good to see you again. last time we didn't get to see one another at the g-20. >> plus, big developments today in the insurrection investigation. the former trump white house chief of staff changes his mind and says he no longer plans to cooperate with the select committee. plus, republican of devin nunes is quitting congress. his new gig, running donald trump's media startup. up first the video call, giant video call with huge ramifications for american security. under way right now joe biden engaging in a one-on-one conversation with vladimir putin. russia state tv giving the world a glimpse of the high-stakes meeting. the call comes, of course, as president putin has put thousand of troops and weapons on ukraine's border. the world fears an invasion. u.s. officials promising biden would issue a warning to putin and warn any military aggression would be meet with significant consequences. let's go straight to our white house correspondent kaitlan kline. what do we know. >> reporter: john, it's a call still ongoing, started at 10:70 eastern time. you saw the call ongoing between the two leaders. president biden in the situation room here at the white house and president putin in his home. this, of course, is a very high stakes call ongoing, virtual call between the two world leaders. you've seen the video released by the russians. it seems to show them smiling and greeting one another though there are very tense topics on the agenda for two of them. one the forefront is what is happening with ukraine and what are president putin's intentions when it comes to that, because so far the administration has said their official assess cement that president putin has not yet made a decision about whether to invade ukraine but he's planning to do so and do so quickly should we choose to do by amazing the troops on the border of ukraine, of course, not really making clear what his intentions ultimately are going to be but also the white house was expecting him to make a demand today during this call with president biden, and that is that ukraine gets nowhere near nato. of course, that's something ukraine has long sought access to membership to, something that president biden says depends on their efforts to root out corruption and whether or not that's something that's close to happening or remains to be seen, but it does make for a very tense call between the two leaders. the stakes are high for president biden, probably the highest they have been with any other world leader that he's had a call with and the question is what else would the united states do if russia decided to invade ukraine because president biden and the white house have made clear they don't want a military involvement and are instead looking at economic consequences and whether or not those consequences are enough to deter his behavior if they are sending a strong enough sigal that remains to be seen because so far we's rebuffed other warnings from people like the cia director, john, so we're waiting to see what the readout of the call is, how long this call would have happened for. we should know one thing, john, that we're expecting president biden to get on the phone with european leaders this afternoon to brief them on what's happened in this conversation today because that has been an earth that the white house has tried to make to keep them all on the same page when it comes to the response between the rising tensions with russia and ukraine so he will be calling the leaders of germany, italy, france and the united kingdom after this to tell them what he and.putin talked about. >> appreciate you giving us a call. joining our conversation with some important insights, white house and national security correspondent for the "new york times" david sanger, national security reporter "the wall street journal" vivian solama. you guys are much more wired on this issue and everyone has very low expectations about this call. what's the best possible outcome until that putin is not going to say, sure, mr. president, i'm going to walk away and pull my troops back from ukraine. what's the best possible outcome for the president's perspective? >> the best possible outcome that he could have out here is basically a stand down in the pressure and how would you see that? you would see that by the russians no longer filtering more troops in. right now they have about 100,000 on the border. the official u.s. estimate is that it would go to 175,000. i know many american officials who think putin would actually want more there, so if they stop flowing in, that would tell you that you've got some progress. if you saw a cessation of some of the disinformation and cyber campaigns, that would tell you had progress. my guess is that you're not going to see a whole lot of that right off because putin can't physically invade, could, but it would be messy for another mound or two. the ground has got to be frozen and hard for his tanks to move and so forth, so we're probably into a period of suspended animation as he tries to measure whether the allies really would stick with the united states on these sanctions. >> that's the key point. would the allies stick with the united states on these sanctions. nato can talk tough, joe biden can talk you have to. no one believes there's a military option. the question is, as kaitlan collins not, the mr. president have this meeting with vladimir putin and then he's going to call the president of france, chance remember merkel and the prime minister of italy and can joe biden convince