john harwood, stay with us. a lot more to discuss. >>> like the federal reserve, gearing up to raise interest rates soon. the central bank, it did not hike rates wednesday, but noted the economy is now strong enough to end easy money policies. >> the economy no longer needs sustained high levels of monetary policy support. that's why we're fashion out our asset purchases in ways we expected will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate. >> yeah, the fed here is an inflation fighting mode, plans to raise interest rates multiple times this year, first one likely in march. rates have been near zero since the pandemic began. the fed slashed rates in march 2020 to help the economy. higher interest rates will help combat persistent inflation, which powell expects to cool over the course of this year. on main street, this affects everyone, higher rates affect borrowing, raising costs for mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgage rates back to prepandemic levels. wall s

. >> cnn white house correspondent john harwood is following. john, the president expected among other things to announce the deployment of medical teams to help struggling hospitals. as you know, the white house, the administration very aware that this is affecting all parts of their agenda, popularity, the president's approval ratings. so how urgently are they trying to address these things? >> reporter: extremely urgently. as you indicated, getting control of the pandemic is key to everything president biden wants to do, and his administration is scrambling just like states, the health care system, hospitals are scrambling to keep up with omicron. we had gotten some good news as you indicated before, which is that lots of cases, some indication that the severity is milder and maybe it's peaking. but because of the incredible number of cases and the record hospitalizations that are taking place even with less severity, when you get that many people infected, you'll overload the health care system. president biden is announcing today with defens

john harwood. john, what's your argument here? >> first of all, welcome back, kasie.be here. >> look, let's step back and think about what both men have tried to do. donald trump lost the election of 2020, lied about it, claimed fraud, tried to overturn it legally, failed, tried to bully election officials, get me 12,000 more votes, failed, and incited mob violence against the capitol. he was trying to corrupt the election. since 2020, that corruption effort failed, republican legislators around the country have been trying to engineer changes in election administration and voting procedures to make sure that they can succeed where trump failed. that is pretty stark. that's why we've been covering democracy in peril. joe biden is leading democrats to try to protect the integrity of elections. it doesn't mean joe biden questioned the legitimacy of the 2022 elections. the most significant threats are in 2024 not 2022. it is true that some of these state laws are going to have incremental effects and may not in and of themselves make the election illegitimate. but i thin

john harwood is "out front" on this story.reme court blocking this, this is a major loss for the president, right? and let's be clear, vaccine mandates have worked >> it's a big blow on tom of a series of other big blows the president hasuffered, including the demise of voting rights legislation due to the insistence by sinema and manchin today to preserve the filibuster. of course, the difficulty with getting his build back better agenda. but the core mission for the biden white house is getting on top of this pandemic and the vaccine mandate was a way to try to do that. they have pretty much hit the wall of people who were willing to get vaccinated up front. they're using the mandate to try to get businesses to force some of the reluctant into getting vaccinated. now, businesses, many large businesses are for vaccination themselves. many of them have their own mandates. some of the airlines, for example. so it's not clear how much of a setback this is going to be, but it's clearly not what the administration wanted and they

let me bring back in cnn's john harwood, who's live at the white house still for us. lear. but he had a reason clearly to need to clarify this morning, john. >> reporter: he was not clear at the news conference yesterday, and that's what he was trying to fix today. he said he'd been clear to vladimir putin but in terms of what he said to the american public, to the global community, to the ukrainians in particular, he seemed to suggest yesterday that there was a gradation of a minor incursion or invasion if you want to use that word and a major one. what he just said there was no. any crossing of the border by russian forces would be an invasion that would be met with the severe consequences that he's talked about. he also said that russia has a history of using other means, cyber, other things that are different from troops across the border, and those would also be met with a response but a different response. that's what he meant to say yesterday, did not say, caused confusion, caused consternation in kyiv, and that's why he was clarifying it just now. >> it also se

john harwood joins us live with more. ouse on efforts to turn this page given that the majority of it is sort of out of the president's hands? >> well, look, briannbrianna, t white house knows this is a very, very difficult moment for them, and what they're trying to do is keep grinding ahead. you're right. there are some things they don't control. on inflation, for example, that's mostly the fed's job, but they'll continue trying to work on supply chain issues, work on things incrementally to try and make a difference. they'll try on the pandemic to -- now that the mandate has been struck down, they're counting on business, many large businesses themselves very pro vaccination. and so maybe those businesses the white house hopes can implement some mandates, scrambling on masks to catch up with the demand on omicron, and on the legislative agenda they're trying to see if they can revive after the voting rights push, which appears doomed to fail, they'll try to revive build back better in a form joe manchin can accept. no g

