all right, that's going to do it for us tonight on this beautiful christmas eve eve. we'll see you again tomorrow. as we prepare to mark the new year, we also know that means january 6th is coming. one year since the attack on the capitol. i sat down recently with three of the officers who testified before the american people about being attacked that day. the one officer trapped in that doorway and all three of them kept coming back to one word in this interview. they kept saying accountability and they told me that means if it leads right to the very top, we want accountability. do you agree with those officers? >> i think accountability is necessary. look -- >> that means if it goes to -- >> no matter where.

those responsible should be held accountable. >> well, hello, everyone. namaste. one year anniversary of january 6th is rapidly approaching and despite pronouncements like that one from president biden, those responsible should be held to account, we have yet to see anyone but the rioters themselves face consequences for the attack on the united states capitol last january 6th. that's the focus of a new op-ed by three legal experts in "the new york times" who say the justice department has a responsibility to prevent donald trump and allies from getting away with inciting an insurrection. lawrence prescribe, donald air and dennis aftergut write, merrick garland's success depend oz on ensuring that the rule of law endures. he cannot do so without a robust criminal investigation of those

at the top, from the people who planned, assisted or funded the attempt to overturn the electoral college vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob to attack the capitol. to begin with, he might focus on mark meadows. steve bannon, rudy giuliani, john eastman, and even donald trump. all of whom were involved in one way or another in the events leading up to the attack. however, all seems quiet on this front over at the doj. curiously. we'll talk about that in a second. but the same time the house select committee's investigation of the deadly insurrection looks to be moving swiftly and with force and precision. the second house member faced a request from the committee this week, congressman jim jordan, responded to the letter he got from the -- from the 1/6 committee on fox news criticizing the panel, but also said his team is still reviewing the request and intends to answer at some point. as we wait to hear whether jim

jordan will cooperate, there is someone who looks not just desperate, but like way beyond desperate. wildly desperate. out of control desperate. to hide information from the committee. and that's the former president himself. earlier today, donald trump continued his attempts to block the committee from obtaining white house records from the national archives asking the supreme court to reverse a ruling two weeks ago which rejected soundly his claims of executive privilege. and just now we're learning that the 1/6 select committee asked the supreme court to act quickly on trump's appeal. lawyers saying that moving quickly is warranted because of the indisputable importance and urgency of the select committee's investigation. the effort is under way to hold those responsible for january 6th to account is where we begin this hour. joining us, neal katyal, georgetown law professor, msnbc

contributor, and quite adept downhill skier. also mike murphy and kurt andersen, author of countless books, most recently "evil geniuses." good to see you. neal, thank you for coming off the slopes to see us. i appreciate that. i know you're bummed we didn't get to talk at 4:20, our original plan. i ask you, assess the legal merits of what the president is trying to accomplish here. and what the likely outcome of those efforts are. >> okay. so, donald trump today went to the supreme court and said protect my executive privilege, i'm not going to turn over these documents, this information and the like. he has been soundly rejected in that claim by our nation's second highest court, the d.c. circuit, in a 68-page opinion. he's asking the supreme court today to reverse that. and to hear his case.

it is a weak filing at best, john. i don't think the u.s. supreme court will hear his case. you don't have to. ordinarily the request by a former president they will. but this one is really weak. the petition is swings big, it says congress has ill intentions because representative schiff went on late night tv once. and these are the same arguments that were made before in the court of appeals. i don't think it is going anywhere. there is one very striking thing in this petition that donald trump has filed, he says, quote, he's more than an ordinary citizen. and should get special rights. and, you know, that's the thing about living democracy. for every president before trump, except perhaps richard nixon, they understood that. and so at stake is not just the documents, the 800 pages or so that congress is trying to get. it is also a really simple and important constitutional principle, is president trump somehow better than the rest of

