since taking office 51 days ago. and cnn just learning the president will direct all states to open vaccine eligibility to all adults by may first and that he would like to see some signs of normalcy like small gatherings by july 4th. this comes just hours after biden signed a landmark piece of legislation, a $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. >> i believe this is and most people i think do as well, this historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle class folks, people who built the country a fighting chance. >> biden is seizing the moment. according to cnn's new poll, 77% of americans now believe the worst is behind us. that is up nearly 30% over just the past two months. there is an undeniable sense of hope across this country after a year that the cdc says was almost certainly the deadliest year on record for the u.s.. the deadliest year on record. and tonight does mark one year to the day that the world health organization followed the lead of cnn and called the covid outbreak what it is, a pandemic. that same day, trump addressed the nation with this message. >> i am confident that i count and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus. >> tonight one year later, despite some signs of light, we are still trying to defeat this virus because, yes, 530,000 americans have died, an incredible tragedy and loss. but even now, 1400 -- 1,400 people in this country are still dying every single day from coronavirus. and there is a lot of pain. in moments, biden will address that pain and the hope for the future. kaitlan collins is out front live outside the white house. caitlan, you've been learning details about what president biden will say tonight in his significant address, his first in 51 days. it is going to be detailed, we understand. he's put a lot of time into this. >> reporter: yeah, they say he's been editing it line by line, one, because he wants to make sure americans understand how they are going to benefit from the coronavirus relief package that he signed earlier today, that $1.9 trillion package, but also he is going to make some news, erin. what that is going to be is president biden is directing all states to make sure that all americans can actually get the vaccine by no later than may 1st. that means conditions you've seen on age limits, whether or not you have a health condition, they want those to fall away no later than may 1st. the white house says they believe president biden has the authority to direct states and tribes and territories to do so through the health and human services department. so look for that. but there is also going to be another key date that you are going to hear from president biden tonight and that's july 4th because they believe by having this goal of may 1 where all adult americans can get the vaccine, everyone is eligible, that then by july 4th, you could start to see small gatherings of people for july 4th celebrations, something that, of course, did not happen last year because that was when we were right in the heat of all of these lockdowns. they're hoping we can get back to some kind of look like by normal by july 4th. the one key thing we should note, senior administration officials said as they were prepping us for what president biden is going to say tonight, a lot of this is going to depend on americans going and getting the vaccine. you can read into that. you've seen concerns about vaccine hesitancy. they also said just because everyone who wants one is eligible to get one by may first doesn't mean everyone will have gotten one by then. there are still going to be issues they're working through with supplies, with hesitancy, with getting people to get the vaccine in their arms. so look for that as well. but the other question that naturally comes up, how are they going to do this. a few things they just told us a few moments ago, they are going to set up a federally supported website by the beginning of ma. you heard that idea floated earlier this year. you are going to have that to look for where you can get the vaccine. for people who do not have access to the internet, they'll have a call center so you can call to find out the closest place to get a vaccine, erin. >> thank you, kaitlan. i want to go to ron klain. i appreciate your time. we note that there would be news in the speech tonight and we did get some big news, right, that the president is directing all states to open vaccinations to all adults, no preconditions, no age restrictions by may 1st. what else new can you tell us about what to expect tonight? >> well, i think kaitlan wynton over the big news, the deadline. he's going to talk about how that's going to be possible. we have rapidly accelerated the pace of vaccinations under the biden administration. it's possible because of the funding that the president signed into law today with the american rescue plan which will allow us to further accelerate vaccinations. he is also going to talk about some of our other goals, which is getting schools reopened by the end of this 100 days, the majority of k through 8 schools opened in 100 days. and getting guidance from centers for disease control what they can do safely after they have been vaccinated. we think it is important to encourage people to get vaccinated and helps people see a pathway back to greater normalcy in our lives. >> sir, there is a poll out showing three quarters of americans say the worst of the outbreak is behind us. i do wonder who the other 20, 22% are. but there are still serious risks out there to be sure. and we did see today the governor of oklahoma is following the recent lied of texas, mississippi, dropping covid restrictions, masks, everything else. is there real risk that the progress gets wiped out here or at this point? no? >> well, i think there is risk that the progress gets wiped out here. the progress gets delayed or setback. the president emphasized he is doing his part, the federal government is finally showing up for work and accelerating the pace of