Transcripts For CNN CNN Newsroom with Kate Bolduan 20240711

Charge of the recovery act and it was hard as hell to get the votes for it to begin with. And then it was hard as hell to get the number even we got. But one thing we learned, is we cant do too much here. We could do too little. We could do too little and sputter. Real live people are hurting and we could fix it. And we could fix it. That is has been his message from the beginning. And President Biden is focused on this today. Hes expecting to speak live later this hour and on how ep plans to revised the economy in response to covid. And the latest jobs report came out this morning showing only 49,000 jobs were added last month across country. And still there is more. On capitol hill, republican freshman Marjorie Taylor greene, shes about to hold a News Conference and at the moment im going to use the term News Conference loosely as we will see if she actually takes questions from actual real reporters which she has long avoided. Greene now without any Committee Assignments after the house vote yesterday stripping her of those roles because of her long and documented history of publicly talking about unfounded dangerous and deranged support of conspiracy theories. So were going to get to all of this. But lets start at the white house for more on the meeting between President Biden and Democratic Leaders. Jeremy diamond is joining us with more on this. So jeremy, what are you hearing . We heard from the president just there reiterating the need to go big, what are you hearing so far this morning on plans for the next steps for the covid package . Reporter the senate this morning passing that Budget Resolution is a big step. And it is a big step that makes clear that Senate Democrats and House Democrats will be able to move forward with this 1. 9 trillion Coronavirus Relief package proposed by the president without any republican lawmakers if necessary. Yes, of course, they have to keep manin mind senator joe manchin is pleased with the final package. But regardless of what this shows is that democrats in the white house could move forward without republicans if necessary. At the same time President Biden has made clear he would like to see republican lawmakers join on board but once again this morning he stressed the urgency of the matter talking about the fact that this is impacting peoples lives and while hes willing to compromise on some areas, hes not willing to compromise on others. President biden this morning seizing on that jobs report that showed while the economy has shown some kinds of recovery, it is not close to the pace necessary to recoup the mills of jobs lost during the pandemic. So you heard the President Jumping on the jobs report to make clear that the size of the package is important here and that the risk is in going too small, not in going too big. Part of that is Batting Back Criticism from larry somers, who was there when they passed the Stimulus Bill back if 2009. He talked about the risks of going too big and the potential for inflation earlier im going to jump in because the White House Coronavirus Response Team is beginning their briefing. Lets listen in now. Various efforts and leaders who are driving daily results on our National Strategy to defeat covid. Let me tell you about the agenda today. Cdc director dr. Walensky will give a brief report on the state of the pandemic, and then dr. Fauci will provide some important scientific updates. Then i have invited tim manning who coordinates our supply chain to provide detail into questions many of you have had about how were Scaling Production of vaccines and other things. Including by using the defense Production Act. Were going to discuss three specific ways were using the defense Production Act. First, to increase existing supply of Vaccinations Americans need. Second, to Scale Production of the tests that americans need to get back their lives. And third, to reduce our longterm dependence on foreign production of supplies that we need to rowe tect our work force and fight pandemics. Before we get to that. I have an announcement or two to make at the top. So on monday you heard me announce that the Biden Administration will Scale Production of athome covid tests from a Company Called alume. They are one of the key steps to getting back to normal life. We announced that by the end of the year, they would produce 8. 5 million tests. Today youll hear even more action on testing. We will announce that six more companies will surge manufacturing of athome test kits with the goal of by summer having millions of americans being able to access at home tests. And at multiple of what talked about on monday. It wont be easy and it is not happening overnight. But todays announcement represents another step in the long journey back to normal life. In addition, i want to announce that the Secretary Of Defense lloyd austin has approved femas request to augment and expedite vaccinations across the country. Hes ordered the first contingent of more than a thousand active duty Military Personnel to support state vaccination sites. Part of this group will start to arrive in california within the next ten days to begin operations there around February 15th with additional Vaccination Missions soon to follow. The militarys Critical Role in supporting sites will help vaccinate thousands of People Per Day and ensure everyone american who wants a vaccine will receive one. I know d. O. D. Will provide a briefing this afternoon with more details. But i want to make sure that you were aware of this Important Development in our whole of Government Response. With that, i will turn it over to dr. Walensky. Thank you very much. Im glad to be back with you today. Lets start with a snapshot of the pandemic. The United States continues to see a decrease in covid19 cases since its peak on january 8th. The number of new cases on february 3rd approximately 121,000 represents a 61 decrease since the peak on january 8th. Similarly, the number of new Hospital Admissions reporting on february 2nd, approximately 10,500 was down nearly 42 since the Hospitalization Peak of 18,000 reported on january 5th. On wednesday, i noted the peak the pace of deaths appears to be slowing and that we anticipated deaths would start to decrease in the coming weeks. Early data suggests now were starting to see the decrease with the seven day average number of deaths declining 6. 