On and were told thats what the president will say trying to make news setting the table, as a matter of fact, beginning this News Conference saying his new vaccination goal will be 200 million shots in american arms in his first 100 days. They hit the 100 million mark last friday. That was day 59. It would seem like an ambitious goal but the fact is were on pace to hit that 200 million mark at this time. Thats the message they want to focus on. But consider whats happened in the last nine days since the white house announced todays News Conference. You have pair of Mass Shootings, new missile test by north korea and number of illegal border crossings along the u. S. mexico border has grown dramatically. All of those issues the president will be forced to address over the course of this News Conference today. Im told he has prepared for it. No sort of formal prep sessions that hes done, tabletop sessions with his teams here recognizing the significance of this moment. One in the east wing, one in the west wing, with some of his advisers trying to get him to boil down and synthesize the case he wants to make. They want to hear a firm and passionate defense of his agenda. Obviously, this is the first time in quite an extended time, that weve seen him for this length of time without a script. Dates back, frankly, in some ways to the debates during the course of the campaign. How will he handle himself . White house officials tell me they hope he doesnt spar with reporters. They doubt he would do that. Though hes bristled at tough dwes before. They say he needs to be reminded and will recognize the real audience are americans back at home, brian. Peter alexander on the white house north lawn to start off our coverage. Lets go to the pacific northwest, dr. Ben gupta to talk about the topic of the pandemic and these vaccines. Dr. Gupta is a pulmonologist, pandemic consultants and for good reason among our medical contributors. Doctor, this goal of 200 million vaccines in the first 100 days is certainly ambitious, but as peter said, were on track. Good afternoon, brian. Good to see you, we are on track. Frankly, for all of your viewers out there, we need to hit that number. Its appropriate that the administration is talking with these types of numbers, this magnitude vaccination because speed is critical. Were in a tenuous reality right now, brian, where, for example, the Toronto Region just north of us, they have high test positivity rates, 12 to 15 in parts of this reason. Very much locked down. Paris icus are filled to capacity. Italy just locked down again. Were seeing unfortunately sad numbers in terms of high death tolls out of latin america still. So were surrounded by chaos, which is why youre seeing the president s message on the importance of speed here. Its about speed for us to reach normalcy by july 4th. But make no mistake, the rest of the world here is on a very much different timeline. Jacob soboroff standing by to take us to the other topic of the day, and that is the southern border. Jacob, last night we had Julia Ainsley on the broadcast. She reported, we obviously have seen the video that was allowed by the government yesterday to our crew on the condition we share it with other networks, but we heard the first kind of transparency with numbers. Numbers of young people in u. S. Hands. It sounds like were getting there, like its been a long, long process. The goal, brian, you know as you said is to reduce capacity, to reduce overcrowding and those numbers are fluctuating. At times Getting Better but then verting back to a crisis capacity. When i think crisis, its not a National Security crisis, its a humanitarian crisis of too many children held in Border Patrol stations, whether its in the Rio Grande Valley or that donna, texas facility, over 1,000 capacity. Or this sector here in uma, where its the secondmostcrowded border, over 49 capacity available bed space in these Border Patrol stations where alejandro mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, says theyre no place for children. Theyre very straightforward about that. The challenge is, how will they get them out . President biden will have to answer for that. Shortterm situation here at the border but also longerterm plan. What does it mean to have a safe, humane and orderly immigration process as they promised . Secretary mayorkas been clear about that as well but we havent heard it spelled out yet by the Biden Administration. What does it look like to depart from the Trump Administration and democratic and republican deterrence based, punitive based policies before that. Hopefully well get some answers from the president of the United States. Jacob soboroff, covering the border front and dr. Gupta before that on the medical front. Gentlemen, thank you very much. We have other guests with us waiting to take our questions, former senator Claire Mccaskill of the great state of missouri and former chairman of the rnc, michael steele, both among our political analysts. Senator, i will start with you, what do you think j. B. Will have to say as president . I they he has to speak candidly and have some discipline to make sure he is not pulled off message. I think you want to stay on covid and relief package that is moving people back into schools, moving shots into peoples arms and obviously delivering economic recovery but theres no question this immigration issue is going to be one i hope hes prepared for, because the messaging has been muddled here. I think they want to make sure they send a signal were going to try to take good care of the children that show up without adults. On the other hand i think the message has been muddled about people who are children that are showing up. Are they denying them entry . Do