Breaking news. New data out this morning. The hospitalization rate has continued to tick down. Theres a real discernible difference and downward trend in hospitalizations. Thats good news. But professor Michael Osterholm and others are looking at the new variants were seeing around the world and in some cases in the United States, and they are concerned we could see a new surge, a new wave from these new variants. How real should that fear be this morning . Well, you always have to maintain that as a possibility, john. Im not exactly sure that thats going to happen. We do have variants in this country right now. The uk variant is in several states. It has not become dominant. It might. Thats the reason why you have to watch it carefully as we go from january into february. And really take a good look. But as dr. Osterholm said and its a real possibility that with the variants here we may have strains that transmit more efficiently. The best thing you can do about that is to uniformly adhere to the Public Health recommendations weve spoken of time and again from the wearing of masks to the washing of hands to avoiding congregate settings. Thats the kind of thing that prevents surges, regardless of what the type of virus, the mutant of virus or what have yous there. They came out with a 21page summary of the strategy. The number one thing, the number one goal of the new Biden White House in terms of battling the pandemic is to restore trust with the American People. Why is it necessary to say that . Well, i think that that was really good making that number one because what weve had, john, theres no secret, weve had a lot of divisiveness, facts that were very, very clear that were questioned. People were not trusting what Health Officials were saying. There was great divisiveness. Masking became a political issue. What the president was saying, right from the getgo, lets reset this. Lets everybody get on the same page. Trust each other. Let the science speak. He made the analogy of a war. Thats quite comparable to world war ii. Thats the reason weve got to restore trust and restore a unified approach. Did the lack of candor, the lack of facts in some cases over the last year cost lives . You know, it very likely did. I dont want that to be a sound bite, but if you just look at that, you can see that when youre starting to go down paths not based on any science at all and weve been there before. I dont want to rehash it. That is not helpful at all. Particularly when youre in the situation of almost being in a crisis with the number of cases and hospitalizations and deaths we have. When you Start Talking about things that make no sense medically and scientifically, that clearly is not helpful. So the new White House Coronavirus coordinator, jeffrey zients, told mj lee for almost a year now, americans could not look to the federal government for any strategy. How fair is that . Well, you know, there was a strategy that we had when i was on the Coronavirus Task force. It wasnt articulated well, but there was a fractionation of it. There was a strategy that we knew that we were talking about, but the separation of the federal government and the states, i thought, and i had said back then, months and months ago, i thought that was really a lesion. You dont want the federal government to do everything and you dont want the states to do everything. But what we saw a lot of was saying, okay, states, do what you want to do. And states were doing things that clearly were not the right direction. And thats unfortunate. So the best thing to do is to have a plan, have the federal government interact with the states in a synergistic, cooperative, collaborative way, helping them with resources and a plan, at the same time, respecting the individual issues that any individual state might have. The cdc updated his guidance last night suggesting you can get your second dose of the vaccine up to six weeks after the first dose. Right. You told chris cuomo last night that youre taking a chance if you do that. Again, the cdc is saying one thing. You are saying another. How isnt that confusing to the American People . John, no. Okay. Let me explain. The data that is from the Clinical Trials says if you get a moderna dose, first dose, you get it 28 days. If you get a pfizer, you get it 21 days. Thats what the Clinical Trial says. Thats the optimal. What the cdc is saying, sometimes the situation is stressed where its very difficult to be exactly on time. So were saying you can probably do it six weeks later, namely, two additional weeks. Quite frankly, immunologically, i dont think thats going to make a big difference. It doesnt coincide with the precise data, but from a practical standpoint, i dont see a big problem with that if the situation on the ground means the stress is such you cant precisely do 28 days or 21 days. Theres no disagreement at all between me and the cdc. They are saying practically speaking, if you got to do that, it very likely is not going to make a big difference. Great interview there. Joining us now is cnns chief medical expert dr. Sanjay gupta. Can you explain that last part there about the second dose because i am still confused. Why is the cdc veering from, i guess, just the hard science of exactly what date and dose youre supposed to get. Yeah, no, it is a little confusing. I think what they are responding to is the fact that theres still been a difficult rollout with this vaccine and there may be certain situations and this is a question that i get all the time as well. There may be certain situations where, and we can show you the specific scenarios where people may not be able to get the same dose of the vaccine that they first got for various reasons. One is that it just may not be available. Two is that sometimes people are not clear. They may not remember what first dose they got. You get a card when you get your first dose. Youre supposed to hang onto that. For some reason, if its unknown if you get a