trouble for air travelers. crime and punishment, calls for leniency are growing after a truck driver is sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for a deadly crash. we begin with the omicron variant surging across the u.s. the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases is near 200,000 a day. that is up 166% in the last month, nearly the record numbers from last january. the most important metric, hospitalizations, are steadily rising with more than 71,000 americans sick enough to need hospital care right now. tragically, more than 1,400 americans are dying each day from covid. and with people gathering for holiday celebrations, this surge is expected to worsen. listen to what dr. anthony fauci told cnn this morning. >> we're certainly going to continue to see a surge for a while. i fully expect it will turn around. i hope it turns around as sharply as what we've seen in south africa. >> now, testing centers across america are seeing very long lines with some people waiting for hours. and at-home tests remain very hard to find. and in a scene eerily reminiscent of the beginning of this pandemic, cruises are seeing covid outbreaks with multiple ships being affected. leyla santiago is live in miami with the latest developments on our story. leyla? >> reporter: you see the line of cars going to go through that white tent where they'll do the testing. this is one of the busiest sites in south florida. we just checked in with someone who completed the entire thing. they said they waited in line for more than two hours. the group that runs this site will tell you they expected to see an increase in demand for testing after the holidays. but what they are seeing is unprecedented, so much so they have had to increase the amount of workers at this site by 50%. mask mandate county also trying to get those at-home kits out to folks that need them. they are going to be at all the -- or 27 of the public libraries to distribute those for free to families here, but they are quick to tell you it is while supplies last. the other big concern here is, yes, just yesterday, sunday mornings, they had that carnival cruise ship that docked, and they had covid cases. now, according to the spokesperson it was a small number that had to isolate. everyone was vaccinated and tested before the voyage took off. but listen to how one passenger described it. >> i couldn't even go in the pool the whole time. we didn't touch one pool on that ship because everybody is in there all over each other. nobody is wearing masks. it was disgusting. nobody cared. >> reporter: so, listen, there is a lot of frustration, a lot of patience required to get through some of these lines. this is as florida is seeing record-breaking numbers when it comes to covid-19 cases right now. amara? >> leyla, yeah, frustrating to say the least. thank you so much for that. as you can see, the omicron surge is impacting holiday travel. more than 2,400 flights have been canceled today around the globe with nearly 900 of those here in the united states. cnn's nadia romero is live at hartsfield-jackson international airport in atlanta. you've been there all weekend. it seems like every day there's been more and more flight cancellations. >> reporter: yeah. it just gets worse and worse. if you think of it, we started with more than 600 at 6:00 a.m. eastern time today, so we have still plenty more hours left in this day for those numbers of cancellations and delays to climb. yesterday we were at about 1,500 at the end of the day sunday night. today we could definitely see that number. we're already at more than 900 halfway through the day. so when we talk to those travelers about what it's like traveling during the pandemic, traveling on a busy day when they know people are trying to get back to work or trying to get back to their normal life, they all say they knew some of this was going to happen, that it was going to be inconvenient, they would have to arrive early, but they did not anticipate the sheer number of thousands of cancellations over the last couple of days, and that domino effect that's been rippling all across the globe. we spoke with one who said she's on her way to hawaii. she is going to get there. and if it meant changing her flight to a nonstop, that was fine. >> we changed our flight to a nonstop just to -- in hopes of hopefully not having any cancellations. we're just going to practice social distancing. we're not doing anything that's going to be too crazy, you know, just trying to do more outdoorsy things. if people are there, we plan on going back to our hotel room. >> reporter: i think you can really wrap up what a lot of travelers tell me they're feeling by saying it's pent-up demand. they couldn't travel last year. they didn't feel comfortable. so they were planning on doing so this year. >> we've been hearing from a lot of people saying they're traveling for the first time since 2019. thank you so much. dr. carlos del rio, executive associate deem of emery university school of meld sin at the grady health system. dr. del rio, let's start big picture here and the overall state of the pandemic. over the last month, new cases up 166%, hospitalizations up 34%, as you know, millions of people traveling, people holding family gatherings, getting ready to celebrate new year's as well. what is your sense in terms of the direction of this pandemic over the next few weeks and where we might see the peak of this pandemic? >> amara, good morning. i think there is -- clearly cases are going up significantly. some of those cases are being diagnosed at home and not being reported. the case numbers are actually much higher than the official