, isn't waiting to be targeted. Instead, he's going on offense. He's releasing a video today kicking off what he's calling Country 1st. His effort to return the party to its traditional conservative principles.

[BEGIN TAPE]

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

Republicans must say enough is enough. It's time to unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

And Congressman Kinzinger joins me now. Congressman, welcome back to Meet the Press. You know, when we originally booked you, you weren't going to be alone in this segment. You were going to be joined by a couple of other folks who also voted to impeach on the Republican side of the aisle. Explain how hard this is to do, to be as public facing as you are. You've been taking arrows a little bit longer than the rest. So I think you’re -- you've got a thicker armor these days. But explain this difficulty that some of your colleagues are in.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

Well, look, it's really difficult. I mean, all of a sudden, imagine everybody that supported you or so it seems that way, your friends, your family, has turned against you. They think you're selling out. I've gotten a letter, a certified letter, twice from the same people disowning me and claiming I'm possessed by the devil. But the reality is this, this is a time to choose. It's a time to choose what we're going to be. And my goal in launching Country1st.com with the number one is just to say, look, let's take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way. How backwards looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. And that's not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn't sign up for that. So you know what quite -- yes, it's a tough position to be in. But it's really invigorating to remember what you're standing for and to talk about putting the country over party.

CHUCK TODD:

This is going to be a lonely effort for a while, I imagine. And, you know, there's some folks that are wondering is it -- is a Republican Party that's tied to Donald Trump, can that party survive?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

So I think that's the question. And, you know, I was disappointed over the last few weeks to see what seemed like the Republican Party waking up and then kind of falling asleep again and saying, "Well, you know, what matters if we can win in two years and we don't want to tick off the base." Look, people are looking for leaders to lead. We haven't led. All we're doing is saying, "What does it take to get reelected?” It's January of a new term. And I think we have to remind people again that, look, the kid that's born in the inner city should have the same opportunity as a kid born in the richest suburb. That's what we're standing for. And this is an opportunity for folks to join that believe, you know, putting the country over party.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to put up a photo that was, to me, incredibly striking this week. It's the photo of Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican Leader with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. And what was amazing to me, Congressman Kinzinger, was it was the former president who wanted to rush that photo out. Here he was in this incredible moment of weakness. Nobody was interested in -- he was worried nobody wanted to be with him. And here's Kevin McCarthy going, "No, no, no, we want to be with you." And he rushed it out. Is it now, sort of, self-reinforcing, the party has now re-tied itself to Donald Trump?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

You know, I think your point about that picture is important. So it shows that the former president is desperate to continue to look like he's leading the party. And the problem is, until we push back and say, "This is not a Trump-first party, this is a country-first party." In some cases, you may support Donald Trump in that effort. But in my case, I believe that that's a whole new movement. Until we all kind of stand up and say that, we're going to be kind of chasing our tail here in the situation. And that's why I launched Country1st.com. It's a landing place for people to go to. And we'll see how it develops. But there's a lot of folks out there, Chuck, that have texted me, called me, written, everything, that say, "Thank you for saying something because nobody else has been."

CHUCK TODD:

We've seen that there is already, I brought up the movements about censure. We saw it in South Carolina to Congressman Rice. I know that the Illinois Republican Party apparently is preparing to do it to you. The irony of the Republican Party participating in cancel culture, I'm curious, I mean, is there just no room for disagreement in the Republican Party when it comes to Donald Trump? I mean, this is, to me, a form of cancel culture, is it not?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

