How Coronavirus Transmits helps save their season. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The first ever second Impeachment Trial Set to start a week from tomorrow, we have a whole bunch of developments in the case against the former president. And was one of the most reckless acts of any president in american history. First, there is the unsurprising upheaval in the former president s legal team. At least three lawyers left the team in recent days after trump asked them to focus their defense on continuing the big Poisonous Lie hes been pushing that the election was fraudulent, stolen. This comes just days after one of those lawyers, butch bowers of columbia, south carolina, said he did not hesitate to defend trump, saying, quote, it is who i am, it is what i do. Former president now has two new attorneys named just last night, bruce castor jr. Who previously declined to prosecute bill cosby and bill schoen who represented a whole bunch of folks including roger stone. We dont know if the new team will go along with the it was fraud and stolen defense, but take a second to think about what that means. It is worth noting that as the former president is being impeached for incitement of a deadly mob that attempted to use violent intimidation as a means of overturning a democratic election, he would be claiming as his defense that the mob had it right. And that is what he and the Republican Party overall appear to think. There has been more and more evidence coming out over the last 72 hours about the relentless plotting that happened, public and private, to make the events of january 6th happen and to make them as dangerous as possible. New york times is out with a special examination of the 77 days between the election and the inauguration when donald trump attempted to subvert american democracy with a lie about Election Fraud that he had been grooming for years. Now, when the former president incited the crowd on january 6th in that infamous bit of tape we have all seen to go to the capitol, come with me, come to the capitol and see if mike pence comes through for us, right, that moment, that was the culmination of an effort he had been cultivating for a very long time. He clearly intended to use whatever means were at his disposal, whatever levers he could find to overturn a free and fair election. And it was a project, lets be clear here, that almost the entire Republican Party signed on to before some of them got a little freaked out and tried to distance themselves. The Times Reports Trump was enabled by influential republicans motivated by ambition, fear or misplaced belief he would not go too far. Hmm. Mitch mcconnell was okay with the plan because he feared alienating a president whose help he needed in two Georgia Senate runoffs that would decide his control of the chamber. He also heeded misplaced assurances from white house aides like jared kushner, mr. Trump would eventually accede to reality. Remember that texas lawsuit challenge the Election Results that 18 republican State Attorneys General signed on to . Right . That was ghost written, drafted by lawyers close to the white house. The lie that the election was stolen propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers and financiers including the former Chief Executive of overstock. Com whose financing his own team of cybersleuths to help prove voter fraud and disgraced former National Security adviser michael flynn. Then, the day arrived, january 6th, the forces that could have, should have protected the capitol had been disarmed. Do you remember shortly after the election the former president removed a bunch of officials at the very top of the Defense Department and in a totally unprecedented move. Didnt really make much sense at the time, and he replaced them with Handpicked Trumpists whose resumes were, well, pretty insufficient for their jobs. Christopher miller never held a senior roll at the pentagon was elevated to acting Secretary Of Defense where he signed this bizarre memo, that memo forbade d. C. National guard members present at the Capitol On January 6th from using weapons or having helmets or body armor or employing any riot control agents like pepper spray or sharing any equipment with Law Enforcement agencies. Keep in mind, the planning of january 6th happened in coordination with people in trumps orbit. The selfproclaimed originator of the rally, now on the lam, publicly proclaimed he had helped from three trump loyalists in congress. I was the person who came up with the January 6th Idea with congressman gosar, mo brooks and andy biggs. We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on congress while they were voting so that who we couldnt lobby we could change the hearts and the minds of republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside. Hearts and minds. He schemed it up with some of the former president s best allies in the body, and now we have some receipts about the extent of coordination, thanks to new reporting from propublica, a trump fundraiser played a key role in planning the rally that preceded the siege. Text messages and an Event Planning memo indicate that caroline rent played an extensive role in managing operations for the event, the