Encouraging news on the fight against the virus. A first of its kind study kinds the vaccine developed by astrazeneca can very much cut the spread of the virus. Were talking about our medical expert about that. And call it a booster shot, the Biden Administration expanding Vaccine Distribution with plans to send doses directly to pharmacies next week. Dr. Fauci says it cant happen soon enough. Are we vaccinating right now at a pace to keep ahead of these mutant strains . Well, were Getting Better and better, but, savannah, were not. Im Hallie Jackson in washington. We start this morning with Garrett Haake on capitol hill. Garrett, that tribute for Officer Sicknick is starting in just a little bit this hour but as we come on the air there is big news youve been covering from the senate regarding what you could perhaps technically call a power sharing agreement, but if you put in in laymans terms it basically means that congress, now the senate, can function as its supposed to function with democrats getting the gavels that they won when they took the majority. Reporter yeah, thats right. Essentially a month after democrats won the senate at the end of the day today they will finally control the senate with this power sharing agreement, really an agreement to run the committee system, a lot of the Sausage Making Work that gets done by congress in a 50 50 senate. We will have budget chairman bernie sanders, finance chairman ron wyden, agriculture chairman debbie stabenow. Democrats will be taking control of the senate with this agreement in place at the end of the day today. You talk about the tribute for Officer Sicknick today, thats going to be a big portion of the morning this morning, obviously last night the sort of somber ceremonial elements of this began with his family, with members of the Capitol Police having a moment with their fallen comrade. This morning its been more about members of congress, the broader Congressional Community and all of this is happening with the backdrop of layers upon layers now of investigations and efforts to figure out what went wrong, how to prevent it and how to find some degree of accountability. So yesterday you had Speaker Pelosi announcing that she would like to move forward with a 9 11style commission to investigate what happened here on january 6th. Thats on top of the investigation already being Run By RetiredLieutenant General russell hon err ray, on top of Committee Level investigations being run in both chambers. The full examination of what happened here on january 6th really just beginning even as the former president s impeachment for the events of january 6th get started next week. Hallie . Garrett, quickly on that power sharing agreement, thats going to go into effect today, right . This is an immediate change now that well see . Reporter that will be voted on this afternoon and in place after that vote, but, again, this is an agreement so it should be a unanimous consent vote this afternoon. Garrett haake, thank you so much. We will bring you that congressional tribute live when it happens. Were also following other headlines here this morning because just added to President Bidens schedule, Covid Relief Talks with democrats from capitol hill. Hes got a call with House Members and then a meeting next hour at the white house with various senators. Democrats have now taken the first steps to try to approve the president s nearly 2 trillion plan, even with talk of a bipartisan plan with republicans in the ether. In the fight against the virus an encouraging report on astrazenecas vaccine which new Research Says can really slow the spread of the virus. Let me bring in Nbcs Richard Engel who is following that piece of story from london, Shannon Pettypiece is outside the white house, dr. Celine grounder is also here, an Infectious Disease specialist as well as a former member of the biden harris advisory board. Shannon, let me start with you. What do we know about these new meanings. What kind of tea leaves are you reading into them, that the president has these two meetings this morning, one after the show, for his path ahead on the Relief Package . Reporter well, and meeting with democrats, not another meeting with republicans like we saw earlier this week because the thinking that were hearing inside the white house is that they are not going to negotiate themselves down to get to a place where they can get 60 republican votes, which you would need to get through the regular legislative process. They are looking now like this is going to have to go through that Reconciliation Budget Process so all they need to do is make sure their democratic ranks are real solid and that includes having sort of moderates like joe manchin on board, but if they can get enough democratic votes they can get through their covid Relief Package the way they want to. They dont want to significantly cut back on any of these areas. There is some indication they might be open to compromise on things like who gets the direct payments or how targeted some of the relief s but the numbers they want to keep where they are and they want to move quickly on this. White house official told me they need this done by march 14th because that is the date when the extended Unemployment Insurance runs out. They dont want americans to be facing a cliff where they have a week or several weeks where they dont know whether or not theyre going to be able to pay their bills. With an Impeachment Hearing and Everything Else going on they are hopeful they will get this through by mid march but they have to move and thats why were seeing urgency from white house officials to get this passed. Richard, let me ask you about this study on the astrazeneca vaccine. What are you hearing from officials there in the uk . Reporter well, officials here are very excited about this. The Health Secretary just called it superb news and he said that it shows that this one particular vaccine, the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine, not only protects people, but it also works to slow Down Contagion. Now, we already knew that all of the vaccines that are currently on the market and the ones that are being rolled out prevent people from getting very sick. They prevent people from getting covid and they work with about 60 to 95 efficacy. That was already known. But what we didnt know until now, and this is still early days, its just one study, its not yet Peer Reviewed but it is a significant one. We didnt know how effective these vaccines are to slow down or stop contagion. That is, if you have the vaccine, sure, it will stop you from getting sick and ending up in hospital, potentially dying, but what about your ability to pass it on, pass the coronavirus on to someone in your family, to your friends, to people you meet out on the street . According to this study the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine also reduces contagion by 67 and that has enormous impacts on a societys ability to recover because the vaccine and we already knew this prevents people from dying and ending up in hospital, but if it also has this added benefit of slowing Down Contagion by twothirds, that means that societies can recover much, much more quickly once their populations are protected. So it is a very a very big deal, very encouraging news here. It has only been