Top Covid Task Force officials. Welcome to thursday. It is meet the press daily. Im chuck todd. Congress created an independent, Bipartisan Commission to definitively figure out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. And nearly 3,000 americans died on september 11th. More than 308,000 people have now died from covid in this country. The cdc director predicted over the nemonth, at least, well se 9 11 levels of fatalities every single day. Nearly 3,300 deaths were reported from covid yesterday alone. That was the single deadliest day of this pandemic. If the death toll alone doesnt highlight how badly we need a full accounting of what happened, theres this. House investigators on a subcommittee specifically devoted to the pandemic disclosed they discovered communications within hhs showing that one of the president s top science advisers specifically said of low risk groups that, quote, we want them infected. That was basically a herd immunity strategy focused on protecting only the most vulnerable. This private communication came, of course, as the president was publicly downplaying the health risk of covid while contradicting Public Health experts and pushing for states to fully reopen. Bottom line is the white house was publicly vowing to limit the spread of the virus, there were obvious efforts all as trump was trying to avoid shutting down the economy because he thought it would help his reelection effort. Well speak with the chairman of the houses subcommittee jim clyburn in a moment. Getting to the depths of the political interference is obviously of major importance on that issue. The cdcs former chief of staff and his top deputy are opening up about how the agency was sidelined in part by political allies of the president. In an interview with the New York Times, they said, quote, Everyone Wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped and the cdc was sidelined. It didnt happen that way. It was more of like a hand grasping something. And it slowly closes. Closes and closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the cdc. Folks, the president s response alone to this pandemic will be remembered as one of the biggest failures of government leadership in our nations history. While the speed of the vaccine is rightfully being recognized as a medical marvel there have nonetheless been cascading failures across our government and from our elected leaders. Its resulted in more deaths so far than the number of americans who died in the battle in battle during world war ii. The public deserves a full and independent accounting of what happened. Weve had plenty of commissions that do this and do this well. Joining me now outside of the white house is my nbc news colleague carol lee. I want to start with these in some ways, you could call them damning disclosures out of both hhs and what weve learned from the staffers at the cdc, but in some ways, they just confirmed what we were all watching with our own eyes. Which was a president using trying to downplay the severity of this virus whatever chance he got. Yeah, thats exactly right, chuck. And also the president on one hand saying they werent pushing for this idea of herd immunity and then on the other hand, obviously, this was something that was being discussed, not just in with the president s Controversial Health adviser scott atlas, once he joined the white house. But really a lot earlier than that. This july 4th email thats quoted here talks about the need to not infect everybody. Infants, young people, keep colleges open and what we heard from the president publicly while there were some denials that was actually formulating any sort of policy or driving any policy decisions, he said in september that herd immunity was something that absent a vaccine that the virus would go away if we allowed that to essentially take place. Carol, lets carol, in fact, before you finish, i want to play those september comments. I think people need to hear this from the president s mouth again. He was advocating herd immunity. Listen. It would go away without the vaccine, george. But its going to go away a lot faster with it. Go away without the vaccine . Sure. Over a period of time, sure. With time it goes away. And many deaths. And youll develop like a herd mentality. Its going to be herd developed and thats going to happen. That will all happen. Now in fairness, its possible the president didnt quite understand what phrase to use. He used herd mentality. Heard developed. But it was clear he was talking about herd immunity. T. Was. It was clear thats what he meant and that he said that that is what would happen if you didnt have a vaccine, that it would move if you allowed these people who are not high risk, young people, i mean, all the way down to infants, according to these emails, that that would somehow get rid of this virus eventually. Now that is not something that any of the president s top Health Advisers like dr. Fauci, dr. Birx and others, and even the hhs have said that wasnt something that was part of their policy. But that just gives you a sense of how the president is really, since this pandemic started, was grasping at ways to find ways for it to go away and to convey that message. And without a vaccine, which is what hes leaning into now, at the time there was this idea of herd immunity which you heard him there leaning into. Very quickly, he apparently said hes going to veto the defense bill. Is he vetoing this expecting his veto to get overridden or is he truly hoping that somehow hes going to get be able to keep the confederate generals on he thats his reason to do it. That and the section 230 termination. Theres no interest in renegotiating this. What does he expect to come