Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd. I just got off the meet the press set here on Sunday where

I wrapped up exclusive interviews with the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lydford, infectious disease

experts, doctors, Emmanuel and Gounder, and Republican Congressman Adam Kinzing. Sitting

here now with my longtime pal and colleague NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter

Alexander. We're going to talk a little bit about the show. We just wrapped up. We'll

learn from day how we ended up with the guests that we had on our show. So Peter, I'll start

with this. I'd say the biggest takeaway I have from the show is it feels like everybody

knows the COVID response has to change. The question is can the Biden White House pull it

off without looking like they're capitulating? Right? Like I feel like that's like they know

they got to move in this direction. They know that what these everybody is saying is right.

You hear it and you're, look, that's why I like having Lori Lydford on. She was sort of the

example that everybody, every community is dealing with. But it feels like they're politically

scared to make that turn. Is that a fair observation? Well, so I think one of the points that

and time moves fast on the show, I didn't get to make, but it struck me in my reporting before

we had this conversation was talking to folks at the White House about how in their words

not thrilled with the messaging from the CDC, they have been. They said it was unnecessarily confusing

a little bit messy. I mean, we all see that, but for them to concede that and say it like that,

you know, there's been real questions about whether Rochelle Walskis, the right person to be doing

that. You can be a brilliant scientist, but not a brilliant communicator. Is one White House

person sending me, they said, you know, we kind of got what we asked for, right? We wanted the

science to lead this thing, but if the science leads and we're not going to interfere here,

then all of a sudden, sometimes you have some other challenges, but they have real challenges

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