folks there in boulder. that is tonight's "last word." catch me again on sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on the sunday show right here on msnbc. until then, have a happy new year, and thank you so much for watching. "the 11th hour" starts now. good evening once again. day 345 of the biden administration. we are now on course to enter the third year of the pandemic under an avalanche of covid infections. tonight another record has been set with over 500,000 new cases. the new numbers of children hospitalized with the virus is higher tonight than at any point in the entire pandemic. the overwhelming driver of all of this, omicron. although delta is still very

much with us. one medical expert warns, we're in for a rough road ahead. >> we're into a viral blizzard right now that's impacting all 50 states roughly at the same time. some areas were hit harder than others. in the end in the next six to eight weeks we'll all see this large surge of cases. it is very likely that 20 or more percent of health care workers will get infected even though they've been vaccinated. our entire system and all of our lives are going to be impacted by how many sick people are out whether it is at the grocery store, at the hospital, running your subways, doing testing. >> right now the number of confirmed covid cases in the united states has reached 54 million. yet, there are new signs this current outbreak may soon ease. the "new york times" reports that in south africa the omicron wave has peaked and columbia university researchers tell "the

washington post" there are indications infections could peak here by mid january. also, nbc news reports the fda is expected to authorize pfizer's booster shots for children ages 12 to 15 within a matter of days. a new study shows johnson & johnson's booster shot offers strong protection against the omicron variant. yet the relentless spread of omicron is fueling concerns about safety. ahead of tomorrow's new year's eve celebrations. >> omicron and delta are coming to your party. so you need to think twice about how many people will be gathered together. >> some communities are scaling back and canceling events but new york is going ahead in times square tomorrow night despite the highest number of covid cases the city has ever seen. >> it is going to be outdoors

vaccination only masks required social distanced. but we want to show that we're moving forward and we want to show the world that new york city is fighting our way through this. it's really important to not give up in the face of this. >> meanwhile the cdc has an urgent new warning for anyone considering a cruise, saying they should be avoided regardless of vaccination status. the omicron variant is also being blamed in part for yet another day of major disruptions in the airline industry. nbc news' steve patterson has the latest on what millions of travelers are facing. >> reporter: tonight the great cancellation of holiday air travel now on a collision course with the new year. after four days in a row of more than a thousand cancellations airlines are trimming down even more. delta already announcing a cutback of 200 to 300 flights every day through the new year's weekend. alaska airlines thinning by 20%.

strongly urging travelers with nonessential trips before january 2nd to rebook. and jetblue canceling 1280 flights from now until mid january. >> we'll continue to see staffing shortages at the airlines which are the primary factor of these cancellations so simply put there is no clear end in sight. >> reporter: the chaos caused by surging omicron cases impacting airline staff and bands of relentless severe weather lashing the country coast to coast. also tonight, rare and sudden wind driven wild fires in colorado are forcing thousands of people to evacuate from two towns near boulder. colorado's governor has declared a state of emergency. several people have been injured. hundreds of buildings have also been destroyed. we're also following the latest developments in the house committee's january 6th investigation. in exactly one week it will be a full year since pro trump rioters attacked the united

states capitol. today the panel asked the supreme court to reject the former president's request to keep his white house records secret. the committee has also asked the high court to move swiftly in deciding whether to take the case. this was also a critical day for president biden. he just spent under an hour speaking on the phone with russian president vladimir putin who had requested the call. the white house says the call from -- took the call from his delaware home and biden urged putin to end the crisis on russia's border with ukraine where some 100,000 russian troops are now gathered. officials say biden also warned vladimir putin of the consequences of a russian invasion. with all of that, let's bring in our lead-off guest on this thursday night, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the "new york times," maya wiley a civil rights attorney and former u.s. assistant attorney for the southern district of new york.

also with us is dr. ebony hilton associate professor at the university of virginia's school of medicine. dr. hilton, i want to start with you. with so many days in the past three years, covid is the new story that we're all thinking about right now. where are we right now in this surge and what do you see ahead? do we have what we need to handle it? i don't hear dr. hilton. we may be having trouble with her connection. okay. i'm going to you. just on where we stand with the pandemic looming ahead of the new year, i mean, where do you see things with all of the stories, the politics of the covid mandates and the supreme court considering whether or not to uphold the white house's vaccine requirements?

