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hi, there, everyone, it's health care in new york. happy new year. here we go. the january 6th select committee now has eyes inside the room where donald trump watched the deadly insurrection unfold and did nothing to stop it. raung republican congresswoman liz cheney, vice chair of the january 6th select committee revealing yesterday the strengths of some of the first-hand evidence the committee has uncovered, a major step forward as the case continues to take shape. -- any moment walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television and told his supporters who were assaulting the capitol to stop. we know as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the oval office members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop. we know leader mccarthy was pleading with him to do that.

we know members of his family. we know his daughter we have first-hand testimony that his daughter ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten, as his supporters were invading the capitol of the united states is clearly unfit for future office, clearly can never be anywhere near the oval office every again. >> those revelations from congresswoman liz cheney potential game changers comes as the committee embarks on a more public phase of its investigation, one that will focus on making its case to the american people. that accountability for the insurrection is not only possible but essential. here's congressman adam schiff yesterday on the time line for public hearings is this we should begin them in a couple of weeks if not a couple of months from now. what we expect to do is lay out what we have been learning for the american people. there were several lines of

effort to overturn the election. there was of course the lice being promulgated by the former president. also, efforts with local elections officials and state legislators, efforts at the justice department, and then of course the violent attack on january 6th. then we hope to be able to tell the story to the country so that they understand it isn't just about that one day, january 6th, but all that led up to it, what happened on that day, and thein thing danger going forward. >> and that public story telling could not come as a more crucial time for country that appears to be careening rapidly toward becoming a divided state one in which one state is increasingly radicalize by lies and forces working real time to undermine confidence in democracy itself. nearly 3/4 of all republican voters say they believe the lie that president biden was not legitimately elected in the 2020 election. that's according to abc news

ipsos polling. as a staggering one in three americans say that violence against the government can be justified at times. the "washington post" says it is the largest share to feel that way since the question has been asked in various polls in more than two decades. the fracture opening up across the united states or the future of our democracy ramping up the critical nation of the january 6th committee's commission is where we start today. luke broad water is here, congressional correspondent for the "new york times" times. the founder of punch bowl news, and claire mccaskill is here. you have fruit over your shoult shoulder, making me sweat with guilt about the cookie i had for breakfast. are you sending the nation the sign that it is time to get healthy? let's deal with new year's first. >> happy new year. i am on strike from the oven and

the stove for a week. i have had enough. i have cooked so much food, and baked so much stuff the last month, i'm going to stick to fruits and vegetables for the week. all the viewers are going to be disappointed. no confections this week. >> i am just trying to stay ahead of all of your twitter fans there. jake's vest is my next target. >> oh, no. >> how about liz chinny pulling back the curtain on -- lock, liz knows exactly what she's doing. there is always more. but pulling back the curtain and saying, we see you, we know what you were doing. and frankly a lot of the reporting suggests he wasn't just watching, he was refusaling. you have to assume the committee knows, if that's true, exactly what he was doing as the insurrection unfolded. >> well, i would ask ivanka trump and his staff to do a gut check at this moment. they know how much he was enjoying the violence that was

occurring. they know how excited he was, how much he loved it. they know how hard it was to get him to do what any normal leader would do without any urging, and that is stay stop. people don't need to die. police officers shouldn't be beat up. you know, so much for the blue line. i mean, he could have cared less about those police officers being brutalized like that. and i have got to tell you, she is so good. when she said you can either be for the constitution or donald trump, you can't be for both, that pretty much sums it up. i thought that was a powerful way to put night jake, i know a lot of the political analysis focuses on how out of step liz cheney is with the republican base. let's consider that stipulated. liz cheney can still do a lot of damage to mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy and all the republicans who see the world as she does. they are just not hostages to, frankly, fear of the base. what is the dynamic as she sort of dangles the evidence in front

of the rest of the republicans on the hill? >> uncomfortable, i would say, to say the least. but i would say even more than uncomfortable, what cheney is doing -- let's address the mccarthy dynamic. mccarthy and complainy couldn't like each other less. he forced her out of her committees. and mccarthy sees her as a hot dog, someone doing this for the attention. clearly, there is no love lost between either one of those people. let's be clear. i know those dynamics to be the case. what she's doing here is interesting to me. luke covered this really well, and is a great guest to have on because he covered this so well over the last couple of months. what cheney is doing is showing that people are participating here. >> right. >> she has the goods. she has what we in journalism call the tick tock, right?

she has people -- i think i said this to you before, nicolle. it is not as interesting to me who is being subpoenaed and not showing up. >> right. >> what is interesting to me is who is actually participating without getting subpoenaed. and i know -- and some of it has become public, and i'm sure luke could speak to this more, but there are many white house aides, many of them, from the trump era, who are talking to the committee voluntarily because they don't think they did any wrong and they are willing to participate and talk about what they think donald trump did wrong on those days. so those dynamics here are really really interesting. and she's showing that, in my estimation that she has the goods and it doesn't much matter if these people defy subpoenas 678 of course it matters, but to her investigation and benny thompson's investigation, she has so much already up her sleeve. >> that's probably on folks like us. we focus on contempt votes but

the bigger headline is how few there have been. look at the polling where the trump base is, steve bannon and mark meadows have nothing to lose. they should demand their testimony air in primetime. i bet they will not be with the same lawyers that got them charged with contempt because in the end it will look like stupid legal strategy and unnecessary. this is dana bash's interview with chairman thompson yesterday. >> do you think that lack of action on january 6th may actually warrant a criminal referral? >> well, the only thing i can say is, it's highly unusual for anyone in charge of anything to watch what's going on and do nothing. >> is it criminal? >> we will -- well, we don't know. we are in the process of trying to get all the information. but i can say, if there is

anything that we come upon as a committee that we think would warrant a referral to the department of justice, we'll do that. >> luke, what is your sort of sense of where this stands among the committee members and their staffs. >> right. so the committee is, i would say, wrestling right now with whether a contempt referral could be made for donald trump's inaction on january 6th. normally, omissions of action are not crimes. so you are hearing them say things like, you know, we are trying to figure out whether there is a statute that can apply to this. you hear liz cheney talk about dereliction of duty. we know this obstruction of congress has been charged on 200 rioters. but donald trump didn't go into the building himself. they need to be able to connect him in a concrete way that will

hold up in court if they are going to make a criminal referral in this case. the other thing they are trying to do, of course, and i think liz cheney made this argument, and so did benny thompson, is even if you can't find the exact criminal statute to make a referral in this case, you can talk about the ethical and moral obligations to intervene. soliz cheney is still trying to recapture the republican party from donald trump. it might seem like an impossible battles, a losing strategy, something that can't be done, but she's out there fighting for it. she's trying to take back her party, her dad's party, in the process of this case f. they do find out that they can prove a criminal referral, they say they will make it. >> you know, i mean, claire, there is no republican party in bed with donald trump. it's a criminal sort of permission structure for donald trump's trampling of the rule of

law. liz cheney said so much yesterday, you can be for the rule of law and donald trump. liz cheney is, again, the only one with a -- whatever word you want to use -- spine to do what needs to be done if you want to save the republican party. i know she made strange bed fellows by taking on this notion. but she doesn't see trump -- she sees it as sort of a parasite that has taken over the party she loves. i made a different conclusion conclusion. i left the party, i don't think it can be saved. the only way to save the party is to destroy the parasite. no one is underestimate what liz cheney is willing to do if they have the goods to hold the ones for the crimes they need to be held accountable for. >> she's going to go as far as

