Attacks by those inspired by the assault three weeks ago now. An attack even Donald Trumps former Defense Secretary now says was, quote, fomented by the former president. All of it in service to the big lie. Since january 6th, a lot of Members Of Congress are reporting, 32 Members Of Congress have now asked House Leadership for more protection. We will probably need a supplemental for more security for members when the enemy is within the house of representatives. A threat that members are concerned about in addition to what is happening outside. What did you mean that the enemy is within in. We want to bring gun on the floor and have threatened violence on other Members Of Congress. There is of course already tension over initial moves to enhance Safety Procedures like Metal Detectors which some republican members have walked around, refusing to use. But there is also increasing anger among democrats about other members of the house, like freshman republican Marjorie Taylor greene of georgia. She has endorsed violence against Speaker Pelosi. She has expressed support for Baseless QanonConspiracy Theories and has liked social media posts, calling for things like violence against democrats and the fbi. Jimmy gomes has proposed to expel her from the house. The house can seat and expel any member that it chooses. It takes twothirds vote to do it. Shes incited crowds in the past to storm the capitol. She is able to bring a gun to the House Office Buildings and shes walked around the Metal Detectors going to the floor. Just today, Speaker Pelosi met with retired army general honore who is doing the Security Review in response to the insurrection, investigating what went wrong. President biden has the task of trying to push his agenda forward despite this tense atmosphere in the legislature. Today his focus was on health care. He signed Executive Orders revoking trumps Abortion Restrictions and expanding obamacare with a special Enrollment Period for those who lost their insurance because of the ongoing and uncontrolled pandemic. Biden also gave his most direct defense so far for the need for executive action. Today were going to, the best way to describe it, to undo the damage that is done. There is nothing new were doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care act and restoring medicaid to the way it was that was trump became president. Speaking of the uncontrolled pandemic, new fears about the spread of coronavirus variants. These new strains across our country. Mutations have shown up in about half of our states. Today South Carolina became the first state to report the first cases in the u. S. Of this south africa variant. One of the most veer lent highly contagious. It was found in two patients who had not traveled to south africa. The new president trying to get his nearly 2 trillion relief bill passed with bipartisan support, he hopes. New york times and other outlets are reporting democrat are getting ready to push the bill through congress with or without republican votes. Tonight the white house indicated that it was prepared to move fast. The American People dont have certainty about putting food on the table. When we hit this unemployment cliff in march. This can be a game thats made where we wait and wait and wait and negotiate and negotiate and negotiate. At the end of the day, he has his principles and he is not going to break this bill up. Nbc news has learned President Biden has directly reached out to at least two gop senators this week including newly reelected Susan Collins of maine and rob portman of ohio who is retiring from the senate. There was also this today. Kevin mccarthy at maralago with donald trump. A spokesman said, trump has agreed to work with mccarthy in the form. A statement on helping the Republican Party to become a majority in the house. And in true trumpian fashion, the statement went on to say this, and ask yourself who this sounds like. Quote, president trumps popularity has never been stronger than it is today. His endorsement means any endorsement at any time. With that, lets bring in our leadoff guest starting with carl. Few people know washington and the hill better than karl. Hes a 30year veteran journalist. He happens to be the correspondent for the times. Our senior White House Reporter at nbc news digital, and an Infectious Disease physician. The medical director of the special path general unit. She worked with the w. H. O. Has now rejoined under the new administration. Lets start with you and your beat. And specifically the elections having consequences rule that was in effect today. Both of these executive actions, Executive Orders that the president signed today on abortion rights, on the extension of obamacare, are triggers to the Republican Party, but there is talk all over the place at the white house for the need for unity. Well, yes. And theyre trying to get republicans to come to their side on the covid relief bill. They feel like taking off a band aid. The white house Chief Of Staff ron clain outlined orders through february 1st when the administration was coming in. Were not expecting this to be like a long trickle of Executive Orders. This feels like getting out a lot of the things they want to get out early on. And you heard President Biden make that