how sanctions on present employment it will be comparable to severing ties with russia and the story bills we want to find out more about how offers have been taken from the wild and sole with exclusive interviews. and indeed al jazeera has teens on the ground. there hasn't been a train running by for almost 2 decades to bring you more award winning documentaries and live knees ah hello, i am dire in jordan dough with the top stories here in al jazeera, one of the strongest winter storms in years is battering the eastern united states, millions of people in 10 states are experiencing heavy snow and hurricane force winds around a 100000 homes are now without power. gable is under reports from new york. it was by far the biggest snowstorm of the winter in new jersey,

pennsylvania. the snow hit hard and fast, and local officials urged people to stay home and be ready for anything or prepare for got plenty of food. and we'll just hunker in in boston. the storm was being compared to a historic blizzard 44 years ago that left the city buried in 60 centimeters of snow. this storm seemingly packed close to the same punch. it wasn't quite as bad in new york, but the city didn't escape unscathed. the snow left every one and their dogs shivering. what is your name little guy. this is basil. basil you're shaking. are you cold? oh, my gosh. call for the tourists in times square who braved the minus 10 degrees celsius conditions. it was something to behold. i've never seen new york with the snow, so it's really well i can make and dream winter. well, i think it's awful,

but it's nice. while the snow is beautiful and it can be fun to play in, it also can cause problems in be quite dangerous. the storm is being called a bomb, say clone, and it's affecting the entire northeast of the united states, where 70000000 people live. at the coastal peninsula of cape cod, near boston, twitter users posted this video showing how strong the wind and snow were blowing close to upwards of a 112 kilometers per hour. storm surge was a concern in low line areas all along the eastern seaboard. once all the snow melts, it turns to water and officials warned of localized flooding. throughout the northeast, there were at times blizzard conditions, wreaking havoc on travel. at airports, thousands of flights were cancelled, and commuter train lines were halted. the storm is expected to taper off,

meaning sunday will likely be the day of cleaning up. warming up and digging out. gabriel's ontario, al jazeera, new york. north korea has conducted its 7th massage test this month. south korea, as president, is holding a national security meeting. the recent launches of displayed a variety of weapons including hypersonic and crews in south u. k prime minister barak johnson is considering mike making a major nato deployment in response to the massing of russian troops on the ukraine . border officials will finalize the details in brussels next week. thousands of rally than canada's capital against corona virus restrictions demonstrate as joined a conway of truckers around parliament. in ottawa, it was organized to protest against rules requiring drivers, crossing into the u. s. to be vaccinated, but it since grown to include others who want all restrictions to be lifted. a military court in democratic republic of congo has sentence 49 former soldiers to

death for their part in the killings of 2 united nations investigators 5 years ago . zeta. kathleen and michael sharp were murdered while investigating atrocities in the cosign legions. members of the west african block echoes are in between a foss over talks with the military rulers. it comes a day after the country was suspended from the block following this week's qu, rebel soldiers seize power on monday and mid growing anger. the president's failure to stop violence by armed groups. peruse government says the oil spill triggered by this month's volcanic eruption near toner is twice as big as previously reported. it estimates nearly 12000 barrels leaked into the pacific ocean from our refinery. 2 weeks ago. a judge has ordered 4 rep ssl executives to stay in the country for at least 18 months. and italy's president, sergio mat ela has agreed to serve a 2nd term after parliament failed to choose a new candidate. he had wanted to retire from the largely ceremonial job. but those

were the headlines. the news continues here now to 0 after the bottom line, stating thanks for watching bye for now. ah, hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. after losing on bill back better, inflation surging key voting rights legislation stalled in america and vladimir putin staring down. joe biden like a cheshire cat on the border of ukraine. is biden's agenda dead? let's get to the bottom line. ah, he's facing pressure from the left and the right and that's just in his own party. and his approval ratings are in the dumps a year into his presidency. joe biden has delivered on many of his campaign, promises, like not tweeting at 3 a. m and becoming a white house with less drama. he's also gotten huge spending bills like the american recovery act through congress. but the democrats were unable to agree on the build back better act, which includes biden's, big,