we have any video of them being asked to go back to where they came from . Because they have to come through legal processes rather than just showing up at the border. Thats his challenge, to show he can be humane as relates to not separating families and children but also recognizing there has to be some kind of control at the border. Michael steele, as has been pointed out, it is true that the Trump Administration kind of pulled apart the known processes at the border. It is true that the Biden Administration did not have the benefit of the usual and full transition period. To the senators point, how much of this is communications . How much of this is telling their story, delivering their message loudlythe american peop seeing these pictures every day and night . Its all communication at this point, this moment. Look, this this press conference is having a lot more drama attended to it than it ordinarily should and thats because were 65 days into the administration. There is some legitimacy to the point that republicans and others have made that waiting this long sort of sets up the game. And sometimes that game can be set up against you. Imagine if you had this First Press Conference two weeks or even a week after the inauguration. Its a very different dynamic. A lot of issues were dealing with now, the administration is dealing with, wouldnt have been on the table then. So you can begin to set your narrative. And then roll into that narrative these issues as they occur. You know find yourself 65 days in, going a little bit up a communication hill here in trying to make it very clear where the administration is heading on a number of issues, not just a singular issue like covid19. So this is all about communications today. I would say the message on the border has not just been muddled, it has been largely absent in some respects and has allowed others to define whats happening at the border in the absence of any clear sounding direction from the administration at this point. So that puts a lot of pressure on how the president now comes to the country before this White House Press corps and lays out exactly what has happened and what hes doing and what he will do going forward, not just on covid, but on the border situation. And then, of course, youve got later on, the two Mass Shootings that have occurred within the last week. So theres a lot to this president to communicate on. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt also joining our conversation at this hour. K. C. , lets take one of Michael Steeles points. 65 days in to the administration having what we now call the first formal News Conference. Of course, in this day and age, president s talk on their way to and from the helicopter, president s talk at photos ops, president s have twitter accounts, at least current president s and i want to read you something from the journalist dave weigel. This was back on march 16th. He was in on the joke the day it was announced that President Biden would be doing this. Did biden agree to do a press conference . I was in a blue collar diner and all of a sudden working class voters got on the tables and started dancing. You see what hes driving at, theres a certain what aboutism, a certain false equivalence in our coverage that campaigned to get joe biden to hold a formal News Conference in many ways started as part of fox news primetime programming because they needed to foment and raise a question. So, look, brian, one of the earliest things i learned about being a journalist at ap is were never the story. The press is not the story. That said, why is it important for a president to hold a press conference even when they have all of these other tools of communication . Because the reason the press is important because is because every american cant be in that room and the idea is that reporters are able to get a chance to press the president in a setting thats not scripted, where they dont get a chance to set the agenda themselves to have the conversation on their own terms in a way that does a better job of showing the American People whats really going on, what the president really thinks. In an age when social media on the one hand has been democratizing in terms of allowing more voices to have access to bigger audiences, it used to be just the news wires or our tv broadcasts have the ability to reach that many people, thats obviously not true anymore, but its also had the effect of making it so that politicians can avoid filters and go straight to those audiences, which removes, frankly, a layer of accountability. You and i are charged with seeing the information that politicians provide and then trying to help our audiences understand that making sure we fill in context, that we point out untruths, lies, mistruths. Obviously, we spent a lot of time doing that during the Trump Administration. This is a normal ritual of a white house, something President Biden campaigned on bringing back. I would be very surprised if this turns into basically the circus we saw former President Trumps First Press Conference turn into. Im sure you were watching that day. I remember going down into the basement tunnels of the capitol and trying to find a member of the congress who stopped to watch the president s press conference. It was very difficult to do because it was so controversial. I dont think thats going to be the case this time. I think there are democrats who are going to be very proud of what they see from President Biden and, of course, republicans who are going to feel as though he said things that they disagree with and there are policies that they oppose. But were in a much different environment now than we ever have been. And i do think its important to underscore that were dealing