the news continues to let's hand it over to michael smerconish. michael. >> john, thank you. i am michael smerconish. welcome to "cnn tonight. we heard the president lay out his omicron battle plans today. he's once again telling americans not to panic while urging the unvaccinated to stop putting all of our lives in danger and just go get the shot. but what makes him think he's going to reach them this time almost one year into his presidency? >> almost everyone who has died from covid-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated. and i honest to god believe it's your patriotic duty. the choice can be the difference between life or death. please get vaccinated. >> here's the alarming truth for the president. the people who should be the most concerned about this new omicron wave, they aren't. the vaccinated in america are more scared of getting covid and falling seriously ill than the unvaxed. illustrated by this new survey from the kaiser family foundation. 52% of vaxed adults say they fear getting very sick from coronavirus. that's 10% more than the non-immunized, who ought to be the most concerned. and according to a kaiser count, no speech from president biden or threat of death is going to sway 48% of the unvaxed. about half of the adult holdouts in america say nothing will convince them to get immunized. nothing. so, now what? pray it away? you would hope omicron would be a wakeup call for the unvaxed. but there are too many voices out there pedaling lies to them about the safety of covid shots. not me saying it this time, but the president himself. >> the unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices. but those choices have been fuelled by dangerous misinformation on cable tv and social media. it's wrong. it's immoral. i call on the purveyors of these lies and misinformation to stop it. stop it now. >> president biden did try to ease the fears of millions of other americans wondering how the pandemic got so bad again. have we regressed back to march of 2020? >> the answer is absolutely no. no. more than 200 million americans have been fully vaccinated. in march 2020, no one was fully vaccinated. we're prepared today for what's coming. in march of 2020, we were not ready. this is a critical moment. we also have more tools than we've ever had before. we're ready. we'll get through this. >> but are we prepared for what's coming? and what about what is already here? omicron has become the most dominant strain in america just three weeks after its arrival, making up nearly three-quarters of all new cases now. even president biden admitted today this variant spread faster than anyone could have anticipated. we've all seen the long, long lines for tests again. many of you have waited for hours in the cold sometimes. some of you may have given up and gone home. over-the-counter rapid tests are either sold out or flying off the shelves now. so, part of the president's plan is to mail half a billion free ones to americans next month. health experts say even that won't be enough for the long haul and the timing is unfortunate since tests are needed right now as we're about to gather with our loved ones for christmas and new years. the president also announcing he's expanding testing sites beyond the 20,000 the white house points to nationwide and has added an additional 10,000 more vaccination sites. and he'll be deploying 1,000 more military members to help hospitals if they become overburdened again. more than 69,000 are currently hospitalized with covid. that's about 35% more than a month ago. and while covid patients are taking up about one in five icu beds in america, the fear is that number could grow again. hospitalizations are not increasing at the same rate as cases. but the sheer number of infections in a short time could be enough to overwhelm hospital systems again. if everybody gets sick at the same time, we've got a huge problem. of course the surge in case numbers are rattling, but dr. fauci thinks the true measure of how hard this new variant is hitting us and to be controlled is actually this. >> if you really want to look at the true impact on society, it's much more important to see who gets sick and who doesn't, who requires hospitalization or doesn't. so, if we have a larger number of people getting infected but the degree of severity is very, very low, that would be very important. and if you just count the numbers of infections, you may get a misrepresentation as to what is actually going on. >> so, severity of cases is what to keep our eyes on now. does another top pandemic worrier agree? joining me is dr. ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. welcome back to "cnn tonight," doctor. with regard to that kaiser data, what makes us think people who won't get vaxed are suddenly going to request a free test? >> first of all, thanks for having me back. this is a real challenge because the people who are not getting vaccinated, in many ways they've sort of been poisoned with misinformation. so, the question is what's going to motivate them to get tested? obviously if places require a negative test, that's going to do it. the same thing that is motivating those people to get vaccinated to the extent they have, which is requirements they have from workplaces, requirements from restaurants and other places they want to go to. at this point that's going to be the major driver for testing and vaccinations for that population. >> i'm not faulting the message of the president today, but that expression of preaching to the choir just seems appropriate. i feel that the sort of people tuned into a program like this right now are nodding their heads in agreement and probably the sort of folks who paid attention to the president already got