powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. it is the 26th day of april today. just for little bit of a reality and context check, by the end of

this week, we will be through and done with the first 100 days of the joe biden presidency. and by the end of this week, we will be through and done with the first third of this year, 2021. which seems impossible. it's been six months since the presidential election. how is that possible? it feels like it's been 16 minutes. but spring has sprung. part of the reason that i have been having sort of technical difficulties and things are wonky all day, i today, return to my actual office for the first time since last march. and i have learned a lot. i learned that some chewing gum happily survives untouched in a desk drawer for more than a year but some really does not. and when it goes bad, boy does it go bad. and the packets of soy sauce that you get with chinese food, some of them turn solid over time in just the right conditions. whoa, take it from me.

it's a whole new world out there once you get your vaccine, full of wonder and weird stuff to clean up that you have forgotten about. anyway. remarkable news day. lots of twists and turns in the news today. and i think it will be like that for most of this week. today we got the first round of data from the 2020 census. the census that is in the constitution that happens because the constitution directly orders it and this is just the very rough, not at all granular, not at all detailed set of results but we do get a bottom line number for each state and therefore for the whole country for the census. and that bottom line number we got from the census today, shows that, you know, while we are definitely not shrinking as a country, the u.s. population grew in the past decade at the second slowest rate on record in our country. the only time our population grew more slowly than it did these past ten years was in the 1930s in the great depression. you might have seen headlines

this afternoon and tonight about what the new population figures mean for politics. and there are big political implications. we have again, just rough data, the total population of each state. nothing about where people are living within those states. nothing about age or race or ethnicity, just the bottom line population numbers for each state. but those do tell you how many seats in congress that state is going to get. so, there's been all the interesting headlines today about what states are losing a congressional seat. which states are gaining a congressional seat. bottom line basically is that democratic-leaning states thought they were going lose a ton of states and republican states thought they were going to gain a ton of seats which would give the republicans a big boost in terms of trying to take back control of the u.s. congress. but when the numbers came out today, the swings were less dramatic than people expected. a lot of blue states sighs of relief today they thought it

could be much worse from the numbers. but because this census was -- i mean it's always interesting. happens every ten years, right? because of where we are in american history right now, though, even things that happen every ten years like this have this extra weirdness and does this countness to them, right? because the census was carried out as the constitution orders in the year 2020, the thing that we have to contend with newly about this year's census data is that this census was carried out by the trump administration. and they got weird about it. the trump administration got caught multiple times. they got reamed out by multiple federal judges for ways they were trying to engineer an under count of people, basically, of people of color, ways they were doing the census wrong. ways they were dragging their feet and just not getting it done right. the last time they were in court over the census was when they were deciding to end the census

early that they wanted to stop counting before they were done. that was i think the last thing they went to court for. they went to court over a lot of the different aspects of ways they appeared to be deliberately screwing it up. so given that, when we look at the new census numbers just out today and they say u.s. population growth is down, way down, down further than it has ever been except for the 1930s in the great depression, maybe that's true. it's totally plausible that that's true, but there's lots of reasons to think this is going to be the big asterisk census in modern american history because of who carried it out, right? this will be the asterisk where we don't know if the count showed a dramatic slow down in population growth or the count showed the trump administration didn't really want to count everyone and so they didn't so that's why the population looks smaller. i mean, how are we going to figure this out? we only get a census once every ten years. we were unlucky enough as a

country that ten-year timer went off when this guy was president. did we get a screwed up census result of the fact that it was his administration carried it out? as of today we're already using it for deciding how many members of congress are going to come from each state. that's just the start of all the important and consequential things those numbers will be used for. it's super interesting. we're going to get extra help from someone who repeatedly won court cases against the trump administration for who was screwing it up. this very important thing. and we have an announcement today from the biden justice department, it's the second time in a week that they have made an announcement like this. attorney general merrick garland, announcing that they are opening an investigation in to the practices of a specific local police department. the first one of course was last week. when he announced a pattern and practice investigation in to the minneapolis police department. after the police killings of george floyd and then daunte wright in brooklyn center