but let's begin with john harwood at the white house. john, what exactly are we expecting to hear from the president today in georgia? >> reporter: what we're going to hear is the president in the city where martin luther king and john lewis helped lead the civil rights movement, is going to have the president frame the search for voting rights in the context of two elements of the american story that have been central throughout. one, a democracy in which the people are sovereign, and two, the long march toward realizing the aspiration for flawed beginnings, that all are created equal in that democracy. the problem is, in the wake of donald trump's defeat, and the big lie that republicans are pushing, the republican party has turned away from those ideas, and because of senate rules, they have the power to stop, through the filibuster, the advance of voting rights legislation that's already passed the house of representatives. so what the president is going to do is try to call on the senate to change those rules, so that they can pass i

there's no getting around that. >> thank you, john harwood. i appreciate it. >> you bet. >>> he was on the floor, the house floor when the insurrection broke out. he feared he might never make it out to meet his new baby son. congressman colin allred tells me his story, next. >> there was still blood on the walls. still broken glass on the floor. while we ourselves were shaken, we came back. and we voted to certify the american presidential election. [♪] did you know, styling hair is easier when it's hydrated? try pantene daily moisture renewal conditioner. the active pro-v nutrients, provide up to 72 hours of hydration for easier and more flexible styling. try pantene. as a professional bull-rider i'm used to taking chances. but when it comes to my insurance i don't. i use liberty mutual, they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wooo, yeaa, woooooo and, by switching you could even save 665 dollars. hey tex, can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. yeah. only pay for what you ne

. >>> i want to turn now to cnn white house correspondent john harwood. good evening to you.nt biden spoke to the ukrainian president zelensky for an hour, an hour and 20 minutes tonight, and it apparently didn't go so well. what are you hearing about that conversation, john? >> well, we're hearing different things from both sides, don. from the ukrainian side, there was an anonymous quote, a leak to our colleague matthew chance in which the ukrainian official said that president biden told president zelensky that an invasion was certain to happen when the ground freezes and that kyiv should brace for impact. the white house says that's absolutely not true, that president biden said there's a distinct possibility that russia will cross the border and invade, but that is not a certainty. at his news conference last week, president predicted that that was likely. nevertheless, the president said he was not saying it was certain. but there was agreement between the two sides, president zelensky sent out a tweet, and in the statement the readout from the nsc both agreed that the

that some of the gains that they have been achieving have been eroded because prices are up. >> john harwoodu're welcome. >>> this morning, his mom getting involved. novak djokovic, his mother says he's a prisoner being treated inhumanely. the australian government disagrees with mom. >>> and a judge is about to sentence the men who chased down and murdered ahmaud arbery, his mother is going to join us live next. a must in your medicine cabinet! less sick days! cold coming on? zicam is the #1 cold shortening brand! highly recommend it! zifans love zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds! zicam. zinc that cold! with clean, fresh ingredients, panera's new chicken sausage and pepperoni flatbread is a mouthwatering explosion of yes. craft? yes! heartiness? yes! living life to the avor-fullest? heck yes. panera. live your yes. now $1 delivery. and it's easy to customize your insurance ♪ limu emu and do.♪ at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? limu? limu? sorry, one sec. doug blows several different whistles. doug blows several different whistles. [a

john harwood, cnn white house correspondent. welcome to you both.nt likely has a good 12 month story that he's going to tell about the rescue plan and the infrastructure bill and the effort on covid. but the last week to two show some difficulties. what's the pivot? what's the accelerant that he's going to potentially push for the next year in his presidency? >> that's the big question. i think a lot of people are looking to the white house to find out what is the strategy moving forward. we all kind of know where things stand right now. we know that this president is at basically a low point. in his presidency. also a low point when he's compared to other presidents and around this time in office. however, there's still almost a year left of this year, and it's a critically important political year. there needs to be, i think, for a lot of democrats who are looking on, a plan for how to deliver for the voters who put joe biden into office, how to deliver on priorities, whether it's on voting rights or immigration on other things, and it might need

john harwood, we thought we might get a ruling tonight but it's expected to come very soon. the supreme court appears poised to block president biden's vaccine and testing rules aimed at large businesses. how big of a blow would this be to the biden administration and their attempt to stop the spread of covid? >> well, it would certainly be a blow. i don't know how big of a blow. there are many difficulties that are in front of the biden administration as they try to get the country vaccinated. and the biggest one is hard vaccine resistance from a few tens of millions of americans, you know, just about 30% of the country, of adults in the country who are simply not willing to get vaccinated. the mandate helps to force some of those people to do it but that's not really the core of the issue. the core of the issue is there are a lot of people who don't want to get it. so they're going to have to keep pushing. it's unclear how much ultimate headway they're going to be able to get because even with a mandate, you're going to get some people resisting. so it would take one tool

