by the regime, after international outcry, state-controlled media released so-called proof of life videos of peng but analysts are concerned about her condition. >> if you don't think she's under psychological pressure from the authorities given embarrassing charges against a senior chinese official, you're crazy. safe to say she's under very tightly controlled circumstances and does not have the ability to communicate freely with the outside world. >> reporter: experts say one nightmare scenario has to do with the wint olympics beijing is hosting. >> increasing the pressure to at least not have diplomatic presence at the beijing olympics. time for don, "don lemon tonight."

this is "don lemon tonight," thanks for joining us. multiple breaking stories. major vote on capitol hill and what alec baldwin is saying about the fatal shooting on "ru "rust," speaking out in raw interview, when hallina hufrpinson was killed. >> i was handed something with no charge round, nothing. she goes down. said to myself, did she faint? >> he's insisting he was not responsible. >> someone is responsible for what happened, i can't say who that is. but know it's not me. honest to god, if i felt i was responsible, i might have killed myself if i thought i was responsible and don't say that

lightly. >> that's a little bit of it. you'll hear more. breaking news, congress averted a government shutdown with hours to go until the deadline tomorrow, the senate voting to kick the can down the road to mid-february and handing defeat to conservative republicans who tried to force the biden administration to knuckle under over vaccine mandates by threatening to shut down the government. lauren joins us now. who is the latest? >> reporter: with about 26 hours to go, congress was able to avert this government shutdown. like you said, there was last-minute question mark whether or not two conservative senators were going to hold up this process. because they waited until the last minute as congress often does, they had to have unanimous consent agreement, all 100 senators in agreement to

expedite the process to make sure the government did not shut down. two senators wanted a vote to defund the president's vaccine mandates that require people to be vaccinated or get tested regularly before they go to work. they have the opt out option and something that democrats were pointing out in spades tonight during this debate. that vote was defeated so the mandate still funded as part of the continuing resolution. also now there's going to be aversion of the government shutdown. will not shut down tomorrow at midnight. both republican and democratic leaders were on the floor celebrating that fact, arguing it was very important both sides came together to make sure this didn't happen tonight or tomorrow night, don. important moment for congress but this is only government funding until february 18th. we get to do the whole thing

again in couple of months. >> february 18th we go through all of this one more time. seems like we just went through it. lauren fox, thank you very much, appreciate you joining us. now turn to other breaking news story about alec baldwin and first interview since the shooting of cinematographer on the set of his movie. it is very emotional. lucy has been following this story. emotional interview, what did we hear? >> it was emotional, don, and long interview, nearly an hour long. he got upset and emotional when he described meeting the husband of hutchins and her young son left without a mother. teared up talking about that. but he also talked about in more detail what exactly unfolded in fateful moments before she was

killed. big revelation from alec baldwin this evening, he says he did not pull the trigger. take a listen. >> it wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled. the trigger wasn't pulled, i didn't pull the trigger. >> never pulled the trigger? >> no, no, no, i would not point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger, ever. that's the training i had. you would never. day one of instruction, told me never take the gun and go click, click, click, you damage the firing pin if you do that. don't do that. >> and lucy -- >> in that scene -- >> finish your thought. sorry about that. >> he was practicing a cross draw, pulling the weapon out. and dave halls andhanded it to

and baldwin said she asked him to point it near her direction, asked whether he should cock the gun, she said yes. then said he let go of the hammer and according to baldwin, the gun went off. ins insisting he did not pull the trigger, interesting point for forensics and weapons experts to look at. it. he wants answers why a live round ended up on the set but doesn't blame himself. >> he talked about that here. here it is. >> people online saying you idiot, don't point gun at anyone. yeah, unless it's empty and you're instructed. we both thought it was empty.