nearby. the new one announced today by attorney general garland will be in louisville, kentucky, after the very high profile police killing of breonna taylor during the execution of a no-knock warrant on the apartment where she was sleeping. the new police chief in louisville, interestingly, welcomed this move, this announcement by the justice department today. that is important. these investigations by the federal justice department are a really big deal. they can bring about significant and fairly fast changes in policing. it's a big deal for the justice department to do something like this. this happened quite a few times during the obama administration, trump did it once total in four years now it seems like the biden justice administration will be using it more regular essentially to force police reform by intensive federally-led police oversight in individual cities. so we are going to have more on

that ahead tonight as well. and on covid, two big moves on two big issues today. one international and one domestic. first the international, the white house announcing that in addition to medical supplies and equipment that the federal government is going to rush to india to help india deal with the just apocalyptic conditions they have there. people dying outside hospitals on the streets that can't admit them without access to oxygen that might keep them alive. in addition to the specific help that the biden administration has just announced for india, which is having such a disastrous time right now, the white house today also announced that the 60 million doses we have stockpiled of the astrazeneca vaccine, 60 million doses that we're not going to use at least any time soon, those will be donated to other countries. astrazeneca is an approved vaccine all over the world but our fda hasn't yet approved it here. the reason we have a stockpile

of 60 million doses of that vaccine is because they built up that stockpile so once the fda did approve astrazeneca 60 million doses would be instantly available and ready to ship out. the fda may yet approve ast zen ska for use by americans but rather than wait for that, given we have sufficient supplies of the three other vaccines already approved here, those astrazeneca vaccines will now be sent to other countries. i think it's worth -- probably easiest to think of this as sort of down payment on what is expected to be a fairly massive u.s. effort ultimately to help get the whole world vaccinated because without the whole world vaccinated the whole world including us is never going to beat this thing. that's what's going on on the international level. fascinating. u.s. global leadership upping -- upping global capacity to handle this pandemic. but in addition to that, we're also expecting a big domestic announcement on covid from

president biden tomorrow. as lots of states have been freelancing on the masks issues, just dropping or changing mask mandates according to local politics or local considerations instead of on the basis of clear national scientific guidance, dr. anthony fauci has said recently we should expect the cdc to update their national guidance soon about whether or not we should all wear masks when we are outdoors. now we believe that new guidance from the cdc could come as soon as tomorrow. we don't yet know what it will be and we don't know how complex it will be. we don't know for example that guidance will be different for people who are vaccinated versus people who aren't vaccinated. but here is something interesting that you may not have seen reported today, we can report tonight we have confirmed that the guidance we have been waiting for for a long time now on masks in the workplace, president biden in his first week in office asked osha to

develop this guidance for all american workplaces with a deadline of march 15th to have it ready. since then you might have noticed we talked about this several times on the show we repeatedly asked the labor department where it is. again, biden's executive order from the first few days in office said that osha needed mask guidance for federal workplace rule ready since march 15th. we keep asking, where is it? what happened to that. tonight they tell us the new proposed rule from osha about masks in the workplace that proposed rule has been delivered to the white house today to the office of management and budget. this is a big deal. the office of management and budget some sort of review but eventually this will be announced. this is a big deal for all the checker board mishmash on masks with some states having mandates to use masks and some states not, some counties having mandates, some cities, some

towns, some workplaces having mask rules and some not, if the biden administration is now going to say, hey, new nationwide enforceable federal rule on workplace safety about masks, here is what the deal is on masks for all workplaces, that is going to be a very big deal. and again, that new proposed rule from osha has finally been delivered to the white house as of tonight, more than a month late. apparently it has been delivered on the've of president biden's expected announcement tomorrow on new mask guidance for people when they're outdoors, new mask guidance from the cdc. we don't know what the proposed federal workplace rule says yet. i'm truly curious to see how it's worded and how this turns out, what they're going to recommend. to be totally honest with you, we have been trying to get somebody to leak that to us for a sneak preview or characterization of what that proposed rule is going to be. no one will tell us, no one will

