Toolbox. Johnson johnson now set to file for Emergency Fda approval within a matter of days as the u. S. For the first time confirms two cases of the South African variant believed to be more dangerous and the current vaccines dont seem to protect as well against it. What Public Health experts are recommending ahead. And any minute now were taking you live to the White House Briefing room. We expect to hear from press secretary jen psaki. The next steps getting set for pushing that covid relief bill forward with or without republicans. Good morning, im Hallie Jackson in washington along with tom costello dr. Nahid bhadelia and Stephanie Gosk in West Virginia. Photograph give me if i interrupt you, but talk about those new vaccine trial results. Good news here, the Efficacy Numbers arent as high as weve seen in other vaccines, but this isnt like a bad situation here. Lets give you the Bullet Points before the briefing because theyre important. 72 efficacy in the United States with the new Johnson Johnson vaccine. In addition it is 85 effective in preventing severe disease. Now, you say, okay, thats not as good as the pfizer and the moderna vaccines. True, but a typical flu vaccine offers about 60 effective. So its 72 , thats pretty darn good. Overall effective rate we have to explain this. Thats the global number. Why is it the global number . Because it was drawn down not as effective as you can see in south africa against that variant, however, overall very effective and keep in mind that there are other there are treatments other treatments out there of course, the moderna vaccine, the pfizer vaccine, they have already determined they are a little more effective against the South African variant. This is a critical tool right now in the toolbox because we now would have if this is approved by the fda a third vaccine, a single shot would not require the booster, does not require a deep freeze, if you will, and it is easily transferable, if you will, or distributable, i should say, across the country because it does not require the deep freeze conditions. And, tom, thank you. Jen psaki, the White House Press secretary taking the lectern. We will listen in. Thank you and the American People are interested in the news coming from Johnson Johnsons trial data. The president is encouraged by positive data on a potential new vaccine. He also knows that this is just new data and now is the time for the fda to do its job of evaluating the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. In the meantime he continues to urge all americans to mask up and follow Public Health guidelines until its their turn to get vaccinated. Now i know there may be a lot of questions you have for us about the trial data or Johnson Johnson. Im here to tell you that im not going to get ahead of the experts who you will all get to hear from in the next hour in our Public Health briefing from the Covid Response team. They will discuss this more with you and what everything means then. At wednesdays briefing i also shared some of the engagement and outreach the white house is doing to move forward the American Rescue plan from the president and the Vice President on down. That work has continued and accelerated. Yesterday senior staff spoke again to governors about the challenges they are facing and the importance of relief. Today National EconomicCouncil Deputy director david cayman will meet with the council of state governments. The office of Public Engagement will brief black civic groups, antihunger advocates and key progressive groups and invite their feedback. These conversations are critical to Building Support and moving the president s bill forward. According but we also saw evidence this week that the American People overwhelmingly want their elected leaders to work with the president to confront the pandemic and get and put people back to work. According to a monmouth poll released wednesday, 71 of the American People want republicans in congress to work with President Biden. That number is up nearly ten points from right after the election, meaning the trend of support for working in a bipartisan manner with the president is only growing. Finally, the president is committed to getting relief to working families, hence he is also meeting this morning with his economic members of his Economic Team, with the Vice President and treasury secretary janet yellen for a briefing on the cost of inaction and the impact of a delay in moving forward with a Relief Package. Millions of americans dont have enough food to eat and millions more have lost their jobs, but Interest Rates are at historic lows and that means its the right time to make smart investments. Moodys a Wall Street Firm Has said we could end up with 4 million fewer jobs this year if we dont act on the president s plan, thats 4 million americans who could get back to work. Im sure they will discuss all of that at their briefing later this morning. Last thing, we are venturing to provide a week ahead to all of you or return to providing a week ahead to all of you so a quick preview. Next monday the president will meet with the Secretary Of State at the State Department. On tuesday President Biden will deliver remarks and sign an Executive Order advancing his priority to modernize our immigration system. And friday is of course jobs day and the president will deliver remarks about the economy. We will have hopefully more over the next couple days, but we wanted to provide as many details as we could. With that, zeke, why dont you kick us off. Reporter with violence surging in afghanistan is the president still committed to wind down operations there and bringing troops home this year . The president i have not spoken with our National Security team about this in particular, but his commitment remains. Reporter at the top you mentioned that americans should follow Public Health guidance. What are the challenges it has been over the course of the last ten months is Public Health guidance from state to state vary. Some states have mask mandates, others have Indoor Dining and schools open, others dont. What guidance should the American People follow, their governors guidance or should they follow the president s . Well, first what were venturing to do is provide more Concrete Guidance from the federal government, from the cdc, from health and medical experts on the important steps all of the American People can take to keep themselves safe. That includes the importance of mask wearing, of course, and how how vital that is to keeping us safe. It also includes the importance of hand washing, of restricting travel. These are all guidelines that have come in recent days and weeks, i should say, from the president of the United States and from our medical and Health Experts. But in addition as we discussed yesterday, there are guidelines including the safe for the safe reopening of schools that he signed an Executive Order on, directing both the Department Of Education and hhs and the cdc, i should say, im sorry, to produce those guidelines to give more specific advice and markers to states and local School Districts on what they should follow. So it will ultimately be up to states to governors to local School Districts and others to make determinations, but we do want to provide more clear guidance from the federal government based on the expertise of health and medical experts on what people should follow and what will help keep the American