thank you, john harwood. i appreciate it. >> you bet. >>> he was on the floor, on the house floor, when the insurrection broke out, and he feared that he might never make it out to meet his new baby son. congressman colin allred tells me his story next. >> well, there was still blood on the walls, still broken glass on the floor, while we ourselves were shaken, we came back, and we voted to certify an american presidential election. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger. introducing filo mortgage. now, you could be a click or call away from an even lower mortgage rate with no origination fees and the ability to close in as little as three weeks. . filo is practically a mortgage rate hero. start your pre-approval and let the filoing begin today. (announcer) find your lower rate at filomortgage.com, or by calling the number below. (soft music) ♪ it's epiq here. it's epiq here. it's epiq out here,

>> john harwood, thank you for your reporting. >>> it's time for three questions in three minutes. let's bring in michael zeldin, host of the podcast that said with michael zeldin. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's start with what mccarthy knows. it seems he knows quite a bit. on the day of the insurrection, listen to what he told cbs. >> you said you spoke with the president. what did the president say he would do? >> he had put a tweet out there. i told him, you need to talk with the nation. i was very clear with the president when i called him. this has to stop and he's got to go to the american public and tell them to stop this. >> now, he says he was clear with the former president. that's the sanitized version of the story because we know from our own reporting and from others at the time, they had a shouting match. they were screaming at each other. how does mccarthy possibly get out of telling the committee what he knows about all this? >> well, he shouldn't be allowed to get out of it. his notion that the committee is not engaged in legitimate activity, that it is no

cnn white house correspondent john harwood is right there live in pittsburgh for us. john? >> john, we're here at mill 19, which is a symbol of the new economy that pittsburgh in particular and pennsylvania and the country in general are trying to embrace. this is a place they used to make metal. now they work on artificial intelligence here. but this is a remarkable moment for president biden when you think, john, about the presidents you and i have covered and their records on the economy. joe biden has got the hottest economy since ronald reagan in 1984 and yet, he's under water on the issue for reasons that are all related to the pandemic. pandemic turned the economy upside down. tremendous fiscal support both under the trump administration and joe biden with the rescue plan last march. that has helped to bring the economy back, roaring back. but pandemic effects and the effects of that extra demand surged into the economy with that fiscal support has created inflation and that has people feeling upset about the economy, both the pandemic and the inflation. so what joe

there john harwood is standing by at the white house. what does the president say, john? >> this is a big moment for the president. he is heading down as part of a broad effort by democrats in the run-up to the martin luther king holiday to try to get voting rights legislation passed. he gave a tough speech on the insurrection last week. he will give a tough speech going after republicans on voting rights today. he is getting that boycott as you mentioned from some of activists who said they have not seen enough of a plan from joe biden how to pass voting rights legislation and stacey abrams isn't going to be there, the president addressed that to reporters a few minutes ago. take a listen. >> i spoke to stacy this morning. we have a great relationship. we got our scheduling mixed up. i talked with her at length this morning. we're all on the same page. and everything's fine. >> about the other points -- >> say that again. >> what did you risk politically when you know -- >> i risk not saying what i believe. that's what i risk. this is one of those defining moments. it re

. >> john harwood, john h., biden is going to be giving an address tomorrow. i should say the president is going to be giving an address tomorrow where advisers say he will be blunt about the focus behind the insurrection and what it has done to our democracy. what message will be trying to drive home on this first anniversary? >> well, don, i think it is an important pivot moment for the joe biden white house. throughout 2021 he talked about threats to democracy and the need for democracy to show it could work. that was mainly about democracy delivering. that meant his government and his party, which is in control of the congress delivering. they've struggled to do that. they've been fighting internally and trying to get his agenda through. for that and some other reasons his ratings have suffered. in 2022 if he is going to come back politically he is going to have to take it hard to republicans, draw sharp contrast with republicans, and talk about the difference between the two parties. one of the differences is this question of democracy. it's an argument t

