was so desperately needed, urgently needed. this plan is going to make it possible to cut child poverty in half. >> i'm going to succeed. we're going to succeed moving forward. look, the american people strongly support this. that's the key here. >> as someone who spent the entire primary campaign criticizing joe biden, this weekend, the president did what i thought he couldn't, or just wouldn't, by getting results on what undeniably is the most pro-worker, anti-poverty accomplishment by an american president since lyndon johnson. don't take my word for it. listen to the senate budget committee chair, a certain bernie sanders, who called it, quote, the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families in the modern history of this country. and he's right. i mean, how else to describe a bill that halves child poverty. halves it, thanks to $1400 direct payments, survival checks, a typical family of four gets $5600 in new payments or $7600 in new payments if you throw in the much higher child tax credit that's also in this bill. how else to describe a bill that according to one study would give an average family of four with one parent unemployed an extra $22,000. it also provides $350 billion for state, local, and tribal governments. $133 billion to primary and secondary schools. $14 billion for the distribution of vaccine, and money for reopening businesses around the country. to borrow a line from joe biden, this is a bfd. look, this bill is far from perfect. there is a lot wrong with it, in my view. things that democrats messed up on. the $15 minimum wage should have been in this bill skrx the eight senate democrats who voted against this very popular and necessary measure should be held to account. kyrsten sinema's voting down on it was shameful. she might as well as stuck her finger up at it. and it wasn't just the minimum wage, should the $1400 checks have been $2,000 checks, as joe biden explicitly promised during the georgia senate runoffs? yes. is it political malpractice to phase them out at an income of $80,000 instead of $100,000, which will mean biden sending checks to fewer americans than trump did. yes, obviously. madness. should the unemployment insurance boost stay put at the $400 a week passed in the house instead of the $300 agreed upon in the senate? yes. joe manchin's insistence on cutting it down to $300 is outrageous given he represents a state where 1 in 3 west virgins say they struggle to pay bills, and where the republican governor, i repeat, the republican governor was demanding congress go big or go home. so i get it, there's lots not to be happy with, but one thing i have learned the hard way over my four decades on this planet, especially in a crisis, is don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. and this bill, overall, is a very good bill. remember, biden put forward a $1.9 trillion bill, more than twice the size of the obama stimulus in 2009. and he got $1.9 trillion passed. in the end, both sinema and manchin voted for it, every democrat did. you know who didn't? every single republican in the house and the senate. every single one. new liberal heroes mitt romney and liz cheney included. despite it having the support of 68% of americans across the country. you know what? bipartisanship is overrated. fetishized in this town, but not among the public at large. polls suggest americans wanted this bill passed even if it didn't have gop support. a reminder that most americans are savvier than most members of our political class. as "time" magazine journalist charlotte alter tweeted, people care about how the sausage tastes, not how the sausage is made. this was a victory for biden, unquestionably. but the way things stand now, because of the filibuster, it looks like it might be a one-off victory. the american rescue plan was passed via budget reconciliation, a simple majority vote on taxing and spending bills. so how does the president get the rest of his ambitious agenda passed when it has to meet a 60-vote threshold in the senate? it's possibly the most important political question of our time. but change is coming. it is. democratic senator tina smith of minnesota announced her support for ending the filibuster on thursday. we need to move the country forward, she tweeted. senator smith joins me on the show now. thank you so much for coming to talk to me, senator smith. what was it specifically that made you decide it is now time to end the filibuster? because you supported it before, for all the reasons that the joe manchins and kirsten cinemas still support it, protecting minority rights, getting bipartisan votes, etd set raw, et cetera. >> well, thank you, mehdi, so great to be on the show with you, and you're right. i started out when i first came to the senate three years ago with a little bit of this idea that, you know, we saw in mr. smith goes to washington, of the senator talking on the floor of the senate to advance justice. and then i lived in the senate for three years, and i saw how mitch mcconnell has turned the senate into a legislative graveyard, a place where great ideas go to die. and i just realized that the danger, the damage done to our democracy by allowing a minority of senators to shape the agenda, the progressive agenda that we need so desperately in this country, is just too great. you know, in the united states senate, we have 50 republicans and 50 democrats. those 50 republicans represent less than 45% of america. us democrats, also 50, represent almost 56%. we cannot allow a minority to decide the direction of our country. it's just undemocratic. >> yeah, minority rule was not part of the vision of the founders no matter what people might like to say and rewrite history. this week, senator, your democratic colleague joe manchin, your colleague joe manchin yelled at a reporter he would never change his mind on the filibuster, but this morning he seems to offer a ray of hope to the anti-filibuster side, to your side. have a listen. >> if you want to make it a little more painful, make them stand there and talk, i'm willing to look at any way we can, but i'm not willing to take away the involvement of the minority. >> it seems like stubborn joe might