People safe. I just want to a quick followup on that one. The cdc the study that was discussed here a couple of days ago one of its recommendation as part of Reopening Schools immediately was to close Indoor Dining, restaurants and bars. Is that a part of the federal guidance that we should be expecting to see from the cdc and the Department Of Education soon . Well, the good news is you get to hear from our director of the cdc, i believe, in about 45 minutes and our medical Health Experts and you can certainly ask them if theres going to be any updated guidance. Go ahead. Reporter dr. Fauci says the u. S. May not be able to meet that goal of reopening most k through 8 schools in 100 days because of the trajectory of the pandemic. Given that is the president going to adjust his goal of trying to get all these schools reopened at 100 days . Well, as we talked about a little bit yesterday, the president wants to not only reopen schools, we wants the schools to stay open and but he does rely on the guidance of his health and medical experts and obviously hes not going to do anything that is not safe and doesnt keep teachers, students and our School Districts safe. But a key part of this is the guidelines as we mentioned, the Executive Order he signed to ensure that School Districts are getting the information they need and clarity they need on what steps that they should take to keep their students safe and teachers safe of course. But it is also funding and weve talked about this quite a bit in here and the American Rescue plan is pivotal for a number of reasons including ensuring that americans have food on the table, including that we can get shots into the arms of people across the country, but also that School Districts, especially public schools, have the funding they need to take steps on everything from ventilation to ppe to testing. And the longer thats delayed the harder its going to be to meet that goal. And has President Biden spoken to former President Trump since taking office and if so can you give us any update on what President Trump said in his letter to President Biden . I dont have any update. I dont have any calls to report on. There are no calls to report on, i should say, and i dont have any update on the letter. As i said when we talked about this about a week and a half ago, it seems longer than that im going to acknowledge, the president of course thought the letter was gracious and generous, but he plans to keep it private. Go ahead. Reporter i understand you dont want to get too much into the Johnson Johnson vaccine given the data thats out there, but this likely wont be the only vaccine that is less effective than the pfizer and the moderna vaccines. So i wonder what is the president s message to those americans who would be less who would be more reluctant to get one of those less effective vaccines and are you concerned about the impact that that would have given how many doses have already been bought on the front end. First when the president announced his plan earlier this week to ensure we have enough vaccination vaccines to give every american two shots by the end of the summer with the purchase of moderna and pfizer vaccines, he was doing that without the need for additional vaccines approved. Obviously if additional vaccines, Johnson Johnson or any others go through the fda approval process, thats a positive step, right . No doubt about that. But he purchased these the large orders for vaccines that well have by the end this have summer to get into the arms of americans to ensure that we would be able to do that even without any of those steps moving forward. And so he would encourage americans to get any vaccine that is approved by the fda for Emergency Use Authorization . Well, again, were not going to get ahead of the fda, im not suggesting youre asking that, but we will rely on our health and medical experts to advise. If there are additional vaccines, if and when, i will be optimist iks that are approved by the fda and how that will impact our Vaccine Distribution plan. Reporter secondly, on the Coronavirus Relief bill, in his first month in Office President obama traveled to a number of key states to drum up support for the recovery act. Does President Biden have any plans to do something similar to drum up support for his 1. 9 trillion Coronavirus Relief bill . Well, then Vice President biden also traveled to a number of states to drum up support for the american recovery act at the time and obviously we werent dealing with a pandemic so the circumstances were quite different. But he fully recognizes as do we the importance of speaking directly to the American People about the components of this package, whether its the importance of funding to get schools open or get vaccines in the arms of americans or just to ensure that people know they can put food on the table. So were having to take a number of creative steps to do that, whether thats direct television or local media or from the president , the Vice President and others, were doing that, whether it is engaging with governors and local elected officials to ensure that were answering all of the questions they have and that they can convey to the public. So were taking number of creative steps, a little outside of the box, certainly his preference would be to get on a plane and fly around the country but thats not the step were planning currently. Reporter as a candidate President Biden did travel a fair amount, especially in the final weeks of the campaign. He has now received both doses of the vaccine and a number of safety precautions are in place and could be in place for his travel so why wouldnt he be traveling or is that something well, its also about keeping the public safe. You know, we are not going to do an event, a rally with 20,000 people. That wouldnt be a recommendation made by our health and medical experts. Reporter but there wouldnt be any plans to travel without a crowd and to go out into the country . We may travel certainly, but i have nothing to preview for you at this point in time. What im conveying is that it is vital for the president and the Vice President and every member of our team to be speaking directly to the American People and so were looking for creative ways to do that. Reporter could i ask you a Foreign Policy question . Sure. Reporter after Alexei Navalny was poisoned last summer then candidate biden said there was no doubt that the kremlin was responsible for his poisoning and he vowed to, quote, hold the putin regime accountable. This week you told us that the president conveyed his concerns to President Putin but hasnt yet taken any action to hold russia accountable. I wonder does President Biden hold President Putin directly responsible for the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and if so why hasnt he taking sanctions action to punish russia for its actiones. First the president spoke with President Putin earlier this week as you know and he did not hold back in his concerns about a number of the actions of the kremlin and of the russian government, but there is a review under way that we have spoken about a bit in here by our National Security team and we will let that review Carry Forward. That includes the solar winds breach, it includes the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, it includes the im kind of losing my thought here, but it includes a number of steps, a number of concerning actions th