reports. if i do a home test, i'm not going to be reporting to public health records. cases are probably much higher. modelings i've seen predict the peak of cases somewhere around the second to third week of january in our country and then starting to come down like we see in south africa and other places. probably mid to late february, we'll be down in a more normal state. right now, we can see cases probably getting close to over 500,000 new infections per day. >> even as you say the surge may go down say in february, is this going to be an up-and-down thing for us, cyclical, with another surge depending on the next new variant to impact our lives? >> well, you know, it's going to depend on the variant. if the variant is a variant that's highly transmissible like omicron, if it's one that invades the immune system like omicron with vaccines not as effective, probably another surge. but that emphasizes the importance of global vaccination. these variants are surging in places where we don't have enough people vaccinated, and it really emphasizes that controlling this pandemic requires us to get vaccinations everywhere in the world. >> one thing that kind of raised alarm bells for me as a mother is this surge, huge increase in kids being hospitalized with coronavirus. the new york health department reported that there's been a four fold increase in covid hospital admissions among children in new york city. i think south africa reported a similar spike in that same age group. for most part, our children seemed shielded from the virus. is it different this time around? how worried should we be? >> well, i think it's different this time around because this virus is so much more contagious. we saw hospitalizations in children in south africa and in our country are higher than expected. about a quarter of children getting infected are getting sick enough that some of them may need medical attention, and we're seeing hospitalizations in children going up. the most important thing we can do as adults if we are around children who are not vaccinated is to have all those vaccinated and to really be careful of bringing the infection into your household. >> so, you know, the cdc, as you are aware now, says health care workers who are asymptomatic, that they can return to work after seven days with a negative test. and new york state says fully vaccinated asymptomatic so essential workers can return to work five days after testing positive. during an interview with cnn this morning, dr. fauci was asked whether the isolation period should be shortened, and here's what he said. >> certainly we're considering it going beyond just health care workers because, you know, there are a lot of people in society that are essential for the smooth running of the infrastructure of our society. so the idea about cutting down the period of quarantine for people who have been exposed and perhaps the period of isolation for people who have been infected is something that is i would say under serious consideration. >> under serious consideration. what's your reaction to that? should public health officials be moving faster on updating these kinds of things? >> yes, i think so. i mean, the reality is we don't want the surge to impact our economy. as you saw already from flight cancellations, flights are being canceled because crews are being infected and calling in sick. we have to get our economy -- the supply chain will be impacted again. we have to make sure our economy keeps on going. my advice, if you've been infected, five to seven days after, you can go out and, you know, five days, if you test negative, wear a mask, a good quality mask so you don't infect others, but you can go on with your life. we need to start thinking about how we're going to live with covid over the next several, you know, months if not years rather than going into this, you know, complete lockdown like europe is doing, which absolutely makes no sense. >> covid not going away anytime soon. doctor, appreciate the conversation. thank you so much. a powerful wentinter storm dumping snow in parts of california, closing key highways an making getting around difficult. cnn meteorologist jennifer gray is tracking all of this for us. jen? senator. >> snow is measured in feet right now across the sierra as well as the cascades, the current snow depth very impressive for the mountain ranges. we have had a lot of it in the last couple weeks, and more storm systems are coming into the west. you can see from the radar, snow coming down across the sierra, rain coming down across the bay area. this is making travel very dangerous, especially across the mountain passes, where the snow is now falling at lower elevations. so we have our first system rolling through today, a little bit of a break. we have our next system rolling through tomorrow, and they are just coming one after another across the west. all of these storms are going to impact the midsection of the country and then eventually the east as well, amara. the rain and snow forecast looking at several inches, possibly feet of additional snow for the sierra. amara? >> be careful out there. jennifer, thank you so much. coming up, democrats hoping to figure out a path forward for president biden's build back better, plan. what a top progressive now says biden should do to make it happen. that's next. a must in your medicine cabinet! less sick days! cold coming on? 