over delivering. so this was a distinct change, i think, in messaging and sort of represents a noof phase according to some of the people i talked to who are responsible for the vaccine rollout. i think numbers wise, yeah, it's totally possible when you start to look at the amount of vaccine that's available, look from moderna, pfizer, johnson & joh johnson, getting the vaccines into people's arms, and also into hard-to-reach communities. it's not a slam dunk. i think the vaccine itself will be available but to make sure people actually can have access to it, people who want it can have access, it's still a question mark. i also think that the idea then that they say by july 4th we're going to have this ability to basically, as he's describing, this return to normalcy. again, i think it's very doable. it seems very realistic, but this is a different sort of change in messaging from this white house. >> i was going to ask you, sanjay, what you think the major obstacles are in the way of hitting these numbers beyond the logistics, and i think you got a little bit of a sense of what president biden thinks the obstacles may be by the number of times he grabbed his mask to show the number of people. >> right, exactly. so i think there's a couple things. so certainly what you're talking about in terms of are people going to let their guard down with public health practices, how much of an impact will these variants actually have, but it's interesting -- i think it's almost a little bit of the opposite as well and what i mean is that things are obviously improving. we've talked about that for several weeks now be the numbers are coming down, hospitalization rates and death rates are coming down. vaccine hesitancy has been an issue but i would almost describe what they're worried about more as sort of vaccine fade in the sense that people are not hesitant necessarily about getting the vaccine but you're going into the warmer months, the numbers look a lot better. i'm good. i don't really need it. and then you go back into the colder months and you have a large percentage, too large a percentage of the country, that is unprotected and the numbers could go back up. i think this idea you're going to get to may and a lot of people who aren't necessarily hesitant but i don't think that's an issue anymore. that's what i think they're trying to avoid. so creating the sense of urgency. by may 1st, there's going to be eligibility for everyone. by the end of may, hopefully everyone will be vaccinated that wants to be vaccinated and we hope that percentage is really high. so that's, i think, one of the big things he was addressing last night. i think your point about the variants and what could happen over the next several weeks, stuff that is talked about all the time on your show is very real as well. >> sanjay, what's happening with it italy? cases had been coming down dramatically, then they plateaued. now they're going back up. we hear the prime minister is going to be addressing the nation this morning about a lockdown over easter weekend because of this. are they doing something different than we're doing? do they not have as much vaccine? what's happening there? >> first of all, we should pay attention to italy, right? this is feeling like deja vu. well, we're not going to be italy, are we? that's italy. we surpassed italy in terms of number of cases per capita. they haven't vaccinated as much as the united states has. it's closer to around 3%. we have seen the numbers go up and the dominant strain is becoming this uk strain that we've talked about a lot. you see the numbers. i think we have the death rates as well in italy and what you'll find is that obviously it's a lagging indicator but it has still stayed on a downward trajectory. the last seven-day average still lower than several weeks before that. so those numbers still coming down. might they come up? perhaps a bit because their vaccination rates aren't as high as ours. we are vaccinating, i think, increasingly the right people and people who are at the greatest risk of actually getting sick and dying, and i think that will help us in terms of hospitalizations and deaths. but the issue i think more than anything else is that their trigger for basically going into a lockdown is much lower, i think, significantly lower than the united states. the idea that we would go into some sort of lockdown, again, seems almost impossible especially as you see 16 states lifting their mandates at this point. would it work in this country? yeah, of course it would work. you keep people home, the virus can't spread as easily. will that happen here? no. i think we will probably have a greater impact in terms of cases because of these variants, but if the hospitalizations and deaths don't increase as much i think that probably we're not going to see any aggressive measures in this country. >> sanjay, thank you very much. president biden will hold a signing ceremony this afternoon at the rose garden. he will be there with democratic congressional leaders. not a single republican voted for this massive relief bill. then next week the president and vice president begin selling the relief package across the country. joining us now political analyst david gregory. david, i want to play again part of what we played before. just the president's speech where he talks to the american people and asks them for things i haven't really heard in a way from a president before. listen. >> i will not relent until we beat this virus, but i need you, the american people, i need you. i need every american to do their part. i need you to get vaccinated when it's your turn and when you can find an opportunity and to help your