us? does he now not have to tell the truth to congress and tell his minions not to tell the truth to congress? >> kurt, back in the day, you and graden carter, you thought donald trump was more than an ordinary citizen too. you named him the short fingered bulgarian. now he's a short fingered bulgarian ex-president who is also really desperate. how does this play to the ordinary american citizen watching donald trump kind of scrambling, furiously, constantly over and over again to make sure information that a lot of people would be interested in seeing doesn't ever see the light of day? >> i expect it is different than when he was president. i think people do grant a president and his followers certainly and his supporters certain, you know, presidential set of rights and oh, you're just bothering him. i think this is probably different. the question about his

desperation, looks desperate, you're right, is how much can we infer from that apparent desperation to keep this secret? and that's really the question of all these guys. i mean, in the case of scott perry, we talked about the other day, who said i'm not giving you anything, the congressman from pennsylvania, it makes you -- it suggests there must be something there. with jim jordan, the last 24 hours, he says i'm thinking about it, you think perhaps he's not as guilty. so since we don't know what the various subpoenaed materials would depict, in any of those cases, we can only infer. as you say, with donald trump, it looks bad. why would he spend the time to go to this -- as neal said, this -- carry on this incredibly unusually weak case if he didn't care deeply about what might be

dug up. >> mike, you've run a lot of campaigns in your day. and a fair number of them, i know, as they come down to the wire. you find yourself employing a run out the clock strategy. so what donald trump and his minions are doing now must be familiar to you in the political context. i'm curious whether you think that we can all keep all kinds of scorn and mockery on this, but in fact that there is some sense to it, if you think that, as i think you do, republicans are likely to take control of one house or two or more in the midterm elections, is this a strategy that is pathetic, but could be effective? >> well, watching trump now, i'm reminded of the old southern political cliche that the guilty dog barks the loudest. i'm hearing a lot of barking. i got my law degree by mail from trump university, so i can't figure out the court appeals, but the experts seem to think it looks pretty weak.

i think they're trying to stretch out the clock here. the substance of this is really bad for trump, and he looks worse and worse. now, i do not -- i think in the first quarter it is going to get worse for him legally. maybe criminal referrals out of the january 6th committee. i think they're appropriate. but in the larger picture, it is not what the midterm elections will hinge on. if you like trump, you're going to think, it is part of the conspiracy. if you don't like trump, you're going to get even more enraged. both sides might have a turnout advantage from that. but i think bigger forces are going to drive the general election. mostly driven by what people think of president biden and how he's doing. that's kind of the law of gravity in these midterm elections. >> so, neal, back to the legal thing again i want to read to you more from the tribe air and aftergut op-ed. they say this all -- there is a huge role here for the attorney general merrick garland to play and let me read what they say. and yet there are no signs at least in media reports that the attorney general's building a case against the individuals,

the one we talked about earlier, including donald trump, mark meadows, et cetera, no interviews with top administration officials, in reports of attempts to persuade, the foot soldiers to turn on the people who incited the violence. by this point of the russian investigation, robert mueller had indicted paul manafort and rick gates and secured the cooperation of george papadopoulos after charging him with lying to the fbi. the media was reporting the special counsel's team had conducted or scheduled interviews with mr. trump's aide steven miller and mr. bannon and jeff sessions. we know how the mueller thing turned out, neal. didn't end up -- ended up being a big squibb even though its report was damning. you look at the justice department and merrick garland, do you agree with the authors of this op-ed that it seems like there is not enough going on in the halls of that august building? >> well, it is an extraordinarily good op-ed as i said on twitter earlier this morning. i agree with a large part of it.

