of johnson & johnson to states, tribes and territories. and also to pharmacies and community health centers. johnson & johnson doses will be delivered as early as tomorrow. about 7.5% of americans have been fully vaccinated by now. that includes, we ve just learned, former president trump and his wife melania. a trump adviser today acknowledged for the first time they were inoculated at white house back in january, just months after they both came down with the coronavirus. unlike the new president and vice president, the trumps kept it private, which erases the public health benefit of seeing our leaders get the vaccine, and that goes especially among members of trump s often vaccine skeptical political base. even with the good news today, cdc director warns the country is at precarious point still in the pandemic. remain deeply concerned about potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic. latest cdc data continue to suggest that recent declines have levelled off at
biden s $1.9 trillion covid relief package. will the stimulus bill help speed up the process of reopening states and cities, especially now that vaccination rates are improving? we ll dig into that next. also this hour, levar burton, the longtime host of reading rainbow is here tonight. we ll get his take on six problematic works by dr. seuss going out of print. from nbc news world headquarters in new york, i m joshua johnson. welcome to the week. the covid relief bill passed the senate, paving the way for $1,400 checks to reach millions of mailboxes. not one republican supported the bill despite its widespread support among voters. after today s senate vote, president biden had this to say i want to thank all of the senators who worked so hard to reach a compromise to do the right thing for the american people during this crisis and voted to pass the american rescue plan. it obviously wasn t easy. it wasn t always pretty. but it was so desperately needed. the b
virginia s joe manchin, and new hampshire s jean shaheen. fewer people will get stimulus checks because of the intervention of democratic senators. now, the absurd asymmetries of american politics is in stark relief at the moment. this is joe biden s approval rating. 53% approval. donald trump never got close to that. in fact, he never broke 50% approval. a new morning consult poll the rescue bill is still unbelievably popular. 77% of all voters and 59% of republicans said they supported the measure. in fact, when provided the partisan framing for the details of the proposal, 71% of voters including 53% of republicans still supported it. people like this bill. they love it. and they don t care who is responsible for it. one study shows biden s rescue package might be the most popular presidential action since 2017. there it is all by itself all the way over there on the right side of that chart. a big part of the reason joe biden was elected, of course, was to finally crush c
february and that the nominee will be a black woman. the person i will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the united states supreme court. it s long overdue, in my view. i made that commitment during the campaign for president, and i will keep that. in the end, i will nominate a historic candidate, someone who s worthy of justice breyer s legacy and someone, who like justice breyer, will provide incredible service on the united states supreme court. breyer s announcement today takes his relationship with the president full circle in a way. then senator biden presided over breyer s confirmation hearings in 1994. let s go now to cnn white house correspondent m.j. lee. the president, he made it clear he s not chosen his nominee to the court yet. so, what happens now? reporter: that s right. though it is clear that the search has already begun, choosing a
well, i mean, look, there s example after example that comes every single night if you look at what s happening with the supreme court, what s happening with affirmative action, what s happening with a woman s right to choose. what s happening with election laws around the country. that is a direct, right, example of elections have consequences. absolutely. there s an election coming up in 2022. but you look at what s happened since the last election. look at the big lie. look at the people who are lying about the new video that i m going to talk about in a second of what happened at the capitol. still denying it, still saying it s nothing. wanting to move past it. and you cannot move past that without acknowledging and having at least some consequence or consequences for the party, for the republican party now and the former president of the united states. someone has to answer for what happened on january 6th. a direct assault on our democracy. no question, don. the