social and economic overhaul for america. and they couldn't pass the freedom to vote, act so year one of the bite in white house kind of smells like a failure right now. bite. and promised to tackle the corona virus epidemic. better than his predecessor. but the surge of the arm across variant exposed a lot of holes in his strategy and disrupted work in school across the country. and as russia puts its foot down on ukraine, biden's response has been hesitant, giving many republicans a chance to paint him as weak on foreign policy. so before this year's mid term election, can he turn a corner and recharges party and his own popularity? the clock is ticking to day, we're talking to 2 democratic strategist simon rosenberg, president of the new democrat network whose political career includes work on democratic presidential campaigns and no mickey cones whose work for the democratic national convention and for our revolution, the political action group inspired by former presidential candidate senator bernie sanders, mickey, it's great to see you, simon. great to see you as well. let me just ask you both and start with no mickey

. i mean, at the beginning, i'm going to show you a poll here of, of the president's approval rating gallop has been monitoring this on an annual basis. in january 2021. joe biden was at 57 percent of the country is pretty good number. but now it's fallen one year in to 40 percent. what has happened from your perspective? i enter this, this is often happens when you're coming out of a disaster often created by the other party, the republican party, the same, you know, same things happen historically with that being said, we're still in the middle of, of this economic crisis. and there are, it's not that the democrats can't come to terms and get this deal, pass the b b. b is that 2 democrats are completely out of line with the party. basically, citing with republican senator cinema was greeted on the floor of the senate shaking hands with republicans. nothing can show who you are more than that. so i think the frustration that democrats like ourselves have right now is that the democratic party is not organized is not focused. it does not strategize. it is not

mobilized. and more than anything it seems appears to be out of touch with the concerns and the pains that every day americans are facing right now. no, most americans are worried about inflation. but i think that is a reflection of other concerns underlying concerns, whether it's children going to school. when we have a pandemic that still exists, whether it's the omicron, you know, spreading across this country and still sending people to hospitals, whether it's pe being historically low. i mean, we weren't able to pass a $15.00 minimum wage as inflation eggs, as is occurring and, and our record a level right now. so it's, it's the everyday pains of people had before the pandemic that if only accelerated and exacerbated, and it doesn't seem like democrats are responding because of these 2 people on capitol hill i that are, are putting on theatrics that show, you know, washington once again, can't do anything to solve your everyday needs. who, simon, let me ask you, is this a challenge that the biden white house is experiencing,

has fallen? it's numbers the fold of senators mansion and cinema, or is this a white house that hasn't figured out how to get ahead of these big tech tonic issues that are scaring americans right now and they're giving them anxiety. ah, and, and kind of even going, the better. so compelling that to senator, who's in your party might include even a few republicans as, as, as know, there's no doubt that america as well. so i'd just like to get your take as well and, and responses make it. so i think it's actually simple, right. is that the 2 issues that have dominated our politics over the last year or 2 years have been covered in the recovery? those are the things that pull the highest and all the polling. it's where voters attention are, as they should be given that were in the midst of a once in 100 year pandemic. it was, it obviously was going to be the big challenge for the binding ministration. and when the public thought jo button was doing a good job and coven, his numbers were high. and when the public started believing he wasn't doing a good job uncovered,

his numbers went down and where we are today is that job martin. busy is now under water, you know, where more people don't think he's doing a good job on both coven and the economy. and that's what we've got to do with democrats going forward. is that if we can't get those numbers up, right? if we can't be competitive and coven and competitive on the recovery, we're going to have a tough mid term in voters think we did a good job on those 2 things, right? because at the end of the day when you're the incumbent party, the thing that matters is have you made my life better, more than anything else. if people feel the economy is good and we've done a good job uncovered, we'll have a competitive election in the whole summer. let me ask you this. i mean, you know, a lot about economics. you've worked in the kind of, you know, the central pragmatic economic oriented area of the democratic party. you know, i've interviewed all of the players and spend time with them. whether it's, you know, folks in the white house or even folks like sen, mansion, and talk to them. and mansions, been pretty consistent from the beginning when it came to his fiscal conservatism, right, which is a key element. and when we began to see folks like former treasury secretary,

