back with me cnn's jeff zeleny, "washington post's" seung min kim. jeff, she's a close friend of the chief of staff ron klain. she was one of the early appointees' nominees announced by president biden biden. the votes are simply not there this hour. you have the president and his chief of staff trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat. the question is how long will they continue the search before they say not going to happen? >> and in this case that rabbit is senator lisa murkowski of alaska. she said there are times she's not indicated how she's voting, but there's also a question about democratic support. senator kyrsten sinema, democrat of arizona, has also not said how she'll vote. the reality is a couple things are going on here. one, the white house does not want to in the middle of all of these contentious confirmation hearings this week show defeat. they're trying to delay this process as long as possible. and they do believe that there is a legitimate argument that there is a double standard, a sexist double standard here that is coming up t

sanjay gupta is with us and jeff zeleny as well. sanjay, this proof positive that the biden team understands that the most important job is for them to accelerate the vaccine rollout, not only distribution but getting shots into arms. jeff zients saying they will start a rollout program of 1 million doses next week at pharmacies around the country. 1 million doses a modest amount to get started but the idea they have gone into a new phase that they will start next week with doses going to community pharmacies around the country. how much of a difference might that make? >> i think the idea will make a big difference. to your point, the number itself is very hodmodest. there's a couple things that we learned or have been reminded of over the last couple of months now, last several weeks at least. pharmacies is where people often go. this is what people are familiar with, especially local neighborhood pharmacies. we saw evidence of just how well that has worked in west virginia, for example. we also know pharmacies can have incredible

. >> and joining us now with their reporting and their insights, cnn's jeff zeleny and laura barron-lopez of "politico." jeff, we are about to hit this 500,000 milestone. the white house press secretary jen psaki did say they are trying to mark this moment. it is coming at a time we are making some progress. if you look at the pace of vaccinations we are doing more than 1.5, 17 r1.5, 1.6 million vaccinations a day. that's a little bit of a dip because of the storms this week but voters are looking to see how the biden administration is handling all of this. i know that you were on the road this week and you talked to some voters who are giving him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. take a listen. >> right now to get the virus under control, get the economy back on track so people can go back to work, back to the office, back to school. if he can do that, you know, he will get things back to where they were before, before this pandemic, and if he does that i will be very happy. >> so caroline quinlan has pretty high expectations but the biden administration seems to be taking a stra

cnn's jeff zeleny is live for us in milwaukee, wisconsin, ahead of this town hall. it's a critical night for the new president. his first trip out of town to try to sell in the heartland the biggest initiative of his young presidency. >> john, it absolutely is critical. president biden is going to be coming face-to-face with those voters. the whole state, a key battleground, but now a proving ground to see if he can sell his message. there is support out there among people who voted for the president and people who did not, for getting that economic relief. getting that vaccination supply up, and running. there has been a period of grace that you give any new president. of course, there was a distraction with the impeachment, but now, this is president biden's time to sell this plan, as he begins the second month of his presidency. we have been talking to voters, again, voters who did and did not support the president, but this is a tension under way, trying to win over the detractors but keep the supporters on board. >> get the virus under control. get the economy

but, b, he's speaking to people include jeff zeleny's reporting from wisconsin yesterday was fabulous. and are willing to give joe biden time to shine and time to do what he promised to do. >> and so one of the things we did see, and count me as one of the people early on in the democratic primary as sceptic that this was biden's time. but he proved that, to your point, that people were looking for something different. people in the middle of a pandemic were looking for somebody, maybe a little grandfatherly at time, the one thing we did see throughout the primaries and we saw again last night in the town hall from biden was empathy. >> if you're willing, i'll stay around after this is over, and maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if i can get you some help. if there's any angels in heaven, they're all nurses, male and female, you're wonderful. thank you for what you do. but don't be scared, honey. don't be scared. you're going to be fine. and we're going to make sure mommy is fine, too. >> you're right. you touched on this a bit earlier. that stuff resonates with real people. we