this sunday the cdc under fire. >> we had all winter break to have this planned out and here we are. >> with cases speaking, hospitals overwhelmed -- >> it's been a lot of uncertainty, and i'm tired. >> -- air travel disrupted, widespread labor shortages including teachers staying home. >> i would appreciate being able to work in an environment where at least the students are all pcr tested weekly. >> criticism is growing over the government's covid response? >> we have to reorient our goal so we get into a manageable state and we can continue with

our normal life while covid is around. >> my doctors this morning, dr. ezekiel emanuel and gounder and mayor lori lightfoot of chicago where schools are closed. president biden hits back on january 6th. >> the former president of the united states of america has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. >> amid worries about the future of american democracy. >> when you've 9,6030 threats against members of congress, that's not a small thing. that is january 6th continued. >> republicans overwhelming prej their loyalty to donald trump. >> i i'll be joined by congress plan adam king zinger, a member of the january 6th committee. >> joining me are nbc chief white house correspondent peter alexander, anna palmer, democratic pollster cornell

belcher and former white house political director under george w. bush, sara fagan. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. as we've said before, as covid goes, so goes joe biden's presidency. right now covid is a major health and political problem. a combination of new variants like delta and omicron and stub born vaccine refusal among millions has led to an all-time high in cases. the seven day average has blown past previous records. that doesn't be girn to account for people who don't report results of at-home tests or asymptomatic. hospitalizations are speaking as well. but the death rate so far has ticked up much more slowly n part to a less severe illness caused by omicron. the public is in a different place than it was a year ago, and the biden administration is desperately trying to catch up.

the cdc has offered confusing and sometimes contradictory advice, the supreme court seems skeptical about the best tool in biden's toolbox, the vaccine mandates, and stay-at-home guidelines and school closures have given us a recurring nightmare. all of it adds up to a big political problem pour the president who pledged to restore confidence in the government's ability to competently handle this crisis. >> the new normal is not going to be what it is now. it i.c.e. going to be better. >> the first step i will take will be to get control of the virus. >> now faces an unprecedented surge. >> the largest influx of patients we've even taken care of. >> nearly one in four hospitals report a critical staff shortage. in maryland covid cases are up 925% since thanksgiving. 70% of the patients are unvaccinated. >> it's very touch. a lot of times you have to take a break, you cry and come back

and do it all over again. >> as omicron spreads, it's already crippling schools including in chicago where schools were canceled this week over an ongoing conflict with the teachers union. >> i want my students to learn. i want my children to learn, but i also want us to stay safe. >> we will not pay you to abandon your post and you children at a time when they and their families need us most. >> nationwide flielts have been canceled. >> how are you feeling? >> angry, because i was supposed to be home yesterday. >> mass transit disrupted. in los angeles so many ambulance crews are out sick, some covid patients have been brought to the hospital by fire truck. >> we're in the middle of a sue family and there's a lot of things that are going to get wealth that wouldn't in a normal wave. >> president biden is promising 500 million free at-home rapid test kits, but he's promised to fix testing for a year. >> we're continuing to work to make at-home testing available.

>> we're committing $2 billion to purchase 300 million rapid tests. >> believe me. it's frustrating to me. but we're making improvements. >> though he promised to restore confidence after the trump white house manipulated guidance for political ends, the cdc is under fire for messaging confusion. >> it's about the cdc toeing the line of whether or not we're basing our guidelines on science. >> on masking. >> once you're fully vaccinated, two weeks after your last dose, you can shed your mask. >> the window for boosters. >> for up to six, eight, perhaps, we don't know. >> six months. >> five months. >> most recently a change to recommendations that people infected with the virus isolate for five days instead of ten without a testing requirement. >> antigen test was actually not authorized for this purpose and it's not -- its information may not be useful. >> people are getting concerned about why not test people at that time. i, myself, think that's a

reasonable thing to do. >> now half a dozen former members of president biden's covid-19 transition advisory board are calling for a new approach. >> it does feel like a bit of a choose your own adventure. >> they argue the country needs a new strategy for a new normal. for covid tests, surveillance, vaccines and therapeutics. >> joining me now is chicago mayor lori lightfoot. slauk schools canceled class over covid safety measures. mayor, welcome to "meet the press". >> my pleasure to be here. >> in some ways, what's happening in chicago is an outsized version of what's happening in a lot of cities and communities. let me start with this. are kids going to be in school this week in chicago? >> i'm doing everything i can to make sure that that happens. to be clear, what the chicago teachers union did was an illegal walkout. they abandoned their posts and abandoned kids and their

