♪ a republican retreat in palm beach. is it still trump's party and is the gop really ready to battle big business? >> my warning is to corporate america is to stay out of politics. >> the senate was created to be bipartisan. let's start acting like it. a new surge threatens to

overwhelm the upper midwest. >> the first day i saw that our unit was filled with covid patients again, i had tears in my eyes. >> we'll talk to lieutenant governor garlin politics. welcome to "inside politics sunday." i'm abby phillip. we start this morning in palm beach, florida, where the rnc is holding its annual spring donor retreat and the star attraction is former president donald trump whose mar-a-lago resort just happens to be a few miles away from where most of the events were held. last night, hundreds of rnc members and donors went to see him. a source tells cnn that trump spent most of his remarks repeating his election lies and lashing out at his perceived enemies in both parties, including his former vice president mike pence and senator mitch mcconnell for not pushing to overturn the election.

if that were schumer instead of that dumb son of a "b" mitch mcconnell, they would never have allowed it to happen, trump said. the comments were met with huge applause and trump's dominance over his party is clear and it goes well beyond just the location of the donor meetings. the gop continues to wage culture wars and double down on election lies rather than debate policy. last week, boycotts were mentioned 792 times on fox news. and joining us now with the reporting and insights is jonathan martin of the "new york times" and amy walker. thank you for being here this morning. jonathan, look, last night was supposed to be all about how much donald trump is still running this republican party. what did we learn based on what

we're hearing about what has come out of this retreat this weekend? >> i think the most important thing we learned is that he very much wants to keep stoking this fight with senator mitch mcconnell. and it's just extraordinary if you take a step back and look at this through the lens of history. for a recently departed president to be litigating three months out of office a feud with his party's current senate leader and explicitly personal terms, too, is extraordinary. and i think it creates challenges for the senators. trump did that knowing full well that a bunch of mcconnell senators had come down to mar-a-lago for the event. and so it puts them in a tough spot and obviously he's trying to bait mcconnell here. i don't think mcconnell wants to engage in this back and forth. but trump is going to make it more difficult now. i think that has implications for party unity and for, you know, trying to win these primaries next year so they can

take back the senate. that's a long way away. and i think the first midterm favors the party out of power. we shouldn't put too much into this. but trump, obviously, is a real complication. >> amy, going into this, we were sort of given some indication from his prepared remarks that trump was supposed to talk about helping republicans win in congress, criticizing biden over his policy, but the real headlines ended up being more of the same, personal attacks, grievance, sort of this kind of self-centered view of politics. how does that set republicans up to j. mart's point into these midterm elections? is it going to be more of the same, cult of personality from the trump republican party? >> well, it's notable that jonathan said, let's go look through the lens of history. you don't have to go back that far. just go back a couple months to january and the runoff elections

in georgia when that was the centerpiece of president trump's campaign for the two republican senators and that fell flat. you lost two senate seats on this sort of grievance about the election. it suggests it's not going to be particularly helpful in a midterm election. look, what normally brings the party together in a midterm election, they're unified against the party in power. the point on policy is that they are unified against biden and the democrats' policies, but biden himself is challenge for somebody like donald trump because he doesn't give him the sort of easy personal caricature and target that so many other democrats were. >> yeah, it's challenging to create a boogeyman for joe biden, which is a problem that trump has had since the election. but j. mart, one of the other big headlines this week was

about a former house speaker john boehner's new book in which he contextizes really a lot of what we're talking about here. and there are a couple of parts of it, one, he's very clear about donald trump's role in the insurrection. he said trump incited a bloodily insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons. he claimed voter fraud without any evidence and he also said later, i don't think i could get elected in today's republican party, anyway, i don't think ronald reagan could either. i mean, he's right. he couldn't get elected in this republican party. >> i read the book and he's very blunt about his view of politics today and certainly of his own party. i think, abby, that's basically