i guess it is possible, the authors admit this possibility that merrick garland is waiting for congress to do its work first before starting to get involved. you don't want to have necessarily dual overlapping investigations that could mess things up. at the same time, i am, like those authors, just really deeply concerned that we're not going to get to the bottom of this. that, you know, that it could go the other way. it reminds me in that sense of the november 2020 election, which, you know, was really close and but for a few people like judge michael ludig going to vice president pence or the michigan county board doing the right thing, everything could have been upside down. and that's the same thing that could happen with this january 6th investigation. congress has taken a long time to investigate. and they have been met with unprecedented intransigence. there is eight separate lawsuits filed by trump folks against the 1/6 committee to try to prevent them from getting access to information. it is like federal court is

looking like a trump reunion at this point, former advisers, i don't know if the willard was full or something, all filing their only lawsuits basically saying saying stop this investigation, and the like. i don't think those lawsuits go anywhere, but it goes to that earlier question you were asking about can they delay and run out the clock? i'm a little worried about that at this point. i think everything has to be done really quickly. i'm glad the supreme court filing is today. and, you know, i think i suspect they'll deal with that in short order. >> so i want to play a little sound here and i'll talk to you about it. if it is the case, whatever happened to the justice department, it is in contrast to what seems to be happening on the 1/6 committee. he was asked about whether the committee is going to be able to get to jim jordan and some of these other republican members of the house that the committee now seems to have in its sights. let's listen to what adam schiff had to say and we'll talk about

it. >> if he doesn't cooperate, are you allowed to subpoena other members of congress? can you do that? >> we can do that. there is no prohibition against us subpoenaing a member of congress. in the recent past, for example, the russia investigation, we requested two members of congress, one democrat, one republican, to come and voluntarily testify and they did. it wasn't necessary to compel them. we wished it wouldn't be necessary to compel members here. mr. jordan indicated earlier in the year he said he had nothing to hide and we hoped that he therefore would come forward. we'll find out soon enough. but that is one of the other tools that we will have to consider. >> mike, you and i are old enough to remember when the only thing more unusual than a congressional committee threatening to or in fact subpoenaing a sitting member of congress was the possibility that under those circumstances the sitting member of congress would defy the subpoena. so i ask you, you know, this all -- it feels like this

committee is like we're going to do whatever we need to do to get to the bottom of this. and the question i have for you is knowing the republicans in this -- in their current incarnation as you do, is there anything that this committee can do to jim jordan and others to make them give the kind of testimony that would actually help us figure out what happened on 1/6. >> well, i think they're going to resist in every way they can. again, guilty dogs barking loudly. i think the committee has certain powers to increase pressure on them. what i would be worried about if i were on the trump side of this equation is if this hits a boiling point with the committee, and there are subpoenas and defying and all that, that may give -- that may give a push for the justice department to act and get aggressive, which i hope is what happened. i think they have a lot of indirect pressure. but there is almost -- with the exception of kinzinger and cheney who are heroes here, there is no good faith on the republican side in the house on

this, at least the public. and, you know, the problem is the whole system is built on the presumption of honorable people. we have some dishonorable ones here trying in my view to cover up a horrendous seditious crime. i think the committee ought to do the most maximum thing it can and it is going to, i think, come down to garland and will he act and i hope he does. >> i want to ask you, kurt, neal, this quick question. if they end up subpoenaing jim jordan and jordan defies the subpoena, can they -- can you hold a sitting member of congress in contempt of congress? >> yeah, they could certainly try and do that. but for reasons i think your question gets at, courts are reluctant to do that and referee a kind of internal congressional dispute. so i think at that point it will be up to congress to go and use its contempt authority to go and essentially jail jim jordan for failing to tell the truth. >> kurt, i want to get the big picture from you. we talked the other day about the differences in similarities

of this situation with what happened to nixon and watergate and the great podcast you did about watergate. there is a story in politico about -- by tom rice, a republican congressman, who says now he regrets his decision. i read this to you. the south carolinian said he believes there was real issues with the election, but among the ten house republicans who voted to impeach then donald trump over the insurrection, rice is the only one who voted for certification challenges to biden's win. now he says he regrets casting those votes. in retrospect, i should have voted to certify, rice told politico, because president trump was responsible for the attack on the capitol. in the wee hours of that disgraceful night, i knew i should vote to certify, but because i had made a public announcement of my intent to object, i did not want to go back on my word. i regret my vote to object. this is kind of -- talk about a dog that is barking in the