the message, already got vaxed, and are probably already boosted. so, you know, it's that perennial issue of how do we reach the people who are just not on the same page? >> this has been the big challenge. the administration has tried a lot of things. a lot of us in public health have tried. i think first of all we should keep going. i don't think we should give up. but what we know, the one thing we know moves people to get vaccinated is mandates, workplace-related mandates, mandates from other kind of context. i wish one of the things i wish this administration had done and would do is put in a mandate for a negative test or a vaccine for flying. that would make an enormous difference because a lot of people want to be able to travel. and if you can't travel without a vaccine, that would really move people. but i think that's going to be the major strategy right now if we want to get more people vaccinated. >> do we -- do we yet know -- does the data yet tell us whether omicron is less fatal than previous strains of the virus? >> yeah, here's why that has been so hard to sort out. so, i can point to south africa data that looks pretty compelling that this may be a milder virus. i can point to the uk data that says, not so sure. and the problem is that right now both in south africa and the uk, the people that have gotten infected are people who have either been previously infected and recently recovered or vaccinated folks. and we expect them to have milder disease. i think we're a week or ten days away from really being able to nail down that question. >> because if it is less fatal, part of me says maybe there's a silver lining to all of this. it's spreading like wild fire, but maybe in the process it's providing a level of immunity that heretofore we haven't had. >> yeah, let's be very clear. if it turns out to be milder, it would be terrific. it would help a lot. it would be less burden on the hospitals. it would be exactly what you said, michael, which would give us much more population immunity without people getting really sick. that's the goal. we just don't know. i think the data leans towards it being a less severe disease, but i would not bet the farm on this yet. >> so, doctor, give us practical advice. people are watching tonight and they're wondering, do i get on the plane? do i drive to the relatives house? should the kids go to school tomorrow? what should we be doing as we anticipate a couple of days now when naturally we're all going to be gathering if we follow precedent? >> yeah, so, here's what i'm doing. here's what i'm recommending to folks. first of all, if you're vaccinated and boosted, you're in a very different situation. omicron is so contagious that there's still a small chance you're going to get infected. but if you're vaccinated and boosted, you're going to do well from a clinical point of view. you're not going to get very sick. i think can kids go to school safely? absolutely. can we gather in small groups, meaning family and friends? they can if everybody is vaccinated, everybody whose eligible. if you can find those rapid tests and get everybody a rapid test, that makes it much, much safer. i do think those things are possible. i wouldn't go to a large christmas party right now with 300 people indoors eating and drinking. i think that's unnecessary. that kind of stuff probably is harmful. your question about flying. flying is reasonably safe. got to wear a high quality mask when you travel. if you're going to go see someone who's potentially high risk like grandma or grandpa, try to get those rapid tests and make sure everybody's negative when they show up. >> are we on the cusp of a pill literally being a magic pill? >> yeah, we are close. i mean, the problem is we do have the pfizer pill. there's also the merck pill, but that's turning out to be less useful. the pfizer pill looks really, really good, really compelling, 90% reduction. there are two problems. fda has been sitting on the data, still hasn't authorized it. all of us feel like no time like the present, let's go fda. second is we don't have a ton of doses of these things. we have got to figure out how to ramp up production, get it out. these things once they become widely available, it will make a big difference. >> final question. we never seem to discuss herd immunity any longer. here's a hypothetical. if more had gotten on board at the outset when vaccines first became available and all got vaxed, or a much higher percentage got vaxed than actually did, would we be in a much different place today? >> no doubt about it. no doubt about it. we would have prevented the almost 200,000 americans who died in the delta wave. and what we also would have done is gone into this omicron wave with much, much higher levels of population immunity, lower levels of infection, lower levels of hospitalizations and deaths. it's still the ticket out of this pandemic. it's just frustrating that a year after these vaccines became authorized there's still so many americans who are choosing not to take it. >> well, dr. jha, one of the reasons i ask you -- final question and this time i mean it -- is because mayor de blasio is in the on-deck circle. and he's about to impose an employer mandate and has taken other measures and given incentives and so on and so on. very aggressive response. but i keep thinking his response is only as successful as what's going on in new jersey and pennsylvania and wyoming and california because the virus knows no boundary. we're, like, chasing our tails, right? >> yeah, it's true the virus knows no boundary. and what the mayor does can only impact new york, and of course new york is going to be influenced by what is happening elsewhere. that said, if we can get very, very high