vaccinated. that is currently the case in africa. so it requires global leadership and response or we won t defeat this virus and we ll just be a mix of these different laws and some people lock down and some won t and we won t get out of it. we have to get out of it and the only way is to be committed to defeating it. maya, we hope it was a restful thanksgiving for our lawmakers because when they return to d.c., they have plenty of work to do. the deadline for keeping the government open is december 3rd. the deadline for raising the debt ceiling is december 15th. and then the senate must take up the build back better act and defense spending bill to get them passed by the end of the year. that is a lot to accomplish for a congress that hasn t had a great track record for forging compromise even between the two parties or even among themselves. maya, are you confident they can get all of this done?
efforts. she is the state chair of the democratic party, and she sits in the seat held by the late great congressman john lewis. i am sure he is proud to have a fiery woman like you sitting in that seat, congresswoman williams, thank you so much for being with us tonight. joining me now is my political panel former chair of the maryland democratic party, maya cummings and rick tyler co-founder of strategies and msnbc political analyst. rick, let s start with the new variant of coronavirus. scientists are still trying to understand the threat posed by this mutation but warned it could spark a new wave of infections and death if we don t take this seriously. with that in mind, take a listen to what an anchor on one of fox