point before. Theyre that doing anything new through these. It is just undoing some of the key accomplishments of the Trump Administration. Not only that but putting back in place a lot of the policies under the Obama Administration. So bringing back those obama years. And there has been a lot of criticism. Is biden doing too. On Executive Orders . It is undoing things. So once they get past this phase of this first week of undoing the trump legacy, then they are expected to really zero in, focus and they already are, to a huge step, on getting legislation passed and thats maybe when we see more of the unit effort coming in. Though it is that shaping up like there will be an enormous amount of unity despite seeing republicans appearing that theyre interesting in negotiating. And its great to see you. Lets pick up only last point. How realistic are these white house goals . Theyre trying to get 2 trillion through the u. S. Senate. Their white house goals of picking up republican votes, given your knowledge of this senate and these republicans. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It is an interesting going on. You were talking about obamacare there. Theres a lot of democrats on the hill. Chuck schumer is here form. You have to remember back to 2009 and some of these democrats felt they got sand bagged by republicans, that republicans were pretending to negotiate on certain things, health care in particular, but really wouldnt follow through. I think what youre seeing is democrats saying, all right. Well negotiate but were going to move forward on our own if we have to. So i think that is part of the tension that is going on. Republicans today are saying, wait a minute. You guys are setting yourself up next week to do budget reconciliation. But, and do it on your own and avoid a fbi. Wait. Were not done talking yet. I think theyre saying we wont do that again. Right about now, we could use a doctor. Luckily we have one. This is scary news about these variants from overseas. They can take advantage of air pockets and cracks, even in two masks, they are so virulent. Are you confident with the ability of the vaccines to turn them away and the ability of the Vaccine Industry to tweak the formulas as we go and make them more aggressive at turning these new strains away . Good evening. Let me start with the last one first. Yes, we actually do that with a lot of other vaccines such as the flu vaccine. So thats less of a concern. On the vanish front, the discovery of the South African Variant Discovered in South Carolina today, we now have the three most concerning strainson u. S. Soil. The one discovered in South Carolina, because it was found in patient thats did not have travel history and not related to each other, that means it has been around and theres Community Transmission this. The concern particularly with the brazilian variant and the south african variant, not only are they more transmissible, but they might decrease the efficacy of therapies. Now on the vaccine front, some very good news today. Novavax, one of the warp speed candidates, came out results with its u. K. Trial that came out with about 90 efficacy. They also released the results of a smaller study from south africa where it is a lot more indemic and they showed the efficacy fall 50 to 60 . Now if a vaccine is still reducing disease by 50 to 60 disease, thats still great. Particularly if it is severe disease. But it does raise the concern that we need to work on those boosters. We might need them sooner than we expected. And we need to work on those percentages to get to herd immune. We swing back to politics briefly. Both you and carl have invoked the year 2009. Early on in the Obama Administration. And theres this Old Washington west wing bromide. Not so old. It is part of modern era. Youre allowed one big thing. And after that, politics gets into all the crevices and everything youre trying to do. And speak to the problem of the biden presidency coming in with more than one big thing to do. We are still in the grips of an uncontrolled pandemic, after all. Right. I was talking to someone earlier this week. He said in a way it helps give them focus. Sometime you come in as an administration and there is two big things. We saw the Trump Administration struggle with health care taxes. What should we do first . The Obama Administration came in and they had a crisis. They had a focus. They had a very clear path they could go down. But while they have this focus at the moment, and the white house is incredibly focused behind trying to get this covid relief bill through, and having come from covering a white house a few weeks ago where the president didnt get involved in legislation until it was passed and then it was via twitter, this is a remarkable change in the dynamics here when it comes to the white house involve many. But how much Political Capital are they going to have to spend . How much oxygen will get sucked out of the room . How much time will have to get invested in addressing covid . Will this be a fight that they are fighting and focused on for three or four months . Or for the rest of the year. And then that is, i think, going to answer the question about whether or not they can get to immigration, to criminal justice reform, to