larry summers say that inflation is coming. and then you saw the numbers, right? this is before we had numbers and knew you saw serge up to 7 percent and mansion is saying, look, we've got high inflation and americans have inc. anxiety about that because they can't buy the, the food that the, the transportation at the same level. they were a no meek he said, said this, i mean, they feel that you've got a geopolitical crisis developing that may spike fuel prices around the world. you know, and you have another variant. and and so, so madge has been saying this, but the bite and white house seemed to have said we're going to pass this bill no matter what. and so the rigidity, if i may seem to be more on the white us, i haven't seen how they're responding to inflation. i haven't seen how they're responding, you know, to that, to the russia crisis as of yet. so where is that narrative wrong in your view? so i think that we have to give the, by the ministration credit for they made

a toughness, they made a tough call last march with the american rescue plan. and by making it as big as they did, they risk inflation. but look what, what the positive that's happened, right? we just had one of the strongest economic performance as the american economy and the post world war 2 era, right? we've had g d p growth at over 5 percent at 6000000 jobs created a real wages for the bottom half of workers is actually gone up despite high inflation, right. we've seen more new jobs, more big, new business formation last year than any year in american history. so this was a banner year for the american economy and it, and the cost of that, that very rapid growth, getting us back close to full employment has been higher than anticipated inflation . and i think that whether or not, i mean the, uh, the alternative steve would have been to have the economy grow slower. right. and i think that's why i think we made the right decision, which now going to be important now that inflation has showed itself to be more durable in large part because of the, the factors that you were describing, right?

global supply chain problems. the services, you know, the fact that cobit has gone on longer than we anticipated the fad is stepping in and, and they're going to do their job in the next few months. will the economy stay strong for the democrats? i think that the, you know, the estimates are we're still going to be over 3 percent g, d, p growth, still millions of new jobs, millions and new people, beginning health insurance. i think we can defend this economic record as we go into the mid terms. but we have to defend it, and i don't, i think we spent the last 6 months talking about things other than we've done. and if we can't get credit for what we've done, we're never going to get credit for things that we didn't do. and so i think that what's really important now we've got to defend what we have already achieved. so it to the american people as hard as we possibly can and hope for the best. i mean, it's just a basic fact of politics that if you can't get credit for what you've already done, you're not going to get credit for things that haven't happened yet. no me, he let me show you some other data that's come out and it's about how americans

feel about their country. ah, and you've got those that think we're in the right direction. 22 percent of the nation. those that are going the wrong direction. 72 percent mix. not sure about 6 percent. so most people have a view and this is an n b c news poll. this is from n b c. and so i just wanna say, you know, i, i have remember vividly january 6th and from january 6 and the insurrection in the united states capital, i sort of thought any direction, but that would be applauded in hope by americans. so something is happened and i, i just wanna put something else on the table because i know you feel the plight of a lot of struggling americans. joe biden wants, did an interview with me, and he said the democratic party had become a party of snobs that we had lost connection with people struggling that were facing. ah, you know, they were working hard, but getting less for it. they were, they were having a problem with their kids in school. and so joe biden was going to d snob, the democratic party and get it reconnected with working americans and do that. and

i just love to hear you is that has he succeeded in that if he's failed, is that helping to drive some of the wrong track numbers here? yeah, i think i think you, when you look at those numbers, there are folks who think we're going further in the direction of january 6 that it's getting worse on. i mean, you can just open up twitter and see what's happening a whether it's, it's folks who are questioning the mat vax mandates and holding morales like they did this week on capitol hill. there is that segment of the population on that. i think hanks because joe biden hasn't been able to deal of the democratic party. i and, and champion beggars, things that are gonna affect their lives. i mean, listen whether or not those numbers, those numbers that simon mentioned are true. is it enough? i don't think it's enough for the economy that we're in right now. you have strikes popping up all over the country of people organizing unions all over the country. you have people quitting their jobs all over the country and there's a component inflation, which is artificial inflation in which you have bosses who realize, oh, i have an opportunity to make some money. i'm going to spike a, you know,