night, we rarely hear dogs barking like this from this republican party. do you think that there is -- that this is just such an extreme outlier given the way the republicans have been complicit, or is there a possibility this is something we might see more of as we move forward toward the elections in 2022 and as more information comes to light in the committee and maybe the doj's investigation about january 6th? >> well, first of all, let's remember, important to remember that the time -- the clock can be run out on the house should the republicans take the majority of the year. merrick garland and the department of justice has three more years. that clock isn't going to be run out. so whatever we think of what merrick garland has or hasn't done in terms of january 6th, three more years in which to do it. i look back at what -- at the last week. we had forgotten what happened last week with mitch mcconnell, a couple of different times saying, oh, no, we're interested in seeing what this 1/6

committee does and who is involved and we're very interested. unlike the fellow you mentioned, he's going to be in office, he's not leaving and therefore doesn't have that as the way to suddenly tell the truth about -- and be honest about the need for accountability. so i still take whatever his intentions were, obviously we had a couple of days of speculation about what they were, i would -- until he goes back on that, we're interested in january 6th, i think there might be space for the mcconnell evil genius rational leaders of the republican party to begin distancing themselves from the -- what happened on january 6th, especially -- we don't know what either the 1/6 committee or god knows the justice department has on for instance members of the house. so one can imagine that mitch mcconnell, in creating a little

distance, could be simply the preface for providing more distance for the few republicans who might not go over the cliff in support of the -- what happened on january 6th. >> kurt is spinning a -- the kind of scenario that seemed almost impossible to imagine over the course of the past months, but who knows. maybe at this holiday season there is a chance for all of us to dream. kurt andersen, mike murphy, thank you. neal katyal, sticking around. up next, today's breaking news. kim potter guilty of manslaughter in the death of daunte wright. the 20-year-old black man in minnesota. president biden's federal vaccine mandates, which the administration says will save lives, coming before the conservative supreme court in a matter of days in a rare special session. we'll get neal on that. and what omicron can tell us about where covid-19 is headed next and how many new variants

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we are staying on the big breaking news we've been dealing with over these past few hours, around former minnesota police officer kim potter who was found guilty of both first and second degree manslaughter for fatally shooting 20-year-old daunte wright a little over eight months ago just outside minneapolis, a deadly incident that occurred when the country was watching the final days of the derek chauvin trial, the killing of george floyd, which took place in the same courtroom where the guilty verdict was handed down today. minutes after that verdict, minnesota attorney general keith ellison spoke directly to law enforcement about what this moment means for them today and about the long road ahead. >> we don't want you to be discouraged. your community respects and appreciates you. we want you to uphold the

highest ideals of our society and ideals of safety. and when a member of your profession is held accountable, it does not diminish you. in fact, it shows -- it shows the whole world that those of you who enforce the law are also willing to live by it. and that's a good thing. it restores trust, faith, and hope. >> joining us now, civil rights attorney general and former prosecutor david henderson. david, i saw you on our air earlier, right after the verdict came down, right after keith ellison spoke, and you were talking about how surprised you were by the outcome and what -- and you said you thought it was a game changer, this verdict. i want you to go into a little bit of detail there. i was struck by the analysis and i wanted you to elaborate on it so talk about why you were surprised and why you think it means so much. >> john, absolutely. to start with why i'm surprised. if you take a strict reading of the law, in terms of what the state had to prove, i disagree with one of the key arguments

they made in close. a mistake is not a crime, unless it rises to the level of having the requisite criminal intent to convict someone. that was a tough argument to make here until kim potter took the stand. when i was actually watching her testimony to try to figure out how i was going to analyze it, i got to be honest, i was on chuck todd when this happened, what she said was so offensive and so ridiculous, it changed my view of the correct way to interpret the laws that apply to her case and here's the other thing. and this is why some people don't like jury trials. juries don't strictly adhere to the law so much as what they do what they believe is right. by the time you heard her testify, this does seem like the right outcome and it's a satisfying outcome in that regard. in terms of the impact it's going to have, it's going to have an impact on other similar cases that are in the pipeline that are going to have a dramatic impact on police reform in our country. >> you pointed earlier, and you