records show that wren oversaw logistics. Working in a president ial Fundraising Committee called Trump Victory during the Campaign Last year. A reporter who broke that story for propublica, Michael Spees joins me with luke broadwater, reporting on the pentagon memo curtailing the National Guard for the New York Times good to have you both. Michael, tell us a little bit about who Caroline Wren is and what role she played in trump world . Caroline wren was a Top Republican fundraiser for some time, going back to working with lindh Lindsey Graham and trump world more recently working at the hip of kimnd don jr. Over the last election cycle. And the documents you were able to obtain what do they show . They showed that she was intimately involved in the planning of the january 6th rally. That evolved overseeing budgeting, messaging, making key decisions, making sure facilitating the president s speaking slot, making sure he was going to speak, basically. When she came in it became like a much more real legitimate rally. Was that known before and what was the sort of as tensible story about the rally in which the president appeared . It came together in a strange way. The person who was originally putting it on was a woman named cyndi shavy, affiliated with another group called women for america first, and she was planning an event in december most interestingly, she had been contacted with alex jones, interested in funding said event, and jones at some point put her in touch with wren, who was working with a trump fundraiser who wanted to bankroll the affair. Alex jones put her in touch with Caroline Wren, the long time republican staffer who used to work for Lindsey Graham, now works for Kimberly Guilfoyle and at the nexus of this . Correct. Alex jones told her that she had to get in touch with Caroline Wren, because this particular fundraiser wanted to put on an event or contribute heavily to it. Thats right. Luke, i want to talk to you about your reporting about this dod memo. The memo strikes me as quite strange and quite anomalous, but i dont look at memos like this all the time. My first question is, is it strange and anomalous . Is this sort of pro forma thing you usually get or did this stick out at the time . So this all originates from the d. C. National guards enforcement of black lives matter protests in june. There was some criticism of the guard at the time they had been too aggressive, and they had flown helicopters too low, buzzing the protesters. And so at the time the Defense Department was trying to limit the rough tactics of the guard, and d. C. Mayor bowser had wanted the guard present on january 6th, but had requested they not be as aggressive. So this memo purportedly is for that purpose. What is somewhat worrying about it is as it comes down january 4th, two days before the rally that precedes the riot, and at that same time, Capitol Police say theyre gathering intelligence that white nationalists, other Extremist Groups are going to be armed and are going to be attacking the capitol that day or at least there is a potential for that attack on the capitol. So there is intelligence that exists that there could be this insurrection, there could be this attack on the capitol, and at the same time the commander of the d. C. National guard is being told that he needs aadditional levels of approval to use tactics to suppress a riot. So he testified before a closed Door Committee last week of the House Appropriations that, you know, he felt this slowed him down and limited his authority. There is some question as to whether how much this did slow things down, thats something were still investigating, but certainly he feels that way and thats what he told Committee Members behind closed doors. Luke, how good a sense do you as someone who is reporting on this full time have of like the full story of why they were so underprepared on that day for what presented itself . Well, it was a tremendous failure on many levels. I mean, i think one reading of it is simply they did not truly believe that the trump mob would or the mob of Trump Supporters would attack the capitol, and clearly they didnt prepare for that. Had they truly believed that, i think we would have had a much different response. There is some other indications though that perhaps there was some other considerations at play, there has been some talk that the sergeant at arms didnt want the National Guard there, because of optics, because they thought it would send a bad message, some talk that some in the military did not want the National Guard standing by, they felt it would look bad to have them standing in front of Trump Supporters as they were, you know, outside the capitol. But clearly i mean everyone now realizes this was a huge, huge failure on many levels, and thats what we have seen the resignations we have seen, the Capitol Police chief and the sergeant at arms, and i think this is something that were only sort of beginning to understand everything that went wrong, and were going to continue to investigate and i know congress is certainly going to continue to investigate and theyll be future hearings and investigations to determine exactly why there was such terrible failures. Luke broadwater