the costs of these products and see what i can get. now these are areas where joe biden can do something. he can also, i mean b, b, b, a is, is pretty much dead. but of course, if you break it apart into pieces, there might be opportunities to, to, to revive some of the economy. i'm from that perspective, as well as the pen, if he would eliminate federal student debt. i can bet you that young people, which he is down in numbers with at, at, at shocking level. right now. young people would turn out and vote for him. he could pass a few big bills that impact people's lives at it at a very, in a very real way that, you know, perhaps he could turn this round and when the election, those are the same kinds of things that you need to champion, you know, since the american recovery act, which was very early in his presidency. no since then, his numbers started to dip with afghanistan. i mean, this is that since afghanistan i'm, i think he made the right call here when we got there. but since afghanistan, which he was not able to adequately defend, he has been dipping, dipping,

dipping the republicans are an attack and they will blame everything, make an on joe biden. and the repeat repeat, repeat so that other americans independence, working people, young people, people of color who rely on the democratic party to survive. that they're going to start to hear what the republicans say and believe it, not that they're going to vote republican. they just may not turn out. so, you know, i think that president biden right now has the opportunity to, to do some big things that keep the house, keep the senate and keep the prod, boys who are running for local office right now from winning. another thing that he could you probably i'm tell our audience, the proud boys are well known as white nationalists, some of whom are in the i sites in headlights of attorney general mary garland right now, just worked way for audience who the proud boys were, but a sorry to interrupt. no, this is this. they denounced that they are running for local office. they're going to run for school boards around the country and for city council. now what have i

heard in response to this from the democratic party? 0 in 2016 i there was a committee as i was on, i served on a commission to reform the democratic party. and one of the big issues that pretty much every single elected member agreed on was that the democratic party needed to put money back into local parties. they have not done so they've released small little grants. but as a result, you don't have a pipeline. you don't have people organizing on the ground in every corner of this country to defeat these people. these prod, boys in the far right. but even more so you don't have the democratic message. so if you want to champion what you've done, you need people out there advocating, right? if there's no democratic party in most communities in this country, and that's a real problem, and he has the power, he has the power to move that money away from the snobs in washington, back to the local activists. simon ah, no meek, he just talked about build back better in a way i sort of see it, which is it's a big conglomerate, and the to get it through. you're gonna probably have to break it up is going to be be one build. there will be be 2, back the b b 3 better. i don't know which, which

b will be a preeminent. but the political reality is i know that both of you are in different parts of the democratic party. but both of you are shrewd realists about what can be done. and if you're looking at a sen mansion whose basically he said, you know, he gave president of a version the bill that had a lot of the previous bill back, better in it. but if you were a to, to advise ron cleaned, the white house, chief of staff and president biden, and steve were shady as to how to move forward. and indeed, conglomerates thing, you know, build back better into pieces. what are the pieces where you find enough overlap that simultaneously get mansion on board? and by the way, i, you know, gives the democrats a reset. well, you know, i think it's very hard for all of us outside the white house in the senate to really understand what happened over the last few months. i mean, there were obviously lots of private communications between mansion and cinema in the white house and how things went arise. very difficult, right?