a consensus view of a lot of former members of congress who were republicans or those who are near the end of their careers and have liberty to be more blunt about things. i just am skeptical, though, that you can get away with saying those things and still survive in a primary. we're going to have a test next year in a few states as to whether that's possible or not. but i think if you put a lot of these folks on truth serum, they would say the same thing about the election and january 6th. two-thirds of their base doesn't want to hear it. if your voters don't want to hear it, that kind of ties your hands. >> but, amy, look, he talks a lot in this book about the tea party and actually is very critical of the tea party. but, i mean, give us the truth here. going back and looking at how john boehner really dealt with that faction of the republican party which was a precursor to president trump, did he really

push back on these very same forces that led to trumpism today? >> well, that's always the challenge, right? he sort of admits that. i don't have the book, but just seeing the excerpts of it, watching that class of 2010 come in and thinking, great, here's my majority. we can do all these things. and recognizing pretty early on that they weren't coming there to do stuff. they were coming there to oppose stuff. and they really wanted to really be a force of destruction rather than construction. and it's only gotten worse because the incentives are still there, right? getting as many hits as you can on instagram or, you know, getting the money that's coming in through small dollar donors. we know that still works and the old model doesn't. the question in any mind is, can anyone do it in a way that donald trump did? folks are hoping they can be the

next donald trump, republicans are, but i don't know if they can do that, to grab on the grievance in the same way, match it with the populist rhetoric and take it zb-- >> and the celebrity -- >> it only took him so far. >> one thing that has bubbled up this week is this issue with correspond corporate america. and i want to play what texas governor greg abbott said about that. >> businesses need to focus on their job, advancing the cause of the shareholders and stay out of the political arena. >> by stay out of the political arena, i think he's referring to social issues like transgender bills and voting, so on and so forth. is the republican party struggling to kind of keep donors on their side while also not wanting to be pressured on some of these corporate issues that corporations are taking the other view of? >> it's the party of business.

and historically, that's been its dna. i don't think that's changed. i think it still tends to be, obviously, pro tax cut, light regulation, not terribly enthusiastic about organized labor. i don't think that's changing. i think the sort of discomfort here is that they see business intervening in areas where business hadn't typically intervened, that isn't directly relate today the balance sheet. look, business is facing pressure from two important groups. their own employees and a lot of their customers and their businesses, their entire purpose for being is to make money. and when the people who help them make money and the people who give you money, your customers, are upset or moved or passionate, then you're going to respond to that. i think that's what's causing the tension here. i'm skeptical it's going to cause some larger divorce with the republican party because on

most bread and butter policy issues that effect, i don't think they're going to move. >> amy, how do you see this? >> i think jonathan is exactly right. and donald trump found a way to match both, right? he could give the big companies the tax breaks and less regulation, while also stoking this populism about woke corporate culture and raising tons of small dollar donor money off of it. so that was that balancing act that the president was able -- president trump was able to pull off. it's interesting too to hear governor abbott complain about this. remember, this is the sort of be careful what you wish for. for years, republican governors in places like texas have said, look at us, we stole all of these companies from blue state that is have high taxes and high regulation. guess what, many of those companies not only brought their employees, but a culture that has more in common with the blue states than the red ones. >> to that point, we have a graphic showing all of these

fast-growing counties in america where many of these corporations are moving to in the shift from 2008 to 2020, it has -- in all of those cases, harris county, tarrant county, cobb county, has gone much more blue, in some cases from deep red to blue in 2020. that is one of the big factors coming into play here with these corporations as well. stay with us. coming up next, president biden promises to find common ground on his infrastructure bill and joe manchin isn't give him much of a choice. >> announcer: "inside politics sunday," brought to you by --