7 to slightly more than 3,000 deaths per day from january 28th through february 3rd. While we watch these data closely to see if these will be a confirmed trend, prior data do suggest that peaks and depth trail the peaks in cases by somewhere between nine and 20 days. However, we may see variation for Different Reasons including reporting delays. As such, we will know better if this trend becomes a stable downward slope over the next week. While the data are moving in the right direction, context is important. Because cases, Hospital Admissions and deaths all remain high. And well above the level thats we saw in the summer and early fall. In order to keep these trends moving in the right trajectory, we must continue to wear masks, continue to social distance and avoid travel and crowds and get vaccinated when it is your turn. And i want to underscore the importance of mask wearing. Today, cdc will be releasing two reports in the mmwr that describe the decline in covid19 hospitalization growth rates when state wide Mask Mandates are in place. As well as a study detailing Face Mask Use among College Students on College Campuses with Mask Mandates. Finally, i want to highlight another dimension of the covid19 pandemic on society, specifically on the Mental Health and substance abuse. Yesterday among u. S. Adults they found that 28 reported symptoms of depression and 8 reported suicidal thoughts and 18 reported they had started or increased Substance Use to cope with emotions during the pandemic. The study also found that these outcomes were higher for some racial and ethnic groups including hispanic adulls. This study underscores the need to ensure that the response to the covid19 pandemic includes attention to Behavioral Health needs of communities and it reminds us that the long standing Systemic Health and social inequities have put many racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk for Poor Health Outcomes including covid19. And it underscores the need for Health Equity to underpin everything that we are doing in response to this pandemic. Thank you. Ill now turn it over to dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci. Thank you very much, dr. Walensky. What id like to do in the next couple of minutes is just to bring you up to date on one of the issues that we discussed at our last briefing and that is the progress along the way of the j j on the basis of the data from their Ensemble Trial in getting the information to the fda, examining it in preparation for the possibility of a emergency use authorization. The data are now with the fda, they are examining it, they have scheduled the advisory committee, their vaccines and related biological Product Advisory Committee which will meet in three weeks. So let me just very briefly review for you where we are and where we hope to go. As you know, the data on efficacy of this Ensemble Trial which involved three countries, the United States, brazil and the republic of south africa, showed a overall efficacy of 66 . But when you unpacked from the different countries, you had a 72 efficacy for mild to moderate disease in the usa, in the republic of south africa, which as you know is of concern to us because of the mutant and the lilliage now dominant, namely the b13151. In the that the protection was percent but when you look across all of the countries, the protection against truly severe disease was well over 80 , in fact, about 88. 8 . Also of interest is that in the south african study as well as all of the others, there were essentially no hospitalizations or deaths. So the sobering news is that we are dealing with variant, antigenic, as mention the in the last Press Briefing of escape from the Monoclonal Antibody protection and a diminution in some of the protection from the current vaccines. But the somewhat encouraging news is the rather complete protection against very severe disease including hospitalizations and deaths. Now, when you look at what is going on in our own country, clearly as the days and the weeks go by, you see as predicted an increase in the prevalence of the u. K. Variant, the b117 in the United States, which, as you well know, has been shown by the brits to have an increase in eefficiency of transmissibility as well as a recent paper showing there was some increase in pathogen sis leading to severe disease. So this is something that we will have to deal with because this is something that is expanding and it is prevalent in the United States. The point that i want to make and end with is something that i said last time that i really think that it is important for us here in the United States to realize. That the evolution of variants occurs only when you have a certain degree of replication of the virus in the community. And that means spread from persontoperson. Viruses will not evolve and mutate if you do not give them an open Playing Field to replicate and replicate in essentially an unbridled fashion. For that reason, the message that we keep giving, that dr. Walensky and i and others on the team keep giving, is that now is the time to do a couple of things. One, double down on the adherence to the Public Health measures that we talk about all of the time, the Uniform Masking that the president has spoken about, the physical distancing, the avoiding congregate settings particularly indoors an the washin washington Washing Of Hands and dampening down the replication in a Given Community is the distribution efficiently and effectively of vaccines. Youll be hearing about that