and michael spies, thank you for sharing your reporting with us. I want to bring in walter dellinger, head of the office of Legal Counsel at the department of justice. Lets start on the reporting over the weekend about the notion of this trial that the president s lawyers presenting this preposterous, invidious lie about the election as their defense. What do you make of that . Well, we dont know why that set of lawyers, you know, resigned from the representation. But, you know, there is a limit to what lawyers can do. And one of the lawyers whom i know, josh howard, a north carolinian, very well respected, one of those who stepped down, there were three possible defenses you could make of the president in the impeachment proceeding. One is that they dont have Constitutional Authority over a former president , secondly that what he said was protected by the First Amendment on the morning of january 6th, and the third was that what he did was right. What he did was right because he was trying to incentivize a group to storm the capitol to stop the greatest fraud in american history. Thats according to reports is the argument that the former president wanted his lawyers to make. Now, first with arguments constitutionality, protected speech, i think theyre wrong for multiple reasons, but theyre respectable lawyer arguments. The third argument is just false. Thats why it is a real dilemma for an attorney to put forward an argue when what the judicial process showed over 60 cases is there was no basis and these are false allegations. Right. It is striking right there, youre sort of bumping up against the boundaries of professional ethics from just a lawyer r standpoint in terms of vigorous defense of the client, former president of the United States, everyone is owed a defense to just saying things you know are not true, which has been what the entire problem has been from the beginning and brought us to this moment. Right. Absolute. Problem. And, chris, it says something good about oural courts that it does kind of wash out untruths because you have ton c affidavits that are sworn to the argument that, for example, republican counters were excluded from the secret counting processes. You put someone on the stand and the lawyer has to answer for it, and the lawyer says in one of the cases the judge says to the lawyer, i am asking you as an officer of the court, were there republicans in the Counting Room as observers . And after a long pause, he finally says, yes, how many says the judge, a number greater than zero. Thats the point at which no matter what they say in a Press Conference in front of the whatever four seasons and gardening shop it is, it is a very different matter than when youre standing in court and i think thats how the truth of the baseless charges came to change. Is an Impeachment Trial more like standing outside four seasons total landscaping or more like being in Anactual Court Of Law . I think it is a mixture. When it comes to presenting evidence that is not the case, you cant put on an affidavit in any context that you know to contain false information. So any argument that, you know, 13,000 trump votes were switched and turned into biden votes is not something that a lawyer can say without being called up upon his State Bar Authority that there is no basis for it. The other two, you know, there is an interesting wrinkle to this, The Other Two arguments are also flawed but they are not false. The argument that the president is no longer in office, but when he was indicted, On January 13th, he was in office. Im sorry, when he was impeached On January 13th he was in office, and judge Michael Mcconnell is arguing very persuasively if you are impeached, while you are president , then clearly they have that authority in the senate has the authority to try all impeachments. So this is not even a case that raises a serious question about that. So the second matter, i think his lawyers will try to put on a case that there was not an incitement per se in his remarks, it was within the zone of the First Amendment protection. Thats beside the point. It is the whole 77 days of conduct that tells convinces a lot of the country that there has been a Theft Of American Democracy that leads to the rioting in question. There is some reporting tonight that the case being put together by the Impeachment Managers as the sort of opening of the show would indicate isnt about what he said specifically devoid of context on that one day. It is the sum total of the actions that led to that moment and then led to the storming of the capitol. Walter dellinger, thank you very much. Youre welcome, chris. Why the Republican Partys problem is so much bigger than Marjorie Taylor greene and bigger than donald trump. Thats next. Aylor greene and bigger than donald trump thats next. Trelegy for copd. 