she can possibly go to make sure donald trump cannot get the nomination in '24. it's just that simple. that is what she, i think, and a lot of folks that are close to this are worried about. that that 71% makes donald trump the dominant candidate in the republican primary in '24. and then we are on the precipice of you know, groundhog day, and seeing all of this junk, the lying, the doe minutious -- the fact we are so diminished in the world and all the problems that donald trump brings with it, lack of respect for the norms and the rule of law. what liz cheney finds more motivating, which i think she is capturing and if more leaders would try to get to that place, she is more worried about saving the country than she is about the republican party. she is more worried about the constitution and our democracy than she is the republican

party. that is integrity. that is character. that is leadership. and if more people would begin to gravitate toward that, we would get back to the place where americans would see our leaders as aspirational rather than playing to the lowest common denominator. >> well, i think, jake, the rest of the party has had time to join her cause and she's the country of the party, and you see how many people are interested, one adam kinzinger is it. i want to sort of continue with what we though about the evidence. we used this during the mueller probe, the iceberg, the tip that we see and there is so much more under the surface. i wonder if you think that applies to what we are seeing in bernie kerik's communications with the committee. politico is reporting that a batch of documents talks -- they have a privilege log. so they detail what they are not going to turn over because bernie kerik is claiming their

privilege. they said this about it, kerik's attorney provided the privilege log to the panel which is a file that originated on december 17th in which trump huddled in the oval office with advisors including mike flynn where they discussed the option of seizing election equipment and states, attempting to overturn. even the acknowledgment the listing of things we are not willing to talk about seems to be -- >> some of the things that are coming out are so ludicrously stupid, far fetched, so baked in conspiracy theory it doesn't make sense to normal thinking people who have been around politics for a long time. this is what happens when you surround yourself or you are surrounded with conspiracy theorists, right? is that there are -- some of the

stuff that comes out, some of these presentations that we have seen that trump was given are just so far fetched and so ludicrous. but when it comes to what the strategy is, and what has gotten over to the committee, i'm not entirely sure. i think it's really interesting -- i will make a side point here. >> please. >> some people like mark meadows -- mark meadows started to cooperate and then kind of pulled the emergency brake. i don't fully understand that. i mean, he was -- you know, he's probably the only person to be held in contempt after giving over tens of thousands of documents to a congressional committee. so he kind of got screwed and participated -- not got screwed -- was punished and participated, which doesn't make a ton of sense to me. but i am not sure there really is a coherent strategy on their behalf. and i think the committee -- again, i think the committee is going to have so much of what it

needs. and just like what we saw with the mueller probe and with impeachment, these public hearings as adam schiff said in the next couple weeks or months are just going to be to build a public case, to make a public record of all that they know. the work is going to be done. but it's going to be put out on live television n the public consciousness so there is that record, a public record of what happened on that day. >> luke, to jake's point, mark meadows is the reason we know that donald trump jr. thought it had gone too for, knew his father was single force that could flip a switch and make it stop. mark meadows is the reason fox news is still doing damage control and i am sure industrial reassuring donald trump they didn't mean what they texted to his chief of staff during the insurrection. mark meadows turned over 9,000 documents to congress.

i know his lawyer seemed to insinuate that the phone records was a step too far. but what was sort of the break with the committee on meadows' part? >> sure. there are two theories on that. if you listen to mark meadows' attorney, it's that this final subpoena to get his phone records when he had already supplied them with so much information was a step too far. and he claims he had always maintained the distinction between documents he could provide and documents he couldn't. and he did provide to them voluminous documents that he did not believe executive privilege covered. but that was all he could give, and he could give no more. if you listen to the democrats on the committee, they believe that donald trump intervened, that mark meadows published a book, donald trump let it be known that he was displeased with mark meadows' cooperation and some of the comments that were in this book and so mark

meadows bookd backed off. i don't know who is right there, who to believe. those are just the two sides. i think it is interesting some of the documents that did come out with this latest trove from bernie kerik. there is one that's a strategic communications plan that lays out very overtly -- the plan a tep-day press to overturn the election, throw out the votes for president biden and reinstall donald trump for a second time. i mean it's all -- it's right there in writing. we know they were doing it, know what they were trying to do. but it is always somewhat shocking to see it written down somewhat strategically, this is something that they put down on paper they really wanted to throw out the votes for joe biden and have a second term for jump, no matter what the voters said. >> claire, you know, to jake and luke's points, it's so insane that we sort of looked away sometimes. but the idea that the coup plan

was committed to paper is sort of the -- what liz is getting about. we are in the room. we know what happened. we know what donald trump was doing. we know who he was talking to. we -- we -- you know, we see you. we are in the room. and the fact that these folks from in and out of the oval office talking about these ludicrous plans to overthrow president joe biden's victory seems to further her argument that at the end of the day you cannot be for the constitution or the rule of law or donald trump, and yet that is the position of just about every republican in congress. >> donald trump attracted people to him that didn't care about the truth. he attracted, you know, really -- you know, talk about d-list lawyers. i mean, who knew that rudy giuliani was such a bad lawyer? and others. sidney powell, this whole group,

kerik. all of them, what they had in common is they told him what he wanted to hear. that's all they had in common was they told him what he wanted to hear. that somehow he deserved to hold onto power even though he was rejected by the voters. it is frightening when you really read the constitution and realize that their plan could have worked if the republicans had been in control of the house of representatives. i think it would have worked had the republicans been in charge of the house of representatives. and then what would have happened in this country? what kinds of chaos would be unleashed? so we have got to really quit fooling around this and quit thinking this is just something that people on networks like ours are talking about. we have to understand how close they came and how far they were willing to go. >> a button to this conversation, the polling -- cbs

news u gov polling in terms of how the public sees this, the events at the capitol on january 6th were a sign of increasing political vie lens according to almost 0% of all americans. 32% thought it was an isolated incident that we wouldn't see again. as we head into a week of coverage leading up to this anniversary, as claire said, it is important the keep in mind where the whole country is. luke broad water and jake sherman two of the most important reporters covering all of this thank you for starting us off. claire 66 around for the hour. when we come back, democrats on capitol hill using the anniversary of the january 6th attack to push for voting rights resolution. plus, the government aiming to make covid booster shots available to even more americans. and despite the increased case count there continues to be good

data that show vaccines are working. later in the show, grim findings about the emboldened who have made the big lie part of their platform. all those stories and more after a pick break. don't go anywhere. d more after a pick break don't go anywhere. you could fret about that email you just sent. ...with a typo. aaaand most of the info is totally outdated. orrrr... you could use slack. and edit your message after it's sent. [sigh of relief.] slack. where the future works.

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tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. emerge tremfyant® with tremfya®... ask you doctor about tremfya® today. nearly one year after the attack on the u.s. capitol, senate majority leader chuck schumer is laying out his plan to get voting rights legislation passed with or without the republicans. he writes in a letter to his caucus this, quote, we hope our republican colleagues change course and work with us, but if

they do not, the senate will debate and consider changes to senate rules on or before january 17th, martin luther king jr. day, to protect the foundation of our democracy, free and fair elections. he adds that passing voting rights legislation is critical to preventing another january 6th-style attack on our democracy. he adds this, quote, the senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration, they will be the new norm, joining us, congressman jamal fellman of new york. congressman, picking up on the conversation we have been having, as this one-year anniversary is upon us in a couple of days and you hear the chairman and the vice chair of the select committee talking about evidence that now puts them inside the room where donald trump sat and as has been reported by the "washington post" supposedly refusaled in the violence, what are your

thoughts? >> it's appalling. and i hope that the former president is held accountable for his participation and his role in the insurrection. not just concerning the events of that day, but concerning all of the events that led up to that day. the big lie is the first piece that led to the insurrection on january 6th. and the continued advocacy and marketing of the big lie. you know, i was just newly elected to congress when all of this was going on. and i just couldn't believe that this is how the united states government was functioning, because of the leader that we elected to the presidency just four years earlier. so, you know, january 6th, approaching the one-year anniversary is an opportunity to reflect, to tell the truth, to be honest. i am glad this stuff is being revealed for the american people so that he can be held

accountable. and also republicans who continue to follow him be held accountable as well. >> i want the read something that you have written to president joe biden. the country's hurting, while the select committee on the january 6th attack and the whole of congress continue its work to investigate and report on what happened that day, to hold those responsible accountable, we must not lose sight of the need to heal from the trauma left unaddressed for almost a year. therefore as we approach the one year anniversary of the attack on the capitol i encourage you to issue a proclamation to declare january 6th a national day of healing. the marjorie taylor greenes and the outrageous attention seeking folks on the far right, but what is life up there like? >> that's a great question.