from this veto . Well, its hes digging in on this threat. And also, i would add a third thing. Hes now saying this benefits china. There are provisions that strengthen the u. S. Against china. Even these disagreeing with the president. The real question here that were told the president is expected to just straight up veto this in the regular way, not do a pocket veto which could create some delays and other complications. The real question is whether theres enough one thing to vote for something. Another thing to vote against the president on something and will enough republicans stay on board to override his veto. But this is a pay raise for troops. This is education, funding for kids of special needs who are families of people serving in the military. So it would be a really big deal if he did veto this. It would. And it is worth noting, carol, that ive noticed the president and a lot of his allies now just throw china into every answer. Theres no fact that backs it up now, but theyve decided its a talking point. So a word of warning to viewers, you may hear things about china having to do with things that have nothing to do with china like this. Joining me now is South Carolina democratic congressman jim clyburn, the number three democrat in the house, chairman of the select subcommit on the coronavirus crisis. And congressman, thats where i want to begin. Right now you are doing some oversight. You are leading the oversight on whats happening with Government Funds and things like this. But youre also discovering a lot of troubling things. Weve got and thats what came out of your committee, this herd immunity attempt email. Weve also got what weve learned from the cdc staffers who spoke with the New York Times. Do you believe we need a 9 11style commission, warren commission, great crises have gotten us important commissions to make sure we dont make the same mistakes again. Do we need this . We may. And i think thats something the new Administration May need to take a look at. My committee, however, is to provide oversight. When Congress Makes the expenditures, as theyve done here, my select committee is to take a hard look at how the money is being spent to make sure that its being done efficiently, effectively and equitably. Thats what were doing. And it was in the course of carrying out these responsibilities is when we saw these or heard the testimonies and now seen some documents that indicate that what the white house was saying was different from what was going on. And we have found that to be the case in other instances as well. They were sending information out to state governments saying one thing while at the national level, they were saying just the opposite. Thats the way this administration has operated. And so what were doing in the select committee is having the public take a looksee at what this administration is doing and hopefully well do what we can to correct it. Given what youre learning already, does it make you feel as if well, look at what im learning, what were learning just on focusing on how theyre handling congressionally allocated money. Does this tell you theres a lot more that you think we dont know . Well, thats what i think. And thats why we want to have these documents. And they have not been sharing the documents with us. They finally unloaded a lot of stuff to us. A lot of it we asked for, but they give us a lot of stuff we did not ask for. And they did not give us some things that we asked for. And so we are going to pursue our duties and responsibilities and maybe well find out some things that we just have a gut feeling may be there. But i do not want to get out in front of the facts. So youve been getting a lot of this information lately. How much of this has been almost all post election . Do you feel as if suddenly post election youre getting more cooperation . I think so. Its certainly whether or not that was the intent, thats exactly whats happened. Weve gotten this information since the election, though much of it we were asking for prior to. The how much of the information youre getting stonewalled on do you think youll have to wait until january 20th to get, or are you concerned you have to issue subpoenas now because are you concerned that documents might disappear . Well, i would hope that documents would not disappear because that would take us into another kind of investigation that goes beyond the scope of the committee. We have not made the decision finally by staff is plowing through these documents now trying to determine whether or not they are sufficient. If they are sufficient, then we will say so. And if they arent, we will say so, and it may lead to a subpoena. The one the most troubling aspect about what we learned from the New York Times and the cdc staffers is that everything that was looked like was happening indeed was happening, which is, there was, and let me pull one excerpt. The white house insisted on reviewing and often softening the cdcs guidance documents. The most prominent public expression of its latest research and Scientific Consensus on the spread of the virus. The documents were vetted not only by the white houses Coronavirus Task force by what felt to the agencies employees like an endless loop of political appointees across washington. We know the cdc ended up getting politicized in some way, either in how their stuff was handled or how they were micromanaged. How do you restore the cdcs good name . Thats going to be tough. Really going to be tough. When it comes to peoples health, they do not want that to be played with politically. And thats whats going on here. The decisions are being made outside of the scientific world by people with no expertise. Some of them not even with the