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TRANSCRIPT: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW, 3/29/21

Guests: Rochelle Walensky, Brandt Williams

March 30, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC


SUMMARY

MSNBC continues its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. CDC Director, Dr.
Rochelle Walensky is interviewed. Opening statements from the prosecution, and
then the defense have been delivered this morning in the trial of former
Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.


TRANSCRIPT

MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC HOST: Sadly, yes.




JEAN GUERRERO, AUTHOR: And they`re just going to try to whip up hysteria about
this, you know, alleged third world takeover.

HASAN: It`s truly horrific. I mean, to sum it up, it`s truly horrific he`s still
on the scene, but, Jean Guerrero, thank you for writing that book, and
enlightening us about Stephen Miller, and thanks for being with me tonight.

That is ALL IN on this Monday night.

"THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.



Good evening, Rachel.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Mehdi. Thank you so much. It`s great to
see you, my friend. Thank you.

And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Very happy to have you here.
What a news day today.

The ship is unstuck in the Suez Canal at long last. But, of course, it will
remain stuck in our hearts forever. Now that we know that one of the world`s
most crucial shipping arteries can get stuck like a cork for days and days and
days and days and days, thanks to just one big ship steered a little bit wrong.



Who knows whether we will ever put two and two together that maybe you can`t
just keep making ships infinitely bigger without also increasing the size of the
crew that pilots them or giving them any better tools for maneuvering their
giantly gigantic giantness through tiny little bottlenecks originally designed
for ships 1/100th that size or even smaller.

Long live the Ever Given. Also, let`s see who gets stuck next. That happened
today.

Also today, the election at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama, this is
the election to decide whether or not that facility can have a union, which is a
big deal for that facility, which employs thousands of people, but it will have
huge implications for Americans in the workplace in general. It will have huge
implications for whether employees can be in a union at the country`s second
largest employer, Amazon.

This election that everybody up to and including the president of the United
States has weighed in on, that election has been spooling out at the Bessemer
plant for the last few weeks. It finally comes to an end tonight. We`ll have
more for you tonight coming up on why even as that election ends, it might still
be a while yet before we know what the result is going to be there. But once we
do get a result, it is going to be a very big deal either way.



We`re also going to have a live report from Minnesota where the trial is under
way as of today for the officer accused of killing George Floyd in Minneapolis
by kneeling on Mr. Floyd`s neck for more than nine minutes until he died. That
death set off weeks of some of the largest protests and demonstrations in
American history.

The individual of -- excuse me, the issue of individual accountability and
justice for the officer charged in Mr. Floyd`s death, it was always going to be
intense, but it`s all the more so since this is a trial in state court in
Minnesota, which means we get to have cameras in the courtroom. So we get to see
every twist and turn in the case, every action by the judge, every bit of
witness testimony, every cross-examination.

Day one was today. It was quite dramatic. We`re going to have more on that
coming up in just a moment.

On the issue of voting rights, the great reporter Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker
Magazine" somehow obtained a leaked phone call from the big money conservative
forces that are trying to derail Democratic efforts to protect voting rights at
the federal level.



Now, why is this such an urgent thing right now? Well, both sides see it very
urgently, apparently. Late last week, of course, we saw Republicans in the state
of Georgia sign into law the most sweeping anti-voting rights law in
generations, including a truly novel provision that would let Republicans --
that will let Republicans in the state legislature oust elections officials in
specific counties and take those counties over with their own people if the
Republicans in the state legislature don`t like the way that county voted. What
could possibly go wrong?

The night of the rushed closed door signing of that bill, we saw a Georgia state
representative, a Democrat, Representative Park Cannon, arrested by state
troopers for knocking on the door of the governor`s office, asking to be let in
to observe the signing.

They really are charging Representative Cannon with two felonies for that. They
are threatening her with nearly a decade in prison. I kid you not.

But that Georgia bill is the first of what will be many. Even the specific
provision that has attracted outrage across the country that is hence forth a
criminal act in Georgia to offer water to a voter who has been waiting in an
hours-long line to vote, even that provision, the no offering water to voters in
long lines, that itself is moving to other Republican controlled states with
Florida Republicans apparently deciding today they would like a law like that in
Florida, please, too.