we are dealing with the complex trauma of both the insurrection, but also the covid surges that are happening across the country. and we are seeing a rise in mental health crises, particularly amongst our children throughout the country. and as a result, we are seeing a rise in violence. i mean just a couple of weeks ago i buried -- we buried one child, one 17-year-old in one part of my district who was the victim of murder. and another 17-year-old in another part of my district who died by suicide. that's what's happening here on the ground. we had teachers return to new york city schools today where out of 14 kids in the class, only two had been checked for covid. so no one knew if the other 12 were positive for covid. and this teacher is standing in front of the classroom putting herself at risk. and this is happening in schools across the city where teachers weren't even able to go in because of themselves being diagnosed with covid, and kids

not being served as a result of that. 830,000 dead across the country. we don't have enough treatments available. we don't have enough testing available. people are stressed-out. then we had an end to the child tax credit. thankfully, the president extended the moratorium on the student loan payments. but the end to the child tax credit, not passing build back better, so many things going on, it is come flex drama, complex stress that we need a moment to come together, heal and reflect as a nation before moving forward. >> i mean, you just, i think, laid out the real, you know, rhymes with hit, starts with s-h, that most people are dealing with in their lives. the trauma. the trauma of it all. the trauma of watching a defeated american president refuse to leave and send his supporters to kill his vice president. never mind the rest of you. the trauma, just the endless

uncertainty whether you can drop your baby off at work -- and go to work. that, for a lot of people, is traumatic every single morning. how do we start the conversation and try to fix those problems? >> well, that was the point of my letter to the president. and i'm so happy you have me on to talk about this. before coming to congress, i was in education for 20 years. i served as teacher, school counsellor and middle school principal. i dealt with the trauma every day of our most vulnerable kids. this is one of the reasons why i called for an additional covid relief package because people are going to continue to need support as we endure the omicron variant with a specific focus on boots on the ground in our most vulnerable communities. i think the president, based on his personal and professional experiences is the most important, is the key person to lead that effort. i also want to emphasize that

passing voting rights is a part of healing as well. ending the filibuster is a part of healing as well. because then we will be able to do something about justice in policing. we don't even talk about justice in policing anymore. after the whole world rose up after derek chauvin lynched george floyd in minnesota. we don't even talk about. it's not even on the agenda. what about gun reform? we just had a major shooting at a michigan high school. so there is so much work to do. we do it -- we bend over backwards for the economy. we go around the filibuster to raise the debt limit. but what about the people, and the well-being of the people in our democracy? we don't deal with our well-being and tell the truth to combat the big lie, how do we heal and how do we really grow as a nation. so hopefully, we can all begin to have that conversation. >> claire is some of the trauma that the congressman changed the grounds underneath the democrats in the senate when it comes to

the filibuster? >> i think chuck is going to put the bill on the floor, and he's going to put extreme pressure on joe and kirsten to agree to a carve-out that will address -- the point he makes is so powerful. and i think the congressman will agree, how can it be fair that republican legislatures all over the country are trying to suppress voters with a simple majority but yet congress isn't allowed to address those measures with the same simple majority? it is an easy argument the make, and frankly, for everyone to understand. hopefully, by putting pressure on joe and kerstin, they do the right thing, and we can get a carve-out for the filibuster. but my question to the congressman is, when we are talking healing, do we need to worry, congressman, about our own party and how well we are

working together? because, you know, you are from a district where you don't really have to worry about a republican. but you know we make majorities by districts where either a republican or a democrat can win. it feels as though at times there is a lack of understanding and that people were those kinds of districts are not being heard by people in the safe districts and people from safe states in the senate are not really talking -- talking past those senators that have to win races where u know, defund is police is a non-starter, where defund the police gets you defeated. so i really worry. and are there efforts under way for the folks that you work with so closely in congress to reach out to the more moderate members of our own party to try to make sure that we are healing within before we can even get to the point that we can heal across the party line?

>> great question. one of the first things i did when i got to congress was to reach out to leadership in the new dems to introduce myself, connect, and begin to build relationships. i ran into josh gott himmer at a cafe recently and had a quick informal conversation and told him i wanted to follow up with him. look, the bottom line is, if republicans care about our country and care about our democracy, they also need to care about equity. and we cannot lose sight of the fact that the majority of pieces of legislation that have come from congress over the last several decades have been inequitable. and that lack of equity has suppressed and oppressed communities of color historically, which is why we continue to run into many of the same problems that we have. we can't ignore the impact of the new deal red lining black

and brown communities. that has led to under-funded schools, concentrated poverty, and a rise in violence. if we want a country that works for everyone, and we really want to be competitive with china, we have to focus on legislation that is rooted in care, and rooted in equity, for all americans. once we do that, china and other nations don't stand a chance because we will be innovating at a level that we have never seen before because we have never had equitable legislation. >> congressman jamaal bowman thank you so much for spending some time with us today. claire sticks around. the u.s. aiming to drive up the number of boosted americans as omicron continues to move through just about every single aspect of everyday life in this country. up next, we will look at what this news hopes to do, and if there are some bright spots for the pandemic as we start the new year. that's next. ses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪

(music) ♪ so i think to myself ♪ ♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪

earn about covid-19, the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next?

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qunol's superior absorption helps me get the full benefits of turmeric. the brand i trust is qunol. as we near the two-year mark of the first confirmed infections from covid-19 here in the u.s., experts say to look beyond those soaring case numbers that are hard to avoid and look at things like vaccinations. the "new york times" reports that governments are redoubling their focus on vaccinations and boosters which are increasingly seen as the world's toikt living with covid. today the fda cleared pfizer's boosters for 12 to 15 yearly

olds for five months after their last first dose. david leonhardt and ashley woo write, quote, omicron is cocontagious it will have infected a meaningful share of the population, increasing the amount of covid immunity and helping defang the virus. omicron has helped americans focus on the importance of booster shoots. the world has more weapons to fight the virus than it did two weeks ago. all of which suggest that the u.s. could emerge from the omicron wave significantly closer to the long-term future of covid one wren wherein it becomes an endemic disease. ginning nows dr. vin gupta. claire is still here. doctor, there has been a real

shift. i think people are -- it is not that they are too exhausted to do the right thing. i think it has become clear what the right thing is. shutting down and keeping our kids home doesn't feel like the right thing to do with a variant that all data available to everybody who don't have expertise, and you do, seems to suggest it is not as severe. where are we? what should we be looking at? what do you see in our forecast? >> nicolle, happy new year. to the senator as well. this is what i will say. we live in a universe, a reality where there is two parallel realities happening at the same time. if you are unvaccinated, and the unvaccinated are hearing a persuasive message -- we will get to that in just a moment. if you are unvaccinated, omicron, delta or whatever it may be down the road is a mortal threat to you as an individual. that's why we are expecting 10,000 weekly deaths still we can over week well into the beginning of march. if you are vaccinated there is a

different reality. this is where i put my lung doctor hat on and say vaccines against respiratory viruses contagious ones will never prevent positive tests or mild symptoms. that's just not what they do. i appreciate you always amplifying this message, nicolle. we have a great success story to tell. that's why headlines matter of, persuasion matters. we don't get taught in medical school how to be persuasive communicators at scale. we hopefully are taught to be good bedside communicators. persuasiveness matters. what most of america is hearing is that the vaccines do not work. i have seen it across right-wing media. you name the individual. they are saying the vaccines don't work. the headlines are saying there are out of control breakthrough cases. it is a persuasive message. our message, get the vaccine has been complicated by a bunch of other facts. we need a simple persuasive message.