families. we're working diligently every single day at the bargaining table to narrow the differences and get a deal done. our team has been working every single day. they're back at it again here sunday. they were at it yesterday. we can get a deal done if there's good will on both sides. fundamentally what we cannot do is abandon the science. we know that the safest place for kids to be is in-person learning in schools. wet spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make our schools safe. they are safe. we've got the data to demonstrate that. we've got to get the teachers union to get real and get serious about getting back to in-person learning. >> i know you're making these demands. what leverage do you have? how can you force this to happen? or are you a little bit at the women of the teachers union. >> the leverage i think we have is we've got the will of the people. parents are outraged and making their outrage known to the

teachers union. this is a very different dynamic than ever before. we've got enormous amount of parent activism. they are writing letters, emails, protests, holding fres conferences. this is an unprecedented level of parent activism all in support of returning to in-person learning. we know why. we live in a district where 70% or more of our kids qualify for free or reduced lunch, which means they live in households that are poor and working class, which means they live in households of single parents, mostly women of color, who have to work to be able to keep the home together. this walkout by the teachers union which is illegal has had cascading, negative ripple effects, not only on the students, their learning, social and emotional welfare, but also on the families themselves. it's making them have tenuous financial status because they have to work, but they also have to take care of their kids.

this is an untenable situation and completely utterly avoidable. i'm going to be on the side of the parents fighting every single day to get our kids back in school. >> what do you do this week, though? the teachers union, they've sent you a proposal, some of the things the public school system have said no to include, for instance, a metric for when remote learning would be triggered. you think it should be -- would you accept a school-by-school metric versus aink is a fair compromise here? >> we already sent them a school-based metric on tuesday when they walked out which they rejected without a response, just saying it's not good enough. last night my team turned around a point-by-point response that deals with school metrics, which deals with testing and a number of the other things that frankly we don't have disagreement on. the biggest issue is remote

testing, remote learning which we categorically reject. we have set up and i think responded to many of their issues regarding testing. i think we can get agreement there. we have put dogg a revised proposal for a school-by-skoog metric, which mirrors what we've been doing, chuck, all along this year. we haven't sad idly by and let covid rage through our schools. when there's been a necessity to shut down a classroom or school, to go to remote learning, we've done that. i think what's really important is of the cases that we can tie to schools, it's 53 outbreaks. an outbreak the defined as two or more. our average is 2.5 kids in the school setting where we believe they may be related to schools. so we're doing what we need to do. we're following the science. what i won't do is allow the teachers union to politicize this surge or the pandemic in

general. people are nervous. they are scared. we get that. but the thing to do is to lean in to the facts and the science and not abandon them in a panic. >> there does seem to be reports that you are short of tests, or the school system is short of tests. the governor apparently made a request to the white house. i know the way the mechanism works, that you'd have to find the extra money. is that going to happen? are you working with the governor for more testing? are you willing to sort of flood the zone even more with certain tests that may not be the same tests that the system is using now? >> yeah. we've been doing that all along. i'm happy to report our public health director found additional tests this week which we notified the union about and we're immediately putting into action. the governor yesterday announced that he would sell us 350,000 additional tests. but what we need is the support of our school nurses who the union las not allowed to be

activated to help on the front lines with this fight. if they're agreeing to support the school testing regime that we are willing to set up, we can get this done. again, we need their cooperation and support and not have them be on the sidelines being critical, throwing bombs. we need them in this fight with us. >> where do you find the extra staff, though, that's needed right now? let's say you didn't have this dispute. you'd still have staff shortages. we're seeing it in schools all over the country. is there a good plan to fill that gap, or as a nation do you think we should be pausing for a week or two if. >> i don't think we should be pausing. again, we've got to follow the science and the science tells us the schools where safe and our kids learn best and are safest in person. what we're doing regarding staffing is providing even more incentives for substitute teachers. we're doing everything we can to continue getting our staff healthy. the reality is the teachers and