leak it to us. i'll let you know what we can figure out when we figure it out. it will be interesting to see how republicans react to any new guidance especially because they've at times been really, really hysterical about how terrible masks are and how everybody should see mask rules not as a public health matter but as some sort of partisan combat. it will be interesting to see how they react to new mask guidance from the president whether it's about americans outdoor mask use generally, whether we do get this new osha guidance for federal workplace rule. it will be interesting to see. it's kind of hard to see where republicans are at right now what they're thinking about on covid or on anything. the loudest voices and the highest profile people on the political right, for example, spent this weekend angrily trying to one-up each other about how offended they are by president biden's ban on meat. republicans and conservative

media figures denounced the meat ban angrily. they mocked the meat ban and threatened dire consequences of anyone trying to enforce the meat ban. it was very weird. of course there's no meat ban. president biden has not proposed anything, about anybody eating anything. let alone a ban on hamburgers or whatever they are fantasizing about on the right. it's not like he is entertaining it or progressives are pushing him for that. joe biden is being very scary by listening -- there's no meat ban. nobody is banning meat. and yet, it's completely made up. whole cloth, doesn't come from anywhere. and yet, that was the animating scandal of the past three days in republican circles. they are very, very, very, very mad. and they have got their messaging cranked up to 3,000. on something that is not happening at all. so what do you guys care about

some? do you have anything to say about things that are happening? you want to talk about dr. seuss and the meat ban? okay, that is cool. there's been consternation over the last couple days over an interview the house republican kevin mccarthy did with the new york times. he did try to rewrite history about the mob attack on the capital. tried to make it sound like president trump did not know it was happening. leader mccarthy took back some things that he himself had previously said about his own actions that day and what the president did as well and their conversations. but for all the consternation on him trying put a shine on january 6th and lying about his own experience on january 6th, for all the i think continued and deserved interest in how republicans in office even now they still can't figure out what to do about their twice impeached, one-term president facing multiple criminal

investigations after he left washington almost literally a smoldering hulk. for all the consternation and interest over that, and i get it, when it comes to this latest interview that kevin mccarthy did with the new york times, there is another thing there we should be talking about. can we talk about what else we learned about the house republican leader kevin mccarthy and what he himself did on january 6th? i don't understand how this isn't the headline. this anecdote, totally new to me, as far as i can tell, previously unreported this anecdote comes literally 34 paragraphs into a story that is 39 paragraphs long. i will read it to you verbatim. ready snch quote, after the house chamber was evacuated on january 6th, mr. mccarthy retreated to his capitol office with a colleague. representative bruce westerman. a republican congressman from arkansas. when it became evident the rioters were breaking in, mr.

mccarthy security's detail insisted he leave. but congressman westeman was left behind. in kevin mccarthy's inner work area at his capitol office for protection, congressman westerman said he common deared a civil war sword from an office display, he barricaded himself in mr. mccarthy's private bathroom and waited out the siege while crouched on congressman mccarthy's toilet. and next line, friends describe the post election period as traumatic for mr. mccarthy. wait, for mr. mccarthy? for kevin? he was rushed out. because the rioters were breaking in. he brought another republican member of congress to his private office with him and then once they were there, it was like, oh no, bruce, we came here to my office to hide but the rioters they're inside now. they're coming for us. bye, bruce.

i'll see you later. i'm out of here. there's a toilet in there. maybe good luck crouching on top of the toilet they won't see your feet if they look under the door? i don't know. the guy ended up opening up a display of civil war artifacts and grabbing an antique display sword and then he had to hide on kevin mccarthy's toilet because leader kevin mccarthy left that congressman there to fend for himself while the rioters closed in. he left with the security detail. but he did not bring the other congressman with him. it was not like that congressman had gigantic entourage, pull straws see who would fit. they left him. while they went through the office. imagine the discussion in like the armored suv where they are driving kevin mccarthy away or down the tunnel, taking him somewhere safe. do you think at one moment they

were like, i hope bruce is okay. yeah, we did just leave him. we left him because the rioters were inside and closing in and they did ultimately ma rod through the office. they left him there. that's the leader taking care of his members. it's like that old joke about how fast you need to be to not get eaten by a bear. turns out you don't need to run that fast, just faster than your friend. sorry, bruce, good luck with the mob. did you lock the toilet door? so that, that is what is going on republican leadership but they're all standing strong and standing together against joe biden banning meat, which is something that joe biden is not doing. they just made that up. but they've got their priorities. in terms of what they are really working on, spending money on and doing in a very concerted way right now is that they are still trying to undo the results of the 2020 election