rates of vaccinations in new york, in massachusetts, in rhode island, individual places, it will make a big difference for those communities. so, i support what the mayor has been doing. i know it's aggressive. we have a bad pandemic. we've got to find ways out of it. and i think pushing people to get vaccinated is absolutely the right thing to do. >> right. i didn't mean it as a negative toward him. i just meant that unless there's a uniform approach here we're delaying getting ahead of the curve. dr. ashish jha, thank you so much. i really appreciate you being here. >> thank you. some of the social media reaction that's already coming to the program. let's see it. mass testing, a month from now is a botched response. this should have already been available full stop. glitter in my veins, you know, hindsight's 2020. i can't argue with that. i wish there were widespread testing already. there is a legit mate question as to whether this is now too little too late for all the reasons that you've identified. one more quickly if i have time for it. i disagree that a test should be sent out to every american. the only people who will gladly use it and want more are the vaccinated. the people who are not unvaccinated -- all right, sissy, i get your point. in my day-to-day, in my real life just out and ant, going to work, seeing people at starbucks, i'm seeing people who are masked. and my presumption is they're vaccinated. they're the ones who have been doing the right thing all along. and it's in another area where it's a person who's a, unvaxed, unboosted, and not even wearing the mask, hence my reference to chasing our tails. new york city's in the crucible of this fight once again. if any city can flatten covid, you'd think it's the big apple. but there's a lot of work to be done, which is why the mayor of new york city is offering a big new incentive to join in on the fight. mayor bill de blasio is back with us to spread the word and stop the spread. he's next. in the face of surging cases among the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike, new york city's mayor is turning to a new tactic to get people as protected as possible, offering $100 to anyone who gets boosted at a city-run site before the new year. here's where the numbers stand now with just over 71% vaccinated in new york state, of those only 21% are boosted. will the incentive work? and how likely is it to turn things around? let's bring in the mayor himself, bill de blasio. welcome back, mr. mayor. you've tried incentives in the past, right? with what result? >> a great result, michael. i mean, it helped a lot. look, the combination of incentives and mandates, that's what worked. in the middle of august we were at 60% of adults who had had at least one dose. now we're over 90% of adults in the city with at least one dose of the vaccine because we put strong mandates in place. we did those $100 incentives. now we're doing it again, saying get boosted right now ahead of the holidays, right now when omicron is surging. fight it back with that booster. and i find that people really do respond to it. but you've got to do it with the mandates too. we have tough private sector mandate coming into place this coming monday. and i really want to tell you, michael, if we really want to fight omicron, every mayor, every governor, every ceo in america should put these kind of mandates in place. >> you told me last week that you hear privately from many employers who say, please, impose a mandate. do my dirty work for me. i can't help but note the fact that yesterday fox news said that they will be following your order, your edict, tried to lay it off on you like they had no choice. are they one of the employers that you were making reference to who really want you to do it but they want you to take the hit for it? >> i can't -- i can't speak to them specifically. i can say i find it very entertaining that they're joining the band wagon of pointing the finger at me. look, whatever works, michael. i do think it's tough for private sector employers to explain to their employees if, and it seems to be something just within their own company. i still urge ceos to just do it because it's the right thing to do. it'll help protect everyone. but, you know, when the government steps in, it becomes universal. and then the management of the company can say, hey, guys, everyone has to do it, not just this company, every company. and if you want to continue to have your job, have your paycheck, this is something we have to do for each other. and overwhelmingly we found in new york city people abide by the mandate. they're not going to risk a paycheck over it. and it helps move everyone forward. >> we've been showing the footage of people standing in line sometimes for hours in new york city to get a test. did you get today from president biden what you need to ease that burden? >> it's a beginning, michael. i want to see obviously that supply expand quickly. and i urge the president to use the defense production act to the absolute maximum because we're going to need much, much more in the way of testing to get through omicron and really put the covid era behind us. we're going to need billions and billions of test kits for the whole country. so, i think we need to get some of those companies that could turn their production lines to test kit production, and the federal government needs to make that very clear as an order for the good of the whole nation. look, i'm adamantly opposed to shutdowns. i think we cannot afford anymore shutdowns in our country. so, if we're not going to do shutdowns, it means vaccine mandates and it means a whole lot of testing. >> mayor, quick final question. i know you've not yet made a decision about new