in a moment. But the message that we have when a vaccine becomes available to you, get vaccinated. You will not only be protecting yourself, your family, but you will be making a major step in a positive way to protecting the community. Ill stop there and back to you, andy. Thank you. Tim. Thank you, andy. Thank you dr. Fauci, dr. Walensky. Since i may not be as well known, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is tim manning im the National Supply chain coordinator and Emergency Manager having done disaster and Emergency Response for past 25 years and worked at the local and state level and served as a Deputy Administrator at fema for years and im a firefighter and emtand i know firsthand of needing the supplies that you need when you need it on the front lines of a crisis. Right now i work with the Department Of Defense to the department of health and Human Services to ensure our country has the supplies we need not just now but in the future. That is why on day one President Biden signed an Executive Order directing us to use all necessary powers including the defense Production Act to get this pandemic under control. In fact the administration identified shortfalls in 12 critical categories of supplies and today im announcing three ways in which the administration is using the deeft Production Act authorities to fight this pandemic. One is an immediate impact. One that will be felt over the next few months and one will diminish our reliance of foreign manufacturing of ppe. We get pfizer more equipment and supplies that arenible ago them to ramp up production and deliver more vaccine faster. Our second action will deliver 60 million Point Of Care tests at home by summer and in addition to the news andy announced on monday. Our third action will help americans america produce more surgical gloves that our front line workers desperately need. Let me start with Vaccine Production. Since january 20th weve increased the Vaccine Supply by over 20 . Right now one of the limiting factors con training increased manufacturing of vaccines is limited equipment and ingredients. That is why were leveraging the ability to secure supplies critical to our National Defense are going to areas of greatest need. This is called a Priority Rating. If the federal government puts a Priority Rating on a contract, it means that company could, say a vaccine manufacturer, get first access to a product they need before anyone else. We are expanding the Priority Ratings for fiezor for pumps and critical items they need to manufacture the covid19 vaccine. This will ramp up production and hit their targets of hundreds of millions of doses over the coming months. We told you when we heard about a bottleneck on Technology Related to Vaccine Supply that we could step in and help. And we are doing just that. Second were using the dpa to increase our supply of athome covid tests. The countrys well behind where we need to be in testing, particularly the rapid athome tests that will allow us all to get back to normal activities like work and school. Earlier this week we announced investments to bring the first N Nonprescription Covid Test and the u. S. Government has plans to invest in another six supplies rapidly surge domestic testing capability and thanks to this action 61 million Point Of Care or athome tests will be available by the end of the summer. To do this, well help Industry Partners construct new plants and build new Production Lines bringing critical capacity to the fight and reducing our disruption in the supply chain. And third were focused on procuring the ppe that keep americas Front Line Health Care workers safe. There is a grave need for mask and shields an gloves and we currently arnt producing these at the rate that we need in order to keep up with demand. Were working to increase the availability of n95 masks to front line workers but another critical area of concern is surgical gloves. Right now we dont have enough gloves. Were nearly 100 reliant on overseas for surge kral gloves that protect Health Care Work and it is unacceptable and were using all of our authorities to fix it. Over the past two weeks we pushed forward an estimate for manufacturing of surgical gloves and well build plants to make the Raw Materials, the nitro for surgical gloves here in the United States and will help Build Factories to make those gloves right here in the u. S. As well. And by the end of the year, well produce more than a billion nitro gloves a month right here in america. Well now make enough to satisfy half of all of the u. S. Health Care Community demands right here on u. S. Shores. These are just three examples of how were using the dpa strategically and effectively in our National Response and there is more to come. I know there is a great deal of interest in exactly where and with whom were contacting. For reasons of procurement law, im not able to disclose the ongoing Contract Negotiations until they are finalized. They take four to five weeks to finalize and were about half way through. So over the next few weeks well have more announcements about the way were using the dpa and other tools to combat the virus. I urge congress to act, because adding more genetic Genomic Distancing and seeing new variants and ramping up molecular tests need funding. With that, ill turn it back over to andy. Thank you, tim. So why dont we go to some questions. Thank you, everybody, first were going to Peter Sullivan at the hill. Hey, thanks. I wanted to ask on Rapid Testing, i hear the announcements youre making. Many people have pointed to the fda as sort of a bottleneck on the Rapid Testing saying theyre not authorizing theyre taking too conservative of a view of accuracy comparing it to pcr and not kind of authorizing simple rapid tests that could be millions per day, maybe even more plentiful than what youre talking about. I wonder is there any consideration of creating a new approval path way at the fda or taking more steps to kind of