just did, to her testimony was a turning point in the case. we saw the outcome of the kyle rittenhouse case where it's dramatic for someone to take the stand, risky move, rittenhouse broke down and people said that was a key turning point in his favor in that case. in this case, a similar thing happened, she broke down, she was in tears, and you're saying, her testimony was so ridiculous that it changed your mind on the law. what was it about her testimony and her breakdowns that were so ridiculous that -- little more detail why it had the kind of impact it had on you and why it was such a bad miscalculation on their part for her to play it that way. >> so, john, what this all comes down to is what constitutes an effective, well-orchestrated trial strategy and you can't take one piece of the trial and separate it out from what should have been done in the context of the case overall. now that the case is done, i don't mind saying this, what the defense should have done and the fact that they didn't do this is telling.

what they should have done from opening statement is they should have said, been practicing law for decades and this is the first time, i have to say, i agree with the prosecution. this young man should not be dead. the fact that he is, it's a tragedy and no one believes that more than my client, and she's going to get on the stand and tell you so herself. she's responsible, and it was wrong, but she's also going to tell you it was a mistake. and for that reason, it's not a crime. that's what they should have done. they also should not have tried to blame daunte for his death, which is what they did. when you combine those two things together, when they put her on the stand, she was testifying to things that weren't even consistent with what you saw at the scene, like, for example, that she feared she needed to use deadly force. that's completely inconsistent with the evidence. inconsistent with what happened at the scene. not to mention the fact that she said that for over 20 years, she's been a police officer, wanted to be one for even longer than that because she wanted to help someone and the time in her career when someone needed her help the most, she didn't even try.

she just sat down and cried over the consequences for wrongful action that she took. juries aren't going to like that. >> i'm going to read to you, just a look towards the future, something from the "new york times," which says, this is today, criminal charges against officers are still rare. according to data kept by a research team led by stinson, a criminal justice professor at bowling green state university, 21 officers have been charged this year with murder or manslaughter in connection with an on-duty shooting. while that figure is increased from 2020, when 16 officers were charged, and the highest annual total since 2005, it remains small next to the roughly 1,100 people a year who are killed by the police in america. quote, it seems to be business as usual, mr. stinson said. it's very, very difficult to make systemic change. so i want to come back to your point about why this verdict is a game changer. does that -- is the nature of this verdict and the implications of it, does it make it easier for there to be

systemic change on this front? >> you know, john, what it makes it easier is going to come down to what different people choose to do, prosecutors and jurors in different jurisdictions, but let's go back to something else that you pointed out. whether or not this case is a game changer actually began in grand jury. i was surprised this case made it out of the grand jury with a true bill, meaning, it could move forward to trial, and i can't help but notice how many similar cases with similar facts, cases with even stronger facts, to be frank, never made it to that stage. breonna taylor's case is an example. this case demonstrates that prosecutors can get grand juries to go along with prosecuting police officers when they want to. it also shows that when they're dedicated to the case, even when it's a case that honestly is a close call when you look at it prior to trial, which is not a good thing when the state has to prove its burden beyond a reasonable doubt, even in a case like this, they can get successful outcomes, so it's

harder to justify not moving forward when the police engage in wrongful conduct after this verdict and like i said, the killing of atatiana jefferson, elijah mcclain, just to name a few are quoing going to give us a chance to witness that firsthand. >> david henderson, thank you for bringing clarity and insight to our air all the time and particularly for spending this time with us today. coming up, the vaccine mandates that have prompted rare expedited hearings before the u.s. supreme court. ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us