the staff -- we've got 92% of them that are vaccinated. so we've got a very highly vaccinated workforce. that, again, isn't the issue. we can't play into fears. we've got to deal with the science and the data and the reality. yes, there's a lot of concern. there's a lot of concern about the spread, but if we work together collaboratively, we can address this issue: no question. >> i've got to let you go. any chance school opens tomorrow? unlikely? >> we're working like the dickens to make sure weet a deal done today, so i remain hopeful. >> all right. mayor lori lightfoot of chicago, illinois, madam mayor, thanks for coming on "meet the press." >> thank you, sir. this week six members of president biden's covid-19 transition advisory board published opinion articles calling for the administration to take a new approach in fighting covid. two are joining me now. dr. ezekiel emanuel is the vice provost of global initiatives of

pennsylvania. dr. celine gounder is an ep deem olgts at the nyu grossman school of medicine and bellevue hospital in new york. welcome to both of you. zeke, i want to put up, basically, almost a thesis you had here in these articles. you write this. without a strategic plan for the new normal with endemic covid-19, more people in the u.s. will unnecessarily experience morbidity and mortality. health inequities will widen and trillions will be lost from the nation's economy. this time is nation must learn and prepare for the future. you say this is not a pandemic anymore. it's an endemic. what changes have to happen now? zeke, you first. >> first, chuck, we're not in the endemic stage, it's still a

pandemic. omicron spreading. we think that over the course of 2022 we will get to an endemic stage, and the plan is -- the proposal is we need a strategic plan for that, that covers vaccines, getting more people vaccinated. and the only way to do that, as we've been very clear over time is plan dates. we got voluntarily to about 60%. to get beyond that, we'll need the employer mandate that osha put out, the health care mandate that cms put out. we need to improve our ventilation system. we need to get more therapies and get the link between a positive test and getting a therapy much closer so you can actually start in three days, and not only the rich and well off get it. those are the kinds of things we need to put in place over the next three months to be prepared when covid is really just in the air, like rsv, other respiratory viruses, inflew enzo,

adenovirus. it going to be here. we're going to learn to live with it. >> dr. gounder, should we be prepared that this is going to be a seasonal thing? and probably, frankly, we'll have a yearly variant? is that how our public health community has to face this? >> chulk, that may well be in our future and how often we need to vaccinate people, we're stil. this also de bends on what are the goals of our public health programs? are we trying to prevent all infections and transmission? to be clear, that's going to be exceedingly difficult even with everybody vaccinated because of the nature of this virus. this is a virus that has a very short incubation period. unless you keep reboosting everybody every four to six months, you're not going to be able to prevent all infections. what we're really proposing is let's focus on what matters the most, hospitalizations and deaths. that's what we focus on for

other respiratory illnesses, like the flew, like rsv. how do we prevent those hospitalizations and death particularly among the most vulnerable, elderly, people immunocompromised, people in long-term care facilities and communities of color and others who have been highly vulnerable during this pandemic. >> zeke, you 3wr5u9 up the issue of mandates and how important it would be. i'm sure you've seen all the reports. at best, maybe the willing mandate makes it through the supreme court. the workplace one may not. what does that mean -- if the vaccine mandate is the best tool in the toolbox and you can't use it as aggressively on the federal level. does that mean testing becomes a bigger priority? >> look, the supreme court has to recognize that covid in the workplace is a real health threat and really does affect many people. unfortunately, many frontline

workers have died from covid and contracting covid in the workplace. they need protection, and mandating vaccination is a quite reasonable protection. i've called for six or eight months now for mandates among health care workers. these are our best tools to get to 90% vaccinated. testing lets us know who is infect infectious, buff it doesn't intervene in the virus whereas vaccines do intervene. they make sure that people who get infected don't get hospitalized at such a high rate and are very, very, very unlikely to die. that's an important protection for people, and we have to make sure that people get it. we will never get to 70%, 80%, 90% of the american population vaccinated without a mandate. it's that simple. for the security to take that away in the midst of an emergency seems to me to be very wrong.