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president biden pushed through his enormous covid relief bill without any republican votes and without spending much time trying to get them. but his even bigger infrastructure bill, he insists, will be different. >> democrats and republicans will have ideas about what they like and what they don't like about our plan. that's a good thing. that's the american way. that's the way democracy works. debate is welcomed. compromise is inevitable, changes are certain. >> but he may not have any choice this time around. biden cannot pass anything without senator joe manchin's vote and manchin told fox that his vote will depend on whether democrats at least try to win over republicans. >> the more things that we do without trying to make this

process work and allow the minority to be involved, the further apart we become as a party. >> do they want to be involved? >> i think so. why are you here if you don't want to be involved? every time i talk to my friends, they want to be involved. you might have a different idea, but they want to be involved. >> so, amy, i want to play a little bit of what senator rob portman told our colleague jeff zeleny this past week about where the compromise could possibly be on infrastructure. >> only about 20% of it is infrastructure. and that is using a generous definition of infrastructure. but that would be 5 or 600 of his bill is really infrastructure. if it's focused on infrastructure, i think there will be a lot of bipartisan buy-in. >> amy, if, you know -- i think some people would say reasonable, moderate republican rob portman says, i'm their 20% of the way, how does joe biden

get to a real compromise on a infrastructure bill if that is the starting point for many republicans? >> right, how do you find nine more portmans. >> nine more rob portmans for 20% of the $2 trillion infrastructure bill. >> that's right. it seems pretty clear that this is going to go through on reconciliation. this is going to need 50 votes. joe manchin is the most important person in this conversation. and i think what -- if you're the white house, what you're banking on is the fact that you do -- you're in negotiations, you reach out, you negotiate with manchin, make sure there's stuff in there that he likes and can sell. the biggest issue for democrats in the midterm elections is joe biden's popularity, right? are people happy with what he's been doing for the last year or so. and his success keeps democrats in control of the senate, in control of the house.

if he fails, that's going to make it really hard and he'll see his approval ratings go down. >> in some ways what we're hearing from manchin is actually a little bit of what we were hearing from candidate joe biden when he was running for the presidency. take a listen to this from way back in 2019 when joe biden was running for this office. >> some of these same people are saying, biden just doesn't get it. you can't work with republicans anymore. that's not the way it works anymore. folks, i'm going to say something outrageous. i know how to make government work. i've worked across the aisle to reach consensus, to help make government work in the past. i can do that again with your help. >> so, amy, is joe manchin helping joe biden be the president he campaigned to be? >> right. he's getting pulled to the

center from his own party, not from republicans. interestingly enough, you can argue this happened during the obama era as well. it was -- there were so many more moderate democrats at that time, from places like nebraska and north dakota, and louisiana, pulling the party further to the center than it was republicans, of which there were still just a handful that were helping to moderate the party. now it's just joe manchin and i think, again, at the end of the day what democrats want to see are "w"s on the board. interestingly enough, i think what i'm also not hearing about is any discomfort from moderate democrats in the house. at least not yet. nancy pelosi has a very narrow -- narrower than she had on election day -- because there are still special elections that need to happen, she can only afford to loose a couple of members on her side too.

>> jonathan is back with us. i want to play a little bit more from our interview with joe manchin this week where he talks about what propelled him to have this hard and fast rule on bipartisanship. take a listen. >> january 6th changed me. i was clear with everybody. i never thought in my life, i never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked at our seat of government which is washington, d.c., at our capitol, by our own people. you can't have this many people split where they want to go to war with each other. >> help decode this for me. how do you get from -- how do you get from january 6th, the lies told that caused an insurrection, to we got to work with the other side at all costs? >> because that's his passion. he desperately wants to make the congress work. he comes from a state that's full of people who voted for trump but who culturally, you

know, probably aren't that opposed to a more democratic economic agenda if we're being honest. he's kind of a kennedy democrat. and i think he desperately wants to get the company to a place where it can fulfill the biden campaign rhetoric that you played in that earlier piece of sound from that now president. and i think that's really his passion. i would just add, having been in the capital quite a bit the last few months, there are a lot of senate democrat moderates who are happy to let joe manchin take center stage but i think feel close to where he is in terms of trying to find more consensus and push a more centrist agenda here. they're not as loud as he is. and i don't think they want to alienate the left. but i think there's some folks who are okay with keeping the filibuster in place, who just don't say it as much as joe manchin does. >> can i just -- to that point,