from six months ago. for a few days now, we have been covering this whack-a-doo story. this recount of most of the ballots from the presidential election in arizona this past november. two thirds of the ballots in the great state of arizona come from one county, maricopa county where phoenix is. and biden won. and that vote in maricopa county, that's most of the state, two thirds of the state, that vote has been audited by accredited firms, twice actually. there's been a hand recount overseen by both parties. biden's win in maricopa county was certified unanimously by the board of supervisors in maricopa county which is five seats, four of them held by republicans. unanimously voted to certify the results there. there's no credible claims at all of anything having been wrong with the vote in that county. but arizona republicans and the state senate there have figured

out a way to arrange for a recounting a way they can count themselves that vote privately to see if the result is something that they suspect it maybe should be. they are using a private firm called cyber ninjas that is led by a guy who is from the qanon stop the steal, wing-nut wing of the trump election conspiracy world. you know, the wing nut trump tv network, one america news, they are the only press allowed to record -- to report on to broadcast this supposed audit of all of the ballots from the presidential election from maricopa county in 2020. no actual press. no actual reporters other than one america news are being allowed in to cover what they are doing in there with the ballots. one reporter from the arizona republic was able to get in last friday by signing up for a shift

as an official observer of the count. among other things she was able to report that there was no training at all for these observers and the unknown people they brought in to actually physically handle the real ballots from the election. they apparently were given blue pens to do their work. blue pens that are readable by the scanner that reads the ballots which means since they all had pens that could mark the ballots that would be read by the scanner as markings on the ballot, that means all the supposed counters could remark the ballots if they wanted to, either spoil them or change the votes on them or do whatever they wanted. that's not how you're supposed to handle ballots. that reporter, jen fifield joined us as a guest on friday night, she tells us today she tried to get in as a second shift as an observer baa she was not allowed in and no other reporters have been allowed in either. so, that's it. in terms of anyone knowing what arizona republicans are doing with the ballots from the presidential election in 2020. what do you think they're doing

with them? the level of -- part of the reason i have been paying attention to this story and i have a feeling we'll be stuck on it for a while is because if you look at this through sort of the other side of the telescope f you look at this through the eyes of crazy trump world, the level of excitement in crazy trump world about what's going on in arizona is hard to overstate. and it's everyone from steve bannon to the qanon people to president trump himself who put out a barely containing himself statement praising arizona republicans for doing this to recount the vote in arizona. promising that this same thing, this same kind of audit is going to happen in all of the republican-controlled states where trump lost, wisconsin, michigan, georgia, new hampshire, pennsylvania. he called them all out by name, basically telling them all they need to do what arizona is doing. they need a republican-led private recount hiring just the

right kind of firm to do this work with the real ballots. he says they're going to do this in all those states and overturn the results in all those states. yeah f you get just the right people in there to conduct this audit. sure it will go exactly the way you want it to. the firm run by the qanon trump conspiracy theory guy, the firm that's been given the contract recount in arizona, as i mentioned that firm is called cyber ninjas and that firm through their lawyer told a judge this weekend that they will not disclose the means by which they are conducting the audit, nor the processes they are using to handle the ballots or indeed recount the ballots. the company says those are trade secrets so they can't be disclosed. this is from their actual court filing apparently written by a lawyer who types everything on an etch-a-sketch, verbatim. quote, clearly the documents cyber ninjas has been ordered to file are confidential information for various reasons

including that they constitute business information and concepts as well as operational information and records and reflect the know how of the cyber ninjas. the lawyer then says the cyber ninjas, quote, except to have similar business opportunities to undertake such work for other governments around the country. so that's why they can't disclose what they're doing because they don't want to let their competitors in on what their trade secrets are about how exactly they find trump votes. they can't disclose their methods or what they're doing with the ballots yeah they're doing this in arizona know but pretty sure they're going to be doing this in other states too. that's what they told the court this weekend why they can't describe their processes. and on the one hand you think, oh, maybe they don't have processes. maybe they don't have things they're doing or like written policies or planned training or anything, maybe they're just winging it. or maybe they are planning on doing this in multiple states.