i signed on to an amicus brief because i think it's legal and absolutely vital for the health of the country. >> dr. gounder, i want to talk about the cdc messaging issues and how much of this white hous. we've seen just in the month of december, i want toy home until have passed since your positive viral test. a week later people with covid-19 should isolate for five days, no mention of whether you should test negative before getting out of that. on tuesday, the best approach is to use an antigen test towards the end of a five-day isolation period says the cdc. although the cdc director two weeks ago dismissed whether antigen tests are worthwhile there. how much of this is on the cdc and how much of this is on washington, if you will? >> chuck, this is a great question. i think all of us could have done a much better job from the beginning of saying, look, the one and only thing you can count

on is that the recommendations and guidelines are going to change over time. that is the one thing you can count on. but let's take this example of isolation policy. yes, the cdc came out with rather confusing -- in a sense overly tailored advice trying to fit its advise for every single possible setting, health care, schools, travel, the general public health. yes, the cdc could have done a better job, but there are many other parties that contributed to this issue. you have the sfad under both trump and the biden administrations that has dragged their feet of authorizing this rapid antigen tests for the purpose of assessing are people contagious or not. many of us to do that. we have real world evidence that they're a method of containing oupsness. the fda has to authorize, then the cdc makes recommendations about their use. then you have the manufacturers, the private sector.

they have not been manufacturing enough rapid tests. the white house and the administration certainly could have done more earlier to work with the private sector to create a more stable demand by putting in large-volume orders. then finally on the back end, you have the private sector, everyone from walmart to health care systems that are miss excerpting -- willfully miss excerpting the cdc isolation guidance saying, now you have to go back to work at five days. that guidance is to indicate who is infectious, contagious, a threat to others, not when you're well enough to go back to work. >> very quickly, zeke, are we ready for the next variant? we weren't ready for omicron. are we ready for the next one? >> i think we have to prepare more and get better -- get more vaccines out there, more tests, but also better air quality. people have to wear better masks and be more sc like omicron whee

not that infectious, i think that we can learn to live with it. that's the important point, learn to live with it. >> risk management. it seems like we all need a course in risk management there. zeke emanuel, celine gounder, thank you for coming on. when we come back, i'll talk when we come back, i'll talk to

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at least on that side of the aisle. on thursday's january 6th anniversary, there were conspiracy spreaders, members who condemned the riot of the day but not the man who inspired it, and the few who called it what it was, a violent attack on america's democracy. we have one of the few republicans who has criticized donald trump. congressman kinzinger, welcome back. >> let me start with this. i'm a cynical guy. i've been doing this a long time. on january 7th th, 2021, i think i'm guessing you were there, too. i really thought okay, this is it. this is the breaking point. lindsey graham, enough is enough. count me out. that, it all felt like a moment. how did a year later we go to a republican party that is more in the grips of donald trump than what it was on january 7th of

2021? >> you know, i think we can proba. i'll give you kind of the most rece january 7th, i'll tell you within my republican caucus, there was a lot of sigh lens and discussion where we go from here. and something happened two weeks later, kevin mccarthy went to mar-a-lago. it fought everybody off guard, but in the picture he had with donald trump, and i think kevin told us like i happened to be in florida and he wanted to meet so i was going to meet with him. that was an intentional meeting. that took the paddles that you see on the tv shows, and resurrected donald trump back to life. and i think that one -- i think when history looks back, it will be kevin's meeting with donald trump which actually made him as immediate of a force as it was. he may have come back, but i think that was a very important meeting. >> did donald trump reveal what

the republican party is or change it? >> you know, i think it's actually a little of both. i think on the one hand, donald trump is a symptom of years and years of leaders, profit-driven radio shows, whatever, turning the base into this angry, fearful victimized group of people. who are saying look, you can never get a fair shot. as time goes by, you'll lose more and more political power. keep in mind, republicans still won just about half of every races. but then donald trump came along, and i think unintentionally, because i think he just wanted to be that guy, unintentionally got in front of where people wanted to blow stuff up. it's a little of both. it's fed off each other. the problem is leaders have to interdict this fear and anger cycle, and they're not doing it. they're hiding. >> you're one of the few

republicans that wants to fight within the republican party to change it. i want to play a video you put out earlier this week and ask about it on the other side. >> on this anniversary of january 6th, let's confront the anger, fear, and hopelessness that brought that dark day about. victory won't come in a day, a month, or even a year. victory will come, i promise you that. >> you started your country first organization, but what are you running for? you've announced you're not running for reelection. you announced earlier this week you would not be a candidate. you'd like to see the trumpist wing out of the party who want to see you run for something, and combat this and push back. so what are you running for? >> well, look, i think that was part of the battle is, like, do you stay in the house? do you deal with the everyday, the kind of stupid arguments we have that are the same and