gun reform legislation, to whatever else might be out there on the horizon. It will be dependen on how long this Current Crisis is on the front burner. Lets talk about washington for a second. It has been postulated that the only reason washington, d. C. Has an active and sprawling airport so close to all our National Monuments and where our president lives is so 535 Members Of Congress, and you never want to get between them and national airport, can use the airport to go home to their districts and come back for their grueling workweek. The average mental of Congress Gets on a plane, maybe they have am aide with them but theyre used to going back and forwards to home. 32 of them have come forward to the speaker because of the Death Threats and asked for presumably a modest Capitol Police detail to travel with them because of the threats they are under. Given the fact that Death Threats know no party these days, both party are receiving them. You would think that would bring people together. Has it . No, no. Things are very tense here. This was a really traumatic experience for the people in the capitol that day. They had not experienced Something Like that. They had been harassed in airports. They used to feel a little in their safe space. You would maybe run into constituents and they would applaud you. Trs push to say, we need more security. We need more security. And then there are other republicans, saying this is overblown. Youre making too much of this. I think the fence that you talked that earlier, this is going to be something that is a major issue. There is been a push over the years to have a fence built around the capitol. People are always, they always fought it off. Now there will be another big attempt with some justification. The mayor has already said she is opposed to it. I think Eleanor Holmes norton will be critical of it. Im somebody who lives in the neighborhood too. I dont just cover it. For the neighborhood people, it a really big part of community. They dont want it to be walled off. Youll hear the argument, we need security but dont let the domestic terrorists win in this case. So this security security is expensive, too, and going forward, theyll have to figure this out. I will say, people are nervous. It sort of ominous, right . To hear nancy pelosi say the threat is within. There is a lot that will happen in this area over the next few months. Indeed. All the razor wire and fences in the world wont help you if the speaker sadly turns out to be right. Doctor, back to you and you get the last word. Reports out of california. Theyre trying to reopen more interior spaces. New york said to be right behind them. And yet when you and i have these conversations on television, it is about virulent, scary new strains of this illness that has us all out of circulation. Talk about timing here. This is no one i know that doesnt want schools to reopen again. We all fall back on that word, reopen safely. Sure. And the concern is that were seeing this plateauing and decreasing of cases and hospitalizations because of that travel bump that we saw from the holidays is coming down. This is definitely most would agree, the calm before the storm. In all countries in which those more transmissible strains have been discovered, pretty quickly they become the more predominant strain. The reason thats concerning, if it is more transmissible, it will cause more hospitalizations and then more deaths. So now more than ever, we cant let more infections happen. There are more reasons to not let it happen. This is medical mystery about why the disease affects some people so differently than others. Now were discovering one of the things the virus does is ramps up your Immune System against your own body. And that might last for longer including our own research that survivors of sars covid19 have higher amounts of harmful antibodies. This is a signal for us to look to make sure that things like it is not becoming indemic in this country. Lets stop the infections from happening. Lets not let the strains get a foot hold like they have in other countries. We are much obliged for starting us off tonight. Our great thanks for coming on tonight. Greatly appreciate it. Everyone roots for the socalled little guy until the little guy becomes a big mob. Specially in the case of wall street. Well talk to cara swish better robinhood, theed why, the app. At the central of a big money fight. And then a different kind of mob. The violent kind. Why the speaker of the house says threats to our democracy are coming from within. All of it as The 11th Hour is getting underway this thursday evening. Underway this thursday evening. That let you pick up all your prescriptions all on the same day. We make filling your medicare prescriptions. Go like clockwork. So you can get back to what youd rather be doing hey, i just got a text from my sister. So you can get back to what youd rather be doing you remember rick, her neighbor . Sure, hes the 76yearold guy who still runs marathons, right . Sadly, not anymore. Wow. So sudden. Um, were not about to have the we need Life Insurance conversation again, are we . No, were having the were getting coverage so we dont have to worry about it conversation. 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