is it more that he thinks that the agenda coming out of the house of representatives is too liberal or that it's about actually getting republicans to come over? >> abby, i think it's both. he told me that he views what's coming from the house as too progressive. he said it will probably lead to the demise of the democratic majorities next year. but i think he also is consumed with process for the sake of process. he really wants to see the senate function. and it's not just on the policy and the ideology, he wants a more functional body that reflects the senate of 30, 40 years ago in terms of trying to get things done. you and i know that's a lot harder in a more polarized era, but that's where he's trying to nudge them. and he's got a lot of power given the even steven divide over there. he is the clear, clear vote on a

lot of final issues. so could steer things quite a bit. >> he may want the senate to function. big questions about whether that is reciprocated on the other side of the aisle as well. jonathan martin, amy walker, thanks for being here. coming up next, as vaccinations speed up, covid-19 infections are surging in the state of michigan. what's the state doing about it? we'll ask the lieutenant governor coming up. >> announcer: the first 100 days, brought to you by carvana, the new way to buy a car. next, carvana's 100% online shopping experience. oh, man. carvana lets people buy a car-- get this-- from their couch. oh, how disruptive. no salesman there to help me pick out the car i need. how does anyone find a car on this site without someone like us checking in? she's a beauty, huh? oh, golly! (laughter) i can help you find the color you want. that sounds nice. let me talk to my manager. (vo) buy your next car 100% online.

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the u.s. smashed a record for vaccinations reported in one day, 4.6 million just yesterday. 27% of americans are now fully vaccinated, including 3 out of 5 seniors who were the most vulnerable. on the other hand -- on the one hand, that is very good news. on the other hand, the vast majority of people in this country are still very much at risk. and there are more new cases now than there were at the height of the summer surge last july. michigan has been especially hard hit in this fourth wave. new cases are on the cusp of eclipsing the state's peak in december during its winter surge and nearly 7,000 new cases were reported yesterday. take a look at this chart comparing the per capita rate in michigan versus the entire country. it is four times higher in that state. joining us now from detroit, michigan, is lieutenant governor garlin gilchrist. lieutenant governor, thank you

for joining us this morning. i want to pull up one more chart and this is a chart of the hospitalizations which are also back near peak levels that we saw in december. so it's not just that there are more cases, it's also that people are getting very, very sick. some of the biggest hospitals are now delaying nonessential surgeries again. how did we get to this point where the virus is so out of control and is it getting worse? >> abby, what we're seeing in michigan is that, you know, we did a good job as you talked about, we did a strmart job of having smart policies in place. we have the supercontagious b-1-1-17 variant that is present in the state of michigan and spreading amongst our younger population. we vaccinated more than -- administered more than 5 million doses. there are a lot of younger people who are getting this virus and we need to make sure that we can respond to them by

getting them vaccinated as well. we're seeing small social gatherings that have contributed to the spread in michigan and are going to be contributing to the spread across the country. and that's why we must respond to this hot spot in the entire state of michigan with an increase in vaccine doses to the federal government. michigan has been efficient in vaccinations and that's part of our strategy going forward. >> this is a tweet from the top surgeon out of michigan -- at michigan medicine, the health system that is based out of the university of michigan and he says, the entire state is high risk. bars and restaurants are open. people are out and about, no new restrictions. we need some help. governor whitmer asked on friday people to stop eating indoors and recommend that high schools go back to virtual learning. why aren't those things being mandated? why is the state not ordering those steps instead of just