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She has, for example, endorsed a comment to shoot nancy pelosi in the head, claims School Shootings were hoaxes, and on and on and on. She was elected in a landslide in Northwest Georgia District which points to a big part of the problem about the Marjorie Taylor greens of the world. And the Donald Trumps of the world. What they believe is what a lot of the Republican Base believes. And it is why many other republicans like Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson just keep refusing to condemn the congresswoman on her position. First of all, the people of her district elected her and that should mean a lot. Given her history, is she fit to serve . Im not going to answer that question as to whether shes fit to serve because she believes in something that everybody else does not except i reject that, but shes going to stand for reelection. Joined now by someone who has written how much greene reflects her party, mary fast. I thought of this piece when i was watching this clip of asa hutchinson, you see it repeated among republicans, this representation dodge, right . We saw it in question in the Election Results, josh hawley would say a lot of my constituents have questions, and at some level it is true, like it is the case that there are probably tens of millions of people that have views similar to Marjorie Taylor greene. Yeah. I mean, there is really scary polling out there, 56 of republicans believe that, you know, some amount of qanon is true, right . Thats madness. And one in three republicans think that the deep state is working against the president. So there are a lot of crazy beliefs, but i think the fact that republicans are giving up all of their duty and just going along with it is a pretty bad sign. I mean what they need to do is actually wager frontal war on this, right . There is very few that want to do it. A few interesting developments on this story today. So Mitch Mcconnell actually just put out this statement, that reads in part, looney lies and Conspiracy Theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country, somebody who suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon On 9 11 that horrifying School Shooting were prestaged and that the clintons crashed jfk jr. s airplane is not living in reality. What do you make of that . It is all fine and good, but they need to do something, right. And remember Marjorie Taylor greene, they knew who she was when this was going on. And jim jordan actually supported her and so did mark meadows. So this was not, like, some outsider where people didnt say you know, she ran unopposed. So i would say that what republicans need to do is they need to do what they did with steve cane, youre not going to be able to get the numbers to get her out, because thats twothirds and thats just i think going to be impossible, because a lot of the gop in the house is pretty wacky, but i think they could strip her of her Committee Assignments like steve king and there is no doubt in being in office. I dont know the Republican Party will do that because they have been very cowardly. I thought congressman kenzinger, from illinois, and voted for impeachment of donald trump, made sort of a good point about that, that path forward, take a listen to what he had to say. Would you vote to evict her . I would certainly vote her off committee in terms of eviction im not sure because kind of in the middle. I think a district has every right to put who they want there, we have every right to take a stand and say you dont get a committee. I thought that was a pretty good point. Again, everyone keeps circling back to this fundamental democratic problem here. She was elected by the people of her district, and they knew what views she had, she did not hide them, it is like the same problem in some ways the trump problem, of course, though she actually won her seat with more votes than her nonexistent opponent, but we keep coming back to that as the issue. You know, all of this happened because there was a power vacuum, right . Republicans let themselves be hijacked by trump, and now trump is gone and no one has stepped in. Right . So we have a situation where the Republican Party is largely governored by whoever is the loudest. You have places like oregon where the gop and hawaii where the gop is tweeting crazy qanon stuff because those people are the loudest. I think you need someone like a mitt romney to go in there and say, like, this is madness you guys have to get it together, but i dont know there are there are only ten people, ten republican congressmen who are like that in the house. Right. You could have the factional war, factional wars happen all the time, we see them in different political movements at different times. They happen in the democratic party, in the cold war, particularly as regarded communism and harry wallace, there were huge Factional Battles that the tea party represented. You can have Factional Battles. It seems there are not enough members actually willing to have the battle. Yeah. I mean, the problem is there arent many sane members of the gop in the house. You have ten who really said, like, Armed Insurrection is bad. But you had 100 plus who said, Armed Insurrection is okay if you really want to. Which is pretty nuts. So i dont know how you get those people to behave in a rational way, when they havent. The other thing that looms over this, of course, is the expresident who Marjorie Taylor greene said she had a great call with, and part of this Marjorie Taylor greene discussion seems so bizarre, how did this woman get elected to