trying to get your 200 views on c-span by argument on the house floor? that's an important role. i've done it for 12 years and i'm more passionate about the country. what is that next in terms of running for anything? i don't know, but i know this country first movement, which has bl up. i know that's a force of people that are angry, and i'm going to go with this. we're going to get involved in primaries. we're announcing a program at tend of january. and it's not even just about the republican party. i think it's important. it's about just restoring our ability to talk to each other and calling out the abuse happening of our voters every time they get that email that says send me $20, otherwise x, y, z, pelosi is going to kill your family. that is abuse of our voters and they need to hear it. >> the biggest problem you have is the information echo chamber. you have information peddlers that people say you in the media need to stand and tell the truth. there's a good portion of us

that do, but 30 % of the country doesn't watch it. you have an algorithm that facebook is essentially mainlined this garbage into people's intellectual veins, if you will. how do you change that? >> you know, i wish i had the answer. that is especially in the last year, something that i've been even increasingly more concerned about. i always believed there would be enough crossover that truth would prevail. the last year has taught me there are people that live in a totally different reality. all i can do is tell the truth and talk about the abuse. because i think if people wake up to the fact that they are actually being financially, emotionally abused by leaders, maybe that will be enough to awaken this giant. but i'm going to tell you if there's nothing to interdict this cycle in five or ten years, we're in trouble. >> the january 6th committee, you're hesitant to get in front of the chair and the vice chair.

if you've got no more information submitted to this committee right now, how much of the story do you think you have? >> i think a significant part. i think where we're at right now, we know a lot of the narrative, and as i've said, i think the most important thing is not even the day of january 6th. it's what led to it. we have a lot of what's out there in the public. what the president himself said. the fact that he was watching for three hours on tv probably gleefullyhile this happened. i think if everything shut down today, we'd be able to put out a substantive narrative. we have more information we want to get. >> give me one thing you don't have yet that you really think you need. a witness, or you need to understand that would make this a stronger report? >> you know, i think the one thing that if i could wave a magic wand and have more information on, it would certainly be what did the

president know about january 6th leading up to january 6th? and i think what's important is it's the difference between was the president absolutely incompetent or encowered on the sixth when he didn't do anything, or did he know what was coming? i think that's a difference between incompetence with your oath and possibly criminal. that's where i want more information. we have some things leading up to that, but the more information we can get, the better. >> adam kinzinger, republican from illinois. i think the last time i had you on i made mention that you represented a part of where my family grew up anyway. it's a wonderful part of the state. thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. >> it's cold. you bet. when we come back -- >> i will stand. i will defend this nation. i will allow no one to place the daggers to the throat of democracy. >> the president during the january 6th anniversary taking rhetorical aim at former

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welcome back. the panel is with us remotely but thank you omicron. anna palmer, founder of punchbowl news. chief white house correspondent peter alexander, cornell belcher and sfan, former white house flit cal director for former president bush. i think the most fitting coda on january 6th was the ted cruz moment with tucker carlson. i have two parts here of ted cruz and his relationship with donald trump. here is how le described january 6th this week. >> we are approaching a solemn

anniversary this week, and it is an anniversary of a violent terrorist attack on the capitol. >> the way i phrased things yesterday was sloppy, and it was frankly dumb. >> it's not the first time we have heard ted cruz say something harsh and walk back. here is a highlight reel. >> donald you're a sniveling coward and leave heidi alone. >> he's laughing at his supporters, mocking his supporters because hep's lying to them. >> do we get behind a campaign that is based on yelling and screaming and cursing and insults. >> do you want do turn on the television and see a president, republican or democrat, who embarrasses you? >> this man is a pathological liar, a caricature of a braggadocious, arrogant buffoon. morality doesn't exist for him. a narcissist at a level i don't think this country has ever seen. >> i am honored that president trump is here endorsing and

supporting mie campaign and i look forward to campaigning alongside him in 2020 for his re-election as president of the united states. >> sara, i'm certain you're very thankful i'm coming to you first on this one. >> of course. >> is he emblematic of what every elected republican has had to do in the age of trump? >> yeah, it's very challenging. all of these candidates running for office have to constantly be looking over their shoulder for a primary. so that is the calculus. it's actually on the left and the right, by the way. but speaking in terms of the republican party, that's what you saw play out there. what ted cruz said on the floor of the senate is what he thought, and it's what was accurate. tucker carlson challenged him, challenged his language and he backed down. it was an easy political calculus. >> is that healthy? >> no, it's not, but it is where

we are, and it's where both parties are. so this is not a unique republican challenge. but le could have easily used a different word than terrorist and wouldn't have been an issue. that's what he recognized. >> anna palmer, how afraid are elected republicans in congress of their voters right now? >> i think what ted cruz did is emblematic of where the party is. that's where the energy of the party is. that's where people that are going to win in 2022, it's really that base vote which is supremely behind trump. it's why they continue to kowtow to him and shift their positioning to be in line with him because they do not want to have to go up against him in primaries or in the general election. >> peter alexander, donald trump had been doing this for a year, and the president had sort of tried to stay above it. then january 6th came.