It is totally. If you look at Matt Gaetz going to Wyoming because, what, a tough woman has an independent view and he doesn't want to have to go out and explain why he didn't vote for impeachment, that's totally GOP cancel culture. And what we're standing for, and I think what, frankly, a significant part of the base wants is to say, "Look, we can have a diversity of opinion." Peter Meijer from Michigan, good friend of mine. He and I are on other ends of the spectrum on things like foreign policy. But I respect his view on that. That's what the Republican Party needs to be. The optimistic party in the future. And we need to quit being the party that even iota defends an insurrection, a dead police officer and other dead Americans on the Capitol. There is no equivalency to that. And we have to run from that as fast as we can.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to ask you about something that Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee said to Politico this week, Congressman Kinzinger. He said this, "I have a hard time interacting with those members right now. Especially with those I had a closer relationship with. I'm not going to deny the reality that I look at them differently now. They're smaller people to me now." You have a lot of Democrats who are basically saying, "Look, I'm not working across the aisle right now when you've got this party that's defending the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world or somehow wanting to have amnesia about January 6th." And yet, we're going to be talking about, oh, the lecturing of the Democrats, are they not being bipartisan enough. Do you blame them?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

Yeah, I mean, that's the point is I think the Republican Party has lost its moral authority in a lot of areas. It doesn't mean we don't need to fight back, you know, to defend what we believe, conservative principles. But when I ask people now what is a conservative principle, how many people think that conservative principles are things like just build the wall and, you know, charge the Capitol and have an insurrection? That's what Country1st with a one’s all about -- is just going back to saying, "Here's what conservative principles are." And I agree. I mean it’s -- I will sit here and defend conservative principles. But it's hard to have seen an insurrection three weeks ago, to say that's no big deal and then to lecture Democrats on something. We've lost our moral authority and we need to regain it as a party.

CHUCK TODD:

If you had the opportunity of a vote to evict Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress, would you vote to evict her?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

I'd certainly vote her off committee. In terms of eviction, I'm not sure because kind of in the middle. I think a district has every right to put who they want there. But we have every right to take a stand and say, "You don't get a committee." And we definitely need to do that.

CHUCK TODD:

And if you could talk to a Senate Republican right now who thinks former President Trump's behavior was terrible, if he were in office they might vote to convict, but they don't now, what would be your case to that group, those groups of senators who are open to punishment but right now want to talk themselves out of it with a process argument?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

Yeah, see that's the thing is everybody that votes and uses process, I get it. It gives you a free way out. But this is a red line in American history. And ten of us, I wish it was more, but ten of us in the House took the tough vote because we know history is going to ring with what happened and record that. What we can't say, Chuck, is in the last two months of a president, you can do whatever you want, including incite a mob to insurrection because it's just too late in the process to convict you. I think it is important to convict, to send a message and to say that people like Donald Trump can never hold that office again. And reestablish from a Republican perspective an optimistic, hopeful future that, quite honestly, has been missing in the dialogue for a number of years.

CHUCK TODD:

Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, represents areas that are fond to my family, including Bloomington and Morris. Congressman, thanks for coming on and sharing your views with us.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER:

You bet, see you.

CHUCK TODD:

When we come back, are we fighting the pandemic the right way? Panel is next.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. The panel is joining us, Eddie Glaude Jr. of Princeton University, Amy Walter, National Editor at the Cook Political Report, Al Cardenas, co-founder and professor of the Institute of Politics at Florida State University, and Ashley Parker, the White House bureau chief for the Washington Post. Ashley, I want to start with the pandemic. Both first on the, on the vaccine issue itself, then we'll move to Covid relief. But you heard Dr. Osterholm there. We've got a lot of epidemiologists arguing that they need to call an audible of vaccine distribution. How ready is this Biden team to do something like that?

ASHLEY PARKER:

Well, they're still trying to get their hands around the magnitude of the crisis they inherited. But in talking to them, you know, their view is that they need to follow, as Dr. Osterholm said actually, what their scientists are recommending, which is the two-dose vaccine regimen for Pfizer and Moderna that recommend that. But they also believe, sort of, that they can do both simultaneously. They are no longer holding back vaccines beyond two to three day sort of surplus. The stockpile as we originally conceived of it, does not exist because they believe that they can increase distribution and production to the point where they can send out all of those vaccines and still have enough for people to get their second doses. So they've already increased it by, you know, 16%. That said, these are big promises, and we're going to have to see if they meet them. As of now, they've been able to give the governors sort of the confidence that they know the supply they're going to get for three weeks. That is an improvement. But the governors want to see much more in order to be able to really plan where they send those vaccines and how they get them into people's arms.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Amy, this is, I think, a real dilemma for this administration because at the end of the day, whatever decision they make isn't going to be a perfect decision, right, there are going to be ways to criticize whether they stick to the protocol, whether they delay a second dose, however you look at it, there's going to be some criticism here which may, may make them taking an action, may paralyze them. Do you think they'll be paralyzed, or do you think they'll, they’ll be aggressive?