congress . Did you see who we just had for president for four years . Theyre not that different. Thats, again, that there theyre channeling something that is vibrant and powerful and dynamic in a certain core faction of American Politics and until people beat that force, it is there. Molly jongfast, thank you for your time tonight. Coming up, Bernie Sanders and the Big Covid Relief Bill and the republicans trying to short change it. He joins me live next. S trying short change it. He joins me live next. At carvana, no matter what car you buy from us, you get the freedom of the sevenday return policy. This isnt some dealership test drive around the block. Its better. This is seven days to put your carvana car to the test and see if it fits your life. Load it up with a weeks worth of groceries. Take the kiddos out for ice cream. Check that is has enough wiggle room in your garage. You get the time to make sure you love it. And on the sixth day, well reach out and make sure everythings amazing. If so, excellent. If not, swap it out for another, or return it for a refund. Its that simple. Because at carvana, your car happiness is what makes us happy. Sfx [sounds of everyday life events, seen and heard in reverse] sfx [sounds of fedex planes and vehicles engines] sfx [sounds of children laughing and running, life moving forward] it was a very Good Exchange of views. I wouldnt say that we came together on a package tonight, no one expected that in a twohour meeting. But what we did agree to do is to follow up and talk further. Susan collins speaking on behalf of the nine republican senators who just left the white house a short time ago. Their meeting with President Biden to hear his case for 1. 9 trillion relief bill, all advancing their version of a bill about a third of the size and attempting to negotiate in the spirit of bipartisanship and unity that the president ran on. Heres the thing, bidens Larger Covid Relief Bill is already unifying. It is massively popular with the majority of the American People, it already has bipartisan support, for example, heres the republican governor jim justice of West Virginia, a state trump won by nearly 70 . At this point in time, in this nation, we need to go big. We need to quit counting the legs on the cows and count the cows and just move, and move forward and move right now. We need to go big and if we waste some money now, well, we waste some money. But absolutely we got too many people hurting, and the economy is going to sputter and we got to get ourselves out of this mess and this is the way we need to go right now. And im joined now by the incoming chair of the senate Budget Committee, senator Bernie Sanders, independent from vermont. I was very struck, senator, by jim justice of West Virginia making that case in a few different places today. That is one of trumps best states in the union, he is a republican, and it was interesting to me that he feels the need to be so vocal about it. Look, as youve indicated, we are in the midst of the most unprecedented set of crises in the modern history of this country. And the governor of West Virginia understands that. Were talking about people who have lost their jobs, cant feed their families, chris, people worried about being evicted. 90 Million People uninsured or underinsured in the midst of this terrible pandemic. Were losing 3,000 people every single day from the virus. Our kids are unable to go to school. You have a significant uptick in Mental Illness because of all of this separation that people, you know, cant be with their families, cant be with their friends this is a terrible moment. And the governor is right. Now is not the time to count pennies. Now is the time to address these monumental crises and i think what the president is proposing is a very good start in doing that. What is your response to understanding of this group of nine senators on the republican side who made this counterproposal at, you know, a third of the total cost, and met with the president today. Well, im glad that the president met with republicans, we want to continue to have a dialogue and theyre all going to be issues coming down the pike where i think youre going to see some bipartisan efforts. For example, republicans understand that our infrastructure is crumbling, and we can create millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our roads and bridges and affordable housing. Republicans or a number of them understand it is absurd that on some cases were paying ten times more than other countries for prescription drugs. We got to lower the costs of prescription drugs. So there are a number of areas where i think we have the potential to work together. Remember, this is the first reconciliation bill, there will be another one coming soon. After this one is passed. But right now, what the republicans are talking about is just totally inadequate to meet the unprecedented crises that we are facing. So you just mentioned reconciliation, a budgetary process which has begun in both houses and because of senate rules, it means it is not filibusterable, right . You can simple majority bill. Brian shotts, your colleague, said the following, regular people dont care whether we pass something with 51 