when every adult is eligible in may, we will launch with our partners new tools to make it easier for to you find the vaccine and where to get the shot. including a new website that will help you first find the place to get vaccinated and the one nearest you. no more searching day and night to get an appointment. >> as we mentioned, tonight's speech on the second floor of the white house comes one year to the day since the world health organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. here at home you may recall the nba suspended its season until further notice. tom hanks announced that he and his wife, rita wilson, had tested positive. also exactly one year ago the former president spoke to the nation from the oval office. >> the vast majority of americans, the risk is very, very low. >> in the grueling 12 months since, we became the world leader in confirmed cases, now nearing 30 million. we also lead the world in deaths. well over half a million souls have been lost thus far. the trump house deliberately downplayed the virus in the midst of political fights over how to contain it. shutting down the country led to an unimaginable economic toll. millions were thrown out of work. this afternoon one day ahead of schedule biden signed the nearly $2 trillion rescue plan that congress passed just yesterday. the white house says americans should start seeing their $1,400 relief checks within these next few days. >> people can expect to start seeing direct deposits hit their bank accounts as early as this weekend. >> and starting monday the president and vice president stort a cross-country messaging tour to preview the relief that americans can expect from this. the democrats did this alone. not a single republican voted for it in the house or the senate. today their leader in the senate stuck to his story, this argument that this kind of help is just not needed. >> every indicator has suggested ow economy is poised to come roaring back. none of these trends began on january 20th. president biden and his democratic government inherited a tide that had already begun to turn toward decisive victory. senate republicans led the bipartisan cares act that got our country through the last year. >> a new npr/marist poll shows 62% of americans surveyed say they approve of how joe biden is handling the pandemic. yet even as the president asks americans for their help in kangtd the virus the attorney general out in texas ken paxton is making good on his threat to sue the city of austin and travis county officials more broadly to force them to get rid of their local mask mandates. texas yesterday rolled back nearly all of their restrictions including statewide mask orders. meantime, back in washington the u.s. finally has a new attorney general, merrick garland, who was denied a supreme court seat by senate republicans famously, was sworn in by the vice president today. and he assured justice department employees the days of being pressured to attack the president's enemies and protect the president's allies are over. >> the only way we can succeed and retain the trust of the american people is to adhere to the norms that have become part of the dna of every justice department employee, that there not be one rule for democrats and another for republicans, one rule for friends and another for foes, one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless. >> the work ahead of the new man is vast. the justice department is now prosecuting hundreds of cases stemming from the capitol riot. and donald trump's former acting pentagon chief is speaking out about that day. in an interview with vice news ex-acting defense secretary christopher miller pins the blame for that attack squarely on his former boss. >> do you think the president was responsible for what happened on the 6th? >> i don't know, but it seems cause and effect. yeah. the question is would anybody have marched on the capitol and overrun the capitol without the president's speech? i think it's pretty much definitive that wouldn't have happened. so yes. >> with that let's bring in our lead-off guests on this thursday night. jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press who was in the room for tonight's speech by the president. susan paige, veteran journalist, best-selling author, "usa today" washington bureau chief. and eugene davis back with us. white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the politico playbook." good evening and welcome to you all. mr. lemire, since proximity has privileges, since you were indeed in the room when it happened, and since you get at the associated press especially to write the first draft of history, talk about his approach tonight and his physicality, leaning forward, changing the volume, tone, tenor of his voice and delivery. did it meet the moment in more than just the room where you witnessed it? >> brian, the president's goal tonight was to do two things -- to blend a mix of remembrance and mourning those who have been lost in this year and acknowledge how american society has changed and norms of day-to-day life completely rewritten. and i will say there's no american politician who speaks better on the topic of grief than joe biden because of sadly his own personal experience with that subject. but he wanted to mix that with a note of hope dlifrks good news in terms of timetables of vaccine distribution and when american society could perhaps return to normal, at least somewhat, targeting now the very patriotic july 4th. it's interesting you should mention his demeanor in there. where we were, the print press pool just off to his right in the east room, he was almost hard to hear because he was so soft-spoken at times the way he was really directly trying to connect with the viewer at home. and i do believe he met the moment. this was perhaps not quite as powerful a speech as the one he delivered a few weeks ago when he marked the 500,000 deaths, the american death from this coronavirus pandemic. but tonight met the moment. he said what he needed to say. he was able to both acknowledge the loss but wanting to sort of turn the page, to say indeed that better days were ahead, that america would find the light