it wasn't. and that's not her responsibility, my responsibility. whose responsibility remains to be seen. >> some say you're never supposed to point a gun at anyone on a set no matter what. >> unless the person is the cinematographer directing me where to point the gun for her camera angle. that's exactly chawhat happened >> and word responsibility came up quite a few times in the interview. one of the other things discussed was whether baldwin should have checked the gun before handling it. he said in his experience it's head armorer whose job it is to do that. when she wasn't on set, assistant director dave halls would hand him. he said it was unlikely he thought he would be charged, did talk about hannah gutierrez, the

head armorer, who gave him instruction on gun safety. asked whether she was up for the job, said he assumed it because she was hired but he's not producer that hires the crew. could be important point as the investigation continues and question of liability comes up, don. also made the point, sort of st stressing he found it unsettling that two people, lighting technician and another woman on the set filed civil lawsuits. he thought the husband of halyna hutchins, matthew, should have been able to file a lawsuit first. don. >> just a mess all around. lucy will continue to report on it until we get the answers.

> joining me now, sharon and a propmaster. alec baldwin is asking how a live bullet ended up in that gun. watch this and we'll talk. >> as far as i'm concerned, someone put -- the investigation's going to find that someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn't even supposed to be on the property. this is the thing i hope the sheriff's department doesn't give up on, follow it to ends of the earth. where did that bullet come from? somebody brought live rounds, plural, on to the set of the film and one of them ended up in that gun. if the bullets didn't come on the property, we wouldn't be having this conversation. >> i mean this is still under investigation, sharon, this fatal shooting. but this was a stunning interview. he didn't even know he had shot her, thought she had fainted. what stood out to you?

>> that was headline of the story we put out on "the wrap" about this. he thought she had had a heart attack or hit with a dummy bullet. bauding he called it. he didn't realize for 45 minutes that she had been shot. notion of that just crazy to me, and then -- but also indicates to you just how remote the notion that a live bullet could have made it on a set is. he also said he only found out from the police a couple of hours later that she had died. whole thing feels like to him some through the looking glass kind of experience. but everybody is talking about it, it strikes me, as supernatural experience. where did this bullet come from? somebody did bring it but the

armorer said i didn't do it, who would do it. and people pointing fingers saying it couldn't have happened, yet it did happen. one thing i'll point out, we reported very early on that people had taken the guns off the set during the day and gone shooting at cans in the desert, plinking, and brought the guns back. i have not heard that account knocked down, confirmed, anything. but i don't think anybody really thinks that somebody was out to sabotage, seems to be remote conspiracy theory that's out there, baldwin was asked about that, said much more likely an accident. but seems very strange thing that everyone seems to agree was impossible to happen and yet it happened. >> dutch, you've been watching this, this is your expertise, your field. watching that interview, what did you think? talk to me.

>> well, first of all, this story just seems to get more and more bizarre as it unfolds, the layers are mind-boggling. when he said he pulled the hammer back but didn't pull the trigger, well, how did the hammer come forward? design of the gun, 150-year-old design, a modern reproduction. was it entirely unreliable gun, you pull the hammer back and it just goes forward? i'd like to get a look at that. claim of plinking, no credence has been given to it since it came out. said the armorer was not in the room when rehearsing the scene. that's most alarming thing to me. as armorer, we stay with the gun. there's relationship between the armorer and actor and nobody can get in between that relationship. first a.d. can check it for safety and second set of eyes is

great to examine the dummy rounds and blanks, but won't take the gun from the armorer and hand it to the actor. it's absolutely unheard of in hollywood and entertainment. alec did say there's occasions he hands off to the first a.d., the armorer should be there and be there to arrange the blocking, show him where to point the gun, make sure there's no people where that is, remind him to keep finger off the trigger until he's ready to fire. and why were there dummy rounds in the gun in blocking rehearsal? should have been empty or a rubber gun. >> in the interview, not just from alec but in the handling of the gun, did you see negligence in that? in the prosecute? that what you're saying? >> it's not for me to judge negligence or not negligence, but standard practice in

filmmaking is the armorer has custody of the gun and ammunition at all times. >> and chain of custody is what i meant, in the chain of custody, did you see a problem with that? >> yeah. why was the -- in the affidavit i read, said the first a.d. handed the gun to baldwin on the set. why was that? why was the first a.d. acting as armorer. the armor reports she was not allowed on the set because of too many bodies. should never be allowed to happen. armorer should be last to hand it off to actor and be there all times when it's in action. >> dutch, you and sharon, stick by, we have more of the observe. alec was criticized for not checking the gun. we'll hear his response and much