family, your friends, your neighbors get vaccinated as well. >> you know, you were at the white house after 9/11, and i'm not saying presidents haven't called for sacrifice before, david, but i don't remember seeing a president lean over a podium like that and reach out and basically shake americans by the lapels and say, i need you. help me. help me. it was different. >> it felt a lot more reading about fdr than seeing modern presidents we've could have had in that setting in the east room who are more formal and are more grave and certainly president biden had the gravity, but i was struck by the same thing. he leaned forward. he's a very professional politician. he's been for decades, as we know, but he has not lost that common touch and that is really what defines him and the empathy. so to combine the empathy, the ability to lead the country in grieving but then say i need something very specific of you. and as you were discussing with sanjay, it's so important the weather is getting warmer. look at our polling showing most people think we're basically out of this thing. there's still so metropolitan pain out in the country economically, of course, and there are more precautions at that take with regard to this virus. it was a fine line for the president to walk, and i thought he did it very well. >> and given that there's so much economic pain, were you surprised that he didn't trumpet the $1.9 trillion more? >> yeah, well, a couple of things. i'm surprised where he put it in the speech, and i still think he has from a political point of view some salesmanship to do, which he will be doing across the country. and i raise the politics because no republicans voted for this that we know. i think the playbook there is to look to the midterms. it's very much like how republicans stood in the way of president obama's agenda. but there is a sense of do we still need all of this money? is it targeted enough? is this more of a progressive giveaway? and republicans after trump are going to want to go back to the one thing that they felt was working against democrats which is to say be afraid of the left, be afraid of too much government. and this is going to be a big target. i was a little surprised he didn't break down specifically what it would do and why it's still needed. again, what sanjay mentioned, the president still faces the obstacle of people feeling we're even further ahead than we are. if people are thinking, oh, great, july 4th we can gather, people are already doing that in a lot of quarters, and they'll do more of that. they won't just stay outside on july 4th. the public health community realizes that, and they're trying to pull people back to a safer zone. >> it's a little different when people -- it's hard to imagine people being afraid of a $1,400 check in their mailbox or being afraid of an increased child tax credit, which an enormous number of americans will be getting. so i absolutely agree with you on the big government argument but it's just a little bit different this time than has been made in the past. >> i totally agree and i think this is the fear really republicans have of how do you oppose people getting free money? but, let's remember, major entitlements, even like health care reform, right, that was delivering health care to so many people, that was something that you'd be hard to turn down and yet a big government program of any stripe becomes a big target. certainly in the shorter term it gets harder to take away. but i think that the opportunity here is for the president and his team to say there is this huge need. it's been there for a long time and we're going to be there for you while you're trying to recover and the country is trying to recover from the virus and from all of the effects of the virus that we're going to see. he also has, i think, an obligation to really hit the idea hard of reopening schools. i think parents are waiting for this, this evidence that it's safe to do so. i think he will be judged on that and that has to be a major piece and he should be touting the money going toward that end as participate of this bill. >> david gregory, thanks for being with us this morning. so republican states, republican-led states, racing to roll back access to voting after the 2020 election. what is going on in florida? what's going on that has even one republican official calling it a travesty? 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>> bill as it sits right now is just that, several things in it that are very unkind to the voter. it creates a tremendous burden on us, the administrators of the elections, and, you know, it's a time like this when my legislative experience does come in handy because i realize that it's not time to push the panic button. let's just everybody stay calm and recognize that while their intentions are probably good, their methods need some guidance. they need some adult supervision, if you will, from the elections professionals. and our 67 election supervisors in this state did a tremendous job last year, and so we need to have the legislators come sit down and listen to how things should be done correctly, but for us to eliminate the use of drop boxes is a total, total mistake. >> and, quickly, senator, are they open to that, or are the republican state politicians open to coming in and being educated about this? >> i expect they are. if they're not, hang on. we'll have some more interviews, i'm sure, because we supervisors are determined to do everything that we can to enhance the election day experience for all our voters. that's one of the great things i totally enjoy about this job now is we can discard all the partisanship. we're all about good public