votes or 60. Do you agree . Absolutely. Look, what goes on inside the beltway is unfathomable to many of us insood the beltway and nobody outside. You want to talk about bird rules, good luck. The bottom line is, the American People are hurting and theyre hurting badly. And what worries me is so many by the millions of our people are giving up on democracy. They really do not believe that the government is listening or understands their pain and can respond. That is what we have got to do right now. So i agree with your view of this, and senator schatz, are you confident you have the Democratic Caucus together . This is a diverse caucus, you got folks from West Virginia, and arizona, and two new senators from georgia, do you think you can hold the caucus together, you and your colleagues, for a Reconciliation Vote on a package of this size . Well, you know, Leader Schumer has been working 24 7 on just that issue. I think we will. Because at the end of the day, every member of the Democratic Caucus, no matter what their differences may be, and, look, i have differences. And concerns about this bill. In my judgment, it doesnt go far enough. Other people are different concerns. But at the end of the day, we all come from states, we are sick and tired of seeing hundreds of cars lining up for food, kids unable to go to school, people not getting the vaccines as rapidly as they should. We all share that in common and second of all, chris, we are the majority right now because two great candidates ran in georgia. And that Georgia Election really became a national election. And promises were made in that election. Not just by the candidates, but by many of us and what we said is, you know, if democrats, if you elect democrats and we take control, were going to get you. 1400 on top of the 600, were going to extend unemployment. Were going to significantly increase the child tax credit, give money to states and cities, were going to deal with education. Those were the promises made. And it would be totally unacceptable for any democrat to renege on those promises, that is why people are giving up on the political process. You just mentioned were in the majority, which is true. Slimmest possible majority, 50 50, tie breaking vote from the vice president. I think i lost the thread on here. So remind me here, there was a standoff of the Organizing Resolution. Which actually is the resolution that gives the Committee Power over it. Mcconnell walked away from it after he felt he got assurances in the president got a filibuster, the Organizing Resolution hasnt passed yet. Am i crazy . Did i miss something here . Welcome to washington, d. C. I literally dont understand, though. Like what is happening . Yes, youre right. It hasnt passed. I think what happens is you got to you got to add new senators to committees, got to be a balance and all that stuff. My understanding is that it will finally pass, i believe, tomorrow. So then you will be then you will actually be the chair of the Budget Committee as opposed to the incoming chair . Right. Something like that. Do you think that there you started this by talking about the possibility of bipartisanship. I wonder if you feel like there is an opportunity here to sort of learn the lessons of 2009, but also if there is a ways in which the way that joe biden approaches the presidency, which is not to sort of dominate the nations attention, not to be out there on every issue, can help in some ways. Like, is there a counterintuitive case to be made that not having the president banging the drum on something can mean there is actually more space for some kind of legislative work outside the spotlight . No, i think thats right. I think, you know, biden is a personality who is very low key, hes inclusive, he wants to involve people in the process. But what he also understands, and i give him a lot of credit for this, is that at this particular moment now is not the time to think small, it is the time to think big and to address the crisis. But, you know, there are republicans who have good ideas. Lets bring them in. At the end of the day, you know, the media keeps talking about bipartisanship, bipartisanship, thats fine. But what is much more important to the average american is that we deal and address the terrible, terrible pain and suffering that they are experiencing right now. Thats what the American People want and thats what we have got to do. What is a realistic timeline for this relief package . It will the debate begins tomorrow, i think. That will go on, we should hopefully pass this by thursday, then we go to impeachment. I think within a few weeks my hope is that the Reconciliation Package is in the house and the senate and will in fact be passed. We got to move as quickly as we can because people are hurting. A few weeks . Yeah. I know that for the rest of the world people are saying, why are you taking so long . But for the u. S. Senate this is lightning speed. And then how does impeachment play a role in this . I know there is talk about parallel tracks, there is a scheduling issue, there is the fact it will take attention of the body as it should because it is, in my mind, important. What do you think . Well, i think youre right. It is