and medical researchers in south africa reporting the omicron coronavirus variant partly evades protection offered by pfizer's vaccine, but people who were infected with coronavirus and then vaccinated are likely well protected against omicron. joining me now, mr. evan perez. thank you for joining us sir. what are we learning about these new subpoenas tonight? is the committee getting the records they're asking for? >> reporter: they are, don. one of the first things that this committee did when they first got stood up some months ago was they sent letters to phone carriers, to telecommunications carriers asking them to preserve these records. and now we know that they've gone ahead and requested and gotten the records of more than 100 people. and some of these people, this includes people inside trump's inner circle. and obviously some of these people are people who have been investigated by the justice department. but what's significant is that it includes people who were connected to trump associates, people who were connected to trump's inner circle, and that includes the former chief of staff, mark meadows. >> but these records don't include what was said on the calls or texts. >> reporter: right. >> so what are they actually getting here, and what do they hope to learn? >> reporter: right. well, these are call detail records, don, and they don't include content as you pointed out. they include who called whom, when, how long those calls or texts -- how long those calls took place, and also, you know, when those texts were exchanged. but, you know, for the committee, what they're doing is they're trying to put together a picture of what was happening inside the white house, you know, among those trump associates in the days leading up to january 6th and during the event of the capitol riot. so for them, this is actually very, very important. and so they can get details from some of the people who already are cooperating. and we know that there are a number of those people that are cooperating and providing -- filling in those blanks that the records that they have don't provide. >> well, i mean mark meadows, i guess you can say, has done that in part because he's already turned over key communication records to the committee, right, and committee members, telling cnn that some of the records are from his personal device. >> reporter: right. >> so what does that tell you? >> reporter: well, i think one of the things you immediately heard from meadows and his attorney is that he's very angry about this because he only learned about it in recent days, that he says these are extremely -- these are very, very personal records, and he's citing this as one of the reasons why meadows is pulling back from what he said was going to be cooperation with the committee. obviously you and i know, don, that there was always some doubt about exactly what that cooperation was going to entail. and as you and dana laid out just in the last hour, there's a lot of other things going on here between meadows and of course his new book and ways that he wants to try to make up with the former president. so there could be a bigger story here about why meadows is suddenly not cooperating. but, yes, it includes some of his personal records and, you know, again, this is information in addition to the stuff he's already turned over that could be very instructive to this committee. >> evan perez, thank you, sir. always a pleasure. i'll see you soon. i want to bring in new kim we wehle, the author of "how to read the constitution and why." i highly recommend the book. and also cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein. good to see both of you. good evening. kim, the committee already has messages that meadows sent and received as the insurrection was going on. what could they learn from those communications? >> so it's important, i think, to break this whole story into three pieces. the first is the plan for the actual terrorist attack on the capitol, and we know there's over 500 people that have been in the criminal justice system and said that trump sent us there. the second is the plot to overturn the actual election results, and that's where someone like mark meadows, jeffrey clark, others that were close to the president and took steps to potentially overturn the election results become relevant. and just to be clear, the january 6th commission, in its decision to hold mr. clark in contempt, stated officially that it has reason to believe members of congress were part of that plot. the third piece, of course, is the lack of security response. any of us who live in washington watching this on television, jaw-dropping. where is the police force and how much was this plot -- let's be clear. there was a plan to subvert an election. how much of that affected the lack of security response? so these records are giving names. they're drawing connections between the protesters, the organizers, potentially members of congress, people in the white house. i think really, don, the challenge for this committee right now isn't getting information. it's processing it in time to do something with it prior to the midterms when, if the house goes to the republicans, which many people believe will happen just by virtue of gerrymandering if nothing else, the probe will stop. so they're really running against the clock to tie all this together as quickly as possible. >> all right. i see you there, ron brownstein, wanting to get in. so if meadows doesn't show tomorrow, he's going to become the third person held in contempt by the committee. on the other hand, you have top pence aide marc short who is cooperating. jamie gangel is reporting he might be able to share texts he exchanged with other white house officials around january 6th. so where does this all lead the investigation