again at the end of the tunnel, and he was able to tout a legislative victory that he says can get the country there. >> susan, a new president who happens to be an old washington hand as they say, did not have the benefit of a cooperative transition or much of a transition at all. 50 days in manages to pass this, signature on paper. national address already in the books. how would you sum this up in terms of modern era presidential achievements? >> i think joe biden has proven to be perhaps the most surefooted new president in memory. maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. he spent eight years as vice president being able to see how things work at the white house close up. but i think you have to say that he's had a remarkable first 50 days. kind of a slow start on some of his cabinet appointments and confirmations. that's moved ahead i think with the attorney general. and on the issue on which his presidency will be judged, which is getting control of this pandemic and dealing with its economic consequences, he has taken just a giant step forward with the passage of this big legislation. interesting to me, though, that his tone tonight was fireside chat-like. it was very conversational. he did not tick through all the details of this legislation that he signed today although that will follow in future days. he tried to strike a tone, begin a conversation with americans that reassure them that this terrible year we've all lived through is just about to come to an end. >> indeed, susan. tomorrow night is the anniversary of the first ever fireside chat. with the banks failing all around him, fdr took to the radio airwaves to reassure a rattled nation. so we have that going for us. hey, eugene, you saw mcconnell's straight face as he said literally things were getting better before biden, we don't need this kind of help sprinkled across the land. we talk about the foot race in terms of getting the vaccine out before the variants. i have a different we for you about a foot race. biden getting his story out there before the republicans get to spin this bill. >> that's 100% such an important part of this, how biden and harris sell that. you showed that graphic about hitting the road, the kinds of things they're going to say. what's interesting about tonight is it didn't feel that that was a part -- tonight was a part of that selling. right? he was like jonathan and susan said, this was not about the bill. it wasn't about policy. he was talking about laws. he was talking about moving forward. but now they are hitting the road. they have to sell this to the american people. and the thing that they have going for them is that not one republican signed on to it. and so republicans have for weeks not found a great way to counteract this bill as it was going through the house, went to the senate, back to the house now on his desk. they have been talking more about mr. potato head. they've been focusing on cultural wars, talking about immigration, talking about things that have nothing to do with this. they're not in a great place to actually get their story out there. so biden has his chance, he had it today, and you really couldn't write this in a better way. he promised a $1.9 trillion bill. that's exactly what he signed. it passes the day before the anniversary of the pandemic and he signs it on the day of the anniversary and is able to give this speech. and so you couldn't have written it better for him. and i think i've been talking to people in the white house and they know that they have a huge job to do to make sure that the american people know what this bill means for them and what's coming next. >> jonathan, eugene raises a great point. not a single republican vote, mind you, in the house or the senate. republicans have spent the past week or so on mr. slash mrs. potato head, on pregnant women in the military, the skewering of meghan markle, dr. seuss. is this kind of thing sustaining? is this the brand? >> well, right now it's all the republicans have. and i've talked to a number of republican strategists and lawmakers in recent days who expressed frustration at first of all how popular joe biden is right now. his approval rating sitting well north of 50%. and how popular this bill was, even though no gop lawmakers went for it lots of republicans backed it. the white house is not shy about pointing that out looking at polling. even though the bill was signed today by president biden in the oval office they're still going to have a bit of a victory celebration tomorrow in the rose garden and no republicans will be there because this was not a bipartisan bill despite white house efforts. and now the white house is going to use this bill, one that americans want, to suggest that hey, republicans are out of touch. all -- they're not looking for you. they're not trying to vote for checks in your pockets, that $1,400, but rather they're trying to just inflame the culture wars. the one piece of optimism for republicans is this. they feel like the train ahead's a little more friendly for them, that the covid relief bill was wildly popular but other things the biden administration wants to do a little less so perhaps. an infrastructure jobs climate change bill. something on immigration, something on voting rights. the biden agenda is ambitious. republicans think they'll be able to score more points there. but we'll see. the biden white house right now, they're convinced they have momentum. they're going on the road next week, they're going to sell this and they believe they can use this victory to springboard them to more. >> susan, here's a big picture question, and i want to quote our mutual acquaintance e.j. dionne over at the "washington post." "the willingness of democrats to speed through a program of this size reflects the final shrugging off of reagan-era constraints, the shift away from top-down supply-side economics could not be more dramatic. so susan, if he's right, and you get to judge that, what is the start of, then? >> you know, the end of these reagan-era constraints, the end of the need that bill clinton felt to negotiate some third way between democrats and republicans, taking a much more