They like that part of it specifically. Make the lines long enough, and exactly
the right neighborhoods, and well, if you ban food and water for the people on
those very long lines, well, you can basically fine tune the size and color of
the electorate through sheer physician attrition. Maybe air strikes next, if
that doesn`t work.

Texas already has the most restrictive rules in the country when it comes to
voting, but Republicans in Texas, too, are also moving after Georgia to make
voting in Texas even more difficult to do. We`ll see whether they also pursue a
Georgia style elections trap door where they just give themselves the power to
take over themselves and remove elections officials in individual counties if
those counties don`t vote the way Republicans in the legislature wanted. Since
the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act
in 2013, the only thing approaching a potentially potent defense against all
this stuff happening in all of these states is if there`s a new federal law, if
President Biden can sign a new federal law that basically puts a floor under
American voting rights, that provides a federal guarantee of voting rights and
nonpartisan administration of elections that individual states can`t go below.

The tape that Jane Mayer at "The New Yorker" obtained and published today shows
that far right dark money groups are pretty panicked about that prospect, about
the prospect of Biden and the Democrats figuring out a way to pass that
legislation, to pass those reforms. And part of the reason they`re panicked
about that prospect is because they cannot figure out a way to argue that those
reforms are unnecessary or that they shouldn`t happen. They can`t come up with
an argument that any actual voters like.

Turns out their research found that when you just explain in neutral terms the
ways the For the People Act, the Democrats bill, S-1. It`s already passed the
House, HR-1. It`s now Senate Bill-1, S-1, in the Senate. It`s the For the People
Act.



What the research found that was funded by far-right dark money billionaire
groups is that if you describe in neutral terms what that bill does, if you just
say just the facts of what Democrats are trying to do there, that it would
protect voting rights at the same level for every American in every state. It
would put transparency into the elections process. It would assure nonpartisan
administration of elections.

It turns out if you explain it in neutral terms, what the bill would actually
do, oh, no, American voters like it, a lot. Left, right, and center. Oh, no.

These are disastrous research results for the dark money far right billionaires
who were trying to turn people against it. Whatever are they going to do?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)



KYLE MCKENZIE, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, KOCH-RUN ADVOCACY GROUP "STAND TOGETHER": When
presented with a very neutral description of HR-1, people were generally
supportive, and the most worrisome part, which Grover mentions at the very
beginning of his presentation, is that conservatives were actually as supportive
as the general public was when they read the neutral description of HR-1.
There`s a large, very large chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these
types of efforts.

HR-1 stops billionaires from buying elections. Unfortunately, we found that that
is a winning message for both, you know, the general public and also
conservatives. You know, that simple message, but far and away, was resonated
with people, and you know, when they had to compare that message versus tons of
other ones, they were most persuaded by that, and they found that to be most
convincing and most, you know, riled them up the most.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: Imagine you`re a researcher who`s been hired by billionaires who buy
elections. As like, their hobby, their sport, their real raison d`etre in the
world, right? You have been hired by billionaires who have been playing with
American politics as a hobby, right? They are the dark money billionaires to end
all dark money billionaires in politics.



They have hired you to do research on this bill the Democrats are thinking
about. What you find when you message test that bill is when you tell people
what the bill would do, HR-1 stops billionaires from buying elections, what do
you find in your research? Quoting the researcher directly, quote,
unfortunately, we found that that is a winning message for both the general
public and also conservatives.

I`m really sorry, sir. Boss, thank you for the funding for the research. May I
please stay employed here, but I just found out people don`t want you to do what
you do. Want me to put a fine point on it? Because I can.

Pity the poor billionaires who commissioned this research. Turns out the public
really doesn`t want them controlling our elections with giant secret infusions
of money that they never have to disclose and let them play with American
democracy like a mad dog plays with a rag doll.

Yeah, turns out Americans don`t like that, not even conservatives like that.
What are they going to do?



We`re hoping to have the New Yorker`s Jane Mayer here on the show tomorrow night
to talk about this remarkable leak that she got, to talk about the shaky,
worried, almost panicked effort by far right billionaires and their interest
groups to try to make sure the new voting restrictions hold up and the Democrats
can`t stop them by passing HR-1, S-1, the For The People Act.

But tonight, here, in just a moment, we`re going to be joined live by the
director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, on what has been a huge day of news,
mostly good news, but also otherwise, on COVID.