let me play one more bite from that speech. >> the former president of the united states of america has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. he's done so because he values power over principle. >> why did they wait? >> well, the white house says it was selective on purpose on this issue in conversations with officials over the course of the last several days. they insist the president wasn't elected to go after donald trump, that americans want to see him get things done here. chuck, what struck me watching the president speak this week on the january 6th anniversary, that in a lot of ways that was the real state of the union speech. that's what our state of the union is. whatever he says on march 1st can focus on the agenda, on build back better. there is this burning frustration as it was described to me by some aides that they're witnessing this growing number of americans, 40% i think it is,

of republicans, who say it's okay to use violence against the government right now. the question is how much more will the president implement this messaging perhaps leading up to the midterms. they say the primary focus has to be on getting things done. >> cornell, the ignore trump strategy, whether it's with biden, with mitch mcconnell, there's a lot of people in washington, even mainstream media, even at at which timer or facebook, if we pretend he's not there, if we don't quote his stuff, it's not there. it turns out that is the wrong kalting lus. what do you do now? >> i think you have to do what the president has done. what they've pivoted and started to do is important. one, you do have to fire up the base. we've talked about this before. part of president biden's problems with the job polling numbers have been quite frankly they've dropped among democrats. not enough democrats see him as someone who is fighting, a strong leader taking on the

issues. i thought his speech the other day was a very important speech. he will stand on that bridge, not allow someone to hold a dagger to the neck of democracy. that is firing up base sort of language and laying out for americans, quite frankly, what are the afrt curveballs. you can either choose democracy or choose authoritarianism, and i think it will play out more heading into the midterms. >> sara fagen, is there anything in significant committee could come up with that would turn 75% of the republicans that support trump right now and his mission down to, say, 50? >> i think adam king zinger said if he knew, that perhaps could climate change something. i think most people are conditioned in politics now to disbelieve what comes out of

either partisan side of the aisle. so no matter what that committee pupts out, because there are so few republicans involved and most republicans have dismissed it, the base isn't going to believe anything that comes out of it anyway. here we're focused on trump, understandably so in the aftermath of the one-year anniversary. but we're heading into a year away from primary season. perhaps he runs. perhaps he doesn't. right now 55% of republicans would like somebody else to be the standard-bearer of the republican party. so while he is still the dominant force, a year from now is that 65% -- he is ultimately at some point going to become a fading member of the party. someone new will emerge. >> sara, i've heard this from a lot of republicans. maybe you're right. anna palmer, it seems like mitch mcconnell has been betting on

the fade for a year, and it didn't come to fruition. >> i think that's right. i also think it's an important point, whether it's trump that runs or not, it's the brand of politics that he represents, and that is a growing part of the house conference in particular, but also in the senate. when you look at some of these other republicans who could potentially run, they're also running in that same vein. it's not as if establishment republicans will see some resurgence here. >> all right. i'm going to pause it there. go ahead, real fast, sara. it's tough on remote. >> i know. i think that many of these republicans, though, when you think of ron desantis, the chris christies of the world, they're a niesz bridge between president bush and donald trump rhetorically. their policies are more like a president bush than donald trump. so i don't necessarily agree with that. >> all right. i'm going to pause it there. when we come back, does america, when we come back, does america, the nation of

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welcome back. "data download" time. a look into one factor that could be contributing to the worker shortages we been seeing as we entered 2022. it's led to simply what's known now as the great resignation. there's another factor we might be overlooking. that's this: fewer immigrants coming into the country looking for work and filling some of these jobs. look at this. over the last six years, net international migration into the united states, we were at a million in 2016. as you know, immigration got heavily politicized over this six-year period. look what it's dribbled down to, 247,000 through midyear 2021. so what does this mean? well, foreign-born workers work

more often in the servi industries than native-born working. also in natural resources and construction work, more foreign born workers there than native born. we're seeing labor shortages into service industries than here. when you have fur immigrants looking for these jobs, it adds to the problem. then you can talk about the cost. we've heard companies say rising wages mean rising costs. native born workers make more money. first year immigrants, they make less. we can have a longer conversation about that distinction. the fact of the matter is this, in the united states this is what kept our economy growing, if you will. it's been more immigrant labor. the politicization of immigration has made members of both parties not want to deal with the fact that we're short of workers and the biggest reason why is a lack of immigration. when we come back, democrats