year's eve, times square, the ball dropping. but what will be the metric that you'll look at to make that call? >> michael, talking with our health care leadership. we're talking with the folks in times square who run the event. what we want to make sure here is that we can do this event safely and determine the measures that will make that possible. but i want to tell you, again, i don't believe in shutdowns. whenever they are at all avoidable. i think if we can find the right way to do it, it's important to keep moving forward and send a message that this city's fighting back against omicron and we're going to fight our way through. we're all going to have to deal with big challenges in these coming weeks. but the answer is not to turn away. the answer is to buckle down, get vaccinated, fight our way through omicron and get back to recovery on the other side. >> stick around for a second in case i need your assistance responding to social media. what do we have, vaughn? put it up on the screen, and i'll share it with the mayor. is this retroactive to those who have already -- i knew someone. i should have asked this question. with regard to your incentive, is this retroactive to those who have already gotten the booster in new york city? i'm tired of the folks who have done their part right away being left out of these incentives and the stubborn ones then get it. what's the answer to that then, mayor? >> i understand that, but i'm telling you this is strategic. this is to move the people who are not moving fast enough. god bless the people who went and got their booster fast. that was the right thing to do for themselves and the families. if we've got to move other people with incentive, get them off the dime, get them moving for the good of all, that's a good investment. >> mayor, thank you for coming back. >> my pleasure, michael. you take care. the anniversary of the insurrection fast approaching. you might think that donald trump would choose to lie low this january 6th, but he's donald trump. after all and of course he won't be doing just that. he just announced his plans for the day and is raising new concerns. we'll take it on the -- take it on with the coauthor of "peril" the perfect guest, robert costa, is next. recommended brand, helps keep baby's skin drier and healthier. so every touch will protect like the first. pampers ♪ limu emu... & doug ♪ ♪ superpowers from a spider bite? 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we're going to take over the election apparatus. american citizens that are volunteering, they are now going to volunteer to go to become a precinct committeemen. they're going to volunteer to become an election official. they're going to come and run for county clerk and overthrow these county clerks. they're going to take over the secretaries of state. >> my next guest knows the threat better than just about anyone. he's the coauthor of "peril," and a national political reporter for the "washington post," robert costa joins me now. you know, bob, they say the best defense is a strong offense. that seems to be trump's playbook as we approach january 6. >> the real anniversary of the insurrection of course is january 6th. but the anniversary i'm paying attention to is just in a few days, december 30th, 2020. that's when steve bannon, based on our reporting, talks to trump and says, you have to start to kill the biden presidency in the crib. come back from florida, he says to trump. and trump does on december 31st, skips the new year's eve party at mar-a-lago. and we're approaching the one-year anniversary of this coordinated pressure campaign to overturn an election and pressure american democracy to the brink. and it wasn't just an isolated day. it was a weeks long event. >> well, i've learned that from you, from "peril," from what you wrote with bob woodward, one thought that i have is, you know, what would seemingly be a strong year as we look toward 2022 for republicans, if on january 6th he's owning his behavior of a year ago, it puts every republican running for the senate, every republican running for the congress to be asked the question of whether they agree with donald trump and his approach. it's an albatross of sorts around the party's neck, no? >> it's an albatross of their own voters. you have the republican voters around the country, many of them listening to bannon's podcast, running for local election, trying to take the reins of, as bannon said on his podcast, the election apparatus in this country. so, whatever leaders in washington are saying, that can be one thing, but it's almost an island unto itself. many republican voters who are still loyal to trump, they're not listening to what leader mccarthy or leader mcconnell are saying. >> the january 6th investigative committee or commission, they now want to spend time with scott perry. what's his significance in the big picture here? >> pay attention to these house republicans like congressman perry of pennsylvania. these were the house lawmakers close to mark meadows, the former chief of staff, who were texting each other trying to figure out a way to come up with the lie, which was the idea that fraud happened throughout the 2020 election. and they were pressuring the department of justice. the text messages from perry and others show that they were pressuring doj to come up with examples of fraud so they could use that as a weapon on the january 6th certification process and try to stop biden from taking office. this is a long and winding road to what happened on january 6th. but we all as reporters, as citizens, need to fully understand that it took a long process to get there. >> bob, finally from reading "peril," the book that you co-authored with bob woodward, i'm