we need to focus on persuasion. >> i am not saying i was good at it but i did have a job of rt some of trying to persuade people in politics. but the point, it affects all of us, if your kid shoeks and you need the attention of an emergency room doctor and they are too busy because the unvaccinated are taking up the beds. that's the communal interest. or if your parent has a heart attack or a stroke you want them to be able to get the attention they need in the emergency room. it seems like that message reaches everyone, affects everyone. >> absolutely. and that's an ethical question as well. i think we aren't ready yet as a country in my opinion to actually have that discussion. as an icu provider, advanced therapies where we remove blood from the body of an individual where a ventilaor isn't enough

and we objection jen ate it and put it back into the body, those are scarce. who gets those? we are not having these types of discussions. but, yes, you are right, that's communal interest. even more to the point, what half of america that's unvaccinated, 30, 40% of america who is unvaccinated, what they are hearing is persuasive terminology is these vaccines don't work because there are breakthrough cases. turns out we need a different message. >> deaths are down. why is that? >> well, we are still losing 1200 americans day over day. as a proportion of those that are testing positive that's way down. that's a good thing because number one a lot of americans are vaccinated, fully protected. then what we are hoping for, nicolle, here, and this is where i am hopeful here by the ends of march of 2022, we are really going to be experiencing a year of renewal, is that there is some evidence that if been

exposed to omicron that you have cross over immunity it is going to protect you let's' say if you face the delta variant down the road which is we are really worried. that combination of vaccination for some of america and then to some degree, exposure to omicron, we are hoping that that one-two combination will lead us towards a brighter future. >> claire, what do you think the opportunity is to convince any new people to get vaccinated or boosted? >> well, i think dr. gupta makes a really strong point here. the headline is, omicron cases are up 200%. our network has been running that all day. >> we haven't. >> we haven't. but other shoes have. and deaths are down today in the "new york times" data. so we have got to quit talking about cases vis-a-vis the omicron. because i don't know what happened in your family, nicolle, but a bunch of people

in my family bottom kron over the holidays. >> yeah. >> everybody from a little baby to, you know, 30-year-olds in my family got it. everybody is fine. you know, nobody was hospitalized. everyone is going to be fine. but we were all vaccinated and boosted except for the little ones who couldn't. so what we really need to do is make sure all of us are repeating that you don't die if you have a vaccination. and if you have a vaccination and are boosted, the chances of you weathering this and just gathering immunities if you do get it are very good. and that's a positive story. instead of oh, my god, it's sweeping the nation, we are going to shut down again. i'm confused. do i quarantine, not quarantine, mask, not mask? cases may be increasing, but we are doing better. in the long run we are going to be healthier. i think that we are not doing a

good job because we have a tendency to want to go for the dramatic. and the most dramatic right now is how many cases are showing up. how many plane flights are being canceled, how many businesses are shutting down. how many schools are confused. and the fact that nobody can get a fricking test! that's the part that drives me crazy, is that nobody can get a fricking test. >> you guys just solved it all right here. dr. gupta, thank you for joining us. up next for us, twitter is proving that it's more serious about lies the dissemination of disinformation than the u.s. republican house leader these days. that story is next. is next

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over the weekend, marjorie taylor greene used her personal twitter account to once again spread false and unproven misinformation about the covid vaccine. the social media company then permanently suspended her account for what it called repeated violations of its covid-19 misinformation policy. there have been calls for the gop leadership to do something similar about her behavior. today, kevin mccarthy spoke out, while not calling her out by name, he condemned, wait for it, twitter for what he says is his, quote, continued and dangerous effort to silence americans, including a sitting member of congress. let bring in tim miller, writer at large for the bulwark as well as an msnbc contributor. kevin mccarthy's big reveal gets more sort of debased and

disgusting every day, every news cycle. an opportunity to say, we don't stand for disinformation. we want our voters and supporters to take the vaccine and have the truth about it is never seized by kevin mccarthy, tim. >> no, it isn't, and he never holds any -- there's no accountability in kevin mccarthy's caucus, which is why it's the, you know, him get all hot and bothered over accountability happening elsewhere. within kevin mccarthy's caucus, over at the house judiciary committee, i don't know if you saw this over the weekend, they tweeted about how boosters don't work. the official twitter account of the house judiciary committee. what does twitter do about that? can we take off an entire official committee account? you know, this is where i think this becomes complicated, and like the challenges that are faced by responsible actors in the private sector and the media, you know, it's hard to figure out exactly what to do. it feels good, i'm glad there's

some accountability for marjorie taylor greene and she's not spreading her disinformation but when you have this as part and parcel of an entire political party, you have to figure out a way to engage with it. i'm deeply concerned, as we've talked about on this show, about now the marjorie taylor greenes of the world moving over to truth and parler and this entire ecosystem that no one is even monitoring where the grievances get inflamed more and the crazy gets even crazier. and so, i think that is where we need to figure out how to -- we can find a balance here to hold some accountability for people who are spreading conspiracies and disinformation while not completely cleaving the reality-based community off from, you know, 40% of the country, whatever it is. third of the country. >> tim, the donors used to be a check where sort of shame didn't work. why are donors interested in and supporting disinformation that costs lives, that leads to unnecessary deaths at this point? >> well, two things.

one is bottom-up now, right? the small dollar donors. i think it's time to review campaign finance reform. i worry sometimes about some of the campaign finance reform proposals to the left that they want to, for good reason, support grassroots donors but the problem is there are a lot of crazy grassroots donors. >> on the right, yeah. >> that is happening from the right. and i think you also have the big donors so caught off guard by trump winning, they didn't want to be on the outside. they wanted to be in the mix so bad that they had to come crawling back once before, and so i think a lot of them don't want to make that same mistake again so now we're in this worst case scenario of both worlds where the big donors will look the other way and still contribute unless they get called out and then we have this, you know, enormous community of small dollar donors that are sending insane

wheels-off texts and emails about how the democrats are going to eat babies' faces if you don't elect marjorie taylor greene and that's working so that's empowering these more extreme members of congress, that they're able to, you know, get funded both from both sources. >> i think the most important thing said all hour is, it's working. we need to add a psychologist to the conversation and try to figure out why. tim miller, claire mccaskill, thank you so much for spending time with us today. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a short break. line white house" starts after a shorbrt eak. at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. your shipping manager left to “find themself.”