vaccines and delivering the tools we need. he's going to deploy 4,000 additional troops to give vaccinations. he's going to send vaccines to 950 community health centers. but then the american people have to do their part. that means using masks until it's safe not to do so. that means social distancing. that means when it's your turn to get vaccinated, getting vaccinated. so this is a whole of the country effort. the president is deploying our entire government to do its part. the american people are going to have to do their part, too. >> so, today the president signed the covid relief bill into law. i know he's going to be talking about that tonight. and i know that he's going to be trying to roll out different parts of it. obviously when you look at it, it is five to six times bigger than it would be if its simple goal was to replace lost income from covid. it would be much smaller. but it's bigger. when the first stimulus checks went out in april of 2020, that was the biggest bill, right? this is smaller than that one. unemployment was 14.8%. now we have unemployment down to 6.2%. savings rate has surged. do you have any fear that this bill is too big for the moment when you do have a lot of people who are ready to surge out there? >> no, i think this bill is fine in what we need to meet the moment. we have fought this virus from behind for more than a year. we've been losing that battle. we started to turn that around the past 50 days. there is a lot more work to do. and while the official unemployment rate is down, we know there are millions of americans out of work. americans who can't find work. americans who had to drop out of the work force because of the economy. we need to get this economy growing again. we need to get people the help they need. part of what this bill does is in addition to those $1,400 checks everyone is talking about, it also provides food assistance for people who have been hardest hit by this. assistance to our veterans health care system to get them the help they need. help for small business so they can get reopened and create jobs. this is a comprehensive strategy to get this country going again. i think that's what this country really needs right now. >> all right. so, of course, the reality of it is as we all know, right, no republicans voted for it. and all democrats did, but one in the house. this comes in the context, though, of president biden's taking his candidacy and his presidency on his unique ability to unite and what he calls the crucial nature of bipartisan ship. here he is. >> we need to revive a spirit of bipartisan in this country. my hope is that we'll get republicans as well as democrats to support us. >> i've been talking to a lot of my republican friends in the house and the senate, continue to do that. >> of course, there was none of that on covid relief, right. as i mentioned, neither the house nor senate voted for it. ron, as you specifically know, you were blamed by the moderate republican susan collins because she said during the meeting at the white house when the president sat down with ten republican senators to talk about this at the beginning -- let me quote her. she said biden was very attentive, gracious into the details. it was a great discussion. ron -- that's you -- was shaking his head in the back of the room the whole time, which is not exactly an encouraging sign. i thought that was unfortunate. what do you say to senator collins, ron? >> well, what i'll say with all due respect to senator collins is that the plan the republicans put forward in that meeting, which the president did indeed listen to graciously because he is a gracious listener, was inadequate for the moment. it proposed to cut these $1,400 checks. it proposed no aid to put teachers back on the job. it proposed nothing for veterans health care. it proposed nothing to help the children who are in poverty as a result of this. so the plan they proposed was less than a third the size of the plan that congress enacted. and, again, the president certainly did listen respectfully. we wanted to find a way to try to get to a middle ground with the republican senators, republicans in the house. but in the end there was a choice between doing what the country needed to be done, to beat this virus and to grow this economy, or doing something much smaller than that. and the president made the choice to do what this country needs. now, i hope we can find as we move forward to other issues, places we can work together with republicans and do things on a bipartisan basis. they have issues on infrastructure that are encouraging. cancer that is encouraging. in this case, the crisis, the president did what he had to do to beat this virus and to get this economy moving. >> ron, i also want to ask you about what's happening at the southern border right now. the latest number we had today, 3,700 unaccompanied migrant children in u.s. border patrol custody which is 1,000 more kids than trump had at the peak of the 2019 border crisis. we have also learned that many children are being kept in jail-like facilities. how is the situation any different than under trump, except for that you have more kids? >> well, first of all, we aren't separating children from their families. these are children who are arriving alone. the other thing is we're trying to meet the situation with urgency and humanity. we're working hard with the department of health and human services to help the children when they arrive, make sure they are treated in a humane way and connected with family members in the united states or with other sponsors. you know, we were left with inadequate resources down there, with a system that had been shrunk due to covid, and now we're trying to stand up the resources we need to make sure these children are treated in a humane and appropriate way. >> let me ask you because this is really hard. i know it's easy for people to throw stones here. when you're looking at a problem like this and a lot of these kids -- one of the issues the trump