policy. and to eliminate the use of drop boxes is bad policy. >> how many voters in florida use the drop boxes and were there significant problems or even insignificant problems with that? >> well, good morning. about a million and a half voters in florida used drop boxes. they're convenient. you can avoid waiting in long lines as a result of those drop boxes as well as using early voting in your mail. but the drop boxes were important last year because there were concerns about the united states postal service. this proposal this tallahassee is a solution in search of a problem. even governor desantis has said that 2020 was a model election in florida and then he immediately contradicts himself by saying we need election reform. that makes no sense whatsoever. >> so, senator, you are a republican. you know these folks who are still in the state government. why are they doing this? >> i didn't ask why because, frankly, i don't care why. it's not good policy and i'm going to oppose it. so why waste my time asking them why are you doing this? >> i guess because it begs the question are they doing it to restrict voting access? >> again, alisyn, i don't care why they're doing it. it's not good policy, and i'm going to fight every day of the week to protect the voting privileges of the people of lake county whom i represent and i answer to the people of lake county and not to the people of tallahassee. >> so this is interesting to see bipartisanship about this and yet this effort. so who is going to win and why do you think they're so hellbent on doing this? >> we truly hope the voters win and support the supervisors of elections and the poll workers who put on a great election last year. who will benefit? it certainly won't be the voters of florida. you're going to be restricting the access to vote by mail. you're going to be restricting the ballot boxes by completely eliminating them. one wonders just what's going on here. we think it's voting suppression. >> and you think it's voter suppression because, why? don't republicans use drop boxes? >> absolutely. and that's why it makes no sense what they're doing. they're claiming we put on a great election, yet they want to make improvements. why fix what is not broken? >> senator, you at the end of the day do not think this bill will pass? >> no, ma'am, i do not. our association has offered language to make it acceptable and to keep the use of the drop boxes, and they will be secure. they were secure. we have no evidence, nobody yet, has put anything before us and said on this day at this place at this time we saw this dastardly act take place. none of that is here. and to patti's point this appears at this time to be a solution looking for a problem, and so our association is offering to the legislators the language that will put in the statute the proper kind of security and still allow the voters to use these drop boxes which are a very important part of our election process. >> well, patricia brigham, allen hayes, you both make a compelling case. we'll see who is listening. thank you both very much. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> so the massive relief package is now law. it is supported only by the democrats in congress. one representative is taking issue with what his republican colleagues are focused on. that's next. some say this is my greatest challenge. governments in record debt; inflation rising, currencies falling. but i've seen centuries of this. with one companion that hedges the risks you choose and those that choose you. the physical seam of a digital world, traded with a touch. my strongest and closest asset. the gold standard, so to speak ;) people call my future uncertain. but there's one thing i am sure of... so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. hen forbid we pass something that's going to help the damn workers in the united states of america! we talk about giving them the right to organize, you complain. but if we're passing a tax cut here, you'll be getting in line to vote yes for it. now stop talking about dr. seuss and start working with us on behalf of the american workers. >> that's democratic congressman tim ryan blasting his republican on the same week the $1.9 trillion relief package passed. why so much yelling? >> well, sometimes you have to try to penetrate the thickness of their skulls. i mean, it's just maddening to think we're going through a global pandemic, we are going through an economic collapse, millions of people are unemployed, people are not able to pay their rent, their utilities, people are -- the anxiety level is up, mental health issues are on the rise and they want to talk about dr. seuss and mr. potato head. it's crazy what's happening now and we just have to refocus. i needed a little emphasis there to help with the penetration. >> you were talking about the american worker. in your mind how much better off is the american worker this morning than yesterday morning before president biden signed the relief bill? >> well, i think you could hear a collective sigh of relief and i thought joe biden did a magnificent job last night of really being the adult in the room, setting the course for the country, being calm, saying we have to come together. and these people will be better off, our citizens will be better off. they have unemployment extended until september. that's a big sigh of relief that they're going to be able to make ends meet until then and then the president is talking about, you know, june/july, things starting to open back up so people can go back to work, they can get a job. i think they feel a lot better. it sounds like these $1,400 checks will start getting out the door here real quick. so