Let`s start with the good. First of all, you might remember late last week, we
got this sort of astonishing news that sort of flummoxed me on the air. I kind
of lost speech about it for a second, but the news late last week the U.S. had
hit a single day vaccination record of over 3 million vaccinations delivered in
a single day. I know big numbers seem like big numbers, but nearly it was 3.4
million shots in one day. In one day, in a single day, we vaccinated more than 1
percent of the entire U.S. population, at the end of last week. That is
stunning.

Even more stunning, it turns out we kept up that pace over the weekend. Looking
at the numbers for today, it turns out that over the last four days, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, and today, Monday, the total number of vaccination doses given
in this country was about 12.6 million, which means in four days we kept up that
pace, in four days we vaccinated nearly 4 percent of the U.S. population, which
is just astonishing.



I mean, if you keep up that pace, hopefully even increase that pace, just means
we`re going to get there. Like it`s in sight. We can keep doing it at this pace,
we can get there. We can speed it up, we can get there.

According to the White House, more than a third of all American adults, of all
American adults, more than a third have now received at least one dose of the
vaccine, 36 percent of all American adults. If we can keep up this pace,
vaccinating 1 percent of the population every day, let alone it`s an even larger
proportion of adults. If we can keep up this pace, we have more than a third of
the population having at least one vaccine dose now. We could double that in
about a month if we keep up this pace, which would get us very close to where we
need to be.

I mean, imagine how different our prospects will feel if we`ve got 70 percent,
75 percent, 80 percent of adults in this country vaccinated, and younger people
are starting to get vaccinated too. President Biden today announced a big
expansion in terms of the distribution of vaccines to pharmacies.

And this is interesting. Something I want to talk to Dr. Walensky about. It
seems like getting your vaccine through a local pharmacy is turning out to be
the most popular if not among the most popular way for Americans to get their
vaccines. It does depend from group to group and place to place, but that means
that finding is causing the Biden administration to double down on that as a
route for vaccines.



Right now, the federal government is getting vaccine supplies to 17,000
pharmacies. President Biden announced today that that number will go from 17,000
pharmacies to 40,000 pharmacies, more than doubling it.

President Biden said today with a number of doses distributed continuing to rise
each week, and with those 20,000 plus new pharmacies coming onboard to
administer shots that haven`t been giving them thus far but will be soon,
President Biden said today that by April 19th, three weeks from today, 90
percent of all American adults will be eligible for the vaccine, and 90 percent
of us will have a place administering the vaccine that`s within five miles of
where we live.

And that is phenomenal news if it pans out. It also comes out alongside some
scientific news about how the vaccines are working. That`s honestly the data I
feel like I have been waiting for. I have been focused on this issue of
treatment for people who get infected with COVID, can we offer them a cure, can
we offer something to keep them from getting sick, from going to the hospital,
from dying. I talked about it a lot on the show. You have probably seen it.

But the other thing that we have all, I think, been waiting for in terms of
vaccines is how much vaccinating everybody gets us closer to the end of there
being a coronavirus epidemic in this country. And we need -- there is a piece of
scientific data we know to be able to answer that question. Don`t just think
about it in terms of whether we individually are going to survive it. Is the
country going to end our coronavirus crisis by vaccinating enough Americans?



It`s a piece of information that we have needed. Today we got it. We all know
already if you get vaccinated, that vaccine will basically prevent you from
getting sick with COVID, it will prevent you from going to the hospital with
COVID symptoms, prevent you from dying with COVID. Great, good for you.

But there`s a scientific gray area about whether once you`re vaccinated you can
still get infected. It may not be an infection that will give you symptoms, it
may not be an infection to send you to the hospital, that will kill you, but can
you get infected with mild symptoms or no-symptoms even if you have been
vaccinated? That`s an important thing to know, right? Because even if vaccinated
people themselves aren`t going to get sick from COVID, the prospect that -- by
getting vaccinated you might protect yourself, but you could still potentially
get infected, not have symptoms, and unknowingly pass it on to other people, and
be protecting yourself, you would still be a risk to others, that prospect has
been looming. And that uncertainty has made it woollier and harder to think
about how really your life is going to change all that much if you`re vaccinated
but you`re still potentially a risk to any non-vaccinated person.

Getting ahold of that information about whether you can get infected once you`re
vaccinated and potentially pass it to somebody else, that`s really important.