second dose of a different vaccine in these circumstances, thats acceptable. Or if you were accidentally given a different second dose. Its not going to people get really worried about that. Understandably. But, you know, i think theres two things going on here. One is this idea, obviously, of the fact that theres still this rollout issue with the vaccine and you may run into situations like you just saw on the screen, but the other is the trust. Number one in this new pandemic playbook is restoring trust. If you start to deviate from what the data shows in some way, might that erode trust . Maybe its okay scientifically, it makes sense. These are both mrna vaccines. But you dont want to do anything to erode the trust. This came up when there was discussion about decreasing the dose of the Moderna Vaccine because a smaller dose seemed to generate the same antibodies so why not give less of the vaccine . That will make it spread out more, but they came back and said, no, were going to stick to the science on this. It will erode the trust if we start to deviate from that. Having watched that when dr. Fauci said, john, no, i think he spoke for everyone who has ever known me. Sanjay, one other aspect of this, which i found very interesting. I talked about the Johnson Johnson vaccine, which we are going to get some data from soon. And theres a lot of expectation here because the Johnson Johnson vaccine is a single dose. It doesnt require the refrigeration. What dr. Fauci he seemed optimistic about it in general, although i dont know that hes seen the data on it yet. None of us have. He suggested the efficacy rate, he will be happy if the efficacy rate of the Johnson Johnson vaccine is near moderna and pfizer, which is way over 90 at this point. He says if its 20 less than that, maybe in the 70s, then there would be some concern. What did you hear in his explanation there . Yeah, i heard the same thing. Just to give you more context. Remember, even before the moderna and Pfizer Vaccines were authorized, the fda said this is back earlier last year, they said theyd accept 50 potential efficacy to authorize a vaccine. Then the numbers came out on moderna and pfizer and they were much higher in the 90s. So thats sort of set the bar. Ive been doing a lot of reporting about these various vaccines. I talked to the head of the vaccine project for j j yesterday. We dont have the data, but the phase one and phase two data look very promising. The vaccine seems to generate a lot of these same antibodies that were talking about. This is a different type of vaccine. Instead of mrna, they are using essentially a human cold virus and they basically strip out the material inside that cold virus and put in this coronavirus spike protein and thats how they are thats what they are doing to deliver the vaccine. But theyre quite optimistic about it. So i think we might see data on that next week. And the reason next week, and people will remember this, is that that will mark basically two months of safety data. The fda is requiring two months of safety data. Weve been marking the calendar. That twomonth period will come next week. So we could see this j j data fairly quickly. One shot can be stored in a refrigerator for months. Doesnt need this cold storage. And 100 million doses potentially available from a company that can manufacture a lot of doses. Thats potentially good news. One other thing ill add and theyve been recruiting patients for that trial in south africa where this variant that weve been talking about has been circulating. So if its working in that population, thats another piece of news. Another nugget to sort of tuck away in terms of how it might work against these new variants. Sanjay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. This morning, seven Senate Democrats want to launch an ethics investigation into two republican colleagues over their role in inciting the capitol insurrection. One of the seven democrats joins us next. Seven Senate Democrats are calling for an ethics investigation into republican senators josh hawley and ted cruz in the aftermath of the capitol insurrection. The seven senators write, by proceed with their objection to the electors after the violent attacks, senator cruz and hawley lent legitimacy to the mobs cause and made future violence more likely. Joining us now is democratic senator mazie hirono, one of the senators calling for the ethics probe. Senator hirono, good morning. Good morning. What do you want to see happen to senators hawley and cruz . Were asking the Ethics Committee of the senate to investigate their role in attempting to overturn the results of a free and fair election. In fact, going into the january 6th count, they were very proud of the leadership role they were taking in trying to overturn the free and fair results. So now were asking for an investigation into Improper Conduct by these two senators leading to the insurrection in the capitol and five people dying and many people injured. Do you have information that there was more than the fact that they just challenged and denied the Election Results . Do you have some sort of information that they were somehow in cahoots with the insurrectionists . I know that some of the questions youre asking is, did they encourage the insurrection . Did they coordinate with the organizers of the rally . Did they receive donations from any of the organizers who funded the rally . Do you have any evidence of that . That is why were asking for an investigation to ascertain whether those aspects of the inquiry that we pointed out are there. But you have to look at the totality of the circumstances. Its not as though these two senators decided, well, were going to challenge the vote count. No, its a totality of the circumstances of months of the president calling the Election Results in question, putting forth the big lie, capital b, capital l, big lie. And these two senators were very much in concert with the president in pushing