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so let's say hypothetically you grabbed a pen and yellow legal pad and you had the goal of listing out every policy decision the biden administration has made over the past year. now let's say you sorted that list out by the sheer number of americans directly affected by each policy, somewhere on the top of that list, you would find the initiative surrounding vaccine mandates. now, in an unusual special session, the u.s. supreme court is set to hear arguments on two aspects of that initiative. first, related to certain healthcare workers and the second, related to the requirement to either be vaccinated or take a covid test if you work for a large employer. that second requirement affects more than 84 million workers and according to the administration, would prevent nearly a quarter of a million hospitalizations, so it's a big deal. we are back with neal katyal to dig into why the supreme court

is looking at these cases, how it got to scotus and what the likely outcome might be but let's start with that. "the new york times" says, under a 1970 law, osha has the authority, the occupational safety and health administration, has the authority to issue emergency rules for workplace safety provided it can show that workers are exposed to a grave danger and that the rule is necessary. last week after the challenges were consolidated in cincinnati, a divided three-judge panel reinstated the measure. so now this ends up at the supreme court. talk to us about how unusual this is and what's going to play out there. >> okay, so, john, it's extremely unusual. the supreme court almost never hears oral argument on motions on an emergency basis, but i'm really glad they are, and they almost had to because of something we were talking about, john, you and i, yesterday on the show, which is, trump managed to stack the lower courts with a bunch of really ideological judges, several of whom have called the biden

administration's vaccine policies into question. and so, that's why the court has agreed to hear these cases, to review these lower court decisions, and you're absolutely right that the osha act, that 1970 law, has very broad language in it that allows an emergency rule if a rule is necessary to shield workers from a dangerous substance, and osha has a lot of different regulations. indeed, there used to be an instagram account with 650,000 followers on it making fun of just how much osha regulates. and if osha can regulate, like, having open water bottles in the workplace, i kind of think they should be able to regulate things like pandemic response and the like, and it's astounding to me that these republican governors have come in challenging this in the court. it's kind of brave for them. if i had botched that many, you know, caused that many deaths by my pandemic response, i'd never show my face in public again, but these folks are going and

filing lawsuits. it's kind of like, you know, paul von hindenburg going on a national blimp tour. >> it's a good thing you're not a republican governor, neal, because we wouldn't have you on the show, you'd have your head hidden in the sand. the second case relates to healthcare workers and you mentioned the republican governors, it has to do with the requirement that healthcare workers at hospitals that receive federal money be vaccinated against the coronavirus. there's, you know, there's been objections to all that but the thing i really want to get to here is, you just pointed out, the lower courts, stacked with conservative justices, many people would say, u.s. supreme court also stacked with conservative justices. "the new york times" says this. the supreme court has repeatedly upheld state vaccine mandates in a variety of settings against constitutional challenges but the new cases are different because they primarily present the question of whether congress has authorized the executive branch to institute the requirements. the answer will mostly turn on the language of the relevant statutes, but there is reason to think that the court's six-justice conservative

majority will be skeptical of broad assertions of executive power. the last time the supreme court considered a biden administration program addressing the pandemic, which was a moratorium on evictions, the justices shut it down. so, "times" there expressing some skepticism and kind of reinforcing the cynicism of a lot of people who think the supreme court is no better in terms of its ideological slant than those lower courts. what say you? >> well, i think it's hard for the supreme court to strike down these biden vaccine initiatives because this is, after all, the supreme court that defers to presidents when it comes to public safety, and that's a signature of the john roberts court, and most poignantly, you know, donald trump banned muslims from coming into the united states, and he ran on that platform, and i challenged that on behalf of the state of hawaii, and lost it in the supreme court 5-4 and what the supreme court said in that decision was that, when you have a statute that has some ambiguity in it, presidents get a certain amount of leeway for