Well, today, the CDC reported new data that shows that under real world
conditions, not just in a lab, not just extrapolating from tiny numbers of test
subjects but looking at thousands of front line health workers and essential
workers who have gotten vaccinated and who have since been doing their jobs and
living in a real world, not only are the vaccines for those folks, thousands of
them, keeping those people from getting sick from COVID themselves, those
vaccines are also highly effective at preventing those people from getting
infected, even with non-symptomatic infection. And if you are not infected, you
can`t give it to anybody else.



And I know this sounds like an incremental piece of news, but sit on this for a
second enough to absorb what this means, right? What this means is that we can
get there with vaccines. We can end this thing.

It means that instead of a vaccine being able -- excuse me, it means instead of
the virus being able to hop from person to person to person to person, spreading
and spreading, sickening some of them but not all of them, and the ones it
doesn`t sicken don`t know they have it and they give it to mere poem because
they didn`t recognize, right? Instead of the virus being able to hop from person
to person to person, potentially mutating and becoming more virulent and drug
resistant along the way, now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the
virus stops with every vaccinated person.

A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus. The virus does not infect them.
The virus cannot then use that person to go anywhere else. It cannot use a
vaccinated person as a host to get more people.

That means the vaccines will get us to the end of this. If we just go fast
enough to get the whole population vaccinated. It`s huge news.



New scientific findings announced by the CDC today, which made it all the more
striking that the CDC director today wanted to talk about the other side of the
coin. And she got personal and direct and a little scary in doing so. She wanted
to talk today about the not good news, the news that even though our vaccination
program is blasting off and still getting bigger and faster even now, the other
side of the epidemic, the speed at which COVID is spreading now among the still
unvaccinated population, that is very scary again.

And it is looking like it is heading toward a new surge. And if we get a big new
surge, that could screw all of this up. Unless, we do something about it to stop
it now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Yesterday, we in the United States
surpassed 30 million cases of COVID-19. CDC`s most recent data show that the
seven-day average of new cases is slightly less than 60,000 cases per day. This
is a 10 percent increase compared to the prior seven-day period.
Hospitalizations have also increased. The most recent seven-day average, 4,800
admissions per day is up from 4,600 admissions per day in the prior seven-day
period.



And deaths, which typically lag behind cases and hospitalizations, have now
started to rise, increasing nearly 3 percent to a seven-day average of
approximately 1,000 deaths per day.

When I first started at CDC about two months ago, I made a promise to you. I
would tell you the truth, even if it was not the news we wanted to hear. Now is
one of those times when I have to share the truth, and I have to hope and trust
you will listen. I`m going to pause here, I`m going to lose the script.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: I`m going to pause here. I`m going to lose the script.



CDC Director Rochelle Walensky at the White House COVID briefing today. At that
point where she says, I`m going to pause here, I`m going to lose the script,
what she then said thereafter made headlines across the country.

I mean, you can already hear the tone -- like, all of the other news right now
on COVID is all about this gangbusters vaccine rollout and this incredible news
about the effectiveness of the vaccines, them being a very effective at keeping
us from getting infected, not just keeping us from getting sick, which is so
important in terms of the size of the epidemic. Every else is kind of good news.

Dr. Walensky comes out today and says our new case numbers are really bad. Our
hospitalizations are going in the wrong direction. I`m going to give it to you
straight. I`m going to pause here. I`m going to lose the script. What she then
said made headlines across the country and led to sharp words along the same
lines later in the day today from President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



WALENSKY: I`m going to pause here. I`m going to lose the script. And I`m going
to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to
look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much
reason for hope.

But right now, I`m scared. I know what it`s like as a physician to stand in that
patient room, gowned, gloved, masked, shielded. And to be the last person to
touch someone else`s loved one because their loved one couldn`t be there. I know
what it`s like when you`re the physician, when you`re the health care provider,
and you`re worried you don`t have the resources to take care of the patients in
front of you.

I know that feeling of nausea when you read the crisis standards of care and you
wonder whether they`re going to be enough ventilators to go around and who`s
going to make that choice. And I know what it`s like to go up to your hospital
every day and see the extra morgue sitting outside.

I didn`t know at the time when it would stop. We didn`t have the science to tell
us. We were just scared. We have come such a long way.