AMY WALTER:

Well, I don't know, Chuck. I mean, I think the thing about having a crisis right in front of you is, and especially one that has been with us for over a year, it does tend to get you to move. Now maybe it's the wrong decision that you make, but it does, it does inspire you to actually make that decision. Look, I think by the time we get to the end of the summer, Americans are going to have a pretty good sense about how trusting they are in this government, in this new administration, to make this actually work. And the president has actually said himself he expects that by the end of the summer, we're going to have 300 million doses that have been sent out. All of us who are parents are going to be looking forward to a fall school year. We're going to be looking forward to summertime and having summer vacations. I think that's the point at which Americans say, "Okay, --

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

AMY WALTER::

-- you've either lived up to it or we're pretty disappointed."

CHUCK TODD:

That’s a, that might be a fair barometer there. Al and Eddie, I want to talk about this issue of, of the Biden -- issue of trying to do, go it alone versus bipartisanship. What will be remembered a year from now, Al, if they do go it alone? That they got the bill passed, or that they didn't do it in a bipartisan manner?

AL CARDENAS:

Well, what's going to be looked at next year is have we achieved our goals? Have we lowered the percentage of deaths? Have we lowered the percentage of people who contract Covid from being hospitalized? Have we improved our treatments? That's what I think will be judged more than anything else at the bottom line. But, you know, it's a difficult time to be bipartisan. I don't understand why Chuck Schumer decided to go on with impeachment now, next week. I think it would have been wiser to do it 30 days from now and work on trying to develop a consensus. I, I agree with those ten senators. They should have been invited to the White House by now as well as the four leaders of, of the Congress. If you want to talk about bipartisanship, you've got to begin a dialogue on day one. So I, I think the White House is a little remiss in doing that. I think they kind of pushed the gun to the Republicans’ head about bipartisanship. People are going to have a hard time doing both, you know, voting on impeachment --

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

AL CARDENAS:

-- and voting on bipartisanship simultaneously.

CHUCK TODD:

Eddie, I, I don't want to presume which side of this argument you're on, but basically a similar question. A year from now, are they going to look back and regret not pursuing a bipartisan strategy? Because we're 11 days in, and we're moving in another direction. Or is it really about results at the end of the day? Eddie, I think we have, I think you may be muted there. We can quickly check that on your, on your system. So Amy, the penalty on bipartisanship versus getting results?

AMY WALTER:

Yeah, I'm with Al here which is that it’s, it’s -- we love to talk in Washington about process. But for voters, the real issue is actually production, what's actually come out at the end of the day. So, I don't know that not doing this in a bipartisan manner is something that is going to hurt Democrats, unless, and you said this at the beginning, Chuck, unless we get to the end of the year, and guess what, things haven't gotten better. Then it makes it easier for Republicans to say, "Well, see, Democrats spent so much time pushing their own legislation, they didn't bring us in. And now things haven't gotten better."

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Ashley, it was ten Republican senators. But that's the, that’s basically, that’s the minimum they need. There aren't more than that. I mean, it feels as if it really is a delicate dance if they want to do this with 60 votes.