public safety and if you can ban muslims in the name of public safety, i kind of think you should be able to have some vaccine policies as well. and i think this court is going to face a real dilemma in thinking about the material consequences of its actions if it tries to strike this down. i mean, you don't need to be a scientist to know that higher vaccination rates are good for everyone. i mean, heck, even donald trump thinks that vaccines are saving lives. that's what he said yesterday. and he's about as far as you can get from a scientist. so, i think it's a really hard thing for the court to strike down, so i guess i disagree a little bit with the "new york times" and its prognosis of this, because i think this is just so compelled by public safety, and i really hope the supreme court sees it that way. >> real quick, neal, one last thing, right? both these cases were on the shadow docket, a phrase that i believe until about six months ago, almost no americans had any idea what the shadow docket was. they still don't really understand what it means except there's some sense these are

emergency applications to the court and they sometimes matter a lot. the texas abortion cases are one example of something on the shadow docket. can you just give us -- there's been a lot of criticism, and some of it, i think, people are -- when you hear shadow docket, it sounds pretty sinister. i ask you, is it sinister, and do you think there's legitimate criticisms of how the shadow docket works and particularly in the cases that we've seen, including these? >> yeah, so, the shadow docket is this kind of emergency, rush to the supreme court after a lower court makes a certain decision, and what the critics are saying is, the supreme court's hearing these -- not even hearing these cases. they're just making decisions based on, you know, a quick filing based on the parties' submissions, and i agree with the criticism. they've been doing it too much. i think, you know, emergency motions have always been there. but with the trump administration did is make it an art form. they ran to the supreme court, i think, more than a couple dozen times. when i was in the justice department, i think we ran to

the supreme court, like, once or twice over that same period of time so it was like, you know, it's a much different set of uses of what the supreme court's doing and i think the supreme court's heard the criticism. i think that's why they're hearing oral argument on this as opposed to the rent moratorium case you mentioned a moment ago in which the supreme court just decided that on its shadow docket. >> neal, i won't tell anybody where you are, but you did put on twitter a picture of that ski slope and i won't say what state it's in. i think i know. please go out there and do a double black diamond for me and don't die in the process, okay? >> i will. >> thank you for spending time with us. >> i will, my friend. thank you. >> talk to you soon. up next, a look beyond the omicron surge and how science is working to stay ahead of this rapidly mutating and metastasizing virus.

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levels we saw last winter when 250,000 people were testing positive every day in the united states. but assuming that omicron isn't the end to our battle against the virus, what's coming next? and are scientists and government officials ready? new york city leaders addressed the unknown this week saying they're working to remain best prepared for what's next and bringing its back to the basics, reminding the city that vaccines and boosters are our number one tools to prevent more variants from emerging. let's bring in laurie garrett, pulitzer prize winning journalist, msnbc science contributor. i start this with you. you have been someone who's been -- has looked at this, at covid from the very beginning and has been on the leading edge of seeing just how tough our future is going to be. as bad as it is right now, how bad do you think it's going to get if we get past omicron? >> well, first of all, getting

past omicron is going to be quite an ordeal. we're certainly going to top a million cases a day sometime in early january. that looks to be the consensus view from multiple forecasting analyses presented to the centers for disease control. if we look at what comes next, what might be the next version of this virus, we're not doing any of the things we should be doing to forestall the inevitable, to somehow be on top of it and know what's coming and prevent the worst of it. what would those entail? well, i recently wrote in foreign policy and analysis of why leaving millions, tens of millions of hiv positive people in africa either untreated or undertreated means that we have walking petri dishes of immunocompromised individuals who can have covid in their

bodies and the virus can just keep mutating and mutating and mutating inside of them. we have documented cases of people who have harbored covid in their bodies for upwards of 100 days because of undertreated or untreated hiv, and of course, the epidemic has disrupted hiv services. around the world, we have people who have immunocompromised situations due to cancer and a variety of other, you know, genetic disorders and so on, that are going untreated because of the nature of their health systems, because of poverty, and again, these are all a risk to all of us. we just ignore this, we allow these social inequities and health inequities to persist, and we do so at our own peril. guaranteeing there will be new mutants, new strains, they will continue to evolve, and then on top of everything else, john, i'm very worried that this new set of drugs that look promising for early stage treatment,