this big lie. Frankly, leading to the insurrection and all of the terrible things that happened on january 6th. So from what you do know this is not just a one off. From what you do know, before the investigation, what do you want to see happen to them . The investigation if the Ethics Commission determines that there is evidence that should lead to some kind of consequences, then thats the recommendation they will make, including expulsion. These two senators have been called on to resign by a number of senators, as well as people in their own community, as well as europes in their states. But apparently theyre not about to resign because theyre very proud of their role going into january 6th, and they continue to raise money off their posture. Its very clearly they were doing this for their political interests. Their own political interests. Last night, congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez was on with chris cuomo, and she basically felt you should take action sooner, particularly if the senate trial of donald trump were going to be held up. Heres what she said last night. Hey, if they want to delay it, lets bring up a vote to expel ted cruz and josh hawley from the senate. If weve got time on our hands, then we should be actually bringing justice to the members of congress and the members of the senate who also helped support this insurrection. How about that, senator . Do you want to see a vote to expel . This should follow an investigation. And so theres a process. The senator we have a responsibility to question the behavior of senators. And the way to do that is through an Ethics Committee investigation and review. And thats what were pursuing. What do you think about senator mcconnells proposed timeline for trial for donald trump, what we know, what hes suggesting, january 28th, they would issue a summons to trump. February 4th, he gets to answer the articles of impeachment. February 11th, he can submit his pretrial brief. February 13th, the house can submit their rebuttal. What do you think of that . Hes submitting a time frame for the democrats to review, and whats thats happening. Were not interested in delaying the trial of this president and his inciting to insurrection, but at the same time if were going to take that kind of time, i want to make sure that President Bidens nominees have hearings and that we can get on with putting them in place so that they can conduct the business of doing things that will actually help people. And thats what President Biden is doing with his proposals right now. I want to ask you about what happened to these thousands of National Guard troops yesterday. They were at the u. S. Capitol to protect lawmakers and the capitol. Yes. And they were banished for some reason by someone to this parking garage. Heres the cnn reporting on it. Pictures provided showed guardsmen sitting or lying down in areas cordoned off with caution tape. Some appeared to be sleeping by resting against concrete pillars in the garage just a few feet from parked cars. There was one electrical outlet and one bathroom with two stalls for 5,000 troops. Do you understand who sent them away from the capitol and to this parking garage . Here they are, the National Guardsmen from every state in the country, including 200 from hawaii. And i had just that day, that afternoon, thanked the hawaii guardsmen for coming to our aid and to protect all of us. So this decision, when we found out about it, provoked a lot of outrage. Were making inquiries with the sergeant at arms, the Capitol Police. Who made this decision . And there is need for accountability because this should never have happened. And apparently by midnight, they were no longer in the garages, but as i said, this should never have happened. Want to know who made the decision and why. Yes. And you havent gotten any answers on that yet . So far not. We are making our inquiries. As you know, President Biden is calling for bipartisanship. He says thats his priority. Thats his preference. Are you yes. Are you seeing any change in your colleagues moods in terms of being open to working together that perhaps you hadnt seen for the past years . Well, so far, the beginnings are, in my view, not that great because President Biden has put forth his recovery assistance, as we are in the middle of a pandemic and millions of people are suffering. So already the republicans are shooting those proposals down. And he also put forth an immigration proposal that the republicans are busy shooting down. And so, yes, were going to have debates. And the good thing about the democrats being in charge is that these issues are actually going to be brought to the floor of the senate for debate, which is what should be happening, and vote. Something that never happened when Mitch Mcconnell was setting the agenda. Much of his agenda just consisted of hundreds and hundreds of nominees for judicial positions for life. And so were actually going to bring forth for a vote and debate, as i said now, that democrats are in control. Substantive legislation intended to help us recover from this pandemic and also to get control of this pandemic. We only have a couple of seconds. What do you want to see happen with the filibuster . I am open to filibuster reform because as the democrats bring forth these kind of substantive legislation, we need to get on with things. We are in the middle of a crisis, economic crisis, Health Care Crisis. And Mitch Mcconnell would like to be able to veto through the filibuster every single one of these legislations until he gets what he wants. So that is not a power that we should be handing over to him. So i am open to filibuster reform so that we can get on with the business of helping the people of our country. Senator mazie hirono, thank you. Aloha. President biden wants a bipartisan deal for coronavirus relief. Can he get it . The white house is weighing in this morning. 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