Three historic scientific breakthrough vaccines, and we are rolling them out so
very fast. So I`m speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, and not
only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you
to just please hold on a little while longer.

I so badly want to be done. I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just
almost there, but not quite yet. And so I`m asking you to just hold on a little
longer to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all
love will still be here when this pandemic ends.

We are not powerless. We can change this trajectory of the pandemic. But it will
take all of us recommitting to following the public health prevention strategies
consistently while we work to get the American public vaccinated.

I`m calling on our elected officials, our faith-based communities, our civic
leaders and our influencers in communities across the nation. And I`m calling on
every single one of you to sound the alarm, to carry these messages into your
community and your spheres of influence. We do not have the luxury of inaction,
for the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth
surge.



(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: A fourth surge. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky saying today a fourth
surge is coming, even with all of the vaccinations that we`re rolling out,
saying we`re going to have hospitalizations and deaths like we have had before
in previous surges, and like they`re having now in some European countries
again. She says it`s happening because we`re opening up just a few weeks too
soon. Just barely before we have enough people vaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALENSKY: What we have seen over the last week or so is a steady rise in cases.
We`re now in the 60,000 to 70,000 range. When we see that uptick in cases what
we have seen before is things have a tendency to surge and surge big.



Many of these states are opening up at levels we wouldn`t necessarily recommend.
I am working with the governors. I will be speaking with them tomorrow to try to
buckle down on trying to refrain from opening up too fast. You know, in the
context of the fact that we`re scaling up these vaccines. I think people want to
be done with this, as I mentioned, I, too, want to be done with this.

The thing that`s different this time is that we actually have it in our power to
be done with the scale of the vaccination, and that will be so much slower if we
have another surge to deal with as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: We have it in our power to be done, to be done with this thing, given
the scale of the vaccination that we`re doing.



But as Dr. Walensky says it will be so much slower to deal with, it will take so
much longer to get there if we`re starting another big surge in cases right now,
which it looks like is what we`re starting in for right now. President Biden
himself echoed Dr. Walensky`s call on that, and sharply worded remarks today at
the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our progress in vaccination is
a stunning example that there`s nothing, nothing this country cannot do if we
put our minds to it, and we do it together. But I have also said, I will always
give it to you straight, straight from the shoulder. Our work is far from over.
The war against COVID-19 is far from won.

This is deadly serious. We share the sentiment of Dr. Walensky, the head of the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC expressed earlier today this
is not a time to lessen our efforts. That`s what she said.



We could still see a setback in the vaccination program. And most importantly,
if we let our guard down now, we can see a virus getting worse, not better.

I`m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain
and reinstate the mask mandate. Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the
mandate if you let it down. And businesses should require masks as well.

The failure to take this virus seriously, precisely what got us into this mess
in the first place. Risk more cases and more deaths. Look, as I do my part to
accelerate the vaccine distribution and vaccinations, I need the American people
to do their part as well.

Mask up. Mask up. It`s a patriotic duty. It`s the only way we ever get back to
normal.



(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: President Biden at the White House today, amid news day full of
incredible hope and progress, scientific advances in our scientific
understanding that give us renewed hope. But amid that, a newly urgent demand in
conjunction with an emotional CDC director to stop reopenings now around the
country for a few weeks to reinstate mask rules now in states, in cities, in
counties, in businesses so that we can put this thing down. Because it is within
reach unless we`re about to let this thing get out of control again.

All right, we have news ahead on one thing the Biden administration itself may
have up its sleeve on the mask issue. We have also got the CDC director, Dr.
Rochelle Walensky, here with us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



MADDOW: Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, today got very stark and
warned the country about her fears of impending doom, as new COVID cases,
hospitalizations, and deaths all start to rise again for the fourth time in this
country.

Dr. Walensky is a scientist. She`s not prone to hyperbole. She sticks to the
facts and the data.

When she talks about having a sense of impending doom, that seemed like
something we ought to listen to.

Joining us now for the interview is Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC.



Dr. Walensky, thank you so much for making time. I know it`s been a long day
already.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Thanks so much for having me, Rachel. Good
evening.

MADDOW: So, we are at a time in some ways of add least measured optimism in this
country. Vaccinating a record number of people every day, and the pace seems to
be, if anything, improving. And yet, you issued this sort of dire outlook for
how things could go if we`re not careful.