in your estimation? >> well, look, ultimately i think the trump strategy is the same as it often is, and kim pointed to it. it's to delay in the hope of -- you know, delay equals defeat for the other side and to outwait the investigators. and this committee is being thorough and dogged and systematic and aggressive, but it does face the limitations of the clock and of, you know, we saw today that the trial for steve bannon's contempt by a trump judge, the date was not set until july. so certainly someone like mark meadows and, you know, when you factor in appeals and so forth, are thinking they can outwait this. you look at all of this, and you say -- i mean, i think the conclusion has to be that whatever the committee can do, where is the criminal investigation? i mean in the watergate decision, u.s. versus nixon in 1974, the supreme court -- i'm not the lawyer here, but the supreme court pretty clearly indicated that executive privilege is not an absolute defense in an a criminal investigation. there is no time clock on that, and certainly this administration will be here until 2024. i think as the months go on, no matter what the committee achieves, as adam schiff and others have kind of pointed that finger, where is the justice department? where is the justice system in looking at this beyond the foot soldiers who actually invaded the capitol? >> kim, after learning that the committee is getting information from communications companies, meadows says that he is done playing ball. why do you think his mind changed? i wonder who it could be? >> well, i agree with ron that, you know, with what's happening with bannon, who was blatantly in violation of these subpoenas, didn't do one thing in compliance, meadows is in a different positionture for a number of reasons. first of all he was close to the president. i agree the claims of executive privilege are not going to hold after what happened with nixon in which the supreme court said, listen, the need to investigate wrongdoing outweighs executive privilege. that doesn't necessarily mean this won't be slowed down. number two, his lawyer has complied in part. so their argument's going to be it would be hard to prove willful contempt. so he has a number of things in his favor. he's got this book going out there. he's got trump angry with him, you know, and he knows the republicans could have a lockdown on government a year from now. so i'm sure there are a lot of pieces, not just the legal element, that are motivating his behavior. i also would agree with ron that the question is what is happening in the justice department. there's no grand jury that we know of that has been impaneled to investigate this. you know, merrick garland is busy suing texas over alleged violations of the voting rights act. the third lawsuit was filed this week. i have to think with this morass of obvious wrongdoing, dead people, people climbing over the capitol, the blatant attempt to overturn the election, calls to states to change their electoral college votes, all of the stuff that we've now normalized, that there's some serious crimes in there, and we have to hope that the justice department under joe biden, even if the congress shifts, the justice department will still pursue for the american people the potential criminal charges here because otherwise, america is in pretty dire straits moving forward. >> ron, final word from you because, look, all of this is coming out -- a lot of it is coming out from a book that was just released by meadows. i'm sure -- you know, i said this to dana earlier and others. the former president has to be really furious about the information that is being released in the book. that's partly why he is cutting off his cooperation, meaning meadows. >> right. well, look, i guess i always thought meadows was likely to only go so far in releasing damaging information about trump in this respect. but i just go back to the point, if you go back to the supreme court decision in 1974, it would seem that the claims of executive privilege can be more effectively challenged in a criminal proceeding than even in a congressional proceeding. and you see the same question on this as we see on voting, as we see on abortion rights. right now, is the biden administration going to use the leverage it has, whether in executive action or pressuring for congressional action, to try to respond to these various offenses that are unfolding around them? i mean this committee is doing important work, and it will likely tell us a lot about what happened. but you kind of look at the cards that are being laid out, particularly the delay on the contempt judicial action, and it suggests they're not going to give us the complete action, the complete story. that will be a question of whether the justice department is willing to step in if and when republicans take over the house in 2022 as midterms usually go. >> ron, kim, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you. next, a man who says january 6th was just a rehearsal for a much more serious coup attempt next time. is he right? ♪ wait, oh, yes ♪ wait a minute, mr. postman ♪ yeah, yeah, mr. postman - "dear michael, i appreciate your help, patience, and support through the reverse mortgage loan process. you are an asset to aag." this is from helen, a happy customer, who got a reverse mortgage loan from aag. you see, a lot of people aren't sure if a reverse mortgage is really right for them. so michael and all the experts at aag work hard to make sure you understand exactly what you're getting. they want to make sure you're happy. - [announcer] call aag today and find out how a reverse mortgage can help you eliminate monthly mortgage payments, pay for living expenses, and even high interest credit card bills. call now at the number shown on your screen. - a reverse mortgage with aag can be easier than you might think. or as ann says, "working with folks at aag was like dealing with a friend who had our interests at heart". whether that's for paying off medical costs, or as dennis says, "finally getting that new truck i needed". reverse mortgage loans have helped over a million families get tax-free cash for a better retirement. - [announcer] if you're 62 and own your home, aag could help you get the right loan for extra retirement money. call today for your free no hassle reverse mortgage guide. call the number on your screen. - these letters show why aag has such a high customer satisfaction rating. 