be up for reforming the filibuster, maybe getting rid of the hard 60-vote limit and making republicans earn their filibusters. mr. smith goes to washington style, as you mentioned. the old fashioned talking filibuster, which would be a vast immovement on the current setup. >> exactly, i don't think, again, most americans have any idea that this idea of a filibuster is actually somebody making an objection and then going home to dinner. there actually isn't a talking filibuster anymore. so i think we should abolish the filibuster. at the least, we should reform it so that there's a price to pay, there's a price to pay for holding up progressive legislation, like climate change and addressing climate change and voting rights and health care reform. there has to be a price to pay, and right now, there isn't any price. so i have been working closely with senators like jeff merkley, who has been a real champion for looking about how we can make the senate work better, and getting rid of the silent fill aburster would be a step in the right direction. >> i mean, you know, they say if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but the senate is broke and does need fixing and most americans would agree with that. i mentioned a recent poll that found passing this bill was personally important to 3 out of 4 americans. a huge number. when you heard from your constituents in minnesota, did they care whether the bill's passage was bipartisan or just care that they got the help they needed and how does that factor into joe biden and joe manchin's dewriter to make everything the senate does to be bipartisan. >> bipartisanship should be a means to the end, not the end. my constituents in minnesota are like, i need that check, i need help. i'm behind in my rent. i'm going to wait in a half-hour long line to get food for my family. they're saying when am i going to get that help? they're not saying, oh, was this legislation passed with bipartisan sport? as you have been saying, this is bipartisan legislation. it just didn't get the support of any of the 50 republicans in the united states senate. and that's on them. that does not mean that it's failing to appeal to americans across the board. >> yeah, exactly. the fact the didn't get a single republican vote in the house or senate despite commanding 60%, 70% support speaks volumes about the modern gop and who they work for. eight of your senate colleagues voted against a $15 minimum wage on friday. that's pretty shameful, isn't it? nearly one fifth of the senate democratic caucus not able to get behind something as basic as necessary, something as central to your election platform, what you ran on as $15 an hour. >> yeah. raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is one of the most important things that we can do to lift families out of poverty. and what families are we talking about? we're talking about families, mostly women-led families that are working in low-wage jobs, often two jobs at a time just to keep a roof over their heads. so there is just no doubt that we need to get to a $15 an hour minimum wage. i'm going to keep fighting for that, and i'm not the only one. i want to just say how powerful the outside advocacy -- >> why did one in five, almost one in five, 8 out of 50 democratic senators vote against it. with kyrsten sinema's thumbs down, it was shocking to watch. >> i can't explain why. we're in a moment where there's such need for action in the senate, and action at the federal level, and this is one of the core places where we need to take action. and one thing that i think is interesting about this tragedy and this catastrophe of covid is we're seeing americans turning to the government, to the federal government for help when they need it, and i believe that as a progressive, i'm an optimist, and i'm hopeful, but i think we're in a moment where we'll see real progress. >> senator tina smith of minnesota, thank you for your time tonight. appreciate it. >> thank you, mehdi. >> still ahead, climate change is not a threat. it's a crisis. it's much more than a threat. and it's time we start talking about it that way. my conversation with the person who started a global climate movement, greta thunberg. >> but next, we have to call it like it is. one year later, it's clear the u.s. failed miserably at combatting this pandemic. why? 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with xfinity mobile, you can. how about saving hundreds on the new samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network? sure thing! and with fast, nationwide 5g included - at no extra cost? we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction... ...and learn how much you can save at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings. from covid-19 in the united states. a year ago today. and yet today, more than half a million americans have died from covid. we can grow numb to these numbers when every day it seems we hit another moerb udmilestone, but as vox reported in january, when it comes to fighting covid, the u.s. has one of the worst rates in the developed world. if the u.s. had the same death rate as germany, more than 200,000 americans who died of covid-19 would likely still be here today. if the u.s. had the same death rate as our neighbors to the north, canada, nearly 225,000 americans would likely not have lost their lives to covid. and if the u.s. had the same death rate as japan, around 363,000 americans would likely still be alive. it did not have to be this way. joining me now is my good friend, chris hayes, host of "all in." he'll be hosting a special on the coronavirus pandemic, all in america, the year we meet again, live from the lincoln memorial. thanks so much for being here tonight. living in this country for the past six years, one of the things i noticed is we don't seem to realize other countries don't have the gun deaths we do, don't have the lack of health care we do. do you think americans realize the covid death toll is not like this in most other comparable countries either? it didn't have to be this way, it wasn't a natural disaster. >> no, i think yes, i mean, the short answer to that is yes. i think when you look at what