recommending it? >> april 2021 is different than where we were in april 2020. we had a lot of different tools at our disposal to be able to implement those policies to the best extent of our ability. those were fought tooth and nail by the republican party in the state of michigan. they continue to undermine that and take us to court and take away the powers. nevertheless, though, we have smart policies in place. we still have limitations on indoor dining, we have limitations on social gatherings, we still have masks required to be worn by all michiganders and we're asking people to step up and do their part and comply with those smart policies. that will help us be able to slow the spread and that will help us when we get more vaccines in the state that, is a really critical piece of this, making sure that we can get more vaccines applied because we have the capacity to administer even more vaccines. >> on the issue of restrictions, this surge followed a loosening of the restrictions in the state. is it about politics? is there a concern that there

will be so much political pushback or maybe noncompliance that that's why this -- governor whitmer is not willing to roll back some of the reopening that started this fourth surge? >> national experts like dr. scott gottlieb and other doctors in the state of michigan as well have noted that compliance is mobility is a challenge. that's why we're calling for people to continue doing the right thing. the policies are in place. and the experts said this hasn't been driven by policy. this has been driven by making sure that people continue to follow the policies that we have in place. that's what we're asking people to continue to do. >> on the vaccine issue, governor whitmer and you are also begging president biden and the biden administration to send more doses to the state. so far they have refused. they say that the fairest thing to do is to allocate doses based on the state's population. the white house says they're sending extra resources for testing and help use the doses

you already have at a faster pac pace. is that happening? >> michigan was the first state to deploy mobile testing and mobile vaccination units in the country. we have huge vaccination sites at ford field in detroit. what is even more important is the fact that vaccine doses and administering them, and the state of michigan is a hot spot. we need a national hot spot strategy that does that for the entire country and right now michigan is that hot spot. that's why we're in every conversation we're having at every level of the federal government. we're asking for more help, for more vaccines and we're going to continue to advocate those. we have those conversations every single day. and what's happening in michigan, as we know, we are not disconnected as a country. what's happening in michigan can spread through the midwest and the rest of the country.

if we increase rapidly vaccinations coming into the state of michigan now, we can get them out quickly and slow this before it spreads to other parts of the country. >> a white house official told me this weekend that they distribute all of the doses that they have as they get them. which suggests that it may not even be possible to give michigan more doses without taking them away from another state. do you buy that and do you think that the government should be willing to pull doses from, you know, maybe alabama and give them to michigan instead? >> we certainly are not wanting to go back to what we saw last year where the previous administration pitted state against state for resources like personal protective equipment or ventilators. what we're asking is to continue to build on the principal of equity that's been presence in this administration's federal response. equity means responding differently where there's the most need. and right now the most need is in the state of michigan.

so we're asking that a hot spot strategy be deployed and when that happens, that will make sure that we can respond to the people in our country who need the vaccines the most and that will stop those hot spots from expanding and spreading to other places. the capacity we believe exists. we're in conversation about that every single day and we believe that that can happen and happen quickly. >> i want to shift to another important issue which is the issue of voting. the republican legislature in your state has proposed dozens of new voting restrictions. we're putting up some of them on our screen for the viewers. they include photo i.d. but also things like no prepaid postage on absentee ballots, et cetera. governor whitmer says she will veto it, but republicans say they can pass it anyway because of a quirk in the law that allows them to enact it by petition, signed by just 340,000 voters which does not sound like a high hurdle at all. are you confident that you can block these new rules if they go through that alternative

channel? >> well, abby, let me be very clear, what republicans in michigan are doing to try to limit access to the freedom to vote and people with these proposals is disgusting and dangerous for our democracy in michigan and across the country. it's part of this coordinated national strategy. yes, the governor will veto any bills that make it more difficult for anyone in michigan to fully access the ballot or bills that are against the principles that the people of michigan voted for in 2018 to expand access to voting, to enable absentee voting and make it easier to register to vote online. but the proposals in place now, the fact that republicans are seeking a strategy that will work around the duly elected governor of michigan, they want to use a minority strategy to make law, it's trying to find a loophole because they know a simple fact. when we had increased voter turnout, joe biden and kamala