ASHLEY PARKER:

That's right. On the one hand, the more glass half full version is that with ten senators signing that letter, they are trying to send a very clear signal that, look, if you work with us, you can get to that 60 vote threshold. But as you said, you can just barely get to that 60 vote threshold. And it is a real question of how much President Biden wants to fulfill his promise of unity, which, to be clear, is not quite the same as bipartisanship. Or a sense, based on not just the past year, but going back even to under President Obama, this sense that the parties may be so far apart that if what you care about is results, and that is what they care about in Covid, his presidency will rise and fall on this, that you need to get this package passed --

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

ASHLEY PARKER:

-- that, they believe, in any means necessary. And if it doesn't have as many Republicans as you like, then so be it.

CHUCK TODD:

Al, I look at that list of ten Republicans. And there's not an obvious one of those ten that sort of feels like they speak for a majority of the party. Is that a problem? Does that make negotiating harder?

AL CARDENAS:

Yeah, well, look, I think that the national leadership in Congress and the national leadership and state leadership of the party have decided that they're not, they’re not going to tame the beast, they're going to feed the beast. And that means following, having Donald Trump in the middle of it all and gambling on doing well in 2022. And so I don't know that you're going to get a lot more Republicans to be bipartisan. Joe Biden thinks and the administration thinks that a seven million vote majority gave them a mandate. And Republicans are saying, "Well, I thought Donald Trump was an outlier because we actually did better than you nationally." So I think both parties look at it differently. I think Joe Biden is committed to getting results. I think a lot of Republicans are holding back. And so we'll see where it goes. But bipartisanship's not going to be easy. These ten senators are actually heroes.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah. Alright, Eddie, we are going to fix this audio issue in this, during this break, I promise. Up next, the economic effect the pandemic may have on all of us long after the virus itself has been defeated.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back, Data Download time. Even if we can ramp up vaccine distribution in this country, it's going to take a long time for life to return to normal. It may take even longer for our economy to be back to full strength. For starters, back in February, before the pandemic hit, the US -- the unemployment rate was sitting at a very healthy 3.5%. By April though, as the lockdowns kicked it, it was up to almost 15%. And at the end of last year, it was down to 6.7%. But a closer look at that number shows that despite the drop, there are warning signs of some long-term problems. A survey from Kiplinger's personal finance released in January found that a third of Americans withdrew or borrowed money from their retirement accounts in 2020. And about two thirds of those folks had to use that money to make up for lost living expenses. In other words, people borrowed from their future just to get through the present. That means they'll have less when they need it later for retirement, their children's college tuition, or other big expenses on the horizon. By the way, these are people that could borrow money. And people are so discouraged that the number of Americans looking for a job has declined by about four million people, down nearly two percentage points, making it now at its lowest point since the mid '70s. And if you're not looking for work, you're not counted as unemployed. So some of these jobs, like those in restaurants or entertainment, they'll come back. But others may not as people continue to work from home or shop online. In short, the pandemic may have accelerated some economic trends we were expecting to take years to take hold. And now they happened in months. When we come back, impeachment and the Republican Party's decision to embrace former President Trump.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. And more importantly, Eddie, welcome back. I want to start with this chart here that our friends over at the Winston Group put together, and it was -- it's a comparison of how House Republicans did in key battleground states in 2020 versus President Trump. And in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the total -- the totality of House Republican votes surpassed President Trump. And yes, you can -- in Georgia, there was some unopposed and it sort of created a lopsided figure there. But the larger point is there. The House Republicans didn't need Donald Trump, if you look at it by the numbers. But they're acting as if they do. It is the weirdest outcome here. He's never been weaker, and yet, they chose to make him stronger.

EDDIE GLAUDE:

Yeah, yeah, Chuck. It seems to me that part of what we have to do is to understand the way in which Donald Trump's on -- being on the ballot increased the turnout and how that impacted down ballot voters. And we -- so there's this sense that the strategy of the Trump campaign was to appeal to all of those white voters who had, in some ways, opted out of the system. And so their attraction to him led to this increase among their, in their participation. So it seems to me that what they’re -- what McCarthy and others are banking on is that how can they continue that trend of turning out those voters, those disaffected voters? And the only way they think that they can attract them, or to continue that trend, is by saddling up next to Donald Trump.