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i would go to any lengths to undo what happened. i would go to any lengths to

undo what happened. >> that's breaking news, alec baldwin speaking out about the shooting on set of the movie "rust" who killed the cinematographer halyna hutchins and wounded another. sharon waxman and dutch merrick. >> if your protocol is checking the gun every time, good for you. i probably handled weapons as much as any other actor in films, with an average career. again, shooting or being shot by some. in that time i had protocol that never let me down. >> why did you choose in 40 years not to check the gun yourself? >> when i was taught by someone, years ago, was if i took a gun and popped a clip out of a gun or manipulated the chamber they would take the gun away and redo

it. prop person said, don't do that, when i was young. would say one thing you need to understand is we don't want the actor to be the last line of defense against a catastrophic breach of safety with the gun. >> similar to what you were saying, dutch, does it make sense to you? >> yeah. there are actors really fastidious about checking a gun every single time, and others perhaps stay so in the zone they don't particularly check it and they instill a trust in the armorer they're working with. there's a relationship that we build. as a prop person providing food in a scene, actor needs to know they're not going to get food poisoning from that, they trust the armorer that the gun is safe and they've done the checks and double checks. it's actor's right to check it. if they choose not to, give me the gun when it's ready and they

do the scene, that's perfectly acceptable in my understanding. >> sharon, alec baldwin was asked about cost cutting, if that was a factor. this is what he said. >> when people say cutting costs, i don't say this with any judgment or cynicism, spielberg wants to save money, tom cruise wants to save money. everybody who makes movies has a responsibility to not be wreckl reckless and careless with the money they're given. those are making -- >> the question is were costs cut at expense of safety. >> in my opinion, no, i didn't observe any safety or security issues at all in the time i was there. >> he says costs weren't an issue there but what do you think about that? we've seen media reports that crew members quit over safety concerns and covid protocols

prior to shooting. not sure if any of that has been confirmed or true but -- >> it's totally confirmed. people on the production, lane looper for example wrote a letter to the producers before they quit the night before the shooting, talked about exactly these things. alec said when he got wind of the complaints, he was in process of offering to give up some of his own salary so that the crew members could stay in nicer hotels or in hotels, some were sleeping in cars apparently, to cover those costs. but said he didn't know anything about safety issues and that's not the case. in this letter they talk about in addition to housing issues, they talk about safety issues. two instances in which guns went off and shouldn't have gone off. then this happened. so everyone who needs to take

responsibility and had jobs in this production, when they go on the record they seem to say everything was great. but that really just doesn't add up, when you look at what was going on, when you look at the emails and texts, the documentation of people who were unhappy on the set. it's possible there were some people on the set perfectly happy. but there certainly were people who raised concerns about safety and not just about the accommodations that the crew was having to live with. >> dutch, this is your business. you're in los angeles, in hollywood. what has this done -- i'm sure it's reverberated around the industry. what has happened since this accident? >> well, it's shaken us. really shaken us to the core because this is just an example of a really bad actor -- not actor in the acting sense, but someone doing something that's bad.

and this production seemed to have cut every corner. alec talks about being frugal with your money, trying to cut costs, but it's clear from the outset this film didn't staff appropriately, didn't offer enough training time for the actors with the guns. had a brand-new armorer doing two jobs, armoring and propping. hard to tell if alec knew of all the problems on the set or more of a producer in name. but this is outlier to what we do across the world honestly. we make movies safely. do tremendous car stunts, car careen out of control, fall off a building, looks like a person is in the car but figured out how to do it safely. we literally fire millions of rounds on the shows i work on alone. there are no injuries or deaths. we do this day in and day out.