authorize more even more clinical rapid tests. Thank you, peter. We understand that everybody who has something submitted to the fda wants their product approved and i would only observe having been around the fda for quite sometime that when they go fast, people criticize them, when they go slow people criticize them and i think we should be delighted with the announcement today. Having 60 million more athome tests available over the course of the summer is exactly what the country needs. I think it will change things pretty significantly. So im very excited and i think Many Americans will be as well. Great. Next we go to michael wilmer. Thanks for doing this. Two questions for me. First, the pentagon Just Announced it approved 1,110 active Duty Service Members to support five fema vaccination centers. Could you tell us where those Vaccine Centers will be . And secondly, the National Strategy said that the administration plans to accelerate the pace of vaccinations by encouraging stating to move through Priority Groups more quickly. So what is more quickly mean . You could be specific what your guidance has been to states thus far and if youre leaving it to states to manage, what about your guidance is different from the Prior Administration which also endorsed the guidelines. Thanks for the question, michael. I believe that the Department Of Defense is going to hold a briefing this afternoon to answer questions specifically about their announcement. All i could tell you is that it is such a critical part of our all of Government Response and the team work that ive observed since ive been here. I think with regard to increasing the pace of vaccinations and moving through Priority Groups, let me just first start by saying all of us, and starting from the president , recognize that americans are eager to get vaccinated and that we should have we want to get that done as hastily and safely and equitably as possible. I would love to tell you we are sitting on stockpiles of vaccines that we found when we came here. But unfortunately that is not the case. What weve done is weve been distributing vaccines as quickly as possible and weve increased two periods in a row the amount of vaccines that states are getting. I could assure you were in constant conversation about an end to end last mile approach to getting people vaccine in arms i think that is taking an improving the states ability to get those vaccines in arms more quickly. As one data point, when we got here on january 20th, about 46 of this of the supply delivered to states had been administered and that number is now over 60 . Im not going to speak to the administration before ours, that we look forward and we see a lot of Improvement Opportunities and i think were taking some and were going to work with states to find additional ones. Next question. Great, thanks. Next well go to Sayre Yu Murray at cnn. Hi, thank you guys for doing this. I appreciate it. My question first is for dr. Walensky, i just wanted to follow up on some of her comments about teachers. Were wondering why it would be safe for teachers to return to the classroom if they have not been vaccinated . And whether that is considered the cdcs official guidance at this point, that teachers could go back into the classroom even if they have not been vaccinated. And secondly im just wondering what steps the administration is considering to try to ramp up production of the j j vaccine assuming it does get approved since the supply will be relatively limited in the beginning. Dr. Walensky. Sure. Im happy to answer that. Our goal is to get children Back To School. School should be the last place that is closed and the first place that is opened. Our goal is to make sure in getting children Back To School that we do so both with the safety of the children and the safety of the teachers as utmost and critical in making sure that that happens. Along the things that we need to do to make sure that schools are safe is to make sure that the Community Spread of this disease is down and that means it is all of our responsibility to work to get our children back to School Safely and our teachers back to School Safely. We are actively working on the guidance and the official guidance which will be released soon. With regard to your question second about Johnson Johnson, youre correct that as is the case with other vaccines, we have not found that the level of manufacturing allows us to have as much vaccine as we think we need coming out of the gate. And without giving you a direct answer to your question, for reasons that i hope are obvious, every option is on the table to figure out how to accelerate manufacturing in the event that the fda does approve the Johnson Johnson vaccine. Next question. Next well go to chris at los angeles times. Hello. I wanted to see if this is the first officially use of defense Production Act to speed the production of the vaccines and wanted to see if this use of the bpa is going to increase the pace of Vaccine Production ahead of what was previously announced or just ensure that production meets the targets that were previously announced. Tim, do you want to take the first and welcome to take the second or i could take the second if youd like. Sure. Thanks, andy. This is amounting to the first sequence of actions in the defense Production Act that weve taken under the Biden Administration over the last couple of weeks. There have been dpa ratings, i think people probably familiar with in the last days of the Trump Administration there was a some limited use of the defense Production Act on the Pfizer Vaccine but there have been dpa ratings placed previously over the course of the last year in the manufacturing of the vaccines by the Previous Team as well. And as far as the the second question, ill defer back over to andy. Yep. So i think that the use of the defense Production Act that tim outlined is what allowing, one of the things i should say, that is allowing pfizer to meet t