those leaders if necessary, are you willing to escalate the financial sanctions in a way that actually puts real pressure on putin but also hurts the european? >> right now the europeans are open to the idea which wasn't necessarily the case. it was one of these areas where the white house had to gather all the allies to be on the same page of this issue. especially germany has taken a warmer stance towards russia. they just completed the nordstream 2 pipeline and they don't want to poke the bear, if you will, and upset them but they do realize a violation of ukranian sovereignty does present a lot of security issues for europe, and they don't want to see, that so a sanction seems to be the one option that all the allies are considering, the europeans now saying that they could hurt russia with sanctions, but, really, it -- sanctions haven't really deterred russia from doing anything so far. we've seen a number of sanctions rolled out, and they don't really have that great of an impact on russia, and so the question then goes what options are there? everyone i talked to says a lot of bad options but no real great options for seeing russia stop what it's doing. >> so how does the president try to convince putin that this time he's serious, the united states is serious and the world is serious. putin's red line is stop encouraging nato and stop pulling ukraine closer to the western alliance. putin does not want that on his doorstep. listen to the ukranian official say this is what he wants. >> do you believe russia lynn said? >> i will not believe that russia will have a victory in ukraine. it's a different. it will be a really bloody massacre and russian guys also with will come back in the coffins, yes. >> two interesting pieces of than. number one, he doesn't say he doesn't think they will invade. just says it will be bloody and messy and in the interview with matthew chance he said ukraine would like more technology from the united states and the west. would that be a provocation to putin if they won't send in vrm equipment. >> the u.s. has always said we only provide defensive weaponry and that's the javelin anti-take we op and you would only abuse that if something is coming into your question. president trump did ship them, i'm sorry, president biden has continued to ship them. the debate under way right now inside the white house is how could you pre-position those near ukraine and not actually bring hem into the countries so you don't give putin the pretext to go do that, but to your broader question here of what the ultimate cost to putin would be, you know, it's a question of how he thinks 2014 worked out. >> right. >> when he went in and grabbed crimea. the united states and europe did a whole series of sanctions. they are still on seven years later, but the price of oil is up. the russian state is still there, and putin may think, perhaps wrongly, that an invasion would bolster his own image at home. >> so the flip side that have is joe biden ran for president saying i'm not donald trump, i'm not going to appease vladimir putin anymore and also ran essentially saying i learned the lessons of barack obama and things will be different. how does he prove it? >> he says he wants to cooperate with russia and and it's a fundamental and core thing where he doesn't want to see nato expanded into ukraine so by supplying ukraine with weapons it legitimates any plan that they mike be manning. it's a really dicy double-edged sword that the biden administration is now hag to play. >> obviously we'll learn more in the hours again and we will circle back. big news on the january 6th investigation. a tom mike pence aide is cooperating but chief of staff mark meadows says he won't and a contempt trial date has been sent now for trurump ally steve bannon. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ this is your home. this is your family room slash gym. the guest bedroom slash music studio. the daybed slash dog bed. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash classroom. and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. ♪ nurse mariyam sabo knows a moment this pure... ...demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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(excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health. what's strong with me? i know when i'm ready for a rest day. so i can be ready for anything... tomorrow. find out what's strong with you with fitbit sense and daily readiness. a big about-face from a central insurrection witness. the former trump chief of staff mark meadows says he won't cooperate with the january 6th select committee this. news comes one week after meld owes said he would provide records and would appear for a committee interview and it also comes, you decide at home, this is a coincidence on the publication of his new book and comes as committee plans next steps now with meadows and another key player is cooperating. that's the former mike pence chief of star mark short. with me to share their reporting rachel bay, cnn's jeff slenly, thea mitchell and cnn legal analyst laura coates. i draw the point to people at home. if you're the committee, had a deal with this witness last week. he said he was going to come in and now his attorney sends a letter saying the select committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning executive privilege. they had that conversation a week ago. this, why? >> i can imagine they are pretty frustrated. i can also imagine they are pretty confused because