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>> well, it's two things really. the first is the development of what is really a mass political movement that is prepared to support violence for political ends, and in that sense january 6th was not a onetime transient event but the expression of the violent impulses of tens of millions of people who believe, based on national polling data, both that the election was stolen and that biden is therefore an illegitimate president and that violence is explicitly justified in order to respond to the theft of the election. >> mm-hmm. >> about 21 million people. >> i was just having conversations with some of the producers i work with now, listening to the show in my ear, or at least talking to me in my ear, we're saying the same thing about how violence is acceptable now if you don't get what you want. this is what you write. you said, if the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by american voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. thousands of votes will be thrown away or millions to produce the required effect. the whiinner will be declared t loser. the loser will be certified president-elect. this is the nightmare scenario for the collapse of democracy where votes don't matter. just who gets to count the votes, right? >> right, and that's the second piece and in some ways the primary piece of the threat that's going on right now, which is that well-organized republican operatives are infiltrating and taking over the apparatus of election administration at the state and the county and even at the precinct level around the country and focusing in particular on swing states. so they are studying what went wrong with trump's effort to overthrow the last election. how was he stopped? and they're going to each of those points of failure, and they're repairing them. so, for example, the secretary of state of the state of georgia, whose job was to oversee the election count, certified the election. trump famously tried on the telephone to persuade him to find 12,000 votes that would change the outcome in the state, and raffensperger declined to do that. what have they done? the state legislature, pro-trump, has removed the secretary of state raffensperger from the state board of elections that oversees the count. they have -- >> let me -- because you talked about this. i just want to put up the quote. you said trump failed to reverse the results in 2020, but his supporters in key states have learned from that. and this is what you quote. you're talking about this now. you said, some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control about which ballots to count and which to discard. they're driving out or stripping power from election officials who refuse to go along with the plot last november, aiming to replace them with exponents of the big lie. what needs to happen to stop this attempted corruption of our democracy? >> well, that's unclear. it's a hard question because what they're doing is they're giving themselves the color of law. they're appointing themselves and their allies. they're appointing people who are proponents of the big lie to be in charge of the decision next time about which votes count and which votes are thrown away. and if they succeed in that, if they continue to succeed in that, because they have made considerable progress, then the official count will be up to them. it's one thing to subject yourself to the will of the voters. it's another thing to try to choose the voters who are going to vote for you. that's what gerrymandering does and voter suppression. but even better if you want to fix an election is just to be in charge of the count. and all of this is in service of an idea that if the democrats win an election in the state, if they win enough votes to win the electoral votes for that state, that the state legislature will then override the voters' choice and send electors for the republican instead. >> barton, so where is the sense of urgency? why isn't protecting voting rights a top priority for democrats? >> it is -- it is a top priority in the rhetoric sometimes, but it has not been in practice. the president has many priorities. they're important ones. there's covid. there's the economy. there's social spending. there's infrastructure. there's climate. and he has not set those aside to put voting rights first. and so there is an emergency here. there is a credible risk that we lose our democracy in the next presidential election. and it's got to be made top priority, or it won't be addr addressed. the president gave a speech in july. he said that voter subversion of the kind we're talking about right now is the greatest test of our democracy since the civil war. and since that time, he's done substantially nothing about it. >> yeah, won't that be on the ballot in 2024? this next election will be different, right? >> right. that's exactly the problem. >> yeah. barton gellman, thank you. i hope people read this. it is out in "the atlantic" where you warn that january 6th was only a rehearsal for a much more serious coup attempt next time. thank you, barton. appreciate it. >> thank you. president biden speaking with vladimir putin for two hours today. we're going to take you inside the most consequential video chat on the pandemic so far. plus new data released on just how effective the covid vaccine is against the new omicron variant. she took new mucinex instasoothe sore throat lozenges. show your sore throat who's boss. new mucinex instasoothe. works in seconds, lasts for hours. 