or both. well, tonight bingo. there they are. announcing that in michigan they are also the cyber ninjas part of the same kind of effort to prove that there were dramatic, dramatic flaws, considerable fraud, terrible, terrible things gone wrong in the michigan presidential election in 2020 as well. cyber ninja is going to help them out with that one, too. they are creating a newfounding myth for the republican party and the american right. that trump won the election and it was robbed from him and biden is illegitimate as a president and they are starting in arizona and even before that is done they are already moving on with the same cast of characters literally qanon conspiracy theorists moving on with the same cast of characters to go get this work done in michigan too and presumably beyond anywhere they can get republicans who hold power in

the legislature at the state level to hire them to make this happen. it is so stupid. and, you know, if they can do it, do it right, it's also kind of the end of democracy. at least the end of our democracy to the extent our democracy is built on the principle of two major parties competing with governing visions that are fought out in contests where the people vote with ballots, they're tallied in a tech catically sound way, we accept the results. the loser lives to fight another day and the winner gets to govern. to the extent that that's pretty much the way our democracy fupgss if after every election you lose, you call in the cyber ninjas to declare the guy who is now governing to be illegitimate and you too be u surpt power, that's a quick, quick turn to the end. the lawyer in arizona who is trying to stop them there joins us next.

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it's absurd in a concept, it's even more up serd when you try to nut it up in a pi thi headline, there it is in black and white, cyber ninjas, hired by arizona senate to recount maricopa's county ballots asks court to keep its procedures secret. despite a court order to spell out in detail exactly what they're doing, exactly how they're conducting a so-called audit of all of the presidential election ballots in maricopa county, which is two thirds of the ballots in that state, more than 2 million presidential ballots, the qanon promoting, stop the steal promoting, conspiracy theorist firm hired by arizona republicans to run this audit, to go through all the ballots and seed what they can find, that firm told an arizona court this weekend they will not disclose the trade secrets of how exactly they are

recounting the ballots from the 2020 election in arizona or what, in fact, they are doing with those ballots now that they've got their hands on them. that case was brought by the arizona democratic party which has been asking the court to stop this. this audit which they say is illegal among other things it's violating state laws about the sanctity and security of ballots, they will be back in court tomorrow morning but meanwhile this supposed audit continues on with no press access and no independent observation whatsoever, so nobody really knows what they're doing behind closed doors. joining us now is the attorney representing arizona democrats who are trying to stop this election audit. thank you so much for being here. i appreciate your time. >> hi, thanks for having me. >> there's a pronounced crescendo of national interest in what is happening in this case and in this situation in arizona as the days have gone by and i think the country has caught on to the fact that they

are trying to do something with the presidential ballots from arizona from 2020 that raises serious concerns about whether the election is being messed with. what do you think a national audience should understand, are there misconceptions in the national coverage of the matter thus far? >> well, i think that even the people here in arizona are not entirely sure what is happening with this audit for weeks and weeks there have been efforts to get information about the policies, the procedures, the steps that are being taken to safeguard and secure the ballots and election equipment that have now come into the possession of this audit firm, cyber ninjas. and everybody is asking these questions and there really aren't any answers. and to the extent that there is some legitimate purpose to audit ballots from the 2020 election,

no one is quite certain what they're looking for, what kinds of things they're trying to uncover and most importantly, sort of from my perspective and from my clients' perspective, we're really concerned about the long-term impact that a so-called audit like this that has no protections and safeguards in place really does to the overall erosion of public trust in our elections. >> yes, it's sort of dog biting its own tail in a way. the claim that public doubts about the integrity of the election justify some sort of review like this and then the review is conducted in a way that legitimately does risk the compromise of the ballots themselves and the certified election result that is already been effectuated that have already been counted.