on the one and he just released a book that talks about a lot of the same things that they would like to question him probably in a more direct way than he would like to answer, but, you know, it does come across that perhaps he wasn't genuine earlier when he indicated he might work with the committee. >> and is there any privilege? obviously we're awaiting for the appeals court case involving the former president and everybody else would flow from there. the conversation you had before is this document or that document. you have a negotiation over certain things and the idea that mark meadow can say nothing is absolutely pope cook. >> i like that word. now i'm hungry thinking about the actual snack. it really is frustrating because now you're saying you can't answer what your name is conversations you've with h with anybody other than the president of the united states, what is already in the public sphere, what you gave to a publisher, what you wrote down. none that have can be talked about. he has a stronger case as opposed to steve bannon. he's the chief of staff. the institution of the presidency is really about trying to protect those candid conversations, but the idea of saying nothing, have a carte blanche to say i don't have to do anything for you is absolute foolishness. also, i can't imagine they are fully surprised by this. remember when he talked about the idea last woke, we heard report begun having the first covid test negative after that first debate with savannah guthrie and then trump interjects, suddenly it's fake news and now there's a conversation about i'm willing to cooperate. trump probably weighing in thinking about the conversations in the georgia race about, you know, not liking brian kemp and the like for not promoting the big lie. suddenly meadows has to take a step back. this is not coincidence but it's the kind of gamesmanship that should not win out in congress. >> and the kind of gamesmanship that puts to the test the credibility of this committee. >> when it comes to the privilege claims, it doesn't matter if a lot of experts think these are bs claims and he'll lose in court. this has been donald trump's m.o. from day one. he's thrown up all these claims of privilege, immune, doesn't have to cooperate even though they never worked in the white house and then they go to the courts, takes a long time and it drags out investigation and that's exactly what we're seeing here. clearly mark meadows want to do just enough that he could argue to a federal judge that he tried to cooperate and then had a change of heart because they wanted to talk about things he thought were privileged, but, yeah, it's going to potentially impact the work of this committee because trump is once again throwing up the staple stonewall that has for the past three years. >> if there's a plus side, mike pence's chief of staff will cooperate. also a key player, jeff zeleny in the white house, former legislative director, so from election day it's not just about insurrection day. from election day to insurrection day, mark short knows a lot about what was talking and the pressure the former president was putting on his vice president. >> he absolutely does and was in the oval office a couple of days before that. if you had to put people in a category of former trump administration officials. mark short at least as of now, we'll see if he changes his mind, is in the category of an establishment responsible following the rule of law kind of figure, but most importantly the proximity to mike pence that day. he is a longtime adviser of the former vice president, more than a decade, goes way back with him and is very familiar. the question is what does mike pence think about this? he's not said a word about it, but i think mark short is very important and probably more credible than a mark meadows. mark meadows stuck his head out. i would tend to agree with you, probably to sell books. we've talked about mark meadows more in the last week or ten days than we have in a long time. look, mark short is a very important witness. >> yes. >> and i think one of the most important so far. >> one. key reasons he's so important is the committee is trying to make the case that insurrection day was not a rally that turned angry, that suddenly turned into this event. the committee is trying to make the case, the specifics may not have been planned but that a lot of people knew that a lot of people with violent intentions were coming to washington. mark short was part of meeting and steve bannon was part of the general war room about who is coming to washington. it's a pretty simple case. >> yeah. >> did you act in contempt of congress? the government wanted a trial in april. steve bannon wanted to delay it all to october, close to the election, another election. july 18th was the comp place put forward by the judge. why do we have to wait for july? >> we shouldn't have to wait. homicide trials are conduct and actually executed within that amount of time. the idea here for the april i would suspect is they are trying to figure out what the court of appeals is going to say on executive privilege issue. want time for that opinion to come out because if the court of appeals or the supreme court does not weigh in on this and says there's no valuable claim of privilege here then bannon's claims go away. you want to put it far enough out to let the weigh in, but for a july when the simple elements are there. a congressional subpoena was issued. you failed to comply. you've said you failed to