. >>> joining me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and congressional correspondent jessicahank you both for joining us this evening. we're going to talk about what the president did today, john. president biden making a major push for these two voting rights bills, comparing this moment to being on the side of dr. king or george wallace, john lewis over bo connor. he's putting it all on the line here. so what happens if this doesn't work? no voting rights, no build back better? >> well, that certainly could be one result, don. both of them are difficult. i think the white house is more confident and democratic leaders in the congress are more confident that they can get something done on build back better than on voting rights because it requires this institutional change in the senate. but this is a consequence of what happens when you have zero margin for error in the senate. you've got 50 senators. you need all of them, and one of them happens to come from a state that donald trump won by 39 percentage points in the last election. the fact that he's -- joe manchin is the

cnn's john harwood is traveling with the president. john, how does the president, rather the collapse, i should say, impact what the president will say, do we expect? >> reporter: well, victor, it underscores the point he's making about the need for investment in infrastructure. he will surely refer to the visit to the remarks when they was there at the bridge. he reminded as he does many times, we used to be number one in infrastructure and now we're not. mention that pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world. and said that all of their soundness would be assured by the money in this infrastructure package. more than $1.6 billion will go to the state of pennsylvania. and he's going to try to both highlight the fact that they passed that bill, that they're taking care of that problem, also the positive economic news, we got yesterday a strong news about the size of economic growth, more than 5%, strongest since 1984 in the year 2021. and at a time when so many people are discontent with his leadership and inflation, the whi

john harwood and cnn's senior legal analyst laura coates the author of the new book "just pursuit, a osecutor's fight for fairness." good evening to both of you. john, this new video is astounding. it's stunning. we shouldn't be surprised. we've seen so much of it. every time i see another video coming out, it is even worse than the last. it shows a rioter slamming a police officer to the ground. difficult to watch. trump can claim rioters were hugging and kissing police all he wants but this video really shows the truth here. and also, why it is so important that the select committee gets to the bottom of what happened on january 6th. it's accountability. >> it's critically important. look, we have a situation here where you had not only -- with people who assaulted police officers but property, crashed through the barriers of the capitol, but you had an assault on our democracy. that is the fact that people -- the peaceful transfer of power. that is what made the united states a model for the world for a couple centuries and they have to figure out exactly who made this happen, how

joined now cnn white house correspondent john harwood on the north lawn. es anybody in the administration share that hope? are they moving on to plan b, c? >> reporter: no, i don't think so. they don't have any illusions. they've gone through the process of trying to get the votes to change the filibuster and pass that voting rights act. they think it's important to the future of democracy, it's important to their constituency because many democratic voters on the other end of those voting restrictions that republicans are pushing at state level. but i don't think they see much path at this point. possible bipartisan compromise on the electoral count act, but i think that's something that the white house will wait and see how much republican support materializes for that and whether that becomes a realistic possibility. mostly at the one-year mark, jim, i think what the white house is intending to do is get back to the fundamentals of their administration, one, getting covid under control. that means trying to catch up on masks and testing, continue to push

me right now for more on this, cnn white house corres corres corres corres corres correspondent john harwoodain confusing. where are we? >> you know, we have the fastest growth rate since 1984 in the fourth quarter of last year. now that adds fuel to the fire for the fed to hike interest rates. the economy, it's kind of like a fire. you want it to burn a little bit, you don't want it to burn out of control. it's a delicate balancing act right now. on the one hand, it's great people are buying and companies are stocking inventory but we don't want it to get out of control. >> talking about with the decision coming from the federal reserve signals now that it's going to raise interest rates. does the gdp number complicate this? >> reporter: no, i don't think so. as rana just indicated, it strengthens the case. one thing we have to keep in mind in terms of the record-breaking numbers, some of this simply affects the adjustment reopening the economy in the shutdown during the pandemic. the other years since ronald reagan aren't directly comparable to this because of those unusual circumstances.

joining me right now for more on this is cnn white house correspondent john harwood and rana faruhar. john, what is your take on today's jobs report as we wait to hear from the president, because i don't think people will be -- are alone if they are yet again somewhat confused by what's coming out. >> well, everyone should be confused, all the experts are confused. they were projecting job gains of twice this much. it is difficult to know what to make of these numbers. first of all, so often over the last several months we have seen revisions upward in previous months. so there are funky things about how businesses are reporting job gains during the pandemic, depends on what time of the month they're conducting that survey of businesses, you also have the dimension of small business formation, which may some people not going back to work for large companies are starting their own businesses. there is also the question of how many of the jobs that were lost since the pandemic are actually going to come back because there is some people who were closer to retirement age, who may have de