targets and last week they announced that acceleration of their targets of when theyll be able to deliver vaccines and i think our partnership with them is one factor. Next question. All right. And last question, well go to tommy crist. Hi, can you hear me . Yes. Thank you. My question is for dr. Fauci principally but really for any of you. First two questions. My first was could you tell me how frequently you on the team are in contact with President Biden and Vice President harris and how responsible do you think theyve been to your Policy Recommendations . And my second question was are you looking for or have you seen any evidence of the impact of President Bidens mask orders . So dr. Fauci, i would never dream of taking a question intended for you. Thank you, andy. Yes, the interaction with the press is frequent. I mean, weve only been at this now for just a couple of weeks. And ive already had two, i think three interactions with the president in a direct briefing situation. Either virtually or twice at the white house. Once in the state dining room, and once in the Oval Office Just last week. So he is very, very much involved literally on a daily basis, obviously because you have jeff zients briefing him continually, but personally as a member of the team, together with dr. Walensky and others on the team, we have seen him at least once a week and maybe a little bit more. Yeah. And i think that is that is this week i think that youre referring to as well, not last week. It is still friday, believe it or not. And on that note, i think was there another part to your question that we didnt answer . Yes. I was asking you could hear me still. Yes. Sorry. I was asking if you have or are looking for or have you seen any evidence of the effects of President Bidens mask order . So im going to ask rochelle, dr. Walensky, if youve seen any data that has emerged on increases in mask use recently . Thank you for that question. I think it is probably too early to reflect on what is happening with the mask order now. Because it will be we have a lot of things that have happened sort of at the same time. First it is the case that cases are coming down. And i do think that mask orders helping to protect people and helping the cases coming down. But what is also happening is that we are coming off of the case bump from the holidays and so a lot of things are happening at once. Were going to be watching it very carefully. As i mentioned earlier. Mmwr coming out today did demonstrate in ten states that when mask orders were in place, that after three weeks, Hospital Growth Rates went down so i think it is probably still a bit too early to tell but im encouraged with the decrease in case rates right now. Thank you, dr. Walensky. Okay, well, thank you all for attending this briefing and our other briefing this is week. We think it was a productive week here. The team is working incredibly hard and we are very cognizant of the fact that the public is eager to get their vaccinations and move beyond in pandemic and i want to thank everybody in the government side and the private sector who has been demonstrating the team work we need to get this done and move past it. So thank you and well talk to you again next week. Weve been listening to the latest update from the White House Coronavirus Response Team, andy slavic there wrapping it up. Let me bring in dr. Leana wen to work through some this. There was a lot of information that came out, dr. Wen, in this briefing, what is your big takeaway from today. There were three main things. The run is around vaccines, that the Biden Administration is going to be activating the defense Production Act to address the bottlenecks theyve seen when it comes to equipment, to specific Raw Materials that the manufactures are facing, i think that is fantastic. That will allow us to scale up production for supplies which is certainly a limiting factorch the second thing around increasing testing, through the dpa will also be really important especially in scaling up rapid Point Of Care home testing. I think again that is fantastic. Theyll get an additional 60 million tests by the end of the summer. 60 million sounds like a lot but if the goal is for ideally everyone to be tested, a couple of times a week or once a week, 60 million is not going to go along way and so i am curious to see what thur goal is. And the question by cnn by sarah murphy about whether the cdcs position is that vaccinations are not required before teachers get back to work for in person schooling and i noticed that the cdc director did not specifically answer this question and saying theyre work actually working on guidance. I think teachers and parents are awaiting that cdc guidance. I did want to ask you about that. Because this came from just to kind of set the scene for folks, at wednesdays Coronavirus Briefing from the Response Team, dr. Walensky said that she did not think the data is starting to suggest that schools could safely reopen and that can reopen and that vaccines are not a prerequisite for teachers getting back in the classroom. After that happened, and this is why there is a need for clarification, after that happened jen psaki was asked about it and let me play for everyone what jen psaki said. The president wanted to be critical clear wants schools to open. He wants them to stay open. And that is and wasnts to do that safely and he wasnts health and medical experts to be the guides for how we should do exactly that. So were just not dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal capacity, shes the head of the cdc and well wait for the final guidance to come out so we could use that as a guide for schools around the country. And dr. Walensky was speaking in her personal capacity on wednesday. And when she was asked about it today, she essentially just said that the official guidance from the cdc is being worked on and will be forth coming. What do you think is coming here, this is not an area where