>> one thing that is so clear and you said it at the top, we have a very serious issue with the omicron variant. we still have the delta variant. we're seeing infections soar. fortunately we're not seeing as high hospitalization rates but the fact remains that when people are vaccinated, they're much less likely to be hospitalized. that is important because what we know so far is that one of the things we need is people to be vaccinated in order for our health care system to be able to take care of those who need to be hospitalized whether it is because of omicron or because they have cancer or some other very serious life threatening illness that requires hospitalization. and, you know, what the department of justice did today is it made a very powerful case to the supreme court that said, look. you know, there is no way those who are trying to fight the

vaccine mandate that president biden has put out for employers who have 100 employees or more to have a sensible strategy that protects the public health of its workers and says very clearly it's not a mandate. what it says is, either you require vaccination or you can choose to be tested every week and wear a mask at work. that is power osha has from congress. as we know, because of what we're hearing about how omicron is going to drive up hospitalizations we're already hearing about exhausted hospital workers just as we're talking about flights being canceled. we're hearing people who aren't being able to show up at work or being told to show up at work despite the fact that they're ill which is only going to lead to more infection. so i suspect we're going to have an argument on january 7th which is highly unusual in a case like

this but it is very worrying if those vaccine mandates aren't allowed to stand. >> dr. hilton, i believe we have you back and as maya just laid out there, the fight in the courts to uphold these vaccine mandates, that's all happening as we are currently experiencing this omicron surge. where do you see us right now in the surge and what lies ahead? >> i apologize. i'm in a storm in belize. i feel safer here than in the united states of america. what we know at this point is that every day an average of three americans are testing positive per second. that is the state we're in in america. we don't have time to wait until january 7th to figure it out. at this stage we literally have had tripling of our cases since the beginning of december, 1.9 million new cases last week alone. when we're looking at who is actually getting infected we know more and more not only are hospitals starting to fill up at

this point 89,000 hospitalized which is the highest since september, up about 40,000 in the last seven weeks, but what is really filling up is the pediatric hospitals. at this point we have 1 in every 10 children now tested positive for covid-19. so the question is, when are we going to have agencies like the cdc and statements made by the surgeon general and by the white house itself to say this is not something that can wait because at this point we are literally burning through our population, getting infected with a virus we don't know the long term consequences of what an infection does to the body. it is not just about the deaths which at this point we have 820,000 americans who are dead, but it's also the long term consequences, including long covid that leads to permanent disability for millions of americans, upwards of 50% of all who have been infected. >> peter, with both the things

maya said about the fight over the vaccine mandates and all of the health consequences that dr. hilton alluded to, the white house seems surprised at how rapidly omicron sped in their surging people, supplies, all over the country to help with the need, but with all this in mind is there a plan to do more in the year ahead? >> well, yes. this is not where president biden and his administration wanted to be at the end of the year no question about it. they thought by this point in his administration they'd have their handle on the pandemic, that it would be, we'd be in a far better place. even as far back as july they were declaring independence from covid on independence day july 4th. we're nowhere near that obviously as we see now. it is affecting so many lives and so many ways as we just talked about. not even just the people who are sick. it's the airlines canceled, schools back to remote learning. businesses that don't have enough staff to stay open.