harris won michigan. we won michigan in 2018. this is a strategy to reduce voter turnout in michigan because republicans in michigan know they cannot win when voter turnout is high. they're running away from voters with these policies and they want to undermine the governor's authority and try to find a loophole to implement it further demonstrates that they are doing things that are against the democratic values of our state. >> can you actually do anything about a ballot initiative? >> yes. first of all, the bills do go through the legislature and they do come to our desk, they will get vetoed. we will also challenge the signature-gathering process to make sure it is above board and done legally which has not always been the case with the michigan republican party and we will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that we are blocking these bills and that may include an alternative signature gathering process to protect the rights. >> lieutenant governor garlin

gilchrist, we'll watch that issue and what's happening with covid-19 in your state. thanks for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. coming up next, matt gaetz vows to fight back. but if you'rg irregular heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue or light-headedness, don't wait to contact your doctor. because these symptoms could be signs of a serious condition like atrial fibrillation. which could make you about five times more likely to have a stroke. your symptoms could mean something serious, so this is no time to wait. talk to a doctor, by phone, online, or in-person.

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and we have. uncle murray's medals. a lucky pencil. man with peach. words of wisdom. a million custom framed pieces and counting. you can framebridge just about anything. republican congressman matt gaetz is refusing to back down as federal prosecutors scrutinize him in a broader sex trafficking investigation that centered on a close associate. a barrage of this week's headlines show the three-term florida lawmaker embroiled in the type of scandal that would end most politicians careers, gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and insists that he isn't going anywhere. >> they lie about me because i tell the truth about them and i'm not going to stop. when you see the anonymous sources and insiders forecasting my demise, know this, they

aren't really coming for me. they're coming for you. i'm just in the way. >> joining me now is cnn's senior legal correspondent paula reed. welcome to cnn and welcome to "inside politics sunday." look, this case is a complicated one. but when we look at the question of why matt gaetz is being so defiant, is this a question of what he might have done that was illegal versus all the things that have been reported that he may have done that are either distasteful or immoral. what's the line here between those two? >> that's a great question. we have to separate what is a potential context scandal versus what is a potential sex crime. we know the justice department is investigating congressman gaetz for possible sex trafficking. among the allegations are in one instance, that one girl may have been just 17 during an alleged

encounter. there are questions about weather whether money or drugs may have been exchanged for sex. and this investigation could go beyond the questions of sex trafficking. gaetz discussed setting up a sham candidate to help his friend win a seat in another state. this investigation arose into an investigation into gaetz longtime friend joel greenberg. the florida tax collector, former tax collector. bad news for the congressman. this week, greenberg suggested that he would likely enter a plea deal. his attorneys said he's likely to resolve his own criminal case with a plea deal and that's bad news for the congressman because greenberg has an incentive now to share any evidence of any criminal wrongdoing that he may have about the congressman or about anyone else. it's gone from bad to worse this

week for congressman gaetz. >> so far only one republican lawmaker, adam kinzinger, has called for his resignation. and matt gaetz is fund-raising off of this scandal. what do you think is preventing more republicans from speaking up about this and will the pressure increase as all of these developments that you just laid out come to bear this week. >> this investigation actually began in the final months of the trump administration. then attorney general bill barr, he was aware of this. he didn't stop it. so when you hear the congressman there at his appearance on friday suggest that he is being pursued by the deep state, he's suggesting that william barr is part of the deep state. he's trying to use the trump template. but even the former president doesn't seem terribly impressed. the only thing that former president trump has said, yeah, he didn't ask me for a pardon and denied the allegations. that's a tepid response.

that's a weak defense. if he doesn't get the former president's backing, it's unclear how long republicans will continue to support him because most of their support appears to be based on the fact that they don't want to alienate that section of the party that really has tied its fortunes to the former president. this week is going to be really telling as we see if more lawmakers come out and apply pressure for him to just step aside. >> the strategy from gaetz seems to be just tweet through it, fund raise through it. but reality may set in soon. paula reed, thanks, again, for joining us. coming up next, a middle schoolers surviving the turbulent bussing of the 1970s, to the first black mayor of boston. the story coming up next. to gelato made from scratch. raise the jar to all five layers. raise the jar to the best gelato... you've ever tasted. talenti. raise the jar.