certainly, i mean, the goal here is to show the world that the United StatesSenate Despite all visible aspects that we in fact can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. That is what our challenge is. So do we have to deal with impeachment . You do. It is not something i would have wanted, but when you have a president leading an insurrection to overturn a government that he swore to defend, you know, you got to deal with that. I hope we do it as quickly as possible. I hope we get bidens nominees appointed, confirmed as soon as possible, and i hope very much that we address this Reconciliation Package, pass it as quickly as possible and then i want everybody to know were going to another one. This one deals with the emergency of covid. The next one deals with some of the structural longterm problems of a crumbling infrastructure, of climate change, of education, of a whole lot of other issues so that we can create millions of good paying jobs and improve life in our nation. Senator Bernie Sanders, who will be soon the chair of the Budget Committee. Thank you for taking time tonight, senator. Thank you, chris. Coming up, how the nfl managed to play a full season in the middle of a pandemic, thanks in part to what they discovered about the way the virus actually spreads. Thats ahead. Out the way the viy spreads. 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Michael osterholm is sounding the alarm. 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 me we will, we are going to see Something Like we have not seen yet in this country. England, for example, hospitalizing twice as many people as we ever hospitalized at our highest number. 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, but i think right now in advance of the surge we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can to reduce the serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead. Right now the u. S. Is up to an average of 1. 3 million vaccine doses administered daily. It is going up. But heres the thing, thats going in the right direction, but it has to happen much faster. A chart in gray shows we still lost more than 1,500 americans to covid19 today alone. Of course, thats an undercount because it is a monday. While new cases have been trending downward in the pink graph, today saw about 120,000 new cases. Again, were past peak here, the dynamic that set in during this covid winter is that were all laser focused on the vaccine race and the deployment, which makes sense, but no matter how fast the vaccine is, we are still living with the virus in the here and now. And thats what we have been saying for almost a year now there are ways to suppress the virus with enough focus and rigor. One of the places that has figured out how to do it is the National Football league. Thats ahead. E National Football league thats ahead. Now, theres skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90 clearer skin at 4 months after just 2 doses. Skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. Man i feel free to bare my skin. Ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. Since suzies got goals, shell want a plan to reach them. So shell get some help from fidelity, and shell feel so good about her plan, she can focus on living it. Thats the planning effect, from fidelity. Among my patients, i often see them have Teeth Sensitivity as well as gum issues. Does it worry me . Absolutely. Sensodyne sensitivity gum gives us the dual Action Effect that really takes care of both our Teeth Sensitivity as well as our gum issues. Theres no question its something that i would recommend. 1 in 2 kids is under hydrated. Plantpowered creative roots gives kids the hydration they need, with the Fruit Flavors they love. And one gram of sugar. Find creative roots in the kids juice aisle. Super bowl lv is all set for this coming sunday. The idea the nfl would make it to the championship game without any kind of catastrophic disruption because of covid19 was not at all guaranteed. In fact, almost unthinkable when play kicked off in september. Yet without an abbreviated season Like Major League bowl or regional cities like the nhl or a bubble like the nba had their first run of it, the nfl is headed toward a basically successful completion of their full season and championship, a sport in which obviously social distancing isnt possible. A new piece in the Wall Street Journal explains part of the reason for that success is the league spent a whole lot of money to learn a whole bunch about how the virus is transmitted and how to stop it. One of the Sports Reporters owen that story, Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal joins me now. Andrew, thanks for coming on. I learned a lot from your piece. Tell me about how the nfl and Nfl Players Association approached the problem in getting their arms around it this season. Well, if you think back to the start of the season, they werent playing in a bubble. They were playing in america. And so they knew from the very start that they would not be able to stop people from getting infected with the virus, but their whole idea was, okay, if thats going to happen, lets stop it from spreading within teams. And they implored people to wear masks, they