CHUCK TODD:

Al Cardenas, ok, that worked in the state of Florida. But the Republicans have lost the White House. They pulled a Hoover, they lost the White House, the House and the Senate while Donald Trump was in charge of the party. It doesn't look logical to me to continue to attach yourself to this guy.

AL CARDENAS:

Yeah, unless you're worried about being primaried. See, Donald Trump is not going to be helpful to the GOP in a general election. Donald Trump -- Donald Trump instills fear in those people running for reelection that may face a primary opponent that Donald Trump supports. Arkansas, for example: he's already come out and supported Sarah Huckabee against two, you know, qualified opponents. And so the Donald Trump factor is not a factor to help you in a general election. The Donald Trump factor is motivated by fear to be defeated in a primary. And that's what's going on in the GOP. And frankly, I'm sorry to see it. I like to see a little more courage.

CHUCK TODD:

Eddie, I want to ask about Marjorie Taylor Greene and at what, at what point is she almost the impediment it -- herself on getting Democrats and Republicans to want to even work together?

EDDIE GLAUDE:

Well, right now she's the poster child of the hypocrisy of the party. She's the poster child of, in fact, what I've called the new Redeemers, right, those Republicans who seem to believe that the only way to secure power is by exploiting white grievance and white resentment and white hatreds. So it makes sense to me, right, that you would think that Democrats and the White House would believe that those who would embrace Marjorie Taylor Greene are engaging in bad faith, that you can't really, Chuck -- and just really quickly -- you can't really engage people like her, or even Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz, because there is this assumption that are not, they do not agree to the background commitments that allow for disagreement. That they -- that by their actions, they are, in some ways, right, they've revealed that they might not very well be committed to democracy as such. And so, yeah, makes sense to me.

CHUCK TODD:

Amy, you heard Adam Kinzinger earlier. His Country 1st -- you know, it's hard to look at it right now and say, "Oh boy, this is going to be successful." But what, what -- how should he measure success? It may not be to win a primary in 2022. But how would you measure success for his organization?

AMY WALTER:

Well, that is a really good question, because the reality, Chuck -- and we've been seeing this for the last 20 or so years -- is that the center has basically been falling apart both on Republican side and the Democratic side. There are very centrists left, very few people who see the idea of compromise as something that is a good thing. And that leaves you in this place where, as Eddie pointed out, you have people that are literally arguing on two very different platforms. That makes it very difficult to meet somewhere in the middle. And I think what is going to be really interesting as we go forward is to see -- not do Republicans distance themselves from Trump, but what happens to the Republicans in Senate races? You remember 2010 and 2012, when it was a different form within the Republican Party. It was the Tea Party pushing many of these candidates forward who ended up losing to more electable candidates, and it cost the Republicans the Senate.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Ashley, this is an incentive -- we actually have an incentive structure problem that Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who worked for Rob Portman, pointed out very colorfully here. I won't read the colorful part of the language. He said, "If you want to spend all your time going on Fox and be a -- expletive deleted -- there's never been a better time to serve. But if you want to spend all your time being thoughtful and getting stuff done, there's never been a worse time to serve.” Our incentive structure particularly in the right-wing eco -- media echo-chamber doesn't support those who want to get stuff done.

ASHLEY PARKER:

That's exactly right. I mean, if you look at just Congress under Donald Trump, a lot of these members' time was not spent legislating, it was spent getting asked by reporters, "Did you see the tweet? Did you have a response to the tweet?" And members claiming improbably that, no, they missed, you know, 47 tweets in the early morning hours from the President of the United States. And the new iteration is members having to deal with, "Do you denounce what your fellow colleague said about QAnon and these conspiracy theories?"

CHUCK TODD:

That's all I have. A great panel. Eddie, my apologies again for the audio issue there. But of course, we will see you and the rest of this panel on this show very soon. That's all we have for today though. Thank you for watching. Those on the East Coast in the snow, please be safe out there. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.