and it's exactly what the biden administration did not want at this point. there are those who say, look. the biden administration took its eye off the ball to some extent. why are we having shortages of tests at this point almost two years into the pandemic? why should this be something we're not able to take care of? today i went to a library here in washington, d.c. where i live. the city is giving out free testing and a very good job with it. i was in and out in four minutes. why should that be such a shortage in so many places a the this point? you can't go into a drug store in most places to get one. a lot of people are wondering what the biden administration plans to do. they have a proposal they talked about getting 500 million tests into americans' hands by january, but people need them now. they need them today, need them to travel, to get past the holiday, go back to school, back to work. it's a marvel -- remarkable we are still dealing with something as basic as a testing shortage

again nearly two years into this. >> it is really concerning in terms of the long lines we've seen throughout the holidays of people on lines to get tested. dr. hilton, one of the other factors people have been focused on in the last few weeks is the strain on our hospital systems. we heard this earlier from the president of the american nurses' association. >> nurses and other members of the health care team are experiencing extreme mental fatigue. you know, we hear from nurses on a regular basis, you know, i'm supposed to be woshing a 12-hour shift but my 12 hours turns into 14 or 16 hours. i am only getting one day a week off because my employer is calling asking if i can work overtime or there's mandatory overtime. >> dr. hilton, what are you seeing in hospitals right now? >> i feel for our nurses, a critical piece of our team. we leave out the respiratory

therapists working with the covid-19 patients and the transporters and persons within the cafeteria now turned into front line health care workers on a daily basis because they are coming in contact with patients coming into the hospital. we're talking about days off. as far as the physician's side we don't have any laws that indicate how many hours you can work per week. i have never clocked in ever in my life. we are looking at 80 hours a hundred hours a week being standard now for many physicians day in and day out. the mental fatigue is one thing but the fatigue of going home and wondering if you are infecting family members is a whole other thing especially talking about the cdc mandates, now our guidelines changing from five days to ten days. we know that many people are still even if not necessarily symptomatic, quote-unquote, in the idea of their body showing signs and symptoms, we are

afraid as health care workers of coming into work prematurely and infecting patients in our hospitals that are not covid-19 positive. it's not that we only get assigned those patients. we have the entire hospital to take care of. and so thinking about the prematurity of drawing these conclusions, you know, just mention about the masks during the 4th of july. why has that not been reinstated? if they are looking at guidelines to say you can test positive and have to quarantine five days and then wear your mask for another five days that tells us that the cdc values the importance of masks and reducing transmission. why is it when we are having over 500,000 cases positive today, why hasn't the cdc said masks need to be mandated for every single american so we can get ahead of this outbreak we have nationwide. >> it is such a good point about masking because, maya, it feels like a lot of the decisions about the public health are being driven in part by the politics. how much do democratic goals for

2022 in terms of handling this pandemic, you know, have to do with getting it under control, getting this surge under control in the next few weeks here? >> yes, look. unfortunately, we have politicized the pandemic. we literally saw republicans, 47 republican senators and over 130 republican members of the house fighting to stop the vaccine mandate. a lot of these are the same politics we're seeing interrupting the use of masks. literally, going to school board meetings and fighting about students having to wear masks to school. harassing students who are walking into schools wearing masks. i mean, it has become literally a battle line about politics versus a coming together around what protects public health, what protects our children, what protects our nurses.

all the people we've been talking about. and that i think is a fundamental issue with how besieged, and i don't defend the biden administration for things that it should be doing, that it could be doing, but i think we also have to recognize we're dealing with an administration that has had a party that has been refusing to do anything other than trying to block all of these major public health intraconventions that are so necessary and if it weren't for the biden administration we'd be having a conversation about deworming. and the reality is, this is still unfortunately a conversation we are having about what is effective at stopping the pandemic and whether in fact we'll listen to the science. another thing dr. hilton has raised i want to be sure is raised here and all credit to dr. hilton when we were discussing this off line which is vulnerable population. people who have disabilities, people who have health care issues, people in communities of

color that got hit the hardest with death rates and infection rates, where are the n95 masks for these communities? where and how are we seeing the directed intervention of the federal government, of states and cities, where they are needed the most because we have the highest rates of infections and deaths? we do need that to happen. it really does take us coming together. we can't keep politicizing the pandemic. >> it is so important making sure that the people have the supplies and resources and support they need. and the disability community. peter, i want to turn to another topic. that is the phone call that happened today between president biden and vladimir putin. the russian leader reportedly warned of a total break in relations. should the united states sanction him over ukraine? what was behind putin's request for the call? could biden find himself having to respond to a russian invasion