knowledgeable to an extent about the willard hotel war room. what went down at the willard hotel on january 5th? what do we know about it? what don't we know about it? >> here's what we know about the willard. january 5th, pence is in the oval office with trump one on one. but across the street at the willard, a fancy hotel, you have bannon, you have giuliani, other trump allies. outside the hotel, the proud boys, the oath keepers. i was outside the hotel that night walking through the streets taking notes as a reporter. it was a chaotic scene, and they were trying to pressure pence to somehow succumb to trump's pressure campaign, push the election to the house of representatives, and pull all these levers of power to try to get trump to stay in office. this was very real. that's what our reporting shows. and it could happen again in 2024. >> robert costa, thanks so much for being here. merry christmas to you. >> merry christmas to you. from social media, what do we have so far having just come in? this may end up as another big mistake on trump's part. he'll only be confirming what he incited, the attack on the capitol, without him urging his supporters it would not have happened. the point i was making to robert costa is this. if on january 6th he's facing the media and he's reiterating his version of what transpired, which politifact just said is the lie of the year for 2021, and a candidate is now running for congress anywhere, usa, as a republican, the first question they're going to be asked is whether they buy into that interpretation of events. i look at the united states senate race that's about to play out, already is playing out right here in my home state of pennsylvania. i mean, every one of those republicans, there are about a dozen of them either running or presume to be running. they're all going to be asked, is this your version of what happened? and from the get go, that will then be something that will follow them around. will that be pleasing to 30% of the republican base? i assume so. but is that the sort of viewpoint that's going to get you elected? i doubt it. we turn now to the internal chaos within the democratic party. the president is vowing to get something done with senator joe manchin, but how does that happen after manchin's loud and clear no on build back better? senate democrats holding a special meeting tonight. and we've just learned that joe manchin is addressing his colleagues on that call. manu raju will update us all next. new vicks vapostick. strong soothing vapors... help comfort your loved ones. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. 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(cheers) xfinity brought us together, after all! power your whole home this holiday with wifi speeds faster than a gig. click, call, or visit a store today. sing 2 senate democrats tonight on what may be the most important zoom meeting of the biden administration. the left trying to figure out where the president's agenda stands on the spectrum between joe manchin saying this -- >> this is a no on this legislation. >> -- and joe biden saying this -- >> senator manchin and i are going to get something done. >> cnn's chief congressional correspondent manu raju confirms that manchin joined the meeting that is still underway. manu, what have you learned so far? >> yeah, joe manchin defended his position. he was arguing, michael, i'm told that this is a position that he's been consistent with for the past five months. he said that inflation is a real concern. he said that debt is a real concern. he said he did support increasing taxes on the wealthy. he's concerned with the way it's structured in the bill, however, because of the opposition from a different moderate senator, kyrsten sinema, about raising tax rates on corporations, individuals. but nevertheless, manchin made clear he is still opposed and concerned about the way this proposal is structured. i'm told from a source, he said -- he talked about the debt. he said he didn't get push back, but he said this. he said, inflation is a serious issue. these programs will cost more than they are saying. i can't add to the debt. so, he got some pushback, some concerns raised about his characterization of the plan. democrats say this bill will be completely paid for. manchin however has raised concerns about the temporary nature of some of these measures, saying that if you just extend things one year or three years or five years, they're just going to come in and keep extending these things year after year after year. instead he wants these things expanded to ten years but doesn't want it to go any higher than $1.75 trillion top line number, which is why they would have to significantly rewrite this bill to get his support. suffice to say democrats are coming out of this meeting saying they want to move ahead but having no consensus about how to do just that. >> did anybody take him on? i saw senator sanders by way of example with jake tapper on sunday morning after the news had broken that manchin was not on board, he was pretty heated. i wonder if in that zoom call things got heated. do you know? >> i have been told that it has not been heated so far. i've been told that it's been relatively muted in terms of the back and forth and the contentious nature and all the blowback we've been seeing publicly coming from democrats. but i have heard that members made clear that they disagreed with what manchin is saying. they disagree with the idea that this bill would add to the debt. they point out the cbo numbers, saying that -- that's the congressional budget office -- saying it would be fully paid for under the way the democratic bill was structured. but they also argue that the estimation from manchin and