comply and have no basis for doing so, that is a real cut and dry case but they want to put enough time out to give that. i want to underscore one point that you said about mark short and that's remember, the planning thereof is so important because they were angry at pence when they arrived at the capitol because they knew that he was not willing to actually overturn an election so all the conversation about that going forward is what mark short can talk about and give information about and real be a conduit for mike pence even if he never testifies. all of this is playing out before bannon even has a chance to have a full trial. that strategy. >> july 18th seems a long way off. i believe it's still december. still december. breaking news we want to report to you. the biden/putin fares khallafalla has ended after about two hours. we'll bring you more details as soon as we can. the biden covid team highlights a new uptick in vaccinations, but new cases are also u up. out a throwback? 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>> we cannot expect this as the new normal because we almost have more than a thousand people dying from covid every day. that's 400,000 americans dying every year. we cannot accept that. i do think what we're seeing right now is a reflection of thanksgiving, that when people gathered over thanksgiving, they traveled and brought covid with them so it's not unexpected that we're seeing a delta surge right now. of course, unfortunately, we're head into the winter holidays, christmas and new year's, and we shouldn't be at this high of a level going into that point because our hospitals in some parts of the country are getting overwhelmed again and we haven't even seen the impact of omicron. what we've seen already in south africa is people who have been infected by other variants, including delta, they are getting reinfected with omicron. if vaccinated might be protected, hopefully, are but the previous infection is not protecting them and i'm really worried about what this means especially for our southern states >> you mentioned southern states where the vaccination rate is low. the white house is touting vaccination rates are up a bit. if you look the seven-day average of people initiating a shot is up 42% from a month ago, 1.78 million as of monday. encouraging going from monday. look at the vaccination map, you're right. eight states where less than 50% of the population is vaccinated. the white house believes it has made significant progress that 5 million of the children ages 5 through 11 newly eligible have been vaccinated. 28 million is the total of that group so that's shy of 20% and it's been close to five weeks since that's been eligible. is that a good number, or do you wish it were significantly higher? >> of course i do wish it was higher but i think the initial group, the early adoerpts tax time for them to get vaccinated and they will start living their lives and that will help to convince a much larger group of parents to get their kids vaccinated as well. >> so if you look at this, this map here, again, maine is at 13% and vermont at 74%, fully vaccinated, deep green. come down in here, west virginia at 49% and tennessee at 50%. if the new york city mayor looks a map like this, listen to bill deblasio, yeah, i want everybody in the private sector to be vaccinated, not just for the federal government, i want a mandate on private sector employers, tell your employees to get vaccinated. he looks around the world and looks at omicron and says we have to do this now >> germany, a very advanced nation, they are going through those restrictions and shutdowns. look, my message, every governor, every mayor in america, get in place some mandates now before it's too late because we cannot -- people's livelihoods and lives, can't go through more shutdowns and restrictions. >> do you agree with that? everyone keeps saying we still don't know enough about omicron to know exactly what to do. is the mayor right or is he getting out ahead, putting the cart ahead of the horse, if you will? >> i don't think we should be forgot begun delta, there's a omicron surge as well. let's worry about delta even if he had delta and not omicron i think vaccine requirements are necessary and appropriate at this point although i do wish that in new york city they were offering an out when it comes to testing, as if i would much rather this be framed as a testing and masking requirement which you can opt out of if you're fully vaccinated. there is a real danger to having vaccine requirements across the board but are a religious exemption out because then what ends up shopping that loophole gets big and big and if many people are now claiming a religious exemption that could also bleed over into childhood immunizations which we have spent in the public health community trying to close those loopholes, that could end up expanding. i think that what the new york city mayor is trying to do is the right thing, but we should have an opt-out for testing. >> dr. wen, as always, grateful for your time and insights. >> thanks, john. >> more details now on that just-ended phone call between presidents biden and putin. the call ended at 12:08 eastern time, two hours and one minute after it began. waiting with on more details about the actual substance of the camp we'll bring that to you as soon as we get it. up next for us, the curious case of devin nunes, the republican lawmaker in line for one of the most powerful jobs in washington but he's quitting to go to work