What is -- what is the sense of -- what is the doom that you sense might be
impending?



WALENSKY: First of all, I just want to note that I share this optimism. I`m so
-- I`m so impressed with our ability to vaccinate at a clip of 3 million
vaccinations a day. We have 93 million Americans who have gotten their first
dose, 51 million who have gotten their second dose.

And we have -- we can kind of almost see the end. We`re vaccinating so very
fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do
not carry the virus, don`t get sick, and that it`s not just in the clinical
trials but it`s also in real world data.

And yet on the other side, I`m watching the cases tick up. I`m watching us have
increased numbers of hyper-transmissible variants. I`m watching our travel
numbers tick up, and the sense is, I have seen what it looks like to anticipate
the oncoming surge. And what I really would hate to have happen is to have
another oncoming surge just as we`re reaching towards getting so many more
people vaccinated.

You know, we`re still losing people at 1,000 deaths a day. And so I just can`t
face another surge when there`s so much optimism right at our fingertips.



MADDOW: Is it possible that the pace of vaccinations already is such that the
rising numbers of new cases that we`re seeing will not be followed with the same
level of surge in hospitalizations and then following that, deaths. Is it
possible there are enough high-risk people in the country who are vaccinated
that even terrible amounts of transmission are not going to have the same
consequence in terms of people ending up in the ER and in intensive care?

WALENSKY: That`s a really good question and one we`re looking at. You know, it
could very well be, given that we have, you know, been vaccinating our people
over the age of 65, those are the people that have accounted for 80 percent of
the deaths so far, that we`ve done so well in vaccinating the, you know, more
senior members of our society that deaths might not be what we would expect with
prior surges.

It`s also the case, though, that, you know, if we don`t see those number of
deaths, the deaths that we`re going to see is among younger people. Obviously,
we don`t want to see those either.

And there are plenty of reasons to not want to have COVID outside of just the
deaths alone. We know that about 10 percent of the population that gets sick
with COVID has long haul syndrome, has symptoms beyond three weeks, cardiac
challenges, depression and mental health challenges, pulmonary challenges, renal
failure, clotting.



So, there`s a lot we don`t understand about this disease, and we shouldn`t want
to have it circulating whether or not it leads to mortality.

MADDOW: When you talked about the risk that you`re also worried about in terms
of sort of hyper-infectious variants, hyper-contagious mutations of the virus,
is there a sort of a nightmare breakthrough scenario in which we can`t vaccinate
our way to an end of the epidemic, specifically because the variants are
evolving in such a way that they develop resistance and we have enough
circulating resistant virus that we can`t get ahead of it?

WALENSKY: Certainly, that`s possible. I don`t think that`s where we are right
now.

We do know that this hyper-transmissible variant that we`re most worried about,
the B.1.1.7 that originated in the U.K., is now about 26 percent of all
circulating virus around the United States right now. Some regions in the
Southeast are up to 36 percent of circulating virus and about four of the HHS re
-- five of the HHS regions now, the B.1.1.7 variant is the most predominant
variant of all circulating virus.



So, that is concerning. What we do know is that so far, it appears that the
B.1.1.7 is neutralized by our current vaccines, but that is among our concerns,
that if you have enough virus circulating, those variants can mutate even more
and lead to sort of more troublesome variants in the future, which is why we
really want to stop the circulation of virus.

MADDOW: Right. It`s why the vaccination pace needs to be as fast as possible and
why we need to reduce transmission while we are simultaneously vaccinating
people.

Dr. Walensky, there`s one other people of that, the transmission reduction part
of it, and that plea from you and that follow-up plea today from President Biden
that I`d like to ask you about if you wouldn`t mind sticking with us for one
more segment.

WALENSKY: Of course.



MADDOW: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, is our guest.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: We`re back now with CDC director, Rochelle Walensky.



Dr. Walensky, thank you for sticking with us.

I wanted to ask you about something President Biden said today. He said he
basically wanted to associate himself with your remarks today, calling on
Americans to hold on, to not consider COVID done, to basically finish strong,
and to keep holding to public health measures like social distancing, masking,
until we can get this thing under control with vaccines.

He said specifically today: I`m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor,
and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate. Reinstate the mask
mandate if you let it down, and businesses should require masks as well.