before you get hospitalized, to prevent you from hospitalization, that these drugs will get used willy-nilly, incorrectly, the way we do antibiotics, and of course, misuse of antibiotics promotes mutant bacterial development. so, you put it all together, and we just keep making the same darn mistakes. >> right. so, laurie, here's a kind of layman's -- the optimistic layman's assessment, and it's not -- i'm not propounding this, i'm just -- i think there's a lot of this thought out there in the world, which is, you know, this variant is obviously very transmissible, obviously very contagious, but if you're double vaxxed and boosted, it's not -- you're probably not going to end up in the hospital, you're going to be fine. that's a thing that's out there, right? and so, you know, as we get these new drugs come online and the pills come online, and we're already talking to -- israel's talking about fourth doses of vaccines, we're going to get to the point where, yeah, there will be more mutations and variants

but this will eventually be like the flu. and we're going to take the pills, get the shots and it is all going to recede, going to be a fact of life forever, but it is going to get more manageable and more manageable. is that a fantasy that by which i mean do you foresee more a world in which the variants that we face down the road become more transmissible, more infectious, more deadly as opposed to more manageable? >> well, that scenario, of course, is voiced all over the place and it is what's keeping wall street alive and well. yes, maybe. but not on any timetable that is go to be in the immediate future. and more importantly, as long as we continue to have such tremendous global inequity, in the distribution of all those assets you just described, there will constantly be new waves of

infection. this isn't like the flu. because in many ways it is more contagious than the flu. certainly in casual settings. and because unlike the flu, it is relatively common for people who haven't have not had access to vaccines to end up hospitalized and serious conditions. i am really quite fearful that we'll make these darn mistakes. we have such an in-depth political structure. with my nation being more important than your neighborhood and i get the masks and the syringes and the heck with the rest of you. as long as that's the way we approach this pandemic, we'll have a surprise and another

surprise. this time it was south africa and next time it could be the philippines or some place in southeast asia or latin america. we are not playing a game that allows us to be in charge of the virus. the virus is meeting everything. we are in reactive mode constantly. >> got to get out of that mode. i am not sure what's going to do it for us but we'll keep talking about it and how it happens. thank you for spending some time with us today, we'll be back after a quick break. be back after a quick break. so, we want kisqali. women are living longer than ever before with kisqali when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant in postmenopausal women with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant alone. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death.

it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. avoid grapefruit during treatment. ask your doctor about living longer with kisqali. there's a different way to treat hiv. it's once-monthly injectable cabenuva. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections,

given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. if you switch to cabenuva, attend all treatment appointments. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. ask your doctor about once-monthly cabenuva.

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we tell ourselves stories in order to live, those were the words of joan didion passed away today at the age of 87. she was one of the most impactful and influential writer of the 20th century. she captures and channels the chaos of orders and things falling apart and not holding in the 1960s and 1970s as well as anyone who held a pen. she wrote unsparingly and she wrote about everything including the sudden death of her husband and daughter. i could talk more about her but rather to hear her first. it came from a commencement address that she gave in 1975 in

california, riverside where she said this. i am not telling you to make the world better because i don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. i am just telling you to live in it. not just to endure and just suffer, not just to pass through it but live with it. live recklessly and take chances and make your own work and take pride in it and seize the moment. if you ask me why you should bother to do all that. i could tell you that the grave's line. and that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it. joan didion, one of a kind. that does it for this hour, thank you all of you for watching. happy christmas and holidays. our coverage continues. holidays our coverage continues -weekly o®

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good morning and welcome to a special edition of "morning joe," we are on tape this christmas eve morning. we have plenty of great conversations and interviews we hope you enjoy. let's dive right in. there may be a partisan divide of young americans. someone who voted for the opposite candidate than they did. it's much higher for one political party. >> a new poll finds nearly a