this is anomaly. >> all the westerns and guns fired in movies over the decades. >> 100 years. >> sharon, alec baldwin doesn't feel guilty but said someone is responsible. what do you think of that? >> i don't believe that. he also said he's not sleeping, has nightmares and dreams about guns going off and never used to happen to him. highly doubt he doesn't feel some sense of guilt, even if he knows he didn't consciously take the life of halyna hutchins, but it's got to be a very heavy burden to bear just from a personal, ethical and moral standpoint, completely apart from whatever legal liability he must be facing. also said he didn't care if he never did another movie ever again. that doesn't surprise me that's

how he's feeling right now. it is a trauma. you said this, it is a tragedy all the way around. i got to meet matt hutchins last night at event we hosted. your heart breaks to meet the man. and it just feels like pain and loss for reasons that should never have been. so, i mean, i think alec baldwin must have many, many mixed emotions about this. >> thank you, sharon, thank you, dutch, i appreciate it. >> yeah. >> thanks so much. the omicron variant now in multiple u.s. states and president biden putting out a new plan how to combat a winter covid surge. we'll be right back.

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♪ the snow's comin' down ♪ -mommy? ♪ i'm watching it fall ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 president of the united states, joe biden, laying out nine-point plan to stop a deadly winter covid spike in its tracks. focuses on stricter testing requirements for travelers to the u.s., providing increased access to vaccines, boosters and at-home testing >> i want to reiterate, dr. fauci and dr. collins believe if you're worried about the omicron variant, best thing to do is get fully vaccinated and get the booster when you're eligible.

>> dr. robert wachter is doctor at lab that worked on the first omicron case, he joins us now. the first omicron test came to one of the labs where you work at ucsm. you're not changing the precautions you take so far. what are you watching more as we learn more about omicron? >> we're all watching for same things, don, watching to see whether it's more infectious, more severe and whether it evades immunity, we have tidbits of evidence but not enough for a full picture. reason i said i wasn't changing my behavior as we have a couple of cases here and there, probably more than we're catching, but not a dominant player. today i'm much more concerned about delta, 99.9% of the cases.

i'm still careful and wear a mask when i go inside unless i'm sure everybody's vaccinated. if omicron takes off to be 1, 2 or 5% of the cases in the u.s., we have to factor into decision making. >> facing a potential winter surge, last winter saw a horrendous spike after the holidays. do you think this plan will prevent another spike in cases? >> i think it should help some, it's kind of baked in we're going to see a spike. still have a lot of people unvaccinated and vaccinated people not getting the boosters yet. and in large parts of the country, people are over covid, decided not to wear masks anymore and as people go inside because of the colder weather, it's setup for them to be slammed. delta is bad enough, i don't

think the surges will be what we've seen in the past but still seeing 1,000 deaths a day, still not a good situation, forgetting about omicron for a second. >> glad you said that, people are over covid because just because people are over covid, doesn't mean that covid is over. hearing conspiracy theories that somebody something, something wrong, why does this continue to go. people, because they're tired of it, make up scenarios in their mind that somehow covid is not real. >> yeah. it's going on because it's called science and it's a virus and does what it's going to do. we unfortunately have responded extraordinarily well in terms of our science, the vaccines and antivirals on the horizon, we've done well in innovating and doing the science but fact that 40% of americans have chosen not to take a vaccine that is miraculously effective and many people have not yet gotten the booster, people are choosing not

to wear masks when they showed, it's not just science but science plus sociology and some politics. got to get all of it right and if we get the virus a toehold, it will continue to take off. it has a lot of curveballs in store for us. virus couldn't care less. >> mutating because people are not getting vaccinated so continues to spread and mutate? is that part of it? >> yeah, every time it replicates it gives itself an opportunity to have a little typo. vast majority are benign but every now and then, dumb luck on the part of virus, it will figure out a configuration to really set us back. appears to be what it's done now. and it is because of the number of new cases around the world. we've not successfully vaccinated the number of people we need to in the united states and certainly not around the