confusion and vaguery is helpful at all . No. And i think that schools and parents and teachers and staff have been waiting for this type of guidance for months now. And of course we know that schools should be reopened if it is possible because students do benefit from inperson learning but we also know based on studies that schools could reopen if Community Transmission is low and if mitigation measures are put into place. That is not true for many places around the country. So i think it is understandable that teachers are very worried and saying if you want us to come back, the least that society could do is to give us vaccinations first and i hope that that is a position that the Biden Administration really clarifies for a particular level of Community Transmission, what do you need . Maybe if the level is very low, if masking, ventilation, that is occurring, maybe you dont need vaccinations as a rerequisite under those circumstances but under other circumstances with the threat of variants on the horizon, when weve seen if other countries with variants that theyve had to close down schools that have been open all along and so i think that clarification from the cdc is going to be really important. But we also the nuance and caveat that you offer there is also something that states and School Superintendents across the country can understand. And that is the bit that i think is so frustrating and confounding quite frankly, is why why that kind of guidance, albeit it is nuanced and not applying to every state and school district, why that cant be provided right now from the cdc. Again that will be forthcoming. I thought it was really interesting also how they talked about the supply chain issues. You mentioned a couple of them. An one of the issues is the supply of ppe and how the country is so dependent on overseas supplies of things like surgical gloves, that that is one thing that theyre using the defense Production Act to address. It is remarkable, dr. Wen, because this is something you and i and everybody have been talking about from the very beginning. What do you think theyre going to help to build plants to make the material for surgical gloves in order to produce a Bill Nitro Gloves by the end of the year. I thought finally we are anticipating for what is ahead instead of just reacting to the problem that were facing right now. You and i have been talking for many months about the travesty of having our doctors and nurses on the front lines not have basic ppe and to prevent that from happening in the future, i think it is a good thing to look at the issue of supply chain and how could we reduce the reliance on overseas manufactures and make sure we have the supplies here to reduce this kind of hunger games that happened in the last year of statie stats having to bid against each other and preventing the federal government from confiscating supplies, that really should not be happening. Just some of the headlines from the briefing and well have another update on monday. Then we could go through again. Tank you so much, dr. Wen. Coming up for us still, Marjorie Taylor greene, she is speaking out now for the First Time Since the house votes to strip her of her Committee Assignments. Were going to bring you what she said and what shes telling reporters. Were also standing by to hear from President Biden talking about the u. S. Economy and the impact that he said his 1. 9 trillion kroern Coronavirus Relief package will have on trying to get the economy back moving at all. Well bring that to you whether it begins. How great is it that we get to tell everybody how Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need . I mean it. Uhoh, sorry. Oh. What . Im an emu no, buddy only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. Im still exploring whats next. And still going for my best. Even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. So if theres a better treatment than warfarin, im reaching for that. Eliquis. Eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. Plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. Whats next . Im on board. Dont Stop Taking Eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an Artificial Heart Valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Ask your doctor about eliquis. And if your ability to afford your medication has changed, we want to help. Your Grooming Business is booming. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base. Claim your seventyfivedollar credit when you post your first job at indeed. Com groomer moments from now were standing by for President Biden. Le be delivering remarks on the state of the u. S. Economy when he begins well bring to that you. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke to reporters. This is the first time that shes taken questions since being striped of her Committee Assignments in light of the Dangerous Bigoted and conspiracy fueled statements shes made publicly if the past. Listen to some of what she said. Free speech really masters and yesterday when the democrats and 11 of my republican colleagues decided to strip me of my Committee Assignments, education and labor and the budget committee, you know what they did . They actually striped my district of their voice. I have the greatest opportunity yesterday and im so grateful for it. I got to say what i had done wrong and do you know how freeing that is . Im not kidding. I seriously feel blessed by god because i got to do it on a world stage. I got to say i said things wrong. I believe things that were wrong. And you know what, im so happy i got to do that. My district is thrilled with me. People are all over the country are thankful and supporting me. And for that, im grateful to them. None of us are perfect. Im fine with being kicked off of my committees because it would be a waste of my time. You know who i am, im a very hard worker and im proud of it. So now i have a lot of free time on my hands. Which means i could talk to a whole