happy holidays, everybody. you are live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington. we begin about breaking news. president biden revealing details about his long phone call with benjamin netanyahu. we re following everything at the white house. kevin, what did the president have to say? reporter: yeah, he was on the south lawn on his way to camp david, and he said that it was a long phone call with netanyahu that he had earlier today. he said he didn t call for a cease-fire and wanted the talks to remain private. i do think it s interesting, president biden of course is someone who believes very strongly that all of the advice, all of the recommendations that he can provide to the israelis is best delivered behind closed doors. he thinks that s the most effective way to sort of apply pressure on israel to to alter its war plans. certainly the backdrop to this phone call has been this parade of american officials who have been traveling to israel over the last se
holidays. and others are singing christmas carols and they don t know if they re going to have the unemployment. they don t know if their food stamps are going to be cut. this is heartless, e.j. i think maybe we should have every member of congress have to watch it s a wonderful life and have to read the dickens story. and sort of try to find a heart on this. yeah. it s really taken and takes you by surprise that unemployment insurance is not some wacky new program. unemployment insurance has been around for a long time. it s worked for us. it doesn t give people a lot of money, but it helps them over a hard time. and these folks have been through hard times for months and months and months. i m going to have to leave it there. e.j. dionne, thank you so much for your time tonight. good to be with you, reverend. coming up, a politicsnation exclusive with speaker boehner. he s happily enrolled into obama care and will tell us how it s