world, and that gives the virus myriad chances to have new viruses and each one is opportunity for mutation. >> 25% of the eligible u.s. population still hasn't been vaccinated according to the cdc. doctor, more than 30 countries including the u.s. have identified omicron cases. do you think stricter testing for people flying to the u.s. will slow a potential spread? >> by a little bit, maybe by a week or two. case reported in minnesota was someone who went to new york, didn't travel abroad. it's already here. as we test more, we'll find more cases here. i understand the restrictions, may give us a little bit of extra wiggle room but on the matter of days or week, fundamentally it's not the answer. answer is figure out how nasty it is. and may seem paradoxical, saying the vaccines may not work as

well, get vaccinated, but it makes a ton of sense. you need the highest possible left of immunity. means vaccination for most people plus boosters. variant is 20 or 30% vaccine resistant say, start with immunity from boosters, you're in good shape. if you start with modest immunity from prior infection, may be in bad trouble as well. >> ask with a caveat, just did international travel for the holidays and i did the home test, sit at computer and someone on the other side watching you take the test, and they're not cheap. going to go into facility, they're not cheap for the average american family. especially a big family with kids. i'm fortunate enough, i can afford them. they're not cheap. do you think at-home testing

would help, maybe a difference here? >> absolutely. and part of the plan the president announced was have insurance cover them. wish he had figured out a way and his people had figured out way to subsidize them because insurance is a pain. what would be easy it go into the pharmacy, rather than each costing me ten bucks, it cost me a buck. if i wake up with sniffle, i get it, it's no big deal. it's increasingly important to have the testing available. when the new antivirals come out, wake up with fever or sniffle, want to be tested and if positive call up doctor for prescription for the oral antiviral. to make that work, testing is first leg of the relay race and has to be simple as can be. >> dr. wachter, be well. >> thank you.

facing one last chance to cooperate with the committee investigating january 6th. expected to plead the fifth, will the full house go through with the vote? adam schiff is here, next. i just wish more people knew how easy it was to get health coverage. i'm only paying $52 a month for there are quality plans for even less. my job doesn't offer health insurance,

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. . . keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. cnn learning new details tonight about former trump white house chief of staff mark meadows' efforts to pursue bogus claims of election fraud, including the theory that italian satellites were used to change votes. comes as the committee is giving jeffrey clark one last chance to cooperate with the investigation. democratic congressman adam schiff from california. glad to have you here, thanks for joining us.

jeffrey clark is intending to take the fifth when he meets with your committee on saturday. when he does that -- okay, apparently we don't have the congressman. let's make sure if we have him, technical glitch, i think he's filming this from home tonight. we're going to get it fixed, filming from home via computer. we'll take a break and have congressman adam schiff on the other side of the break. we'll be right back.

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at least my shoes look good! looking good start with bounce wrinkleguard, the megasheet designed to prevent wrinkles in the dryer. we worked it out and we have the congressman back. are you there? >> yes, i sure am. >> good. first question again. so jeffrey clark is intending to take the fifth when he meets

with your committee on saturday. when he does that, will the full house still vote to hold him in contempt or not? he is a justice official. it is remarkable really. >> it is remarkable. this was a senior justice department official now telling us if he were to testify and answer our questions that it might implicate him in criminal activity. but honestly we don't know what will happen on saturday because the correspondence we received from mr. clark's lawyer has been a confusing hodgepodge of legal theories. when he last appeared before our committee and refused to answer questions he didn't do so on the basis of any fifth amendment concern about self-incrimination. he had a whole range of theories and then in more recent correspondence he added to those and complained about the composition of our committee and now most recently he said that he has a fifth amendment concern. we'll ask him the range of questions pertinent to our

investigation. with some he may take the fifth. with others he may use the other, you know, assertions of privilege, which we think have no merit. and on the basis of what does happen we'll make a decision about next steps. >> so this deposition in person, remote? >> it's in person. i mean, there will be an opportunity for members to participate remotely as well but it will be in person. >> you've already met with clark's former boss jeffrey rosen and richard donahue. they didn't take the fifth. do you have information you believe implicates clark in things like election interference or fraud possibly? >> well, i don't want to comment on that, don, for the reason i don't want to give mr. clark any false reason on his part to claim the fifth.