of ukraine? >> well, that is certainly the worst case scenario at this point absolutely. this is the second phone call the two have had this month. this one was requested as the americans told us by president putin. we're still not a hundred percent clear why he requested it. whether there was part of the conversation we haven't heard about that has been read out by the kremlin and white house suggests a tense conversation in which as you say president putin warned after complete rupture of relations with the united states if the united states is to apply sanctions in the event of military action in the ukraine. there would be no option for the united states but to respond with economic sanctions and possibly other measures. that doesn't seem to be deescalating an already volatile situation. this is leading up to talks scheduled in geneva between america and russian negotiators starting january 10th. we'll see whether that begins to pull some of the heat out of

this particular moment but it is kind of a manufactured crisis. what putin is saying basically is you guys in the west are trying to get too close to our border, putting weapons in ukraine and don't want them part of nato. none of this is new or current. why is he acting now? there is no move at this point to make ukraine a member of nato. there are no new weapons the united states or europe that we know of anyway has put in ukraine so why now? what is he trying to accomplish with the sabre rattling? is he serious about using military force beyond the ukraine where he has already used military force? that is the big question for president biden and the american administration. >> peter baker, maya wiley, and dr. ebony hilton thank you for starting us off tonight. please stay safe. coming up, january 6th is exactly one week away. what we've learned about the bitter divide in this country over the past year.

later, an historical look at the political events of 2021. spoil alert? we're entering the new year in unchartered territory. "the 11th hour" just getting under way on this last thursday of 2021. with a revolutionary, rollerball design. because with the right pain reliever... life opens up. aleve it... and see what's possible. what if you could see the details of your great-grandparents wedding day... ...or the record that welcomed your great-grandmother to the world. your family story is waiting to be discovered, and now you can search for those fascinating details for free—at ancestry. ho ho ho! and now you can search for those fascinating details not again. oh no.

for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. get a credit toward your first month's payment on select models. are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10 along with your statin medication. the brand i trust is qunol. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

when you have xfinity, you have entertainment built in. whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. which is kind of nice. ah, what is happening. binge-watching is in the bag, when you find all your apps, all in one place. find live sports faster just by using your voice... sports on now. touchdown irish! [cheering] that was awesome. and, the hits won't quit, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. all that entertainment built in. xfinity. a way better way to watch.

today marks one week until january 6th. many americans nearly a year after the insurrection remain split over the attack. as you might guess democrats and independents view january 6th much more seriously than republicans.

back with us tonight democratic strategist decked out in hbcu gear as always and tim miller contributor to the bulwark. what is the short term solution here? how do we hold those people accountable if they were at all participants or affiliated with what happened on january 6th? >> you know, i think this is the big question particularly the people who are members of congress and the ring leaders of this effort. you know, i'm happy that the justice department and justice system seems to be doing its job with regard to the rioters themselves, but it doesn't really feel satisfactory just to have the guy with the horns go to jail. right? the january 6th insurrection was something that came out of the mind and actions of the president of the united states, several members of congress, and other very prominent leaders in this country.

so the january 6th commission, i feel nothing but positively about what we've seen coming out of there already. obviously there is going to be legal court hearings with bannon coming forth in july and i think that's the path forward. one thing we know is not the path forward is the republican electoral system is going to take care of this. no one is being punished politically within the republican party. no one is going to lose a primary over this. exactly the opposite. the more sympathetic you are to 1-6 the better your position in the republican primary. the select committee and justice department's going to have to do their job. >> given what tim just said what should the democratic message be in 2022? not just about the midterms and about policies like build back bet are but about american democracy? >> well, i think the first democratic message has to be to pass the right to vote act. we can talk about infrastructure bills, we're happy the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed. we're hoping to see some semblance of build back better.

