politicians and the citizens. >> host: james, robert weissman, would you agree with him that there was an ethical blackhole in the last and administration? >> guest: oh yeah, for sure print the trump demonstrated was the most unethical administration, most corrupt administration in american history. it is not just the president and his family although it starts there but it pervaded almost everything that the government did. pick an agency in the government and as big as it is the odds are pretty good and if you look at closely as the close corruption problems that happened during the trump administration. let me say about ralph nader who i worked with directly for 12 years and continue to work in your -- >> we take you like to capitol hill from to hear from senate majority leader chuck schumer and other democratic leaders.

>> let me keep my mask on, sorry. there you go. that's the yiddish. you thought it was noodles. that's gross. i think they're something like noodles that has a similar word. all right, good afternoon everybody. thank you for joining us. i want to thank our great leadership team, durbin, murray and stefan out for joining us as well. we had a very good virtual caucus meeting one hour ago. we are all energized by the opportunities that are ahead with the new senate majority. our entire caucus agrees we must have big, strong, bold action to deal with this crisis for the

last six years later mcconnell and the republicans turn the senate into a legislative graveyard. now that leader mcconnell has relented on his demand that was preventing descendent from moving forward with an organ signing resolution we can begin work to help the american people get out of this crisis and make america bigger and better and stronger. as i have been saying all along, the senate will deal with three things simultaneously. nominations, we are working to confirm more nominees this week. a fair impeachment trial and delivering emergency covid relief. we want to work with our republik and colleagues to advance this legislation in a bipartisan way but the work must move forward. preferably, with our republican colleagues but without them, if we must. time is of the essence to address this crisis. we are keeping all options open

on the table, including using budget reconciliation the first step to pursuing covid relief legislation through reconciliation would be to pass a budget resolution and so in keeping our options open on our caucus call today i inform senators to be prepared that a vote on the budget resolution could come as early as next week, senator. >> that's the name of the game. it is one year ago and it was one year ago this week that the first coronavirus patient was diagnosed in my state of illinois, one year. she traveled to china, came back to the suburbs of chicago and was diagnosed with covid-19 prayed that was the first we saw in our state. when you later 1 million people in my state have been infected by the covid-19 virus and 19000

have died. that happened in one year. we have not won this war yet against this covid-19 or this pandemic. we are in a situation politically though were some people would like to think we have. those would be the same people who would say dj was so successful that we don't have to continue this war, do we? quarterbacks could say could be endless and the third quarter, that would be enough for me. that does not reflect reality. we still have a battle to fight here. go home and ask people how much access they have two vaccines. patty has been a leader on this issue. people don't and i can tell you in my hometown in springfield, illinois calling the health department trying to find a day when you can get a vaccination even for eligible groups is 50/50, whether you even get through and that is the reality of what we are faced with in terms of these vaccines.

president biden has said we need to get serious about this and now if we are not deadly serious about this than this will be a deadly pandemic much, much longer. that means moving now and ending the debate and moving forward and passing legislation to extend the vaccines and to make sure that more and more they will be introduced. that is not the end of it. we have so many thousands of people in my state, through the 50000 claiming on appointment benefits, 190,000 pandemic unemployment assistance and 202,000 pandemic emergency on the plummet compensation. these people did not have anywhere to turn and if we will cut off our benefits to them it is fundamentally unfair to these families. i was in on the ground floor of the so-called common sense caucus 908 caucus, bipartisan caucus of senators in the reason we came up with the bill we did and gave it to the leaders to

complete in december was we said this was an emergency bill affecting the first quarter of the year. what we do about the rest of it? that is what president biden is challenging us to do to make sure that we do something that the rest of the year in terms of improving the economy and the cash payments for families, we have a good argument as to the exact formula and i think we should in the bottom line is these things are desperate for financial assistance and they need it now. i will just close and i'm not the economist or expert in the segment but someone who is, janet yellen said, without further action we risk longer, more painful recession now and longer term of the economy later. >> you continue watching the briefing online@c-span .org or leaving it to fulfill our long-term commitment to live, gavel to gavel coverage but senators are meeting to begin the second impeachment trial against former president trump and they will begin by calling all senators to the floor.