cnn white house correspondent john harwood is here and our chief legal analyst mr. jeffrey toobin as well. hello and thanks for joining. john, you heard in jessica's piece that kevin mccarthy was asked in may if he would be willing to testify about his conversation with trump on january 6th. mccarthy said sure. well, tonight he is saying he will not cooperate. is there any surprise -- is that surprising to you considering mccarthy previously went down to mar-a-lago to kiss the ring? >> it's not surprising at all. look, let's step back and remember who we're dealing with. kevin mccarthy is the weakest congressional leader of either party in decades. he is not rooted in principles or values or the truth. we all remember when he went on fox news and boasted about how the benghazi inquiries, which were supposed to be about national security, had tarnished hillary clinton's poll ratings. he pushed liz cheney out of leadership for telling the truth about the 2020 election. on january 6th when the insurrection was going on he thought his personal survival and advancement re

john harwood is at the white house with more on this, and that this is not the worst of it. hat are you hearing, john? >> it is not unexpected, but it is underscoring why this is a big concern for the american people, and the biden white house, and as you mentioned, the highest year over year inflation in four decades. now we have a reaction from president biden and i want to read it to you here. the president says -- today's report shows a meaningful headline of inflation with gas and food prices falling, and means that we are making progress in slowing the rate of inflation, and at the same time this report means that we have to make work to do with this economic slump. we have one of the best economies to sustain strong economic growth. that is my goal and i am focused on reaching it everyday. so as a matter of policy, this is a problem for the federal reserve and through the monetary policy, it has the greatest influence on regulation, and so last year it did spur inflation because of the amount of money it pumped into the economy, but it is a big political problem for pr

cnn's john harwood joins us this morning. nice to see you, john.tings can bounce back just as quickly as they think if we can get some progress on covid here? >> reporter: it's not unreasonable. the question is whether that scenario is reasonable. you know, the report that you just played with correspondents around the world shows how covid has turned the entire world upside down. the same thing is happening in the united states with significant related effects on the economy. those things, the persistence of those effects, inflation that we've seen, supply chain disruption, the disruption of normal day to day life that has occurred, first by delta, then by omicron in terms of extending the pandemic despite vaccinations. that has dragged joe biden down. faster than people like ronald regan, barack obama, bill clinton fell at similar points in their presidency. most presidents when they start have a difficult patch. the question is do we cross the wave, you know, the correspondent in australia talked about living with the virus. if we can cross over

joining me now, elliot williams and my buddy from the white house, john harwood. the d.a.ay about the dynamic between the d.a. and the police? >> it's not great. in the midst of this long, national conversation we're having about policing and public safety and race and so on, what gets lost a lot are the stories of police officers and if you read jason rivera's own words about why he joined and his own issues with police growing up, they're very, very powerful. this is somebody with an uncle and cousin who are both nypd officers and those were powerful words to hear. now, as of the specifics police versus the d.a. in manhattan, there's a few things going on. one, that could be causing the significant rise in violent crime in the city. the pandemic, policing decisions coming from the d.a. and the mayor and so on, but also the owners of guns. there's a lot of factors going into this. it's painful and hopefully the city can work through it. >> everyone remembers donald trump campaigning on the promise there would be law and order if he were presidential. republicans railed ag

. >> joining me right now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and cnn chief analyst jeffrey toobinwhat strikes you about what trump is saying and effectively doing there in dangling pardons? >> well, it's the same thing he was doing dangling pardons when he was president which is trying to influence the administration of justice. if you think you're going to get a pardon down the line, you as a potential defendant or an actual defendant, might not plead guilty. you might not cooperate against other defendants. that has a real impact. that's what prosecutors need. they need guilty pleas. they need coopecooperators. >> it has a practical impact right now, not even after the next election. >> that's right. and i'm talking about the january 6th investigation that's going on right now. i mean, obviously, one of the key issues is whether and how the inrecolsurrection by peoplee to trump. he, by dangling the pardons, is making the investigation harder for the justice department today. and so, you know, it's a very concrete influence and very intentional. >> john, i want to play some of th

. >>> i want to turn to white house correspondent john harwood and evan, a staff writer for "the new yorker." and the author of joe biden, the life, the run and what matters now. good evening to you two gentlemen, as well. biden is heading to atlanta tomorrow to push for two voting rights bills. what can we expect? >> a very aggressive speech, don. we saw the past last week be quite sharp in his tone about donald trump and the insurrection laying the blame for that at the former president and he's going to be talking tomorrow about the threat to democracy posed by all the incursions that republican state legislatures are making to constrain voting rights and change the rules of election administration in ways that make it easier for the next republican candidate to succeed in jury rigging the outcome of the election where donald trump failed. now, the challenge of course is that joe biden can only do so much with a speech. he's gotten a lot of flak from activist saying don't come down here unless you have a plan to pass the voting rights bill, but there is no plan that does not get a