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a national political trend,

more black women running major american cities, from keisha lands bottoms selection as the mayor in 2017 to kim june's askrengs to the top job in boston. seven black women are in charge of some of the top u.s. cities. she announced she was going to run a full term to talk about how she got here, her harrowing experiences in the 1970s and her goals for a new, more inclusive boston. at a restaurant in nubian square in boston, massachusetts. >> newly sworn-in mayor jim jany is another local. >> i was interviewed. they asked me, what was your favorite dish? >> reporter: but unlike the mayors of the city who have come before her for 200 years, janie

is a black woman. unlike so many bostonians before her, she knows there is something magic am about fenway park. as president of the boston city council, jamie came acting mayor in march after marty walsh was tapped by biden as labor secretary. this week, she announced she will be serving a full term. >> as a daughter from the south end, i understand the challenges so many of our residents are facing. i understand these challenges because i have lived them. >> she grew up in this roxbury neighborhood surrounded by family. >> the house was owned by my grandmother, my step-mother's mother and she lived here, two of my aunts lived here. >> she was a part of the second wave of students bussed to school as a part of the sties controversial integration effort. >> what do you remember about

that time and that experience? >> that was a very difficult time. it was a traumatic and painful experience for many of the children in the family. >> was it for you? >> it was. you know, it was scary. so i was only 11. when i think back now, i think about my own grandchildren, when they were 11, they had to experience such a scary time in here lives in terms of angry mobs of people who didn't want having school buses rolling in. and express themselves by throwing rocks or sticks or bottles or racial slurs. >> that era in boston produced plenty of images like these and deep scars for children like her. >> prior to that, i had been going to elementary schools in roxbury. i had good experiences with my teachers. i got good grades.

i had a wonderful experience in elementary school. things shifted and changed dramatically in middle school. my grades fell. you know, less certain about who you are. >> reporter: eventually she became working in the non-profit world focused on education advocacy, an issue now at the heart of her plans to leave the city still grappling with the covid-19 pandemic. >> by fall you think all kids should be back in some capacity? >> really, all children have the opportunity to come back. certainly by fall, you know, we think, we hope we will be in a much better position in terms of covid. but we have much more work to do in terms of closing the opportunity and achieve. gaps that existed before covid. >> from achievement gaps to wealth gaps, boston's century's divide is centuries old and deep. a recent study found the median net worth of white families in

boston was more than $247,000. for black families, just $8. >> that is deeply related to discriminatory policies around housing and so many other areas that deny a black families the opportunity to build generational wealth and we were not able to hold on to that house when the south bend gentrified in boston. there were so many other families who were denied the opportunity to buy a house in the first place. >> boston is now a melting pot a. majority/minority city. all of the major candidates running for the mayorship this year are pop people of color. >> it's certainly a call for racial equity in making sure we are meeting with that lens. >> jamie is also a part of another trend. boston is one of seven major american cities that are all now

led by black women. >> i say all the time that while i bring my black owned magic to this job that i know to change policies that were centuries in the making and it will take all of us together to overcome these challenges. >> that's it for "inside politics sunday." joins back here every sunday 8:00 a.m. eastern time and weekday noon eastern time. coming up next, "state of the union" with jake tapper and dana bash. guests include pete ghouta big and representative james clyburn and governor asa hutchinson. thank you for spending part of your morning with us. have a great rest of your day.

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bridging the divide, president wide were set to meet with senate democrats and republicans as they argue over the president's bill and what exactly infrastructure is. >> infrastructure is the foundation. >> that makes it possible for people to live and work well. >> but will that message work for both parties? i'll speak with transportation secretary pete buttigieg next. and power play, a key democrat says he will not vote to end the filibuster, imperiling his party's agenda on key issues such as voting rights. >> let me get a better understanding ofha