others that we would add to the debt over the long term does not take into account that, you know, long term, they would also do things such as raising taxes to pay for programs being extended out. and those are decisions that would be made in future congresses, presumably with the senator joe manchin having the ability to vote yes or no. but these are some of the issues that they discussed. there's been a lot of talk, i'm told, about the importance and the democrats' view about extending the expanded child tax credit. that is a huge sticking point too. joe manchin does not want to continue that in its current form, this current proposal. wants to do it separately. and that is set to expire year's end. a lot is on the line policy-wise and politically and how it winds up from here to joe biden desk, if that's even possible, remains the big unanswered question, michael. >> chuck schumer has said let's have a vote. let's get everybody on record. if i'm mark kelly, a democrat who's potentially on the bubble, close race facing me in the future, i don't know that i'm eager to get out there and expose my position and cast a ballot on something we all know isn't going to pass and for which i'll then be held accountable nonetheless. what do we know about whether there will be a vote in the senate on build back better? >> it sounds like they will. chuck schumer reiterated to his caucus tonight, i am told, that they do plan to have a vote on this larger bill sometime in the new year. now, the challenge here, michael, is that the bill has not even been finished being drafted yet. they are still finalizing the legislative language. they are still going through the senate parliamentarians vetting process. and all that could take up until sometime in the middle of january, maybe even longer. we'll see if it even happens quicker than that. but it's not going to happen right away. so, they need to take a long time to set up a procedural vote that will go down. politically speaking there are democrats who are not totally thrilled about having to vote yes and then ultimately having nothing to show for it. i've heard in particular from house democrats in vulnerable districts, those that donald trump carried back in 2020, concerned that they essentially walk the plank to cast a very difficult vote. and now they -- all the things they want to tout, whether it's universal pre-k, housing, child care, expanded affordable care act, dealing with expansion of medicare, things they believe were politically popular, they have nothing to show for it because this bill is now stymied in the senate and will ultimately become law. instead they're going to be hit by republicans for not delivering and also voting to increase taxes to pay for all this. so, it's a very complicated political situation. but schumer says he wants to put everybody on the record here, and that includes joe manchin. >> got it. manu raju, thanks for the report. >> thank you. yeah, my point, maybe they don't have 49 votes. i mean, who knows. maybe manchin wouldn't be the only one to vote against it if schumer gets the vote he's looking for. breaking tonight, new reports that the nhl is pulling out of next year's winter olympics in beijing over covid concerns. bob costas joins us to look at how the sports world is confronting the omicron surge, and he's next. with up to 50% more lotion, puffs bring soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue. ho ho ho! not again. oh no. for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. get a credit toward your first month's payment on select models. the sports world once again serving as a microcosm for this pandemic. with omicron cases surging, the nfl and the nhl taking starkly different approaches. hockey players reportedly now pulling out of the olympics, as their season gets paused. those moves come after 11 teams had to suspend operations because more than 15% of the league went on the protocol list. meanwhile, on the gridiron, the priority is keeping players on the field. with less than three weeks left in the regular season, the league will no longer do regular testing on vaccinated players who don't show symptoms. this after dozens of players tested positive last week, forcing three games to be rescheduled. as for the nba, seven games were postponed over the past week. but for now there are no plans for a pause. >> frankly, we're having trouble coming up with what the logic would be behind pausing right now. as we look through the cases, this virus will not be eradicated, and we're going to have to learn to live with it. >> with sports as one of the few things that usually cut across politics these days, we turn to bob costas for what it all means. bob, what's the significance of the nhl development vis-a-vis the olympics? >> well, you have to take it not just from an american perspective or even a canadian perspective. well over a dozen nations are represented in the nhl, many from europe and russia heavily represented, so those nations will have to fill out their roster without nhl players, and one of the things you have to keep in mind is this, and this indicates no disrespect for what the olympics represent, but if you're a swimmer or a skier or a sprinter or a skater, the olympics are the be all and end all. if you're an nba player, an nhl player, a tennis player, a golfer, it's nice but it's not your be all, the end all, the stanley cup is, the masters is. now you're an nhl player and the players association that represents them, and you're saying, hey, this isn't the most important thing in the world to us, with all due respect. it's in the middle of the pandemic. it's in china for crying out loud, and on top of that, from what we can learn -- and they're always a little bit