the bottom line is in the first quarter of next year you have to pass voting rights reform or else you will not have a free and fair midterm election in 2022. i don't want to be doom and gloom here. i'm not a communications guy. i do believe if republicans win either chamber of the united states congress in 2022 you will never again see a free and fair presidential election in which a republican led congress certifies a free and fairly elected democratic president. it won't happen. they tried to take the peaceful transition of power on january 6 and there has been no criminal accountability for members of congress who basically we need to stop making a distinction between insurrectionists like the swami or shammen whatever he called himself, let's stop differentiating because the insurrectionists were in congress and participated in scuttling the proper transition of power. they are no different than the chargers outside there. that has to be the democratic

message. take away the line. they are one and the same. if these people get ahold you will never see a democrat certified as president again if one of them has the power to obstruct it via a chamber of congress. >> tim, do you agree? given what you said about the fact that those folks who have gone along with the big lie haven't been marginalized. they've been essentially boosted by the fact that they are proponents of that lie. how do you go forward with living and trying to mute the participation of those republicans who participated that really puts democracy at risk in future elections? >> it is news to me don is not a communications guy. he seems pretty good at it. i basically agree with him. you know, there's a little bit of doom and gloom i questions associated with the never again will there be an election. i think that at least speaking for myself i have to have a little more human ilt with my

predictions because i have been so poor in the past. but i think in the near term what we can look at is 2024 i think don is exactly right. there is no reason to believe a speaker kevin mccarthy or a senate majority leader mitch mcconnell whoever it would be is going to certify particularly a close election that is lost by somebody like donald trump or somebody of that ilk. the republicans are systematically going through and eliminating the people like brad raffensberger in georgia and others who did the right thing and replacing them. looking ahead to 2024 that is a definite problem and my advice to the democrats is to focus their changes. the voter suppression stuff is important but to make sure that they can try to get something passed that reforms the way we count the elections, electoral count act looking ahead to 2024

because we cannot be in this situation again where random secretaries of state and the speaker of the house of michigan or something is determining who won in plish. i think there are ways to reform the way we count the ballots that is maybe more urgent right now than some of the voter suppression stuff. which obviously is something the democrats should do as well. but if they don't have the votes for it, fixing the counting, i think should be priority number one. >> all of that keeping in mind is the theme of protecting american democracy which is bipartisan. we just did that. don and tim, you're sticking around and staying with us. coming up what it'll take to narrow the divide in this country in 2022 when "the 11th hour" continues.

do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol.

aleve-x. it's fast, powerful long-lasting relief with a revolutionary, rollerball design. because with the right pain reliever... life opens up. aleve it... and see what's possible. earn about covid-19, the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next? what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673,

or live chat at calhope.org today. democrats have a lot on the line heading into the new year. there's voting rights and whatever can be salvaged from the president's build back better agenda and the very identity of the party. still with us, don callaway and tim miller. don, will democrats get build back better passed and on biden's desk despite joseph manchin? >> i don't know. hopefully, possibly.

maybe. yes. all of the above. you know. you know, the president has to figure out what he can pass and that is probably some pared down version of the bill. but the president and vice president also have to be very aggressive in figuring out what they can do from executive orders because those executive orders can likely put real things into place that could make not only the progressive but the moderate base if not happy a little bit more satisfied they're making substantial progress. joe biden can wipe out substantial amounts of federal student loan aid without going through the united states congress. that is well established in people who are thinking about these things knowing he has the authority to do so. i think it is time to examine what they can do through executive fiat. of course we know our previous two presidents have had no problem doing so. he has to figure out how he can deliver for the american people, particularly the energy that he needs to come out to vote in november without necessarily having to worry about joe manchin. it's time to step aside from the clown show that is joe manchin

and his assistant kyrsten sinema and move on to the conversation of what serious adults can do to make progress on a lot of important topics in this country. >> speaking of clown show, tim, on the right you have the folks like marjorie taylor greene, paul gosar, lauren boebert. they've seemed to be growing in power on the conservative side right now. do you think that they're going to be the controlling influence over the republican caucus going forward? or do you think it could be more moderate folks and kevin mccarthy may become the speaker? >> well, look. i think that kevin mccarthy is actually so weak as a leader that is serving him within the house caucus and so i don't see an overthrow of the house caucus for lauren boebert or whatever is going to be running for speaker of the house next time and winning. i think that what you've seen over the past year is kevin