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>> i don't think they're sanguine about that, don, because they still don't know what vladimir putin has decided. they went into the meeting saying that while putin was putting himself in position to launch an invasion of ukraine, they do not believe he had made the decision to do so. they came out of the meeting saying exactly the same thing. of course joe biden has set as his goal and he told putin this directly on this two-hour video call, to raise the cost to vladimir putin if he chooses to take that step. perhaps unplugging russia and its energy companies from the international financial system. that would, of course, impose big hardships on russia. it also would impose some hardships on people who do business with russia. the one thing that we're especially thin on details, though, don, is what is the diplomatic off-ramp that they may have discussed in that meeting that would avoid either the invasion or the sanctions? that is to say, are there steps that the united states and its western allies can take to somehow calm the fears of russia that they are being encroached upon or threatened by nato via ukraine. so without promising, say, that ukraine would never be part of nato, are there ways they can talk about the relationship between ukraine and nato right now and where military assets are positioned and what kind of military exercises are performed? are there ways that they can calm that situation and give vladimir putin a way out of it and give the united states a way out of it because of course the one thing that we know the united states doesn't want to do is commit military troops. but they're trying to figure out what other tools they can use to avoid a real conflagration there. >> to that end, here's the thing, max. it's not like russia hasn't been hit with economic sanctions before. but the u.s. really has no appetite to get involved militarily. i mean does vladimir putin know that? is it really going to make any difference to him? has he already decided to do what he's going to do because we really don't have an appetite for military action. >> i don't think we know, don, what putin has decided to do. it's not clear that even putin knows what he's decided to do. he may be leaving his options open. but i think he understands there is an imbalance of power and interest here. russia has more than 100,000 troops poised on ukraine's borders, and they've already invaded ukraine as you alluded in 2014 and seized crimea. they know that we know that russia is willing to fight for ukraine, and putin certainly knows the united states is not going to fight for ukraine. we are not going to send our troops to battle the russians to protect ukraine. but there is still a lot we can do, a lot of which i think was communicated today by priesiden biden. we can certainly enable ukraine to fight back and provide them with even more weaponry to impose costs on the russians, especially with guerrilla warfare if the russians actually invade, and also the economic sanctions which we have certainly slapped on them in the past. but we can ratchet it up to another level. you know, something like kicking them out of the swift system of interbank transfers is kind of the death penalty of economic sanctions. that's going to delink the russian economy from the western financial system. we can also impose massive sanctions on their north stream 2 pipeline to germany. and of course we can go after all of the ill gotten gains that putin and his oligarchs have hidden in the west. so there are ways certainly we can impose costs on them. but ultimately there's no way that we can just say, you can't invade. ultimately it's going to be up to putin to make that decision based on his calculus of risk and reward. >> john, max just mentioned crimea. you said, we've been here before. we've been here before with a president who was the vice president under barack obama, president barack obama, whether russia annexed crimea in 2014 as max referenced. how is that weighing on his thinking? >> well, i think he's seen the inability of previous presidents to deter vladimir putin, which weighs into his thinking about how high to take the measures that he would impose. he was, of course, in the united states senate when russia invaded georgia. george w. bush wasn't able to prevent that from happening. he was vice president in 2014. russia seized crimea. then-vice president biden put out a statement saying, russia is now naked in front of the entire world. the entire world is against this. well, guess what? the naked guy still has crimea. and so, you know, president obama and his allies tossed russia out of the g8. that didn't do anything. and so i think when you talk about, as jake sullivan did at the white house today, we are prepared to do things that we were not prepared to do in 2014, that reflects the impact of now-president biden having lived through that experience and seeing how feckless the efforts to deter russia turned out to be. >> max boot, biden's also dealing with another rival, xi jinping in china. do you think biden's handling of russia and ukraine is going to influence how china moves forward with its own ambitions? >> there's definitely some relationship there. it's not very close, but there is some relationship because there are some analogies between those two situations where you have china threatening to invade taiwan, a democracy in east asia. then of course you have russia threatening to invade ukraine, a democracy in europe. so they're both taking their read and their measure of president biden, and certainly if president biden lets russia get away with an invasion of ukraine, i think that may very well result in china to act more provocatively with regard to taiwan and vice versa. if biden is able to draw a red line on ukraine, that may dissuade china from aggression against taiwan. >> it's good to see you in person back in the studio. john, get to d.c. we'll get to see you in person as well. thank you so much. the omicron variant now detected in 21 u.s. states, and the first study of the variant in vaccinated people could be a warning sign. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? 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what does it tell you? >> well, the first point to make is this is not a true vaccine effectiveness study. this is a laboratory experiment where what you do is you take blood from individuals who have been vaccinated, and you confirm that it neutralizes the virus that it was intended for in the laboratory. and you compare those virus neutralizing antibody titers to the omicron variant. and what it shows is not surprising, that it confirms that people who have gotten two doses of the pfizer vaccine indeed neutralized the initial lineage virus, which is expected. but then there's a substantial drop in the antibodies, around 40-fold to the omicron variant. now, 40-fold may seem like an extraordinary amount, but in virology, we deal in log values. so the partial good news is that the antibodies didn't disappear entirely or it's not 1,000-fold decrease. so there's likely some effectiveness. the problem is with just two doses of the vaccine, in many cases it's below the level that we would feel comfortable saying it's still going to protect against omicron. so i think the first lesson of this is almost certainly everyone who's gotten two doses is going to need a third dose, and we should think about the covid vaccine now as a three-dose vaccine. and we do not have the data yet on the individuals who have gotten three doses. but what we do have is individuals who have been infected before and then gotten vaccinated, and they seem to do a little better than the two doses. well, let stop there and see what questions you've got. >> okay, so if someone who has had the covid virus before and has had two shots. what about someone like me who has never had covid and who has had the booster? >> that's the big question everybody wants to know. so in this study, this south african scientist did not measure antibodies with people who have gotten three doses. so the potential good news is that we've seen a substantial rise in virus neutralizing antibody titers in people who have gotten three doses, some tenfold, some 30 to 40-fold. so if you're getting a 40-fold drop against the omicron variant, i think there's a high likelihood that individuals who have gotten three doses of the vaccine are still going to be protected. but we have to confirm those experiments, and all of us, including groups that make vaccines, including our group, the pfizer, moderna people are all now looking at individuals who have gotten those three doses. >> cases are rising among children again even though kids age 5 to 11 are eligible for the vaccine. we know kids' vaccines have smaller doses. what do parents need to know there? >> well, the kids, even though they've gotten a smaller dose, they could still respond very robustly to the virus -- to the vaccine. so the point is kids who have gotten two doses of the vaccine may still be protected against the omicron variant. so all of those studies are pending as well. i think another key message, though, is that individuals who have gotten infected and recovered, they should certainly consider getting the vaccine on top of it because what we're seeing now are a lot of omicron reinfections in south africa. so if you've only gotten infected and recovered, you've not gotten vaccinated, now is the time. and the new studies today out of south africa seem to confirm that those individuals who also get vaccinated on top of infection could do quite well against this virus. >> real quickly because i have a short amount of time here left. but if you've gotten the other vaccines, the moderna or j&j, what does this mean? >> we don't have the data, but i would think with moderna, the results are going to be similar to pfizer and possibly j&j. this is just the first early study. you're going to start to see a lot of other laboratories now confirming these results or refute the results and look at both the omicron variant as well as what we call a sue dough virus that many are getting into our labs to look at this. >> thank you, doctor. i appreciate it. >> thank you. jussie smollett taking the stand again to defend himself and things got tense. we've got the details after this. do you struggle with occasional nerve aches in your hands or feet? try nervivenerve relief from the world's #1 selling nerve care company. nervive contains alpha lipoic acid to relieve occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. try nervivenerve relief. blendjet's holiday sale is on now for the #1 gift this holiday season, the blendjet 2 portable blender. it packs the power of a big blender on the go, and it crushes right through ice. just drop in your favorite ingredients, even frozen fruit, and make a smoothie any time, anywhere. blendjet cleans itself. just add a drop of soap, water, and blend. recharge quickly with any usb port. order now on blendjet.com and get our best deal ever! 