different to pin down when it comes to what the chinese government might do, but what we've been led to believe is that if individuals test positive, they may be kept in china for as many as two weeks to quarantine before they're allowed to go home. you put all that together, and why in the world would the nhl want to send its players to the olympics? but i should note this, this has nothing to do with women's hockey. the american and canadian women's hockey teams have been very successful in recent olympics, and they will go. >> so i referenced at the outset different approaches by different sport leagues. i didn't even mention mlb, which you're very familiar with, and they're in the midst of a collective bargaining negotiation right now. give me the big picture view of all of these professional leagues and how they're dealing with omicron. >> well, i think the -- what may be coming down the line, baseball has a blank canvas now when it comes to its collective bargaining agreement, so i think what i'm about to say could be on the table in these negotiations. i spoke recently with michelle roberts who's the head of the nba players association and demorris smith who has a similar position, the same position with the nfl, and both of them said they would be willing to at least consider across the board vaccine mandates for their membership. they certainly have encouraged their membership to be vaccinated and well over 90% are now vaccinated. but if you had and if baseball was willing to consider this as well, if you had 100% vaccinations and an understanding that as boosters become available and as the consensus of medical opinion is that boosters are needed, it would be very easy for teams and leagues to administer that. it would be much different than people lining up for five hours outside a drugstore. you'd come to the facility. it's your turn to get boosted. so then if you were able to say that everyone, all the players and all the people around them, staff, have been protected to the fullest extent that's humanly possible, i think you could then reasonably say and even the most pro-vaxx people would agree, i would hope, you could reasonably say a player that is fully vaxxed and boosted, a young, healthy player who is asymptomatic or has mild symptoms, that guy will be allowed to continue to play. i think ultimately that's the way forward. otherwise you're going to have this hodgepodge situation every season with every league until the virus is completely gone and the virus may wind up to one extent or another becoming endemic. >> i'm thinking of two things as you say that, bryce harper. i wonder how that would go over with certain of the high profile players. you get the final word. >> well, i know that pops into your head because he's a philly, and that's -- and that's your team. yeah, there will be some who will be resistant. you're a lawyer, i'm not, and sports law is a specific area. there might be some players already under contract who would say i'm not going to do it, and then you might have some litigation. going forward, i would think that would be a condition of employment, once new contracts are signed or rookies come into a league, that would probably be a condition of employment. one other quick thing. when you talk about the nhl, there are seven teams in canada, and canada as a nation and localities in canada have different mandates and different regulations. remember, the blue jays couldn't play half their season in toronto. they had to play in buffalo, so crossing borders is a particular problem for the nhl, and one of the reasons why they halted their schedule for a while. >> it is complicated. bob costas, great to see you. thank you so much. >> before i say good-bye, you had robert costa, you had bob costas, if you just booked costas mandylor and the president of costa rica, you would have had a theme for your show. >> as i tweeted before the show began, i was convinced i would have a ron burgundy moment and like you're my two favorite guys, great guests, good friends, and to have you -- now i know you're really not the same person. thank you for that. we will be right back with reaction to tonight's program. >> you got it. >> you got it. >> all right. on sunday night and every night. nyquil severe. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. ♪ limu emu... & doug ♪ ♪ superpowers from a spider bite? 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(gasps) ♪ did it work? only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ spider-man no way home in theaters december 17th are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10 along with your statin medication. the brand i trust is qunol. ho ho ho! not again. oh no. for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. time for just one tweet. what do we have? you can lead a horse to water if unvaccinated don't want it, not going to happen. i know several in a blue state. debbie, i gave you the data which says that 40% or so of the unvaccinated say never. never going to do it. how distressing that is, right? thank you for watching. i'll be back tomorrow night. don lemon tonight begins right now with laura coates. hi, laura. >> hey, michael. i wonder if the president's message did lead some horses maybe to water, but will it actually make them drink. it's a really good question for our audience tonight. i appreciate it. >> yeah, well, have a great show. i know you will. >> thanks, well, aren't you sweet? thank you so much. i appreciate it. this is "don lemon tonight." i am laura coates in for don lemon. president biden trying to calm a nervous and tired united states as a new surge of covid-19 hits the country with the holiday season upon us. the u.s. is now reporting about 140,000 new cases evy