for donald trump. ♪ say it's all right ♪ ♪ say it's all right, it's all right ♪ ♪ have a good time 'cause it's all right ♪ ♪ now listen to the beat ♪ ♪ kinda pat your feet ♪ ♪ it's all right ♪ ♪ have a good time 'cause it's all right ♪ ♪ oh, it's all right ♪ woman: i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer ♪ ♪ yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin, yeah that's all me. ♪ ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin that's my new plan. ♪ ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ woman: keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. most who achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months had lasting clearance through 1 year. in another study, most people had 90% clearer skin at 3 years. and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. ♪ it's my moment so i just gotta say ♪ ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ woman: talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. 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of the most powerful committees in congress, the house ways and means. instead he'll leave the house in december. in a statement congressman nunes has said time to reopen the internet without censorship and the free flow of expression. >> in the often that's how donald trump talks. donald trump kicked off facebook and twitter because he lies and tries to attack america's democracy and devon nunes says no wonder. i remember when i was covering the house republican majority, he was a member who would gab with reporters and attacks them regularly. used to be close with republican leadership, considered more of a mainstream and when trump came to town like a lot he sort of re-branded. he became a leading critic of the mueller investigation calling it a witch hunt trying to push to investigate the investigators. . beguning a ways and means chairman is an extremely powerful position and to throw his hands up, if they flip the house which is likely this is likely, shows you where the party is right now. would rather be close to trump rather than in positions of mother. >> he's loyal. got a taste of it. his district is also being redrawn. it's a pro-trump plus five or so district. >> going to be reason number one, two or three and clearly he likes to be close who he leaves is the proximity of the power and that's donald trump. >> a little trip down memory lane. >> there's clear evidence of collusion that the democratic party and hillary clinton concluded with the russians. i don't think mueller has any report to put out that would be worthwhile or new. >> after years of false accusations and mccarthyite smears the collusion hoax defines the democratic party. >> if you look at the statement yesterday about why he thinks this job is important and look at what donald trump does every day if not by the hour which is issue statements that are full of lies, sorry, but they are full of lies and attacks on american democracy. does that tell us what this company is going to be, a propaganda machine for donald trump. >> i think that's almost certain but you make a good point. we don't know a lot about what this company is going to be. heard a lot of promises from donald trump but also he's really set his sights on like you said rivalling twitter and facebook and we know there's a lot of social media sprouted up in the recent years and they haven't been unable to unseat the big ones so it's not clear that trump can accomplish what he would like to do with the new platform but we don't have many specifics. >> one specific is the securities and exchange commission is looking into it. trfrm announce it had and the s.e.c. is looking into it, could be routine or a paperwork thing. don't know the answer but we know the former president was on another network with his former press secretary last night and doesn't like it. >> devon is a fantastic guy and if our side doesn't have a voice, you're going to end up with pure compies in. it's a disgrease what's going on. the disgrace part with the investigation and the like. again, we don't know what this is going to be and to your point devon nunes evolved to be a pea in the pod. this is probably going to be very conspiratorial. this is one investigation. a lot of investigations ongoing and we don't here about them all the time in the news so it could have difficulty taking off. who knows. >> tim miller who uses to work in republican politics and then became an anti-trumper, every story i was told about politics, ways and means chairmanship and nunes taking a pass on it. he's raised a ton of money. could have picked a new district. chances are he could have come back to the congress. >> they think president trump is going to come back. he's fallen out of favor with republican leadership. you know, more interesting. >> up next the biden justice department is suing texas again, this time doj says texas republicans punished voters of color when they redrew district lines. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, 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time for getting back together is now. find it on vrbo. being. >> add voting rights to the legal depth. the administration sued monday over the attempts to redraw the congressional districts. the federal government alleges texas did so in a way that's unfair and discriminatory against black and latino voters. >> since mbt tock office in january. this becomes a voting rights issue except the old pre-clearance is no more. used to be states covered by the voting rights act had to submit their plan so the burden had to be on texas to prove you were doing this right and now they said they did this deliberately to undermine the influence of voters of color. can you make that case? >> well, it's to dilute their vote and the voting strength, right? >> you have obviously necessarily blocs that happened to voters and i was in the department of justice working on these cases. always about trying to figure out who was trying to dilute that state. one way to do it, ways in which you expand the district to have a big enough voice that they can have the opportunity to elect who they want in office. there's why section 5 and why section being available is problematic. section 2 is often reacting to something, after an egregious error has occurred you can react to it. pre-clearance allows you to stop it in its tracks this. says about trying to balance the two and say listen, before you vote dilution, before you do not allow people to have a vote, either a language minority or racial minority or those who are disabled, we'll try to restructure the actual maps. we'll try to blend the two things. you can't without section 5. >> this is anita gupta saying we looked at the map and studied it and, no, we can't do this. >> the attorney general has made clear that the justice department are not stand ili by restricting access to the ballot. today's filing commits the commitment to that charge. we stand ready to protect the constitutionally guaranteed voting rights in texas and indeed throughout the country. >> it will be interesting to see if there are additional suits or if it's just texas here. go online and find the maps and you can see in the dallas area, houston area, you have areas where you have voters of color and they were in one or two congressional districts. texas republicans using their power, that's what they say. we won the election and said you're going to be in this distribute and it stretches out to a red rural area. instead of electing a most likely democratic congress person they are in now a republican district. >> i want to make two points. you know, it is about preserving political power and with republicans in charge they are the ones trying to keep their power, but it still comes down to race, you know, and when democrats did it, you know, in the 90s, yes, they were preserving their power and it still came down to race, too. in a state like texas where 40% of the population is latino and 12% in black and then you look at the makeup of its congressional delegation or its state health then you see the discrepancies but other point is the earlier supreme court ruling this year in a redistricting case showing a no voting rights act is beyond the section 5 clearance. the doj is still taking a risk by filing this law south because it's not certain that the courts will continue to protect the voting rights act in a lot of different ways. >> the justice department would say politics does not come into play. they are studying the facts and a lot of pressure for progressive tooz after whether it's the changes in election law or whether it's texas, you have changes in the election law, border issues, mask mandates and the attorney general, the department of justice of a certain lawsuit is the latest political control. this has become a big thing for the biden justice department and the state of texas on a lot. issues. >> absolutely has. >> in the state of texas look what's happening there. we've all been hearing for a very long time, when is texas, if it's going to turn blue or not, one thing hanging out there. back from the karl rove days, thinking about maybe by 2024. look, this is a central issue of the population change in texas. now this is guaranteed to be at center stage of all the races going on in texas, the governor's race and attorney general's race and this is a big challenge for the biden justice department. they have done very little, if anything on voting rights. this is something that they will try to make a point here. we'll see if it works. it's uncertain, of course. >> and, of course, the whole reason this is on the justice department congress hasn't acted. you heard merrick garland when he filed suit that this is something that congress can fix. pass a law, pass the john lewis bill and this is something democrats have been trying to do for a long time. stuck in the senate. can't get the 60 votes needed to clear that threshold and fix this issue to sort of stop this so the justice department wouldn't have to go through these legal challenges, but, you know, it will be interesting to watch i guess in the coming months as we see more of this happening in various states. does that heat up the discussion about getting rid of the filibuster? obviously there's two senate moderates who don't want to do that, but that conversation is not going away any time soon. >> they have to go all in. it's once every ten years. there's a lot at stake. if they don't get it right right now, it's over. >> once every ten years and these are dramatic changes. >> today marks 80 years, 80 years ago today the attack on pearl harbor. >> december 7th, 1941, a date which will live in unfamiliary. >> more than 2,000 americans were killed on december 7th, 1941 in that surprise attack led the united states to join world war 2. president biden and the first lady paying respects at the memorial this morning. the wreath. the world war ii veteran died on sunday. >> on thursday. >> we'll be right 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