administration said they had is they could not find these kids' families, they didn't know where to send them. if they've come here illegally, are you going to let them stay, are you going to be able to find where they came from? how do you tackle this issue in many cases? >> so, erin, it is a hard problem. no question about it. many children have family members here in the u.s. and we're going to make an effort to connect them with their family members. others don't, and we're going to try to connect them with sponsors and social service organizations that will take care of them. but particularly when small children come here sent by their parents on a perilous dangerous journey to this country, claiming a fear of persecution, we need to deal with this in a humane -- it is a hard problem but a problem we're very focused on in terms of making sure these children are treated appropriately and ultimately wind up in a safe home here in the u.s. >> right. and so just to understand, the goal, then, what you're saying in a humane way, i understand your goal is to have them stay here. >> well, these children coming here obviously have claims, asylum claims. those claims have a right under u.s. law, to have those claims be heard. so our goal is to follow the law. this is a nation of immigrants. it's a nation of laws. we're going to follow the law, treat these children appropriately under federal law, and both legally and humanely, that's our objective. >> well, i appreciate your time, ron. thank you very much. for the conversation. >> thanks for having me, erin. of course. >> and next, biden preparing to address the nation and tout his covid relief bill, a bill as i was discussing with ron, had no republican support. so will that hurt biden's ability to move forward with other parts of his agenda, the things like infrastructure that ron was mentioning? 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(giggling) that's my turtle. fraud protection. discover. something brighter. kinder bueno? woooooow. it's crispy. it's creamy. it's not your average chocolate bar. smooth milk chocolate, crispy wafer and creamy hazelnut filling. it's kinder bueno. breaking news. president biden a moments away from his primetime address to mark one year of the coronavirus pandemic. he is going to set a date, may 1st for everyone to be vaccinated and july 4 for the country being closer to normal. he's expected to tell americans they could have a small gathering or barbecue if there is continued vigilance with masks and social distancing. his chief of tstaff and ally ro klain said they will have vaccines going in arms. dana bash and political speech writer, john is going to write out specific dates, july 4th. they have given dates, but by late summer, by spring. the end of june, it was very vague and all of that. this is very specific, which seems to signal a real sense of confidence, doesn't it? >> that's right. and that's what an oval office address is designed to do. this is the most iconic moment in early presidency other than inaugural. the president behind the resolute desk in command and what i think you're going to see isn't biden trying to aim for soaring rhetoric, but to layout a clear plan of command. saying, look, this is how it's going to affect you and that may 1st date when everyone is eligible is a big deal. we're going to declare a degree of independence by independence day is a real deal. he'll talk about schools and how this bill helps achieve that. this looks like a very, how does this action impact your lives and help america open up? a workday speech from the president of the united states. >> independence from the virus by independence day. only a speech writer. if they didn't think of that line, they're playing with it now. dana, to that point, we do know biden went through line by line reviewing the draft of tonight's speech over the past week, literally line by himself all this week. what does that say to you, knowing him over the years knowing the level of detail going into it and what his goal is? >> well, like john said, this is such a historic and iconic moment for this president. historic in terms of how people are going to look at his administration, particularly given the crises that he inherited. and so this is an incredibly important time for him to communicate, especially given the fact that, as we now know, they are going to and he is going to communicate very specific ideas and goals. it's so interesting to me because at the beginning, you know, the first few weeks, there was a lot of criticism of the biden administration because they were kind of low-balling the goals on vaccines in arms. >> right. >> saying it was 100 million by the first 100 days. are you just playing politics with this? this speech tonight is completely opposite end of the spectrum in terms of the expectation game that people play in politics because he is going to, you know, be bold with the time. if you think about where we started a year ago, if we thought this time last year that being bold with the time line would be may 1st, 2021, no one would have believed it. given how difficult it's been and how mismanaged it was by the previous administration, it's pretty accelerated. >> so, john, even though -- we talk about the partisanship of the vote here and there's a lot of implications from that. but one thing that is quite ironic is many people who voted against it, a lot of constituents are going to benefit from it. and now, well, republican senator roger wicker went on twitter to praise the bill tweeting independent restaurant operators have won. $21 billion of targeted relief, they can survive the pandemic and keep their employees on the payroll. well, i mean, so i'm glad he's celebrating winning even though he voted against it. the white house is taking this in stride saying, great, we'll work with you on other stuff. >> yeah. >> but this is pretty incredible irony. obviously he's not a stupid person. he knows that that was going to be called out. he doesn't care. think it be