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wins, that could be the end of our democracy. do you share that fear? >> i do. i think it is critically important given everything we know about the lines that he was willing to cross. he crossed lines no american president has ever crossed before. you know, we entrust the survival of our republic into the hands of the chief executive. and when a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he can not be trusted. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. the fears expressed by people from essentially opposite ends of the ideological political spectrum from liz cheney to hillary clinton, that the return of donald trump to the white house could spell the end of democracy in america are part of a wave of new warnings that nearly one year after the attack on the u.s. capitol, the dynamics that led to the insurrection continue to eat away at the foundations of our democracy. from the "new york times" editorial board, a stunning

editorial this weekend. quote, january 6th is not in the past. it is every day. it is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, quote, when can we use the guns? and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. it is republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. it is donald trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation's two major political parties. two stunning developments on the right, the fact that nearly a year after an insurrection inspired by the lie about a stolen election threatened the lives of a republican vice president and republican members of congress, a disgraced and deplatformed ex-president and his allies in congress and in the right-wing media have managed to make that big lie a fundamental part of what it means to be a republican in the

year 2022 and the fact that many in the gop are effectively paving the way for trump to make another run for the white house in 2024. both of those dynamics damaging the country's credibility on the world stage. from trudy ruben in the philadelphia inquirer, the coup attempt on january 6th along with its continuing reverberations has shaken our allies' faith in america's future. they watch in astonishment as the former president continues to promote his big lie about election fraud in 2020 and as most gop leaders support his falsehoods. they wonder whether trump will try again to steal the election in 2024. and whether more of his supporters will use violence. no nato ally could have conceived of such a scenario before trump incited the coup attempt at the capitol on january 6th. and so the possibility of another insurrection looms over this congress and this administration. as massachusetts democrat jim mcgovern puts it, quote, a year later, a fundamental question

remains. will the january 6th insurrection be swept under the rug or seen for what it could be? the beginning of the end of american democracy as we know it. many of the people who failed to overturn the election are now using the levers of power at the state level to rig future campaigns. those who manufactured the crusade to steal the 2020 election know how and why they failed. they're laying the groundwork to overturn the next election successfully. the coup is still under way. to thwart them, we must continue to expose what happened on january 6th, to demand accountability for those who participated in the attacks and to take every action necessary no defend our democracy. we may not be so lucky next time. dire warnings about the state of our democracy a year after the insurrection is where we start this hour. clint watts is here, former consultant to the fbi counterterrorism division, now a distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research institute and an msnbc national

security analyst. also joining us, a.b. stoddard, associate editor and columnist for real clear politics and mara gay is here. mara, it's a really remarkable editorial. it's an incredible piece of writing, and it really lands on this idea that the insurrection is ongoing. talk about it. >> yeah, i think what we're hoping to say here is that we can no longer afford to be shocked or caught by surprise. the idea that our democracy is under threat was not a one-time attack on democracy. what we really did is we went and looked and saw all of the hundreds of bills, legislation across the country, and dozens -- about two dozen, actually, that have passed, many of them in swing states across the country, that make it easier to overturn the results of a democratic election, either by contesting the will of voters in

specific states, by state legislatures, or by replacing good public servants of both parties with partisan hacks who will vote in the way that the maga crowd wants them to, and so as this is going on across the country, we also have hanging over us an incredibly dangerous political environment of violence, and of implicit and in some cases explicit threats on public servants, on journalists, on others, and so i think, you know, all in all, this is a five alarm fire, and you know, part of the challenge here is that actually the number of americans who believe in democracy is quite large, so it's not a majority of americans that want to overthrow the will of the voters. the problem is that if those of us who are committed to democracy don't take this radical minority seriously, we

could be in real trouble. and that's what's happening right now. i think unfortunately, too many of us are invested in pretending that things are okay when they are not. and the threat is ongoing and very real. >> that's such an interesting point, a.b. i mean, the folks who are sort of getting the most use of out of living in a democracy, it would seem, and really taking the first amendment to its sort of outer edges are the very ones that are lurching us toward an autocracy. the right-wing media, because of our first amendment freedoms, is using those freedoms to advocate for an autocracy. elevating vladimir putin's messages about the insurrection, echoing anti-democratic platitudes, and i wonder whether they think it's a joke, whether they think the democracy is stronger than we do, like, where does that come from?

>> i think that the right has a very good sense of the apathy among americans who are looking for some calm after trump lost the election, and while he galvanized his own supporters with the big lie and everyone else tuned it out, they went to work at longstanding plans from very smart lawyers at heritage and the federalist society and all of these well-funded groups to get going to legalize these voter restrictions that can basically nullify future elections they don't like, which is what mara's talking about, that the "new york times" editorial speaks to in detail, that these voting restriction laws, which we talked about on your show many times, were very well planned and they were executed immediately, and i think americans sort of say, well, i guess, you know, they have the right to do that. because that's just, you know,

it's legal and they have control of the legislatures and so it's not really my problem and we'll have to sort of hope for the best. but i think in the right, they use extreme language, and they break norms and they use corrupt means, and they get away with it, and so trump has taught them, you never back down. you try harder the next time. if you go on a crime spree in the wide open, people don't even really think that it's wrong, because they think that you're doing things in secret -- if they're illegal, they must be done in secret. and so this is a sort of a new means -- new kind of tactics anyway that he's been perfecting for years, but since last november, again, i think there's a sense of apathy that people tuned out political news once trump was gone, so he was able to energize his side with a lot of crazy lies that has only continued to grow, and we're

seeing, you know, 71% of republicans believing them. but i think it's really important that we talk not only about january 6th, nicole, but a coup that was planned for two months, and those things are not legal. and so i really hope the democrats, as we reflect this week on the day, really try to help the -- that the committee helps educate the public about november and december of 2020 and the days before january 6th, two entire months where many, many, many people were illegally planning a coup to take control of the government by illegal means and it wasn't just a violent organic act. it was very well planned and involved many, many people, and it was not legal. >> i mean, a.b., let me just follow up with you. i agree, but why should it just be on the committee? why isn't mitt romney making that point? the eastman memo is now in the public space. so are the other documents that underpin the, i hate to use the word, intellectual, the intellectual case for the coup

plot. jeffrey rosen, republican in good standing, i guess, i mean, why isn't richard burr making the point that you're making, that the illegal acts are overturning free and fair elections? chris krebs is out there but there are no elected republicans -- mitt romney, the video of his life being saved by one of those capitol police officers who could have died trying to save him, is nowhere in terms of calling out the illegality of donald trump and his entire inner circle. he could be on this show. he'd be welcome here any day of the week. where are the republicans who see those acts as illegal? as you just articulated. >> well, that's what's so horrifying is that they know that. i mean, richard burr and all of the people who are retiring, and that includes senator blunt, senator toomey, senator portman, i mean, there are many of them who could be standing up and saying, good lord, we don't want -- if joe biden loses an election, another january 6th in

2025 or we don't want the left to become violent and attack our government and try to overturn an election. we certainly don't want the democrats planning their own coup. but they're not. they knew, i think, that the president incited the insurrection and he deserved after being impeached to be convicted but not enough of them -- some of them did vote to convict, but not enough of them. and it really, i think, is going to have to fall, nicole, to the committee to talk in detail in those hearings about the planning in the state legislatures, what the communication was with the pentagon, what jeffrey clark and others were doing at the doj, every single complicit member of congress and their communications, so people know that it was a governmentwide effort, sparing the supreme court, of course, to overturn an election, steal an election, and that trump just didn't do it with a bunch of five of his goony friends on tap. this was a vast, broad network

of people planning a coup, and so as we reflect on january 6th, which i think is, you know, it's incredibly important event, and many people are being held to account by the justice department, who were inside the building, you know, attacking it that day, but certainly the planners were outside the building, and people really need to understand that that is the kind of thing that unless they are held to account, that will happen again. >> you know, clint, a.b. used the word apathy and when i try to understand why this isn't a front burner issue for people, i think that's the best explanation i can come up with, because i can't believe that people are indifferent to our democracy, but i do agree with a.b. that they can become apathetic and don't want to worry about it, don't want to hold the walls up anymore, but that is exactly what we're being called to do. i want to show you something fiona hill said about where we are. >> the ability to remove people

