This is Squawk Pod. I'm C. NBC producer Katie Kramer, today on our podcast.

Texas Unmasked, the choice to end a mask mandate in the Lone Star State.

We'll hear from Governor Greg Abbott on why he did it and why now.

More than 10 million Texans have recovered from COVID and have the DNA ability to be able to defeat

COVID.

And then on top of that, we are administering more than a million

vaccines per week.

The vaccines is what will slow the spread of COVID.

He says that for Texans, it won't make that much of a difference.

Before I eliminated this mask mandate, there really were no enforcement mechanisms for this so-called

mask mandate. Plus security concerns at the capital and market moves to prove that investors are hoping for the pandemic's end.

Watching this very closely because obviously this is a vote of confidence in what's happening with reopening.

It's Thursday, March 4th, 2021.

Squawk Pod begins right now.

Good morning morning everybody.

Welcome to Squawk Box here on

see M.C. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kurnen and Andrew Ross Sorkin,

and we're going to start with the markets this morning.

The tech stocks really got slammed once again yesterday.

Dragged the Dow down by about 121 points that was a decline of just 0.4 percent. The

S&P was down by 1.3% and the NASDAQ was down by 2.7%.

That's the second day in a row that you've seen the biggest hit taken on the NASDAQ. In fact, the NASDAQ over the last two days down 2.7% down 1.7% the day before

...