so i don't want to speculate about that. i will say the witnesses you mentioned who were his seniors at the justice department have testified openly before the senate. we are not confirming witnesses before our committee but neither claimed any executive privilege so the idea a more junior person at the justice department would have an executive privilege claim when the seniors did not is i think pretty ludicrous. we will have to see what assertions he makes with respect to what questions. one thing i can tell you is that the fifth amendment does not permit him to refuse to answer questions merely because he wants to cover up for donald trump. he has to feel that his own activities and answering questions about them would expose him to potential prosecution. >> so many names. donahue, rosen, bannon, clark. mark meadows expected to appear

for a deposition next week. he says he'll honor trump's executive privilege claims. well you accept any claim of executive privilege if he does that? >> we have reserved judgment essentially, have not acknowledged any claim of privilege because the holder of the privilege is predominantly joe biden who said he is not asserting privilege. what is more even if there were a privilege that could be asserted by a former president to be preferred over the current president which i think will never be the case but even if it were that privilege gives way when there is a compelling public need as it did during watergate. here what could be more compelling than the need to get information about an attack on our democracy in which people died and the need to protect the country going forward? we'll see whether mr. meadows is acting in good faith or whether he is using just another

strategy to avoid having to provide incriminating evidence against his former boss. >> i'm not sure if i've ever seen someone downplaying information or refuting information that is in their own book. mark meadows has written this book about his time at the white house. does that undermine his claim his experience there is protected by executive privilege? i was talking about the covid -- the president getting covid. does that undermine his claim he is protected by executive privilege when he has written a book about his time working in the white house? >> absolutely. >> particularly if he has written anything about january 6th and it is hard to imagine writing a book and not writing about january 6th, then he clearly is waiving any claim he has to keep confidential his communications with the former president, what happened in the white house. if he can say it in the book why

can't he say it before congress and the investigation? he is not the first to potentially try. you may remember john bolton refused to testify in the house because he wanted to save it for his book and only after he realized he might ever -- his book might not see the light of day because the trump white house was trying to refuse to certify it wasn't classified did he offer to testify before the senate i think in the hopes that would pierce the executive branch's ability to suppress his book. >> cnn is reporting meadows was trying to get government officials pursue baseless election fraud conspiracies. according to one source he reached out to the fbi, the pentagon, national security council, office of the director of national intelligence, also pressured the justice department. those are not conversations with trump. should he be able to answer questions about contacts with those officials? i don't think those would be

considered executive privilege. he was reaching out on behalf of the president or trying to help the president. this wasn't just a conversation with the president. >> you are absolutely right. those conversations would not be protected and he may very well try to assert some form of privilege. certainly in the last four years if it is any guide in both russia and ukraine investigations, the trump administration asserted all kind of privileges. in fact, they asserted the right not to answer questions because some future point they might want to appoint privilege. you had corey lewandowski trying to assert privilege when he wasn't even working in the white house about periods of time when the president wasn't even the president. they are no strangers to making completely baseless claims of privilege. we will evaluate what meadows does. is he really cooperating or merely trying a new strategy to avoid answering questions sf then we'll make a decision about

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president biden pushing his new plan to prevent a spike in covid cases this winter but will it be enough? as the new omicron variant we still know so little about spreads in the united states. plus alec baldwin is speaking out on the deadly movie set shooting tonight. he is insisting he didn't pull the trigger and he is not to blame for cinematographer halyna hutchins' death. there are new details in the investigation of the michigan high school shooting the