who stand in the way from, you know, basically the point of view of maintaining the democratic institutions, the ease in which that is possible, to get rid of any opposition both within the system and also within the political party apparatus as well, these again are hallmarks of things that we have seen historically and also internationally. you better be marginalized people. you make them irrelevant. you push them to the edges of the polity. you remove the checks and balances in the legal system. you basically have a compliant legislature and this is really key. >> so, clint, i think most viewers of this program know this, but fiona hill is an expert on russia, and i have heard her in that voice testifying in her sort of professional role about countries. to hear her describing america like that is appalling. and it's -- it should be shattering to anyone who cares about our democracy. and this is really it. you basically have a compliant

legislature, and this is really key. how emboldened is this sort of movement away from democratic norms by what she describes as the compliant legislature? >> i think it's the central issue, and i don't think it's just national. it's local. for me, i would expect the next coup will not be national. it will be local and it won't happen in 2024, but it will happen in 2022. i think part of the reason you don't see the gravity really around this issue for the public across the country is because it's very hard to keep your eyes on or understand because it's happening in local jurisdictions and municipalities. it's one or two people that are election officials in different states or cities that are being targeted. so it doesn't bubble up to the surface and really draw that national attention. at least not yet. but what should we expect moving forward? with these laws that are being passed at state legislatures and at congress, you know, and

capitol hill, what you're seeing is a movement to essentially suppress people from their ability to vote. we are seeing a broad disenfranchisement of the u.s. electorate, and when that happens, then you will have something happen, and it could happen as early as this fall where someone legitimately wins an election and is not installed in office. that in a local election official or a local official simply refuses to move out of power. i mean, we all saw january 6th, and we, you know, we kind of forget, we were worried on inauguration day that president trump then would not leave the white house. take this to a local level where there's not a lot of security, where maybe the elected law enforcement or the local security officials are part of the movement. it can happen at a much smaller scale, and it would be absolutely devastating for the country, and it would be a precursor for what i think you might see in 2024 should president trump run again, and they already are kind of clearing the pathway for him. so, it's a very perilous time

because even if we were to have an election in 2024, i'm not sure that we would actually be able to move forward to authenticating the results. it would be a nonstop battle from voting day or i really should say mail-in ballots all the way through to the inauguration, whether our democracy would stay intact. >> i'm sure you're right, but to hear those things said out loud, i guess i want to apologize for still being shocked by that scenario, but i'm still so shocked by that scenario. i want to ask you, clint, about these numbers. 40% of republican voters believe that violent action against the government is sometimes justified. how do you protect against 40% of republicans who think violent action against the government is sometimes justified? >> it's very strange, and i can tell you, nicole, just from monitoring and social media and going, you know, before the break you were talking about

some of those fringier platforms that are out there, you will find these groups, and you know, look, legitimate people, you know, legitimately interested in things like the integrity of elections, school board meetings and what's happening with their kids, all rightful, peaceful protests to a degree, but if you took a hundred, you would find -- i don't know that it would be 40, but you'd find a third that think it's okay to take things to the next level, maybe by force or showing up at a protest with an ar-15. and at least 1% to 5% are willing to actually commit that violence. i think that's where the real risk comes, as this is a political year, political years are when domestic extremism really comes up to a boiling point because the stakes become very high. so i'm very worried this year and i'm going to be intensely worried in 2024 if we're on the same trajectory we're on right now. >> i want to read one more line from this piece, mara gay, in the spirit. a healthy functioning political party faces its electoral losses

by assessing what went wrong and redoubling its efforts. the republican party, like authoritarian movements the world over, has shown itself recently to be incapable of doing this. party leaders' rhetoric suggests they see it as the only legitimate governing power and thus portrays anyone else's victory as a result of fraud, hence the foundational falsehood that spurred the jan 6th attack that joe biden didn't win the attack. quote, the thing that's most concerning is that it has endured in the face of all evidence, said representative adam kinzinger, one of the vanishingly few republicans in congress who remain committed to empirical reality and representative democracy. and i've gotten to wonder if there is actually any evidence that would ever change certain peoples' minds. it's perhaps the most haunting line in the whole piece, mara. >> yeah. you know, i think it's really time to move away from this american exceptionalism, this notion that our democracy is so strong and invulnerable that what has happened around the world cannot happen here.

i also think it's really important, we've been talking a lot about what's legal and what is not, and i think it's crucial to remember that slaveriry was legal, and there are a lot of unjust laws that were anti-democratic in the united states up until 30 or 40 years ago. specifically and especially in the south. and so, when you look at democracy, it's -- we're not just dependent on laws. we cannot expect the legal system alone to protect and defend our democracy. democracy needs peaceful and fair and free elections. it needs the lack of terrorism. it needs civic society. it needs journalism and accountability and peaceful protest. and i think when you have grown up in the united states, in the past generation or two, it's very easy to get a sense of false security that the country will just continue on autopilot

as we have known it, but if you just ask some people who are still alive today, actually, about what it was like to live as a black american in the south, just a generation ago, within living memory, you can really learn that the civil rights movement was, in fact, democratization and we are a younger democracy and a more vulnerable one than we think, and so i think it's really important that we talk not just about what's legal but about culture and it's really time to have that conversation as a society. this isn't just a political crisis. it's a moral and societal one. >> mara gay, a.b. stoddard, thank you both so much for starting us off this hour. clint sticks around. when we come back, as our allies around the world sound the alarm about american democracy, the disgraced ex-president today gave them more reason to worry. he endorsed a far-right autocrat who just like him is actively working to tear down democratic institutions in his country. the latest chapter in the right

wing's love affair with hungary's orbon is next. and later, amid skyrocketing case counts of covid fueled by the omicron variant, big challenges schools are facing this week as they try to stay open while keeping kids and teachers safe. try to stay open while keeping kids and teachers safe. it's your home. and there's no place like wayfair to make your reach-in closet, feel like a walk-in closet now that's more your style.

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all right, a little thought exercise for all of us. so without revealing the headline or the name of the person they're writing about, the following paragraph appears in today's "new york times." just see what it makes you think about. "this world leader and his party

have steadily consolidated power by weakening the country's independent and democratic institutions, rewriting election laws to favor his party, changing school textbooks, curbing press freedoms, overhauling the country's constitution, and changing the composition of the judiciary." sounds a whole lot like donald trump. what he did and what he had hoped to do. but no, that paragraph in "the new york times" today was describing hungarian prime minister viktor orban, the far-right leader of a self-styled illiberal democracy. he is a populist and authoritarian and as of this morning, a proud recipient of a political endorsement from none other than donald j. trump. joining our conversation is former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul, now an msnbc international affairs analyst and clint watts. ambassador mcfaul, i couldn't even get there on trying to figure out what this would be like if it were anybody else. so, maybe you can help me with

that. how -- it's so galling at a moment of frailty of our own democracy to see first tucker carlson -- and i guess this shows that tucker's the leader, and donald trump merely follows him, throwing their arms around viktor orban. >> i agree. it's shocking, and it's shocking for a couple of reasons. number one, to be meddling in the domestic internal affairs of hungary, that's one thing we shouldn't do. but number two, that paragraph eloquently captures, this is a country that was one of the breakthrough liberal democracies after the collapse of communism in 1989 and slowly over years, in a very important lesson for americans, it has eroded. viktor orban didn't even make the cut for president biden's democracy summit. 100 countries were invited. they didn't even make the cut, and yet our president goes out -- our former president, excuse me, president trump, goes out and endorses him, and one other thing i want to add, nicole, when you read that

paragraph, i thought you were writing about -- somebody was writing about vladimir putin 20 years ago because that's exactly what he did in russia today. and guess who is viktor orban's biggest supporter in europe today? vladimir putin. that is, you have orban, trump, and putin, ideologically, are all on the same side, ill liberal democracy is too nice a word. this is autocracy. >> you made the point about a year ago that the fight for democracy and the clash between democracy and autocracy is not democratic nations versus autocratic ones. it is within each nation. this seems to really underscore that dynamic, that in this country, not just some former president, you know, many cycles ago, but literally the last president has thrown his weight behind orban while the current president tries to strengthen democracy here and around the world. does this weaken his hand in that effort? >> yeah, it does. i mean, it's exactly right.