slight credentials. We have a career scientist telling us that she was ordered to delete certain things in a memorand memorandum. These kind of things we are very serious about. We have Paul Alexander calling for herd immunity when the white house was saying that was not taking place. We want them infected. Look at these people. They must not have children or friends or relatives or acquaintan acquaintances. Why would you just want to infect people when you can take steps like masking, social distancing and not having superspreading events and prevent the stuff from happening. It seems almost as if they were trying to infect everybody that came around them and creating these superspreaders. This is the kind of mentality thats been taking place in the white house for some time now, and the American People finally wised up on november the 3rd and i hope they will continue to stay focused on this. Very quickly, the defense bill veto that the president is promising, what how quickly will there be an attempt to override that veto in the house, sir . Well, we would attempt to do so right away in the house. I say attempt to do so because a lot of people who voted for this bill now are saying that they may vote to sustain a president ial veto. Its not surprising to me that these people want to defund the department of defense. And thats effectively what theyd be doing here is du defunding the defense department. Its an interesting phrase you picked there, congressman. And i think it was on purpose. I see what youre doing there. We shall see what happens. Congressman clyburn, thank you for coming on and sharing your perspective with us. Thank you. I thought you would get that. I sure did. Still ahead ill ask a key member of the white house Coronavirus Task force about what went wrong and what went right . Admiral brett giroir will be here. Plus, the Moderna Vaccine is one step away from approval. And some hospitals are completely out of icu beds. Thats next. Thats next. Hns di . Are you ok . I did. But even when i was there, i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. So, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have uc or crohns symptoms after trying other medications. And humira helps people achieve remission that can last, so you can experience few or no symptoms. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. 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We made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. No matter what it does, or how it changes. And we kept going. So you only pay for what you use. Because at dell technologies, we stop. At nothing. Welcome back. The u. S. Has just seen its sing single worst day in this pandemic and is pushing the hospital to the breaking point. Icu units at hundreds of major hospitals across the country are full according to recent hhs data. Hospitalizations are still at record levels. The fdas Vaccine Committee is back together today to discuss whether to recommend an emergency authorization for the Moderna Covid vaccine exactly a week after they did recommend the authorization for the Pfizer Vaccine. No matter how fast each new vaccine is approved and distributed, it will not outpace or undo the cases, deaths and hospitalizations rates ripping through the country at a recordbreaking pace. For the first few weeks or even months, it might not even make a dent. In many of the same hospitals where Health Care Workers are receiving the same vaccines, capacity is already stretched to the limit. Steve patterson is in los angeles for us where hospitals are in crisis. Steve, i think that you see it with the governor. You see it with Health Care Workers. They are running out of ways to scream out loud at the public about this dire situation. And yet they have to keep doing it because people need to hear this message. The governor said something interesting. Hes putting it like this. The vaccine is out there, yes. It is the light at the end of the tunnel that everybody has wanted to see since the beginning of this pandemic but it is still so far off that there is months worth of darkness before were able to feel it especially here in california. Were at about 30,000 cases every single day. Hospitals are running out of bed space. Icus almost at capacity in several counties across the state. Ambulances are now on diversion. Theyre being snent away from certain hospitals because the ers are so packed. Nurses are complaining about the fact that ratios are so skewed because theres too many patients for each icu nurse. Thats a real problem here in l. A. County where every hour the average is that two people will die of covid. Theres about 1 in every 80 residents that has the virus. Meanwhile, again, nurses, Health Care Workers are absolutely slammed and they say it is not sustainable if this continues. Heres what several doctors are saying about the crisis and looking forward, if this behavior doesnt change. Listen to this. Los angeles county has not been in this situation to this point in the pandemic before. But the worst is still before us. Over the next few weeks if the numbers continue to increase the way they have, i am afraid that we may run out of capacity within our hospitals, and the level of care that every resident in Los Angeles County deserves may be threatened just by the fact were overwhelmed by those numbers. Chuck, on that message about Health Officials running out of things to say, theyre also worried about the coming Holiday Season because were still paying for the decisions that people made over the thanksgiving holiday. Theyre now worried that further behavior will only deepen this crisis before we get to any feasible stage in this vaccine that can be distributed to enough people to real