mccarthy when he needs to just steps aside, lets them, you. >> advance their crazy. lets them advance their conspiracy theories and he demonstrates he is not going to try to fight with them or punish them or control them in the way paul ryan and john boehner did. that is what ended up being the death nell of those two former republican leaders in the house. they were seen as too hostile to the then insurgent tea party part of the caucus which is now, you know, a maga tea party conspiratorial monster that has grown even wilder since back then. mccarthy has no interest in a fight with them. i think he'll be able to stay as leader of the party but they are going to be the tail that wags the dog in congress if republicans take over and next year for sure. >> so, don, last question quickly if republicans do take over, what's the future of any

agenda the president would want to put forward? >> the only agenda that really matters is voting rights and preservation of democracy. that is in serious peril if republicans take either chamber. you won't see a democrat certified even after winning in 2024 but it will have serious ramifications for cleaning up the patchwork of voter suppression law in every state legislature through the past two years and really democracy is in shambles if the president is not able to put forth substantial democracy and slash voting reform in the next nine months. >> definitely do not want democracy in shambles in 2022, but our thanks to don callaway and tim miller for your incredibly helpful analysis on the year ahead. coming up, searching for help maneuvering the politics of 2022 when "the 11th hour" continues. enezer.

ebenezer. ha ha ha ha. marley? first you will see the past. excuse me! coming through! ugh! and then...the present. and finally, ebenezer...the future! introducing the all-electric eqs. happy holidays from mercedes-benz.

if we allow a president to be above the law we surely do to the peril of our republic. >> i think that could be the end of our democracy not to be too pointed but i want people to understand that this is a make or break point. >> our constitution, the structure of our institutions, and the rule of law, which are at the heart of what makes america great are at stake. >> democrats have taken pains to sound the alarm. our democracy is in jeopardy. back with us tonight celebrated author and presidential historian, this is the first time in american history we can actually say this is the year we had an insurrection. we actually did not have a peaceful transfer of power. has that fact really sunk in do you think? >> i think it has.

i think that is partly because there has been so much happening that people are a little bit numb. look at the last four years we went through and this last year all sorts of things that perhaps we weren't prepared for, this pandemic continuing and in some ways getting worse. the economy getting more unpredictable. even the threat from russia and china that was not something that many people thought was necessarily in the cards for the year 2021. but the thing that is really out of history, a couple things. number one, you go back in american history to the constitution, 1787. this is a country which has been remarkably unified. we have all sorts of differences but at moments of crisis, for instance, after pearl harbor, franklin roosevelt could say, let's fight hitler and the japanese most americans did. in 1962 when there were missiles

in cuba john kennedy said let's stand up to the russians. tell them to get them out. most americans supported him. that happened. that would not happen today because we are living in a time of lies and conspiracy theories. barack obama was supposedly born in kenya or saddam hussein was behind 9/11 or joe biden supposedly stole the election from donald trump. how many republicans believe that? according to one poll 66%. that is something we haven't seen before. what i love about your whole discussion, this whole hour, all of our friends, i agree with all of them which is if we don't stand up for voting rights in 2022 it is game over. the center piece of this democracy is a system of voting that allows us to elect people to offices specially presidents and take them out when they lose. if you have people refusing to certify someone who has won in a full and fair election, it is

going to remind me of mussolini in 1934. muse -- he had established a one party system. 1934 elections, mussolini's party won by 99.84%. is that what we want? what i would say and i apologize for such a long answer, but it is absolutely important, what i would say is a lot of italians in 1934 said, you know, if this was so important, what were we doing in 1933 and 1932? we could have done so much to try to stop or at least slow down mussolini. let's just say to all of our fellow americans don't be someone like that who gets to 2024 and our democracy is going out the window and you could have stopped that. >> what is the list of priorities going forward look like? what is on the road map you think we can and should follow