the fight -- you know, the cold war was us versus them, communism versus freedom. this is fights within countries, right? and by the way, within hungary too. there are small "d" democrats fighting for redemocratization in hungary, just as there are opposition leaders in russia and i think the vast majority of americans still support democratic rules of the game but within all three of those countries, you have these illiberal orthodox conservative, you know, elements that don't want to play by the democratic rules of the game, that think they can be changed in order to put them in power and you can see the trajectory, right? first putin did it. then viktor orban did it. and now we have some elements within the republican party, including our former president, that are willing to change the rules of the game to stay in power. that is the definition of a nondemocratic position. and i think illiberal autocracy is too nice. i want to say that one more

time. this is non-democratic behavior that viktor orban's doing. he dresses it up as illiberal democracy. it's actually autocracy. >> let me just press on this. i mean, it seems that they only want autocrats who see the worlds as they do, so they're not for autocratic movements that -- because you watch 15 minutes of right-wing media and it's joe biden's a socialist. they don't want a dictator or an autocrat that's going to make them do anything they want to do. they just want their side to control the rest of us. so, it feels like playing with fire, playing with matches. what is sort of the point of no return in terms of one of the countries' two parties, its ex-president, its most popular figure, tumbling toward autocracy and maybe seeing that that isn't such a great idea? >> well, i think we need to disaggregate two things.

one is socialism versus conservatism or, you know, what you think the tax rate should be or your view on some social policy issue. those are legitimate debates that all countries all over the world should have. the question is, the rules of the game that govern those debates. and the difference between a small "d" democrat and an autocrat is that the small "d" democrat agrees to the democratic rules of the game, agrees that whoever wins the election by the rules that are there wins the election and doesn't try to overturn it after the vote. whereas autocrats do that all the time all over the world. if they don't like the vote outcome, they overturn it. they falsify it to try to achieve their political ends, so that -- there's autocracy/democracy and then there's liberal/conservatism and i think they're very different things. >> but clint, the right has blurred them in the american disinformation right-wing media

universe where on the right, freedom is the freedom to go throw your arms around vladimir putin, to echo his messaging, and a lack of freedom, a dictatorship, is a vaccine mandate. i mean, talk about how much running room these forces gain in this alliance between putin, orban, and trump in the disinformation sphere. >> nicole, it's remarkable, and i physically witnessed this. i was in budapest, hungary, in september 2014. amazing city. you know, really enjoyed my time there. cultural epicenter. three years later, september 2017, i was back there. you could see the effects of this overtime and that's where the propaganda spin machine comes in. i walked down the street with a group of people that were talking about george soros, from hungary, talking about the ills of democracy, angst about lgbtq issues, misogyny.

it was very apparent, like, the culture was in this sort of tumult at the time and look four years now further and we see that continue. i think what's interesting, the disinformation space, is you have people with different agendas but similar ideas that have converged in the information space. it's white nationalism. it's oftentimes christian orthodox, you know, communities sort of come together in it. but what ultimately ends up happening is you see alliances that don't quite make sense. for example, gun rights is an amazing one. we saw this with russia's active measures programs four years ago. advocating for gun rights, trying to get in with the nra. at the same time, there's not going to be gun rights -- you're not going to show up with an ar-15 in moscow but you'll see people in texas or alabama cheering for vladimir putin and russia because of things like authoritarian power, white power, white nationalism. so, when you look in these spaces, you see this convergence, but in reality, it doesn't make much sense. i think that's the real

confounding part of all of this. >> that's the sort of break with reality, just these unholy alliances. ambassador mcfaul, clint watts, thank you both so much for spending time with us on this. we'll stay on it. when we return, chaos and confusion for parents and kids trying to head back to school this week after the holidays with omicron cases soaring around the country. schools are trying really hard in some instances struggling to reopen and stay open. e instance reopen and stay open omega-3 from fish oil is an important nutrient for heart health. qunol's ultra purified omega -3, is sourced only from wild caught ocean fish, not farm raised and comes in an easy to swallow mini pill. the brand i trust is qunol.

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i still believe very firmly and very passionately not only as an educator but as a parent that our students belong in the classroom, and we can do it safely. we have better tools than we had in the past to get it done. we know what works, and i believe even with omicron, our default should be in-person learning for all students across the country. >> that was education secretary miguel cardona on the importance of working and adapting to keep our kids in the classroom, even among omicron. most districts in the country are forging ahead with in-person learning, including new york city today. relying on mandatory health screeners and a ramped-up testing program, recommending testing for students and staff and doubling the random testing for those who have opted into it. but some districts are extending their holiday breaks to create a little more time to do that testing, like d.c. public schools, now scheduled to reopen thursday of this week. all students and staff are required to test negative before

going back to school on thursday. still, the school tracking website says this. more than 2,700 schools are closed this week or open only for remote instruction, including major districts like cleveland and newark and suburbs in new jersey, maryland, and michigan. joining our conversation, randy weingarten. the three of us have been talking about kids and in-person learning for the full two years of the pandemic, and i just want to get some facts established. when i was here last week, it was a fact that even with an uptick in pediatric hospitalizations, dr. anderson, there were no vaccinated kids hospitalized with covid. is that still the case? >> that is. now, i would say there's mostly good news, that much like most of the pandemic, kids seem to be less severely affected than adults but there are some concerns that we're seeing in

children's hospitals. there are reports out there that while we're just testing a lot of kid, so that's the reason the numbers are so high. i did a little survey today and at children's national, we have 53 kids in the hospital with covid-related symptoms, you know, the great proportion of them are not vaccinated, like you said, nicole, but 94% of them are there for covid-related symptoms, not just, you know, some serendipitous death. test. so you talk about something that's very different but having this conversation for two years, but now kids over five are eligible for vaccines so we do have a tool that we didn't have several months ago. >> why is it, in your view, dr. anderson, that not even 15% of kids between 5 and 11 are vaccinated? >> i think people are scared. people are unsure, did this come to market too quick? is it really safe? and as a pediatrician and intensive care doctor and most importantly a father and a

grandfather, i know these vaccines are safe. i know that the manufacturers and the fda have taken every precaution to make sure this is a safe vaccine. the second thing is, there's a narrative that, well, you know, kids don't really get sick from this. but there are kids that get sick and there's another study that came out from the cdc just last week that shows a full third of kids that are sick with covid and sick enough to be hospitalized were just healthy kids beforehand. it's not just kids with chronic disease, and oh, by the way, kids with chronic disease deserve to be safe and healthy and protected from this virus, so you and i talked about it. i think there's still an enormous space for ongoing conversation between pediatricians, nurse practitioners, family medicine docs and families that this is a safe vaccine. >> and is it too early to call it a failure at this point, that this country hasn't -- i mean, kids -- if you have a young child, you have had so many vaccinations by the time they get to kindergarten. it just -- i'm gob smacked by the fact that the numbers, i