The administration has the ability to require workplaces to have mask rules in
place. And in fact, we had expected that OSHA, the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, might by now have issued a rule by like that.



I wanted to ask your opinion on that and to ask you if you know what may be
happening with that process.

WALENSKY: My understanding is OSHA is working with certain sectors in order to
insure the safety within the workplace. We`re really calling on governors within
each state to insure that their mask mandates in those states and to the extent
that they do not, we`re calling on citizens to make it their responsibility to
make sure that they protect themselves and one another.

I really want to avoid the headline of somebody who got admitted with COVID to
the hospital, somebody God forbid who passed away from COVID in the hospital who
had their vaccine appointment the week later.

MADDOW: In terms of the ability of the administration to act here, though, there
was an executive order from President Biden telling OSHA to start working on a
rule about masks in the workplace, to produce a result of that review or the
study of that matter by March 15th.



So we`re well past that now. We haven`t heard anything from the administration
as to whether OSHA is going to do it. I know -- I hear what you`re saying about
calling on individual citizens to do it, calling on governors to do it. We know
a lot of governors have no interest in doing it, and a lot of citizens,
especially in their workplace, don`t have the power to enforce whether or not
other people in that environment are wearing masks.

Couldn`t an OSHA rule requiring it as a matter of workplace safety potentially
be a game-changer?

WALENSKY: So those are conversations I will leave with -- leave to OSHA, as they
are responsible for those. But what I will say is that we know that these masks
work, and we know that every individual should be taking it upon themselves to
do what they can to protect themselves and to protect others.

We are oh, so very close. The president announced today, 90 percent of Americans
will be eligible for a vaccine by April 19th. And 90 percent of Americans will
be within five miles of a vaccination site by April 19th, extraordinary measures
to get to where we need to be. So we`re just asking people to wear masks for
just a bit longer.



MADDOW: It`s three weeks until hitting those -- until hitting those benchmarks.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, you have a million things to do and
a million places to be -- thank you for spending some time with us tonight.
Godspeed.

WALENSKY: Thank you so much for having me.

MADDOW: All right. Much more to get to here tonight. Stay with us.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERRY BLACKWELL, DEREK CHAUVIN TRIAL PROSECUTOR: You will learn that on May 25th
of 2020, Mr. Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and
unreasonable force upon the body of Mr. George Floyd. That he put his knees upon
his neck and his back, grinding and crushing him until the very breath, no,
ladies and gentlemen, until the very life was squeezed out of him.

ERIC NELSON, DEREK CHAUVIN`S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You will learn that Derek Chauvin
did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year
career. The use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of
policing. When you review the actual evidence, and when you hear the law and
apply reason and common sense, there will only be one just verdict. And, that
is, to find Mr. Chauvin not guilty.



(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Opening statements from the prosecution, and then the defense, this
morning in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.

Chauvin has pled not guilty to second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and
manslaughter charges in the death of George Floyd last summer in Minneapolis.
This is a trial, that, of course, would transfix the country under any
circumstances. But it also happens to be the very first time a full-criminal
trial has been broadcast live, from the state of Minnesota, for all Americans to
watch in real time.

COVID social-distancing requirements meant that there would be almost no room
for family members or the public in the actual courtroom. And so, judge decided
to allow cameras inside. That is why we can all watch it in real time.



The day began, today, with George Floyd`s family kneeling outside the courthouse
in Minneapolis. It ended tonight with a rally and march against police brutality
near that same spot.

Inside the courthouse on this first day of trial, prosecutors called their first
witnesses including a 911 dispatcher who watched the whole thing unfold on a
nearby security camera. That footage was seen today for the first time publicly
at the trial. She testified after she saw officer Chauvin and his colleagues sit
on George Floyd, they stayed on top of him for so long, she, at first, thought
her screen might be frozen.

She was so concerned something was not right, she called her police supervisor.
As the prosecution put it today, she, quote, called the police on the police.

The idea here, is that from the testimony of that dispatcher, and other
witnesses who saw the encounter between George Floyd and the police that day.
Prosecutors want to demonstrate that people who saw the incident could tell, in
real time, that what Officer Chauvin was doing that led to George Floyd`s death
was wrong.



It was just day one of this trial, which is expected to last several weeks.