because these are the small number of people and, and how we got here, it's very hard to know. so how we fix it is also very hard to know. i keep a lot of this as to depend on what mansion and cinema are willing to do. you know, i, so i, it's very hard for me to answer that question. i mean, i do think my opinion about what matters most that we need to get done as the all the climate. i'm pieces of the, of the bill. i mean, i think there's a lot of important stuff in here. but if i had to weigh my magic wand and just do one thing, it would be climate and i think the climate pieces are not only important to the economy, but it's also important as a signal him how we're going to counter russia. and i think it now that russia has been making it clear that they're going to be an aggressor probably for the rest of biden's presidency. you know, showing that we are going to dramatically accelerate the decomposition of the world and the moving away from fossil fuels would be a deep blow to vladimir putin. and it's one of the reasons why i think we have to

accelerate. now the consideration of the climate provisions which were blocked that, that are still sitting on the shelf of b, b, b. so let's talk russia for a minute. let's listen to president biden on russia. i think what you're going to see is that russia will be held accountable if it invades and it depends on what it does. it's one thing if it's a minored incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do it cetera. what should, ah, this white house do on the foreign policy? because i look at that as a very big self inflicted shot of, of the biden white house. yeah, i mean look, i think it's a, a momentary blip in what's going to be months and months of, of an intense battle. and i think that if the 2 things i discussed earlier, cove, it in the recover, that the sort of the politics of the democrats have to suit exist in this framework of carbon the recovery. you could argue that there's going to be a 3rd piece of that now, which is defending our democracy here and abroad. and that we've won it as democrats to elevate up these basket of issues about the need to preserve the west

in our democratic traditions and all the things that we've tried to talk about domestically. but there's a real chance, i think, providing to show himself a leader of the free world here and to conduct themselves in a way that i think we can all be proud of. it would be great to see the republicans joining their president with the unified voice. and we know that may not happen, but i think steve, it really comes down to this basic idea is that job. i'm now has an opportunity this year as the if people think he's done a good job on cove it if they think the economy is doing well. if he manages this crisis with ukraine and russia effectively, his stand, he will be restored politically. and so his political standing really, i think, to a great degree comes down to how well he performs as president. and that's why i think if i were advising on claim iran, there are 3 things you really got to get right. this year we got to get co behind us. we got to keep the economy growing and you've got to, you know, you've got to win this battle with now and that's with everything else is really

secondary. i think that the climate so we discussed earlier can be, is, you know, as my colleague said here, can be packaged into a broader set of things we're doing to counter russia. but this is a huge issue. now this is a huge governing challenge, and it gets to the core of everything that joe bought, you know, joe barton. well, right. everything that's happening here with you kind of rushes, the core of who joe biden is what he wanted his presidency to be about. and now he's got to deliver. this is going to be an extraordinary test of him. i feel good about where we are now, but we've got a long way to go in this conflict and need to ask no mickey. is there any sense of potential consequence among your friends and colleagues in the progressive wing of the democratic part? that if there were to be a relaxation or an end of the filibuster or a slippery slope, if you will, to getting rid of that. so that in the senate, you had essentially majority rule. that as soon as you don't have that 5050 balance

in the, in the united states senate and the republicans were to be up just one vote. you might get a repeal of the assault rifle ban. you might get an imposition of federal guidelines on abortions at 20 weeks and nothing after you might get of voting id laws that are very, very restrictive across you. i'd say so that you can go through the republican litmus test keystone pipeline could be back another big issue. so i'm just interested in this argument and why no one, this is what joe mansion has been laying out to some people. why is no one responding to him on that? do they not care about these other items coming or, or, you know, just, you know, throw fate to the wind, let it go where it will. i think it, it is. there's a couple issues here. i think number one, it's joe mansion who's making this argument and he is not acted in good faith. clearly he's representing his interests and, and frankly, his interests are personally tied to his wealth. so i think it's the messenger i'm in that case. i think the history,

the filibuster and the racial elements of its intent. i think that the people finally understand what, how this tool was used to basically empower. i'll, you know, wealthy white males in this country. and they think, you know, if you really want to get to the root of what the progressives are talking about right now, is there's a real conversation about limiting that, eliminating the senate. do i agree with that? no, but i have to tell you like that's how far this conversation is going at this point . i'm, you know, yes, of course there's that concern. this is a weapon. this is a right wing weapon that the democrats have also used. that does not mean it's good, i think it blocks more good than it does otherwise. i think folks are very frustrate that when democrats do have power, they're not able to champion very big bold ideas. that frankly be very hard to reverse in something like a, b, b, b i is, is voting rights protections which is much more than the filibuster. you know that those are big issues that we were able to champion an era's when the filibuster was