lot more people. Im sorry for saying all of the things that are wrong and offensive and i sincerely mean that. Im happy to say that. I think it is good to say when weve done something wrong. So, yeah, that is easy for me. Okay, let me bring in manu raju and David Chalian for more than this. Manu, what do you make of her remarks . Well she aired out a lot of grievances and attacked the media and blamed other people other than herself. She is sorry for things that people may say, things that were offensive in the past. But when she was pressed on specific things that she said, she grew defiant and combative. Jessica dean pushed her on her past comments from 2018 and 2019 suggesting support for executing prominent democratic politicians which is one reason shes been committing off her two Committee Assignments and she said she didnt want to address that at all when she was pressed. She grew combative and attacked the media and cnn and moved on to the next question. And she was also ask about david hogg, the survivor in parkland, florida who is a Gun Control Activist and the video surfaced about her confronting him and peppering him and harassing him as he was pushing gun control legislation. She had no apologies for that. She said that he was an adult at the time and in which she confronted him and she has no apologies for that whatsoever. She gave in a general apology for things that she said was offensive but stuck by her comments or some of her actions and she said that the party is still donald trump. She said the party is his, it doesnt belong to anybody else. So she clearly believe thats trump wing of the party which is he belongs to is still strong despite the action of the house and the 11 republicans joining all democrats to strip her from her Committee Assignments. And david, being on a committee is a waste of time because now she has a lot more time on her hands. What does this change in terms of the war that is going on within the Republican Party and in the broad in the broader contract. It is stripping kroentss of their voice. Those two thoughts you could not have in your head at the same time. But to understore, i thought that line that this is Donald Trumps party, it belongs to nobody else, to me was the entirety of that press conference. Because in what universe is a Political Party just one person. I mean, even Kevin Mccarthy in the way he was dealing with this this week was trying to keep all sort of wings of the party into what he described as a big tent. Well thats a totally different vision than what Marjorie Taylor greene is saying. She thinks it is one persons party and it only belongs to him. I mean, this is the fundamental divide that exists right now in the party. Is this fealty so donald trump versus a broader sense of conservative principles that are not directly tied to one human being and we are seeing it play out time and time again. Well see it in primary after primary. This is the story of todays Republican Party. This actually fits perfectly with something i wanted to make sure that we discussed today which is republican senator ben sasse. Five minute video that he put out in response to the nebraska state Republican Committee considering censoring him for a second time. It is five minutes worth everyones time in watching david, let me play just a portion of it, what ben sasse has to say. I still believe, as you used to, that politics isnt about the weird worship of one dude. The party could purge trump skeptics but id like to convince you that not only is that civic cancer for the nation, it is just terrible for our party. Lets be clear, the anger in the state party has never been about me violating im one of the most conservative voters in the senate. The anger has always been simply about me not bending the knee to one guy. But my disagreements with President Trump have never been personal. Theyve always been about genuine affection for the constitutional order. David, what did you think of this . Well, this is the perfect contrast to what we just heard from Marjorie Taylor greene. What ben sasse is saying here is we cant be a Successful Party that puts forth conservative values and brings the majority of americans on board if it is all about bending on one knee to one person, donald trump. Marjorie Taylor Greene seems to think that is exactly what the Republican Party is. I just want to remind you, ben sasse had the support of donald trump in a republican primary the last time around. He did the dance a bit to make sure that donald trump came on board with him, and that helped him get through a primary. He was just reelected. But what he is right to point out is his Voting Record is about as conservative as you can get, and somehow, in todays Republican Party and what were seeing in the State Parties across the nation, which are sort of formed in the image of trump right now, thats not good enough for them. One more bit of contrast, you guys. Something that i was reminded of this morning, and manu, youll remember. Remember in 2003 when this was the same party that was so offended by the word french fries in cafeterias that they renamed them Freedom Fries over frances invasion in iraq. I know this is going way back a bit, but for now this is also showing contrast. This is the same party that is okay with a member of a party saying the same that Marjorie Taylor greene is saying, and ben sasse is trying to say, we are not a party that is devoted to one person, one man, donald trump. And when you compare the House Republicans versus the Senate Republicans, House Republicans, by and large, theyre not as extreme, necessarily, as Marjorie Taylor greene has been on a lot of the things she said. But they are in Donald Trumps camp. Weve seen that time and time again. We saw that play out this week in the way that Kevin Mccarthy dealt with everything that happened within his conference. We saw that play out after january 6th when a majority of House Republicans voted to throw out electoral