host: joining us next is nick miroff who covers the department of homeland security for the washington post, one of several reporters on a major investigative story the post is running. the piece is called cartel rx. fentanyl's deadly search. 170,000 died of drug overdoses in 2021. what was behind the team of yours investigating this story and how long did it take you to get it ready for publication? guest: the statistic you just read was what drove us to want to dig into this and find out what was going on. when i saw more than 100,000 people were dying a year from drug overdoses and that was the highest total ever, it just seems like something people were not paying close attention to. we were coming out of the pandemic. we were aware this trend was going on, that fentanyl had spread, that it had deepened the opioid crisis in the united states, but we wanted to understand it and explained it and tell the story to the people who are affected by it. our team came together. it was reporters here and in mexico working with photographers, videographers, graphic artists, designers, and we

host: previous callers have asked that question, which we had nick miroff -- i wish we had nick miroff around still. we will get him back on the program. woody is in paradise, california. republican line. caller: about the fentanyl problem and all the drug problems. we repeatedly hear about all of the different people that are picked up for selling the drugs and all of that. they do not do anything with them. they fine them or give them six months in jail. i think we ought to increase the penalty, possibly the death penalty, because they are killing people. maybe we ought to get rid of the people that are selling this stuff. don't coddle these people. that is the same with so many other problems with our justice system. we are turning people lose. look at what they are doing in chicago or what they are doing in the big cities? they are letting people go like crazy. host: the u.s. africa summit ended yesterday in the nation's capital. reporting from the associated press, their headline "biden pumps up africa relations, will visit next year." president biden said thursday he will visit s

host: nick miroff, hope we get more times with you.ting, cartel rx, fentanyl's deadly search. thank you for being with us. we take you to the house floor for a brief pro forma session.

william: nick miroff of the washington post, thanks for being here. nick: thank you, anytime.mna: and thank you, william. the consequences of the nation's opioid crisis ripple through many aspects of society, including our criminal justice system. it's estimated that up to 65% of the u.s. prison population has some sort of acte substance use disorder. and when these inmates are released, studies have shown that many will return to using and be arrested again within a few years. but stephanie sy recently visited a jail in kentucky that's trying to not only break that cycle but also save lives. it's part of our ongoing series, searching for justice. >> what does the group feel like is another character defect he is struggling with? stephanie: bethany has a way of getting people to open up. she approaches inmates just like any other patient struggling with addiction. >> i have had issues trusting people i get close to. stephanie: ball is a substance abuse counselor in covington, kentucky. she leads a program for 100 men and women getting addiction treatment while serving time. >>

nick miroff is one of the reporters who worked on this project and he joins me now. this is really such a tremendous piece of reporting you and your colleagues have done. as i mentioned, you you track multiple presidential administrations -- bush, obama, trump, and now biden -- and chronicle the ways in which each of those administrations either didn't catch the rise of fentanyl or didn't respond appropriately to the threat. i know this is hard to generalize, but can you do you have a sense as to why all of these different administrations didn't quite get this right? nick: well, i think what we're seeing here, when you step back is an accumulation of failures. and it really goes back to the first wave of opioid addiction that came out of american struggles with pharmaceutical pain pills. and once the u.s. government started to crack down on the u.s. opioid manufacturers during the bush administration, there was a tremendous vacuum in the market. there were millions of people who were addicted already and essentially primed and in need of something to continue that add

we're joined now by cnn national security analyst juliette kayyem, and washington post reporter nick miroff, who is part of the washington post's new seven-part investigation into the fentanyl crisis in this country. i want to begin with you, juliette, because we've been sitting here talking and of course speaking with a parent who has lost her son. and it's illustrative of so many parents across this country and people who have lost their lives. the availability, the idea of how pervasive this is really is an overall health and national security risk, frankly. >> it's a border issue. and it's a synthetic drug so you are not looking for poppy seed fields or not looking for anything, essentially. it's purely chemical based. it can be made in labs. so, there are three ways to target this and none of them are easy. you have a supply chain issue, whether it's with materials that began in china that then get to mexico through cargo, then made in mexico, come over our border. those are all challenges. and they have to be addressed in different ways, whether it's postal or border crossing. the sec

host: nick miroff, hope we get more times with you. his reporting, cartel rx, fentanyl's deadly search. thank you for being with us. we take you to the house floor for a brief pro forma session. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. madam, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on december 16, 2022, and 8:20 a.m. that the senate agrees to the house amendment to the senate amendment to the bill h.r. 1437. that the senate agrees to the house amendment to the senate amendment to the bill h.r. 7776. that the senate agreed to without objection amend