happened in the election, particularly when you look at places like brazil, where bolsonaro as overseen a disastrous covid response and is polling at 65% approval rating, at some basic level, donald trump's defeat owed a lot to covid. it showed up in the polling as the number one issue. it was the think joe biden put front and center in his campaign. the thing people, you know, he had 70% approval on now. there is some level at which this election, you know, i thought it would be a bigger spread, like, you know, it's a hoover level failure without a hoover level election. and yet, it is the case that, like, that is, i think, at the core of what lost the election. that said, you're right that we don't have a lot of comparative sense. i don't think people realize just to the north in canada, as you mentioned, you know, they haven't had like an amazing response. they're not like japan or south korea or australia, but 250,000 americans would be alive if we just had a canadian response. that i don't think that really sunk in. >> indeed, yeah. let's look at where we are today, chris. the covid tracking project shows three key covid metrics trending downward, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. how should americans feel looking at these numbers, especially compared to the horrific rights we reached in the very recent past. are you allowing yourself to finally feel optimistic, bought i'm not quite there yet myself. >> i think we have all been burned. one thing is those cases are going down, but there are still daily case rates above what we had in the summer outbreak, for instance. so we're still seeing a lot of cases every day. i am fairly optimistic for a few reasons. one is just that leadership matters, and i think that the biden administration really has done a very good job on vaccination. you have federally, 500 federally managed sites. javits here in new york city going 24 hours. you have the stadiums doing it. we did on saturday, we did 2.9 million reported doses in a day. and all-time record, the highest most ambitious goal i have seen anyone really come up with was 3 million shots a day. that's a huge amount. 900,000 a day when joe biden was sworn in. we did 2.9 million yesterday. we're trending up, 2.2 a day, we could get to 3, you do the math, if there's 330 million americans so it's like, when you talk about the adults, you're doing 3 million a day, you're getting herd immunity pretty quickly. so it's a race right now. i do worry about people letting up. i do worry about people like overly relaxing. >> on that note -- on that note of letting up, let me jump in right now because you took me to my next point. this whole letting up thing. we're seeing republican-led states like texas and mississippi drop their mask mandates and other restrictions. anti-maskers in idaho encouraging their children to burn masks on the steps of the capitol, even now, and republican-led florida is about to play host to spring break superspreaders. you used to describe trump as, quote, objectively pro-covid, which was spot-on, but it's not just trump, is it? it's a big chunk of the gop. a big chunk of the american electorate is objectively pro-covid. >> i think that the texas policy is outrageous, and is going to hurt people and get people sick and ultimately get people killed. the thing i would say about all this, the mask mandate thing is so nuts because, you know, masks -- look, i don't like wearing a mask. it fogs my glasses. i spend all day wearing a mask. you know, we all -- it is what it is, but this very sort of low cost thing, you know, really does interrupt the transmission of respiratory infections. opening stuff up has a whole cost/benefit analysis. it's difficult. there are businesses that are really struggling. i understand that pressure. the mask thing is just insanity. like, what -- there's no reason to do it other than to signal this crazy kind of culture war ax to grind. and i think that the other thing that's crazy about texas and other places is, look, you don't need to go zero to 100. the idea nightclubs are going to be open in south padre island during spring break is insane. that's indefensible. >> i mean, there's light at the end of the tunnel. we're so close, and yet parts of america are like, no, no, one more superspreader, spring break for the road. it's deeply depressing. last quick question, what are we going to see on your special on thursday? >> you know, i think we're trying to do in that special is tell two twin stories. one, the fact we have this experience that touched everyone in america in a way that we haven't experienced as a nation since world war ii. at the same time, it did not hit everyone the same way. i mean, there were people who are just in brutal, brutal dire straits. people who were out of work, who were sick, who lost family members. some people had the busiest year of their lives in terms of work. i mean, there are so many different stories depending on where you are in american life. we're trying to sort of tell a kaleidoscoic series on them. >> we can't wait to watch. we'll have to leave it there, but everyone needs to watch chris hayes on his special, thursday, all in america, the year we meet again, thursday, 8:00 p.m. eastern, only on msnbc. chris will be live from the lincoln memorial with reports from around the country examining the past year and offering a hopeful look ahead. chris hayes, thank you so much. coming up, the u.s. was behind the curve on fighting the pandemic, and it cost us dearly. now, the country finds itself in the same spot on climate. next, the stark warning greta thunberg has for the biden administration. >> they have said themselves this is an existential threat. and they better treat it accordingly. which they are not. >> but first, richard lui is here with the headlines. hello, richard. >> hey, very good evening to you. stories we're watching this hour. andrea stewart-cousins has called for andrew cuomo to resign in response to the sexual harassment allegations and scandal over his administration's handling of covid nursing home death data. new york assembly speaker carl hasty did not explicitly call for cuomo's resignation, but shared concerns about t