conservative stance than many democrats were taking at the time. this is a very liberal bill. this has a big expansion of the safety net. it doesn't include just covid relief as the republicans were fond of pointing out. it includes a big expansion of the child tax credit. it expands the subsidies for the affordable care act. this is a huge expansion of the role of federal government. and at a time that americans really definitely democrats but a lot of republicans are eager for this to happen. you didn't hear a lot of pushback that the government shouldn't have a role in doing all these things. i think this crisis crisi government can do and that the federal government should do. we are really seeing i think a significant shift in where the center of the american electorate is when it comes to the role of the federal government. >> okay, eugene, if that's correct and bind has pulled out the giant united states of america american express card, this does have a big price tag. about and guess what? biden wants more. there is also the minor matter of rebuilding our country. i drove across town in post apocalyptic manhattan today and i was kicking myself because i forgot to bring a spare axle. where are we going to pay for all of that? >> i think that is what they're talkingth about now. we're likely to start talking about this infrastructure bill. what you hear from biden folks is they'reom not as focused on e deficit.en what they also remind us is as republicans find religion again on the deficit, not to let that keep us -- to keep that in mind, butha over the trump years, tha was not something that republicans -- that was a huge part of what they were doing and still isn't. so now they're coming back to that. that big fight is going to matter because they -- this bill was basically the easiest bill that they're going get done there is a little bit of drama at the end in the senate with joe manchin, but now they're going to need 60 votes. they can't go through reconciliation. so now the tug-of-war on the price tag, on infrastructure, on voting right, on all of these different things of this really ambitious agenda. and as they'veti kind of expand the minds of people and what they think the government should be doing, that includes republicans, this is the third check people have gotten. and we were not thinking that people -- i covered andrew yang in the 2020 primary. it's really interesting to see that now that is the part of the mainstream of not just the democratic party, but the government that we have in this country. and as people get used to certain things in this country, they want them to keep coming. and that is a mind-set change that biden and republicans are going to have to deal with moving forward. b >> we appreciate our big three, on a big night. eugene daniels, susan page, jonathan lemire. greatly appreciate you guys starting us off. coming up for us, after a year of fear, sorrow and staggering loss, there is hope. one of our favorite doctors from the american city that was hit hardest and first by the full force of covid standing by to talk to us. and later, putting biden's accomplishment, as we talked about with susan, just 50 days into this presidency into political perspective. two veterans telephone politics from each side of the aisle standing by to join us with some thoughts on that matter, as "the 11th hour" is just gettings under way on this thursday night. night. the things you do every day better. with 5g nationwide, millions of people can now work, listen, and stream in verizon 5g quality. and in parts of many cities where people can use massive capacity, we have ultra wideband, the fastest 5g in the world. this is the 5g that's built for you. this is 5g built right. only from verizon. don't settle for products that give you a sort of white smile. try new crest whitening emulsions for 100% whiter teeth. its highly active peroxide droplets swipe on in seconds. better. faster. 100% whiter teeth. crestwhitesmile.com did you know the source of odor in your home... ...could be all your soft surfaces? 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"the new york times" puts it this way. if the rest of the u.s. had kept pace with seattle, the nation could have avoided more than 300,000 coronavirus deaths. we're happy to have dr. ben gupta, critical pulmonologist in seattle who specializes in these types of illnesses. he is also on the faculty at the university of washington zoout institute for health metrics and evaluation. doctor, it's great to have you. we should say at the outset, especially those who follow barry mccaffrey on social media, seattle has its problems, though not for tonight's conversation. let's talk medicine and their reaction. what did they do as a city? what did you do as a medical community do right? >> good evening, brian there is a lot of credit i need to pass on to our leaders. there was number one clear crisis communication. putting public health expert, our leaders in public health statewide at the local level at the forefront. credit to governor inslee and to mayor durkin for having the humility to listen to the public health experts and to listen to them, to actually enact public health policy that was evidence-based. and the whole society approach. this is not just the public sector, this is the private sector. this is companies like microsoft, amazon others saying yes, we need to act in unison to make sure that our employees are working from home immediately. and so early action, whole of society, clear communication, evidence-based approach, having the right communicators up front. that's why seattle flattened the curve and did so well. >> we heard from our former presidents today in the form of a public service announcement. all but the former president who got his vaccination in private with no cameras present. we'll listen to them, discuss on the other side. >> we've lost a lot of people, and we've suffered enough damage. >> in order to get rid of this pandemic, it's important for our fellow citizens to get vaccinated. >> i'm getting vaccinated because we want this pandemic to end as soon as possible. >> so we urge you to get vaccinated when it's available to you. >> docto