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welcome back. peter, you blade reference to the state of the union. in some days you said january 6th was that. we have an official date for it, march 1st. tuesday the president goes to georgia to talk about voting rights. is this a real push to get it passed, or is this convenient timing because, one, build back better is on ice and two, it's january -- between january 6th and the mlk holiday they feel they should be talking about it. >> it's not clear they'll make progress on build back better or march 1st state of the union. white house officials acknowledge this as an issue that animates the base. they say they're in lockstep

with chuck schumer as relates to voting rights. the reason they're going to georgia is because of the recent election disputes that have taken place down there, the cradle of the civil rights movement. the president would support a filibuster carve out if necessary. white house officials acknowledge they're still in the same place. they can't get joe manchin and kyrsten sinema on board with this. it's not clear they're anywhere different than they were many months ago. there are voting rights groups in georgia saying don't come unless you have a concrete plan. there is no better concrete plan to get those folks on board and how do they do that? >> cornell, has anything changed in the last six months on this iss? is there a new strategy that we don't know about that's going to magically pass this bill? >> well, look, one of the things that's important coming from the white house is actually when the president gets behind something and if he gets behind something,

you can roll out and make change. it is an all hands on deck effort by the white house to move this along. they do see the urgency. senator schumer talked about last week that, look, there's a threat to our democracy. this actually buttonholes well with the conversation pivoting off january 6th. the majority of americans right now think our democracy is weaker than it was before. you have over 70% of americans who think january 6th is an attack on our drats. this is not about even sort of just the base, although you've got to an mate the base around this fight. there's a swath of middle america, chuck, that thinks our drats is under attack and the president needs to politically talk to them and mobilize them as well. i think if the president and vice president are out there barnstorming, making this a top of the list issue concern, i think we can get movement on it. >> cornell, we don't live in a

vacuum. does covid ba it just seems unrealistic. >> covid is a giant x factor. i sat in focus groups -- i actually got to do it online now. i sat at my laptop looking at focus groups, covid is a big well blanket over americans. they're concerned about when the next shoe is concerned, concerned about whether or not we're going go back into lockdown. a lot of anxiety about that. the president is doing the best he can. a lot of this entrenchment is coming from republicans, over a third of republicans saying they definitely won't get the vaccination. also, you brought up ron desantis up earlier. he's on the hot seat now for not allowing a stockpile of tests to go to waste. so there is this big co-individual problem that's a wet blanket over thepresidency. >> sara fagen, is there any

penalty for republicans being seen as not on the side of this issue? >> i think -- first of all, overwhelmingly it's easier to vote in the united states than it ever has been. so much of the around voting rights is really about animating the democratic base. americans overwhelmingly support voter id. it eepsz easy in the united states and it's free if you can't afford it. so much of this is about mobilizing the base. for most americans, particularly independent americans, they recognize that. this is an issue that's not going to pass, and i think this is just about the base. >> anna palmer -- >> i've got to get in here chuck, push back on my friend sara about how easy it is to vote in america. it's not easy, if you look like me and in georgia, standing in line six or seven hours to vote. it's not easy to vote in america if you happen to look like me.

that's been done intentionally. republicans have intentionally shut down voting polls for places that cater to minorities and people who actually vote democratic. you've seen over 200 laws pass over this last year since the power of young people and black voters turned and flipped states and hispanic votes flipped states. that's not by accident, sara. it's harder to vote in american than it ever was. >> the fact is it's more open in the south than it is even in the northeast, cornell. the reality is early vote, ab bente vote, these have been growing for the last decade. every year more and more people vote by these means. i just don't think that's accurate. >> it's been growing, but have you see what the state legislative bodies have been doing? it has been growing and more americans have been voting, and now they're pulling those things back. >> i hate having to stop, but unfortunately that is what happens when you some have a

one-hour show. that's all we have for today. a terrific panel. we'll be back next sunday. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

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