think, 14% last week, again, i'm not sure if it ticked up at all over the weekend, but news of pediatric hospitalizations but how is it described as anything other than a failure that we're only at 14% now that we have a new wave and schools seem to be ready to go for it and stay in-person? >> yeah, you know, sometimes i'm an over-optimist. i think it's an ongoing effort. i still think with us being in the middle of omicron, with us, of course, wanting to protect as many kids before, god forbid, there's another variant, i think it's an ongoing effort. this is a time like no other where there's divide, there's political divide, there's tension, there's misinformation. i think it's an ongoing effort that we, the pediatricians of this country and the families of kids have to have this ongoing discussion of, this is really important. imagine if we were sitting here and didn't have these amazing vaccines? this would be, actually, even worse. >> yeah, i mean, randi, and i

guess i wanted to establish those facts because teachers now can all be vaccinated. i believe most of them are. kids over 5 can all be vaccinated. so, the only children where a real debate about remote school is even understandable, i guess, would be, you know, the younger grades, preschool, kids under 5. you don't have a vaccine, as dr. anderson is saying, some of them are getting sick. they don't all have preexisting conditions. tell me how you see this conversation about returning to school this week. >> so, first off, let me just say, thank you to dr. anderson and all the pediatricians and the nurses who are just exhausted right now. and doing the kind of -- doing god's work. and let me just also, when i say this, you know, miguel cardona, it is the default position that schools were open all week, all

day. teachers were in school all day long all across the country. i got a briefing for an hour and a half this afternoon about how things are going, and it's a fraught time because teachers are showing up and doing what they need to do. they're basically vaccinated across the country. they have asked for the kind of safety measures that we think we need during a period of time of omicron, which is more and more people getting vaccinated, including our kids. we know vaccinations and boosters work. i saw it myself. my partner and i both had covid last week and we had very mild symptoms and we're, knock wood, fine now because we believe -- we believe because we're vaccinated and boosted. but testing is really key right now. wearing good masks are really key right now. and we don't actually understand why we don't have the kind of

testing that new york city is trying to do right now, that l.a., that detroit, that washington, d.c., is trying to do, so we're once again saying to teachers and to parents, you know, do the best you can, but not using all the tools we have to make sure that it works. we want schools open. we want them safe. we need to make sure that we have the kind of testing that we know will work so that we can see the virus and people can stay home if they're positive. >> i mean, randi, people turn to you in positions of power. what answers do you get for why we don't have a testing infrastructure here at month 24 of the pandemic? >> so, i think what happened was, look, and as you know, nicole, i was a big booster, no pun intended, of testing and thought that that was the way we could reopen schools last

january, and i think it's, you know, it's -- it was something that was hard to do. it was hard to get things together. i'm really grateful for the president's 500 million tests that he is pushing out right now. that's what i think is really saving new york city right now. but at the end of the day, the tests were not mass produced. we focused on vaccines, which we should, but we need to make sure that we can use testing, including mass producing in every which way testing for this month so that people have, at the ready, fda-approved rapid tests, which can detect infection. so, testing is a big driver right now, and that's the way i think we're going to keep schools open in the next two, three weeks. people are scared. and if they see test results, then they have the power to make

decisions for themselves, their families, and, you know, and for schools, and i think that operationally, if we give some grace to understand that there will be places that will have, you know, shortages, like cincinnati today, two schools had less than 50% of their staff. there's going to be a shortage in those places. other places, as dr. gottlieb said, you know, will have reactive closures. so, the default should be opening, but we need the testing. we need the masks. and if we have shortages, we need to make sure that we keep everybody safe so that those places will close for a short period of time. but the goal is, schools open, get the testing as much as possible. get the -- get masks. get people begging -- i'm begging parents, please, vaccinate your kids. get the boosters for people.

>> it's just confounding to me that everyone doesn't heed that call. randi weingarten, dr. michael anderson, thank you so much for spending time with us. the new mayor of new york city has vowed that schools in his city will stay open. we'll get an update on how back to school in new york city went today. it's the country's largest school system. today. it's the country's largest scolho system.

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the message has been clear. we have not vacillated. we have not been unclear. our schools will open. the safest place for our children we all know -- a child must be in school for so many reasons. my children are going to be in school. i am keeping my schools open, and we're going to make sure they're going to be in a safe place. >> that was newly elected new york city mayor eric adams this morning on "morning joe" insisting that new york schools will safely stay open despite the surge from omicron. mayor adams touted the school system's new testing program for schools which relies on at-home tests and doubles the number of students and staff randomly tested. as of the department of education's last update, december 30th, 3,334 active covid cases under investigation in the nation's largest public school district. 60% of which involve students. let's bring in nbc's elson

barber in new york city. what are you hearing? >> reporter: the city's covid infection rate has smashed records and not in a good way. as people in this community have watched the covid cases, the percent of daily infections continue to rise and stay really high. some people have said that perhaps it would be wise to to lay for a little while the opening of school. they say schools should go virtual for a week or so to give cases time to go down. you heard mayor adams saying -- he's been adamant saying he believes schools should be open and they can do it safely particularly with enhanced testing. previously in new york city schools, if a student tested positive for covid-19, any of their unvaccinated close contacts had to quarantine for ten days.

theoretically and at times that meant an entire classroom had to be at home quarantining. now under this new plan with enhanced testing, what will happen if a student tests positive for covid-19 is that a teacher will distribute at-home covid tests and students are supposed to take them on the fourth and fifth day post exposure. if they test negative throughout that period, they're to continue going to school as long as they don't have symptoms. the only person who would need to do a ten-day quarantine is a student who tests positive. this was the first day back. we spoke to a number of parents here that had a lot of mixed emotions. listen. >> i feel like because of the surge they should go back to the remote learning option, just tentatively speaking until the spikes are down. >> we've been through this for almost two years now. i think we just have to learn to

live with it. >> i do feel safe bringing her to school, but it's still scary. >> reporter: when it comes to covid, kids and schools, it is an incredibly complex issue. it is an educational issue, a public health issue. there are child care issues, child care concerns at play. there are issues as it relates to equity. when you look at new york in the age range of children who are eligible to be vaccinated in new york city, about 43% of those children are fully vaccinated. one thing to keep in mind, when you mentioned that random testing that takes place at schools, the mayor says they're going to double that for teachers and students regardless of vaccination status. when it comes to students, that's something that parents have to opt into for their child to be tested weekly in that random surveillance. a lot of parents haven't done that.

nicolle? >> nbc's ellison barber, thank you for your reporting on this. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. r us we'll be right back. narrator: on a faraway beach, the generation called "our greatest" saved the world from tyranny. in an office we know as "oval," a new-generation president faced down an imminent threat of nuclear war. on a bridge in selma, alabama, the preacher of his time marched us straight to passing voting rights for every american. at a gate in west berlin, a late-generation american president demanded an enemy superpower tear down a wall

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right now even skashl fans of jeopardy are well aware of the current champion, amy schneider. she's been dominating for weeks now in record-breaking fashion. amy has now won more consecutive matches than any woman in the show's history, 22 wins, $831,000 and counting. so impressive, especially considering the transphobic abuse and hateful messages she's received online, messages she's handled with humor and grace.

amy is now fourth on the all-time wins list. needing another 54 to get past ken jennings. don't put it past here. thank you for allowing us in your homes during this extraordinary time. the beat with ari melber starts now. >> welcome everyone. i'm ari melber. ivanka trump and donald trump jr. newly subpoenaed by the attorney general letitia james. we begin this first weekday of this new year. happy new year. we begin much like we did the last new year, i bet you noticed. a weary world facing an enduring mutating pandemic. the fact is covid continues to break records. and its persistence, logic and danger is mightier than any calendar we created. it's stronger than any tradition we all have of trying to turn the page o