not used. this way, so i, i me, i just read are harry reads, a biography autobiography that he wrote about 1012 years ago. and it was, it was very disappointing to see how often the filibuster gotten the way of, of bills that were really just there to improve every, every american's life republican voters as well. so if i think if there was a better education about the history, the filibuster, people would be against it. let me just ask you both. finally, really short answers. if you wouldn't mind if show by making donald trump more popular right now, let me figure out. so far, joe biden is doing better than donald trump was at this time in his presidency, but not by as much as we'd like. is he making me? i think he's riling up the base, but you know, we did, joe. i didn't. i'm sure. saw the numbers of donaldson's rally with de la riley and they couldn't fill a stadium in florida. so i, you know, maybe he's not as popular as we think. but john apprentice comes ideas are spanning, and there are other many trumps around the country that are running. and that's what i'm concerned about just real quick as it joe biden. i hope you're looking at

your com shop that i think is a major issue that simon and i could probably agree on is that the communication is coming out right now is really getting in the way. i'm and, and republicans attacks on him are steering the ship right now. so i may give you the last word. i know they, donald trump is ever going to get elected president ever again. no, he is his, he's, it has a very low ceiling. people who rejected him and i don't think he's going to come back. however, as i mean, he said that you know, maga has now replaced conservatism as the governing ideology, the republican party, this is spread way beyond trump, and that's what makes it this moment far more dangerous. i mean, there really isn't anything like a moderate republican party that anybody can point to. they've had many off ramps over the last several years as a party which they've refused to take. so we're really dealing with a radicalized political party. and it's the challenges in that regard are going to be very significant, which is why, for democrats,

when you worry about aren't defending our democracy, it may be that the most important thing that we do this year is do everything we can to keep the house and senate from falling into republican hands, and we have to connect these elections to the defending our democracy agenda. that is so animating to the democratic party, i know, or simon rosenberg, president of the new democrat network, and know me, counts democratic activists in journalists. really, thanks so much for your candor and for being with us. thank you, steve. so what's the bottom line? americans are tense right now. they feel that something's not quite right in the country and like any white house, the biden team is struggling to put initiatives out there on the table that they believe americans want and need. only problem is that so far americans aren't buying what biden's selling their 9 months left until the mid term elections that will determine which political party controls the house of representatives and the senate. and right now things don't look so great for the democrats. what to do, you asked a wise man once said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over

and over again and expecting a different result. the president is going to have to change his orientation and get back to winnie by cutting deals within his own party and finding a way to make deals with reasonable republicans. that's what successful presidents do. and that's the bottom line. ah jolene the debate they a ratio of like people from the american and global story was very powerful. annette online at your voice. the comment section is whitehead joining our conversation. we had unprotected when everyone is protected because marketplace being nationalistic about us. you just look at it in a very different way, said that perspective, men and men meeting each other and they don't have any pollution. let me get put it clear for you. this dream on al jazeera, a coming of age story in the community, fighting to preserve its heritage in an ever changing well uh thing on an ancient

ritual to future generations. in an award winning documentary out as they were weld follows a group of young men on their right of passive challenge in the remote forest of ivory coast. the sacred woods on out is era. oh, i'm dying. don't know how the top stories here and i'll just say are i one of the biggest storms to hit the eastern us in decades is battering 10 states with heavy snow, strong winds and bitter cold. at least 100000 people are without electricity or more outages are expected. and bases crisp alone has more from boston. we have endured about 18 hours of heavy snow and heavy wind here in the city of boston,

and faithfully over the past hour or so. the snow has started to taper off a little. i know it probably doesn't.