>> joining us now, there he is, nbc news white house correspondent mike memoli. mike, merry christmas. >> merry christmas. >> that clip we just played with the president saying there's no federal solution to deal with omicron drew a lot of attention yesterday. people -- some of his critics have pointed out that it stands in stark contrast to what he said back in january, which is the federal government would take lead on this, and the federal government not taking the lead sounds like what president trump said during moments in 20. how does the white house explain that remark? give us more context. what did the president mean? >> well, jon, as always, the context is important. this is the first time the president was participating a call his covid response team does on a fairly regular basis with governors. whenever you g get the president together with governors, you're going to hear a lot of mandates getting in the way of state innovation, and that's what was happening here.