tried to enforce social distancing protocols, they instituted daily testing. One of the interesting things they found out, not all that was Stopping Transmission of the virus within teams and when they started looking at the data, they came to some interesting conclusions that applied to not just their Football Season but you and me here, everybody at home. Right. They have protocols in place, trying to maintain social distancing anyone you start having these outbreaks. Theres the Baltimore Ravens had a huge outbreak. There are a bunch of teams that it sort of ripped through the locker room. They start taking a look at the data which what is the data that theyre looking at . Well, the data theyre looking at is an unmatched type of data set. If you think about what the nfl was doing, there isnt really a business that had the combination of communities and resources to match it. These are 32 teams spread across the country with teams worth billions of dollars that are paying for testing every day, for hightech Contact Tracing devices. Right. That generates a lot of data. They conducted more than 900,000 tests over the course of the season. Theres a lot of information in there. And when you combine that with the Contact Tracing, what they start to find was, you know, we have been told from the start of the pandemic that we should measure our interactios with a stopwatch and a Measuring Stick which is 15 minutes, 6 feet, is the general guideline. But when they started looking at their cases, they were seeing that people were transmitting the virus in under 15 minutes and over 16. And so that was sort of a real clear moment for them that they could look at this and say, we need to change our protocols because the virus can spread like that and if we dont account for that, were going to have more of these outbreaks and it could really upend our season. And just reading from your reporting here, an investigation confirmed that cumulative brief interactions exceeding 50 minutes could lead to transmission, didnt have to be 15 consecutive minutes, lee leading the cdc to change. You said you got Contact Tracing devices on everyone plus testing every day so they could actually sort of go back and Reverse Engineer how transmission happened then they actually published this, right . They talked to the cdc about it. Yeah, this nfl season quite literally became a cdc paper. This was published by the cdc. Whats interesting if you go back to october, there was a paper published about a vermont prison that talked about those cumulative interactions that ended up to 15 minutes. Didnt just have to be one 15minute interaction, it could be 3 interactions in 5 minutes. What the nfl found is it doesnt even have to be 15 minutes, it could be under that. It doesnt even into to be six feet. It could be longer than six feet if youre in a poorly ventilated space. So what it really adds up to it a more holistic understanding of this idea of transmission, not just time and distance. Its also ventilation. Its mask wearing. Because its very different if you have an encounter outdoors, say, wearing a mask for a long time than even a brief encounter inside a car with partial mask usage. Right. So these contextual the contextual sort of differences which weve been talking about, again, as we come up on year two of the pandemic, they actually just see popping out in their data, right, because theyre able to go back and theyre seeing that poorly ventilated spaces, close contact without masks, theyre seeing transmission underneath these 6 feet, 15 minute sort of benchmarks. Yeah, exactly. You could look at a lot of these outbreaks that happened in football and could be traced back to the simple idea of Eating Dinner together, right . Right. Transmission they found wasnt happening on the football field, sounds crazy given everything we know about football involves really large people running into each other all day. If you think about it, those interactions actually add up to very brief amount of times and tend to happen in really large wellventilated spaces like an outdoor stadium or just a very large dome. When an outbreak could happen is, lets say, a couple teammates grab a sandwich together. That data was boosted by the fact not just that they were Contact Tracing but doing sequencing, track the strains of the virus that were spreading. Okay, when two people tested positive did they get it from each other . Right. They have an exact fingerprints on the different types of virus. They knew exactly where it was coming from. Fascinating information. Andrew beaton, thanks very much for sharing your reporting with us. Thanks so much for having me. That is all in on this monday night. The Rachel Maddow show begins right now. Thank you, chris. Much appreciate it. As you can see, i, too, am joining the show from home this evening. Thats why the background here looks the way it does. No reason to worry at all. Im snowed in tonight. Like so many people are in the northeast with this gigantic winter storm. The roads where i am are totally impassable tonight. Even with fourwheel drive, even with good ground clearance, and so im home. Better safe than sorry. You may remember that i figured out how to set up my laptop as a