do you believe the judge's order, that order has teeth and that changed anything in their caution or the way they're approaching this? >> well, let me take your first question first, i think it absolutely has teeth when a judge has to do order parties to follow the law, that is meaningful. and frankly, you know, we all are expected to follow the law when the court heard arguments from the parties last week and entered its order, required the defendants and agents to comply with the law. that is critical. that is important. and so, yes, i do think it has teeth. whether or not that has changed the behavior or impacted the actual work that's occurring, i'm not so sure about. and that is something that we are going to ask the court to look at. the other part of the order that i think is really critical is that the judge ordered cyber ninjas to produce documents that reflect the security measures that they are adopting to show

that they have, in fact, trained audit workers who are handling the ballots and the equipment and, as you mentioned earlier, rachel, those documents have not been produced even though it was ordered by a court, there were no objections made about trade secrets or other concerns about producing those documents at the time the judge made the order but when they were due to the parties and to the court yesterday, they were not made and instead they filed a motion asking the court not to force them to provide those and claiming things like trade secrets and other security issues. and i think, you know, in terms of the double standard here, you have a firm that's acting as an agent of the state. they're using taxpayer dollars to conduct this audit in addition to, you know, third party funding that's coming in from nowhere, but if you're asking the taxpayers to pay for this audit, then they ought to know what is happening and they

ought to be able to feel secure that their ballots and equipment and other items that are involved in elections are safeguarded appropriately. >> the attorney representing arizona democrats, trying to stop the private company doing this audit at the behest of republican, arizona senate republicans, thank you for helping us understand. i know the battle continues in the arizona courts, keep us apprised we would love to have you back. >> thank you, so much, take care. >> thank you. >> what she said about funding this thing is really another interesting part of this story. arizona republicans say this whole thing is costing $150,000 and that's how much taxpayer money they're putting into it. the company that's doing it this qanon conspiracy theory stop the steal company is also, though, accepting private funding to conduct this and they won't say where it's from. one of the entities that has

been raising private funding to pay for what's happening to the ballots in arizona is this trump tv network one america news. their reporters who are working on the story have been raising money to pay for the audit and then they're also the only ones allowed to cover it by being in the room. seems kosher, that's the way we do things. much more ahead for us tonight. stay with us. us

do you remember wilber ross, he was donald trump's commerce secretary for all four years of the trump administration and i think the way he kind of flew under the radar for most of that time is that he only made the news for kind of ridiculous things, like wearing $600 commerce department monogrammed smoking slippers to president trump's first congressional address. secretary ross was also reported to fall asleep, kind of constantly, at commerce department meetings and even at higher profile meetings on tv. but velvet smoking sleeping billionaire wilbur ross had his moments of genuine scandal like when he threatened to fire federal weather officials because a hurricane was not going to alabama and they said so, even though president trump insisted for some reason that alabama was absolutely where that hurricane was going. do you remember that? sharpie gate?

it was wilbur ross who tried to fire the weather people who were correct about the hurricane. he wanted to fire them for that. there was also the time that wilbur ross lied to the supreme court as commerce secretary, it was ross's job to oversee the u.s. census. the population count that the government has to undertake every ten years because the institution says so. trump administration announce that i had would add a new question to the census form this year asking everybody about their citizenship status a question that hadn't been on the census for at least 70 years. the aclu led by dale hoe the director of their voting rights project, they took wilbur ross and the commerce department to court over that arguing they were putting that citizen question on the census because they wanted to drive down response rates in immigrant communities and they would produce a u.s. population count that was whiter and more republican and in turn skew the apportionment of congressional seats and the distribution of federal funding toward whiter and more republican areas because they counted and less

white areas didn't. ross said that was ridiculous set of allegations. he had merely added the question to the census, he said, because the justice department told him to. he was barely involved. but a number of federal courts eventually the u.s. supreme court found that that was not true. in fact, the evidence showed clearly that wilber ross had decided to add that citizenship question and then afterwards went flailing around trying to find some pretext to justify it. even as more and more evidence emerged showing that the citizenship question was exactly what it appeared to be, really was straight up a ploy by the trump administration to advantage white people and republicans in congressional representation by excluding immigrant communities from the census count. after the supreme court blocked the trump administration from adding that new question to the census, president trump flat out ordered the census bureau to exclude some immigrants from the