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at new chapter its innovation organic ingredients and fermentation. fermentation? yes, formulated to help your body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness well done p so closing statements are set for tomorrow in the trial of jussie smollett, the former actor from the show "empire," accused of staging a phony, racist, and anti-gay hate crime and claiming he was the victim. before his defense rested today, smollett took the stand for a second day, insisting the attack was real. i want to discuss now with cnn legal analyst joey jackson, a criminal defense attorney. thanks for joining. >> of course, don. >> things got tense between smollett and the prosecutor cross-examining him today. do you think it was a good idea for him to even take the stand? >> you know, don, in some respects, he needed to because he has to explain his narrative and the story. at the same time that you do, you expose yourself to so much. like what? like the essence of a story. you're going to have to explain, and he did when he's tried to testify about, look, you know, i've come through so much in my life. i'm a musician, and i think part of that is to humanize him, and that's great. but when you get into the details, it gets murky. number one, you're an actor, right? as a result of that, you're going to be compelling. but you're going to remind the jury not to get lost in that. what about the fact that there's $3,500 that you have to account for that you gave the brothers? how do you explain that? what about the fact that the police asked you for dna to assist you in the case, and you say no because you don't do ancestry.com. you have to explain that. what about the fact that the police just wanted your phone so that they could assist you, but you don't want to give it? you have to explain that. what about the fact that you visited the scene on the preceding days so that you can stage this, and you have to kind of explain, well, wasn't that you there? what about the fact that it's 2:00 a.m. and people know where you are? don, i could go on. so when you have to explain, explain, explain, it becomes this is way too much explaining for me to the point that the narrative is inconsistent. it doesn't make sense. and did you really do this? and so, look, i get why he took the stand. i think at the end of the day, actor talented or not, it's just too much to overcome with respect to facts that are compellingly against him. >> then there's also dan webb as well, a very talented prosecutor. so the osundairo brothers say smollett paid them to carry out the attack to get media attention. the jury has now heard both brothers' story and smollett's story. is this going to end up just being about who the jury finds most credible? is it not just the humanization part about jussie smollett but who is most credible, the brothers or smollett? >> so it comes down of course -- trials come down to credibility with respect to who's reliable, who's telling the truth, who's believable, et cetera. but it also comes down to what factual scenario would make sense to you? and when you examine a factual scenario, was the $3,500 that you have a transaction of, was that for nutrition supplements or was that because you paid them off? a text message saying i want to meet with your brothers to do something on the down low, is that about something, or was that about this incident? footage of you at that event in that particular location where this occurred, is that because you were planning it, or was it simply a coincidence? the fact that you don't want to cooperate with the police, so, again, i could continue. but what i'm saying to you is, yes, it comes down to credibility, but it comes down to what all of us attorneys breach to jurors. we know what stories are like. we know about good judgment. we know about all of that. at the end of the day, if you put the two things together, which one of these narratives is more compelling to you, ladies and gentlemen? so i think to your question, it comes down to, a, credibility, and it comes down to, two, a narrative, which is consistent with reality. and if that narrative is inconsistent with reality as i have to objectively say, i think mr. smollett's narrative is, i think the jury then, you know, renders a different conclusion. >> okay. so then having said that, closing is tomorrow. the jury is set to deliberate. what do you expect to hear, joey? >> i expect to hear the prosecutor say, ladies and gentlemen, look at all the facts and surrounding circumstances. and i would submit to you, if you do that, you will see this is an individual who faked a hate crime. this is an individual who had a noose around his neck when the police came, but he put it back on. this was an individual that planned this whole hoax and was involved with these two brothers. this is not about the narrative that mr. smollett would have you believe about i didn't want to cooperate with the police because they're in bed with trump, and i just don't do app sest -- ancestry.com, and these people hate me. if you're the defense, you're going to argue that mr. smollett is the victim here, make no mistake about it. the fact is he was preyed upon by these brothers. these brothers don't make sense. the $3,500 is explainable as a result of it being a payment for something other than this nefarious hoax that they're alleging he engaged in. and why wouldn't my client mistrust the police with respect to cooperating with them because he didn't believe that they believed his story. and so those are the things you'll hear in front of the jury. we know that the jurors as the triers of fact will make the ultimate assessment and conclusion. i just think the facts here are pretty much on the prosecutor's side, but we'll see what the jury has to say because they're the ones that matter. >> not to mention, where are the two maga guys that supposedly did this? 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