because we laid out there the fact that we really don't have a road map. if we did what would it look like? >> i think what this suggests is that we should look to the best in our country. we're going to have to find some way of picking through this body guard of lies that i'm talking about, such as joe biden supposedly did not win the 2020 election. if pearl harbor let's say happened right now, i would say many americans, maybe even a majority would say, fdr did it to get us involved in world war ii. or roosevelt was operating on behalf of some foreign power. there would be a lot of doubt. in 1962 people might have said about john kennedy and the missiles in cuba this was your fault therefore we should turn away from your leadership. we have to get back to that. at the same time what makes democracy work is when we wanted civil rights it didn't happen

because john kennedy or lyndon johnson was a nice guy and said let's give people the rights they deserve. it happened because people pushed on them and said, we demand this. voters had to do this. americans had to do this. all i'm telling you is if we see a silent generation in 2022 when we americans do not demand of our leaders that our democracy be preserved, we will rue it for the rest of our lives and our children's lives. voting rights has to be the paramount issue, the issue of survival in america in 2022. that is just two days away. >> so, so important. michael, thankfully you have agreed to stay a little bit longer because we'll try to leave everybody with a little hope. up next why michael sees at least some reason to hope in the new year and that's ahead. aleve-x. it's fast, powerful long-lasting relief with a revolutionary, rollerball design.

because with the right pain reliever... life opens up. aleve it... and see what's possible.

when you have xfinity xfi, you have peace of mind

built in at no extra cost. advanced security helps keep your family protected online. pause wifi whenever for ultimate control with the xfinity app. and family-safe browsing gives parents one less thing to worry about. security, control and peace of mind. with xfinity xfi, it's all built in at no extra cost.

nearly a year since an attempted coup. in the midst of a global pandemic and facing down a continued assault on our democracy at the ballot box. one could be given for a sense of hopelessness. but still with us is michael beschloss, and he says we should have some hope. michael, you mentioned before the break, it's up to voters, ordinary americans, to step forward and try to help american democracy survive. so let's go there. how do we do that? >> well, that's what is wonderful about our country. i think there's a lot of reason for hope certainly. what i don't want to do is in 2023 after our democracy is going out the window hearing people say, gee, i was distracted, doing other things. sure wish i had lifted a finger to save democracy and elections for our children. that is the way our system works. if you look at american history and study it and love it the way

i do and i know you do go back to 1787 and all the years since. this is not a perfect country but a country that in general tends to improve because we americans demand it. we get over economic crises. we get out of war. we get over unfairness. sometimes it is one step forward and another back. we've gotten over pandemics. the pandemic of 1918, influenza, sent 675,000 people dead with no help from a president woodrow wilson in office who basically tried to hush it up. all i would say is as we're looking to a congressional election, the fall of next year, let's make it autocracy versus freedom. i think most americans can make a pretty clear choice if that's what's presented to them. let's just be absolutely honest about this. there is the chance that 2022

has the capability of being the last full and free election of our life times. i don't think we want that for the children of this country. >> well, it is a lot to keep in mind as we end this year and head into the next one. but i love talking to historians because it is so helpful to have all of it put into the right perspective. michael beschloss, thank you so much for joining us. have a wonderful new year. >> happy new year i think. thank you. >> happy new year we think. >> yeah. coming up, the memorable images of yet another eventful year when the last 11th hour of 2021 continues.

mission control, we are go for launch. um, she's eating the rocket. ♪♪ lunchables! built to be eaten.

aleve-x. it's fast, powerful long-lasting relief with a revolutionary, rollerball design. because with the right pain reliever... life opens up. aleve it... and see what's possible. trelegy for copd. [coughing] ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on by... ♪ if you've been playing down your copd,...

♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, and save at trelegy.com. ho ho ho! ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, not again. oh no.

for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. get a credit toward your first month's payment on select models. last thing before we go tonight. 2021 was a bit of a rollercoaster if i do say so myself. deep division, change, hope, all in the middle of an unrelenting pandemic. let's take a look back at the year in photos chosen by our nbc news photo editors. ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ that is our broadcast for this thursday night. with our thanks for being with us. on behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of

nbc news, good night and have a very happy and healthy new year.