census count, though it was unclear how they would go about doing this. then trump ordered that the census be ended early, which is a good way to come up with an undercount in the hardest -- among the hardest to reach communities including immigrants, minorities and the poor. the people who are hardest to get to sometimes you don't get to until you've made multiple attempts so you need more time, you cut the time short, you get less of those people counted. trump also decreed that the census count had to be delivered to him before the end of his term so he could approve the count before sending them to congress presumably so he could make sure on his way out the door before he was replaced by his successor that the numbers were rigged in the way that he wanted. but that did not happen. the census count did not get delivered to president trump before he left office. we have the 2020 census count today. and the top line numbers are fascinating and people will debate the ramifications of these for the next few months. texas gains two seats in the u.s. house. five other states gain one seat each. seven states lose a seat

including california which is losing a congressional seat for the first time ever. new york loses a seat. they thought they were going to lose more than one seat. turns out they only lost one and would have kept that one if only 89 more census forms had been returned from new york state. lots of interesting stuff there. but the question hanging over all of this is, even if donald trump's plan to explicitly rejigger the numbers to exclude some immigrants, even if those explicit plots failed because they got caught in lots of cases they were blocked by the courts, do his years of messing with the census mean that these numbers are always going to have an asterisk on them, they really can't be trusted? just the person to ask next.

at the aclu, head of their voting rights project is dale ho. dale ho is the lawyer who argued one of the cases before the u.s. supreme court that resulted in the court stopping the trump administration from one of the

ways they were effectively trying to sabotage the count in the 2020 census. the first results of which we just got today. dale ho, thank you so much for making time. really great to see you tonight. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> i want to know if we should think of the 2020 census as a count, that has an asterisk on it because of all the different ways the trump administration really seemed to try to be screwing it up. >> well, we never have seen so many efforts to interfere with the census, politically. but i think it's too early to say whether or not these numbers are as accurate as we would like them to be. we have a lot of reasons to be confident. there was no citizenship question, on the census. immigration status didn't capture for being counted in the census and the bureau had the time it said that it needed to process the data after collection of census responses. took place. trump failed in his effort to try to cut that time short. but there are reasons for concern. we have the covid-19 pandemic,

which obviously made responses and outreach a lot more difficult. we had horrible anti-immigrant, xenophobic rhetoric, you know, spewed forth from this -- from the last administration. which probably, contributed to some reluctance to participate in the census. and then, as you noted, census outreach, itself, was cut short by the administration. so, there are reasons to be optimistic, but there are also reasons to be concerned. >> and, dale, as we get more detailed information, obviously, we just got top-line numbers today. we don't know, even, you know, age numbers, let alone ethnicity or race numbers. we don't even know geographic numbers, within specific states. we just know raw-population numbers for each -- each state and for the country. as we get more, will potential problems be evident? i mean, how much transparency do we have to know, for example, if there was a community in a specific state that was really left out? or if there was some place, that otherwise had some sort of warping of their representation? >> well, i think, as you noted,

rachel, it is a little early right now to speculate as to what problems may emerge when we look at the census data a little more closely. we do know in june the american statistical association will release its own review of the procedures and protocols of the census bureau used for its operations this time around. and then, towards the end of the year, we'll get a study from the census bureau, itself, which does its best to try to estimate, whether or not there was any kind of undercount of particular populations either nationally or state by state or even within individual states. >> dale ho the director of the voting rights project at the aclu who did a lot with his team to shape the reality of what happened here with this important count getting the first data from it today. dale, thanks for being here tonight. i appreciate it. >> thank you so much, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. we'll be right bak stay with us

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on. yes. couldn't see the camera the whole time. but that's fine. it's going to do it for us tonight. keep an eye out tomorrow for the timing on president biden's announcement on covid guidance. we're expecting new cdc guidance on masks. but due to the pandemic, there is now a nationwide chicken wing short and joe biden's rating just dropped 3%. >> the wing shortage is not part of the agenda but we'll soon get ideas of what is. new census data is in, with a shifting u.s. population comes a shifting map. what does it mean for the 2022 midterms? >>