with complicated, difficult issues. Weve been in a pandemic for a year. People are really struggling. There are kids who are not in school, people who lost loved ones. We lost over a half a million people. When you stack those challenges up against whether or not the president is having a press conference, obviously its clear what the most important issue here is. It doesnt mean this isnt something important for president s who want to adhere to the norms of the office do. And President Biden has said he wants to be somebody who does that. Also, k. C. , just as a viewers guide, the east room will look quite different because of the pandemic. The folks at Bloomberg News tweeted out one still picture of the early layout of the ee lectern, lights and seats because we have to keep that in mind. But my casual lips of potential topics if you dont count the ships stuck in the suez canal, pandemic, vaccines, economy, filibuster, gun control, southern border, russia, china, north korea in no particular order, and Voting Rights. So this could be this could be a long one. You mentioned your experience with the Associated Press. That will also be interesting to see if the traditional first reporter is called upon and the traditional last reporter is called upon to say thank you mr. President. It will be, brian. Thats the tradition jen psaki brought back to the briefing room. That tradition it used to be based on how quickly the wires needed to get their copy out the door so newspapers could print it out across the country. Thats how the tradition originally started, the Associated Press asked the first and last question. It will be interesting to see how they decide to handle it today for sure. But youre right, its an incredibly long list much issues just a couple of months into the administration. Already all of these problems, many of which festered or altered by the Trump Administration when they were office exploded as problems for President Biden. They announced this press conference i believe nine days before now its taking place. Honestly, its a very different conversation today than it would have been had they done the press conference the day they announced they were going to plan it. There are quite a few tough questions. And, of course, many of the issues you listed, immigration, gun reform, Voting Rights, are all winding their way through congress, which, of course, i cover every day and they will have to make a big decision about the filibuster as well, brian. Absolutely, which brings us back to Claire Mccaskill. Claire, yesterday it was bracing to hear Mitch Mcconnell with a straight face, which he always employs, claim that there were not efforts across our country with voter suppression, all numbers and reports to the contrary. Hes well at that, hes good at the straightface number when he knows better. I think you will see the president generally deflect on the specifics of how these measures are going to work their way through the senate. One of the things that have been missing in sort of our coverage of the filibuster issue is there is an assumption out there this is being held up just by john manchin or maybe krysten sinema. Theres more than a here handful of senators that would like to see rule changes that make the senate work better and make the filibuster more painful that arent ready to completely blow up a mex nix to try to get bipartisan support. I think joe biden knows that. So what hes got to do is keep his answers to answer the questions but keep them short and keep his eye on the very important number. Thats his 60 approval. Hes flying with high approval now in this kind of polarized environment. I think his team wants more than anything for him to leave that podium with the 60 approval intact. Michael steele to claires exact point, there are so many politicians who would love to take a 60 Approval Rating out for a spin. Yeah, yeah. And all of them are on capitol hill. They havent seen those numbers in like forever. So its its a very special moment for them and thats to the president s advantage. He can create a little bit of drag for some of them or he can create a little bit of wind or coattail around various initiatives. I think thats going to be a really Good Opportunity on a number of the issues that k. C. Laid out that the president can take advantage of. I think it starts for him today. Again, would have been a little easier ride had some of the issues had the administrations moderate voice in play in terms of the various news cycles that have come before but thats not his situation now. Maybe the thinking is because theres so much, some of it will kind of fall to the side. To that point about keeping that 60 approval intact, while he will zero in on the things the American People are most focused on and that still remains covid in many respects and certainly whats happening at the border. Just to our viewers, while michael was talking, we got our first access to the live picture in the east room. Again, this is not quite going to seem like the east room press conferences of our youth or of years past. You see the lone podium. You see the line to get remote photography shots and the few journalists within the room keeping with cdc guidelines are vastly spaced out. Well see the president come in for the side door on the right and will let you know when we are right under two minutes. Joining our conversation is our political contributor and importantly former National Security adviser ben rhodes from the obama administration. Ben, it is quite a menu for overseas challenges, leaving aside north korea tossing up a handful of missiles on a handful of days recently, the reset of the china relationship, reset of the russia relationship into something that American Adults would