carried out with this one vaccine but it opens the doors that other vaccines could have similar properties. Richard engel, Shannon Pettypiece, thanks to you both. Dr. Grounder, let me bring you in. This appears to be promising. Put this into perspective. One of the things we heard from that new study shows the cutting of the transmission of the virus by Something Like 67 . What are the implications here in the u. S. For the vaccines that were already approved . Look, this is some of the best news we have had in a long time in the coronavirus pandemic. The idea that this is not just a vaccine that protects the individual but that protects even people who are not vaccinated yet because it prevents transmission. That really is a game changer in terms of how we think about this. Weve talked for months about this idea of Herd Immunity but we didnt have proof until now that vaccines would help prevent spread of the virus. So this is really amazingly good news and for all intents and purposes based on how we know the other vaccines work, i think this is very promising news and that they probably do the same. They probably do the moderna and Pfizer Vaccines probably also will be shown to prevent transmission, i think its just a question of the science needs to be done, but it means that we can actually hope for that holy grail of Herd Immunity once enough people get vaccinated. Huge news. Dr. Celine grounder, thank you for that perspective. We appreciate it. Also unfolding on capitol hill Republican Leadership facing pressure this morning to get to some kind of a decision on congresswoman Marjory Taylor greenes committee assignments. Hours long meetings, plural, ending last night with no clear plan on what to do. You have topping the talks will pick back up today after House Minority leader Kevin Mccarthy met first with congresswoman greene then called a last minute meeting with the groups that makes decisions on political assignments. According to politico the divide revolving around the timing of greenes posts promoting conspiracy theories, racist comments and violence against democrats. Leigh ann caldwell is on capitol hill. Bring us inside some of your reporting. Any signs on what direction gop leaders might go . Reporter its really unclear at this point, hallie. There was a meeting that was indecisive last night on what to do about Marjory Taylor greene. Some of the concern is that, yeah, she said many of these comments before she entered into office, but while shes trying to explain away some of these, shes also doubling down. Shes Fundraising Off of the off of this against her, she is tweeting criticizing her fellow republicans even and so republicans on capitol hill many of them who are concerned about her think that she is a ticking time bomb. The question is do they deal with it now or do they wait until she does something much more explosive . Well, democrats arent going to wait around, theyre moving forward with their resolution to strip her from two of her committees, the Education Committee and the budget committee. The Education Committee seems to be a little bit more problematic because of her controversial statements about parkland saying that it was a false flag operation, but, hallie, this is not the only big story about the Republican Party today. Republicans arent just talking about Marjory Taylor greene, later this afternoon they have to discuss what to do about liz cheney, the number three house republican, because of her vote for impeachment of the former president a couple weeks ago. So there is a lot of optical concern among some republicans up here that if they punish liz cheney and they do nothing against Marjory Taylor greene, that is going to be the definition of the Republican Party for the next two years and democrats are already playing into that. Theyve released the Democratic Campaign arms have released campaign ads putting the republicans as the face of Marjory Taylor greene and qanon and some republicans are quite concerned about that. Hallie . Is it your sense that leader mccarthy, the minority leader, is in some ways backed into a corner on this, leigh ann . Reporter he absolutely is. Especially since he went down to maralago last week and took a picture with the president , that was a big signal that he thinks that or the former president , excuse me that donald trump is needed and a part of the Republican Party still. Thats essentially what Marjory Taylor greene is saying as well. And so now he has this very stark choice to make, is he going to defend liz cheney, a member of his leadership team, or is he going to punish Marjory Taylor greene . He is in a very difficult position not only with a divided conference, but also with donors as well. Hallie . Leigh ann caldwell live on the hill. Thank you. Elsewhere on the hill right now, senators are moving closer to confirming the rest of President Bidens cabinet. Right now Miguel Cardona is sitting down with senators for his Confirmation Hearing and the Energy Committee is about to hold a vote to advance Jennifer Granholms nomination to the full senate for final confirmation. In about 20 minutes from now you have Isabelle Guzman joe bidens pick to head the Small Business administration facing senators in her own confirmation. It is a busy morning on capitol hill. All of that even before we get to what is set to happen in just about ten minutes from now, the start of the congressional Tribute Ceremony for fallen Capitol Hill Police officer Brian Sicknick. Also ahead, we have new nbc news reporting on What Hundreds Of Democratic Hill staffers did to try to persuade senators to convict former president trump. Plus new comments just out this morning from President Biden, his most substantial yet, about his predecessors upcoming impeachment trial. Plus a major stakeup in the state with one of the worst records for covid vaccinations in the country. Were live on the ground with what theyre trying to do to thurn things around. All of it coming up. Trying to o thurn things around. All of it coming up. 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Bring out the bold™ after weeks of very much trying to stay on the sidelines when it came to the issue of Donald Trumps impeachment trial, President Biden is now talking about it. He says the senate trial has to move forward and to not do that would be what he calls a mockery of the system. All of it coming out in an interview that the president and first lady sat down for with people magazine. Watch. It has to move forward otherwise it would come off at farcical what this was all about. I dont know what is likely to happen, its probably not likely that you will get 17 republicans to change their view and convict on impeachment. Joining me now is nbc News White House correspondent monica alba. The president s comments come as lawmakers, staffers on capitol hill are still kind of processing what happened on january 6, the trauma of that. Give us context into why the president is choosing now to talk about it. Partially, hallie, because more than 370 staffers on the democratic side of things in both the house and senate wrote a letter now pleading with these senators who are going to bef e they experienced, that their colleagues went through that this is really something that does put onus on them to think about and what the house Impeachment Managers