Joining us now is Brandt Williams. He is a reporter from Minnesota Public Radio.
He is covering the trial.

Mr. Williams, thank you so much for making time to join us tonight. I know that
today`s a big day.

BRANDT WILLIAMS, REPORTER, MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO: Thanks for having me.



MADDOW: So, we spoke, a few times last summer, at the height of the protests in
response to Mr. Floyd`s death. Here we are. We`re on the first, full day of the
trial, today. It is a remarkable thing that we can all watch it in real time, on
camera.

I just have to ask, sort of, big picture, what struck you as noteworthy or
surprising, potentially, from -- from what we saw today in court?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think the prosecution made some good attempts to -- to put
some ideas, I think, into the heads of jurors. That I think may stick with them,
as they go through the trial and as they go into deliberations.

One is when Jerry Blackwell, who is delivering the opening statements for the
prosecution, mentioned that George Floyd was on the ground for so long, and that
Derek Chauvin was not getting up, even -- even after the paramedics came to
check for his pulse. Chauvin, still, stayed on his -- on his neck and on his
back.



And also, that George Floyd had sustained road rash to part of his chest because
of the pressure applied by Chauvin. Those may be things that the jurors will --
will take with them.

Now, for the defense`s case, it seemed that Eric Nelson was just trying to say,
look, yes, there is the video. There is this 9 minutes and 29d seconds of the
time Mr. Chauvin was on Mr. Floyd. But there is, also, thousands and thousands
of bits of evidence in this trial. And that there -- the BCA agents and FBI
agents conducted interviews with, you know, dozens upon dozens of
law-enforcement officers.

And he was trying to appeal to their sense of -- of reason to say, well, there
must be more to this story because there`s been such an extensive investigation.
I think, those are a couple things that stood out from today.

MADDOW: In terms of the attention to the trial, given the attention to this case
and the national, sort of, convulsive reaction to what happened when Mr. Floyd
was killed. I wonder what you think about the fact that this is being televised.
Whether or not you have cameras in court is a very controversial issue at all
sorts of level of the judiciary. This is an unusual thing for Minnesota,
specifically because of the interest in the case and -- and COVID protocols.



Do you think that the trial is going to unfold differently because it is being
live streamed on the front page of the "New York Times," among other places, and
shown on television in real time? And do you think that will affect the way that
the streets of Minneapolis react to -- to developments in the trial and, indeed,
what will, ultimately, be a verdict?

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, here are -- here`s a couple things that I am thinking
about. I`m pleased that the trial is being live streamed and broadcast. As a
reporter who covers a lot of trials, lot of high-profile trials, I think it`s
important for the public to be -- to get this background and education on how
these types of things work. How these trials work. How evidence is presented.

And my hope is that there will be a lot of people, who do tune in and watch as
much of the trial as they can, and be able to make up their own minds about what
happened in the courtroom, instead of relying on, basically, reporters like me,
who, after listening to, you know, several hours of testimony, straight, you
know, I put together reports on some of the high points, things that I found to
be newsworthy. That people don`t have to rely on reporters, like me, to point
out, you know, what we report as being newsworthy.

So there -- I -- I -- my sense is that there will be a lot of people, who take
away some -- a lot of knowledge about our criminal-justice system, that they
didn`t have before. Now, whether or not this sways their feelings about how the
verdict comes out, either way, that`s yet to be seen. But I think it may offer
people a chance to, you know, they may feel that they learned something.



And -- and that maybe, they feel like, okay, maybe I don`t agree with what the
jurors -- how they decided on the case. But at least I got to see the same
things they saw. And I just came to a different conclusion.

MADDOW: Well, Brandt Williams, reporter for Minnesota Public Radio, we, for one,
we, at this show, are happy to be able to rely on reporters like you to put it
in context and help us understand. Thanks for being with us and good luck
continued coverage of the trial.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Rachel.

MADDOW: We`ll be right back.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: That`s going to do it for me, tonight. I have got a long night ahead of
me of clicking refresh, refresh, refresh, over and over and over, again, on the
vaccine-availability site, as lots of -- lots of New Yorkers do, as New York --
New York eligibility of the vaccine opens to everybody, age 30 and over, as of
8:00 a.m., tomorrow.

I`ll see you, again, tomorrow. See what kind of shape I`m in.

Now it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL."



Good evening, Lawrence.



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