results even after hours after the rioters came into this very building and threatened peoples lives. But Senate Republicans have a different constituency to play to, and while they may vote to acquit donald trump during his Impeachment Trial that starts next week, there is a feeling on the republican Conference Senate side, they want to move on. This is something nobody wants to talk about, but this is also a clear example of gerrymandering in this country, what were laying out right here. A conversation for another day. Guys, thank you very much. Were Just Moments Away from hearing from President Biden, his comments on the economy and also the Relief Package. Is there any room to negotiate with the urgent timeline theyre putting forward . Well bring his remarks to you once they begin. Well be right back. When you switch to xfinity mobile, youre choosing to get connected to the most Reliable Network nationwide, now with 5g included. Discover how to save up to 300 a year with shared data starting at 15 a month, or get the lowest price for one line of unlimited. Come into your local xfinity store to make the most of your mobile experience. You can shop the latest phones, bring your own device, or trade in for extra savings. Stop in or book an appointment to shop safely with Peace Of Mind at your local xfinity store. Jobs, economy, and his Coronavirus Relief plan. He just wrapped up a meeting with Democratic Leaders focused on the 1. 9 trillion proposal just as a brand new jobs report is out this morning showing how bad the jobs market is right now and how slowly recovery sis goig to be. I want to bring in john harwood and Christine Romans for this. As we await the president s remarks, can you bring me a Bigger Picture of what it looks like when it comes to this jobs report coming out . Look at the trajectory here. Its like a Reverse Square Root sign when you look at the recovery. Its not a sharp v, a super v at all. You can see that it stalled there. We are in a deep hole that we have not been able to crawl out of. When you look at the unemployment rate, it fell to 1. 3 . On the surface, thats because of the pandemic, but strip away these tables and tables of data, and you can see that millions of people have dropped out of the labor market. Over the past year, kate, more than 5 million women have simply left the labor market. Thats what the pandemic has done to our economy. Its truly shocking. Inside the sectors, you can see this kshaped recovery where people who already have a job, business, professional services, theyre doing fine. Its the people who serve the public who are losing their jobs again. Leisure and hospitality, retail and the like. Its a deep hole were in, its a big problem, and within these numbers you see an economy that could come back to prepandemic levels in the summer, but years and years for the job market to recover. John, what are you expecting were going to hear from the president today . I think were going to hear exactly the message that christine just said. Were down 10 million jobs, still, from last february before the pandemic ripped through the economy. Hes going to make the case that we need to get to the other side of this. This is only partially stimulus. Its largely relief money, putting money in the hands of people who have been suffering. We had this week again almost 800,000 people claiming firsttime Unemployment Benefits, 36th consecutive week of that number being higher than it ever was before the pandemic. So there is a lot of need out there. Argument over how to target the aid, and you get some pushback from some republicans and some democrats about the size of those checks and who should get those 1400 checks. But a lot of other things in that bill, and i think joe biden is going to make the case we need to move forward. Procedurally Senate Passed a budget last night, the house earlier passed a budget. They can do this with only democratic votes. Still hope some republicans come along, but they dont have to have those republicans, and i think hes going to argue full steam ahead, and the target for them is to get it done by midmarch before the extended Unemployment Benefits that currently exist in law are about to run out. And on that, john, Senate Democrats, theyve unlocked, if you will, the ability to move this through without republican support. What is your sense . Is this now a foregone conclusion, this is how its going to be with this whatever way, shape and form this covid Relief Package looks like . I think its highly likely that its done with democratic votes alone, maybe a couple of republicans. The offer from those ten moderate republicans was so far below what joe biden has proposed, had no money for state and local governments, core democratic priority. Its very difficult to see how they could come together on a package that could get 60 votes that joe biden and fellow democrats would want to pass. I think they have the tracks lined up for this to move, and it may turn out, kate, that this Impeachment Trial next week is only a speed bump in terms of interfering with the agenda. The house can move guard with their committees on reconciliation. The senate is going to do that. It appears theyll be able to hold all 50 democrats behind this package. Thank you for that perspective. Were standing behind, john, all of us together, to hear from President Biden. Hell lay the groundwork from where things go from here for this package, at least some of it, needed in the economy. John king picks up our coverage right now. Top of the hour. Hello, everybody, and welcome to inside politics. Im john king in washington. Thank you for sharing your friday with us, an important friday. President biden, just moments from now, will give us a Major Economic speech. Well take you live there when it happens. The president warning this morning that the economy is stuck in a very sluggish economy, and now the pandemic is a significant risk. Going big is the only option. President obama