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>> reporter: good morning. certainly they feel like this is not a zero-sum game. they want to make sure at least something gets done and that that would be really advantageous next year for the midterm elections to prove that the democrats can get something done. so she is asking the president, calling on him to use his very unique powers here, those executive actions, perhaps, easy things that he could potentially do instead of legislation. here's what she said in her op-ed. she said that taking executive action will also make clear to those who hinder build back better that the white house and democrats will deliver for americans. now, one of the drawbacks, of course, is the fact that it's not permanent, that this is not carrying the weight of law, and can be repealed by the next president. so some of the drawbacks there, senator carden of maryland says that, look, what he thinks should happen is break up this huge piece of legislation, put it in piecemeal bits, and allow democrats to vote on their own for these very significant policy issues. take a listen. >> right now, we don't have any republican support. we have to recognize we have to do with this democrat votes alone. i think our best strategy is to find a common spot where all democrats can agree and move that legislation. that's what we're trying to do now. that's what the negotiations are about between the president and joe manchin and the speaker of the house and the majority leader in the senate. we're also committed as democrats to make sure this is fully paid for. >> reporter: amara, he thinks this is something they can work with senator joe manchin on to find those elements that are really establishing common ground, whether it's child tear, education, tax reform, that there are things that they can come together on to get something done for the new year. >> suzanne malveaux, thank you so much, live for us on capitol hill. joining me now is former democratic congresswoman from florida, donna shalala. she served as health secretary in the clinton administration. thanks for joining us this morning. secretary, i just want to get your reaction to pramila jayapal's call on president biden to take executive action. should he do that? i mean, this is a president who has touted his ability to be a deal maker and to work with people. >> first of all, thank you for having me. she's right. the president ought to use whatever executive actions he has, but he has limited ability. and breaking up the bill, as senator carden suggested, is another strategy. i think the democrats are probably going to go that way. they have enough money, enough savings that they've identified to pay for whatever they decide to do. first of all, they ought to do a voting rights bill. the fact is we're going to struggle during the midterms not simply because the opposite party struggles but because americans have to be able to vote and to have access to voting, because we're still going to be in covid for almost all of next year. so the voting rights bill would be my number one priority, and then breaking up build back better. this president has a 2.6% unemployment rate. he can sustain that and even do better if he takes the parts of the bill that are related to the economy -- child care. parents are still struggling with child care, around certainly universal pre-k are two things directly related to keeping people in the workforce successfully. so the other thing about those two bills is we have existing platforms. the child care money goes to the states, the early childhood money goes for the most part to the public school system so that we can implement them immediately and they can have an immediate effect on the economy. so this is doable for democrats but a voting rights bill is the key, the underlying piece that will make it possible for us not only to sell the rest of the bills we want to do. >> let me ask you more about the voting rights bill because the window is closing. there's a less than a year for bide on the get his agenda through. do you think democrats in the biden administration are making a mistake and should be prioritizing the voting bill over build back better since there are tangible ramifications to that when it comes to 2022? >> i think the politics are somewhat different, but they have time to do both. they certainly could do both simultaneously. and i know that they're negotiating on both trying to figure out what they can do. but the voting rights bill is directly related to the ability of the democrats to continue to improve both the economy as well as to lift millions of people out of poverty, particularly our children. and that's going to be key. it's the key to preserving our democracy. if you want to counter january 6th, you get a voting rights bill through. >> i do want to ask you this, as you serves as the health and human services secretary under president bill clinton. you were in charge of safe guarding public health, right. when you're watching what's happening now with these extremely long testing lines, and of course president biden admitting he wishes he would have sent these tests several months before, we're in year three, coming into year three of the pandemic, did the biden administration drop the ball on this at least when it comes to testing? >> well, you know, they were focusing on vaccines. we clearly put billions of dollars into testing supplies and capacity, and yes, we need to do it more on testing. frankly, speaker pelosi was running around a year ago saying testing, testing, testing. we always knew that these all were related, and i think the biden administration is doing what it needs to do, and that is to get testing ing kits out to individuals around the country and to make them accessible and affordable. three weeks ago i could buy all the testing kits i wanted. three weeks ago, when i went to visit the miami testing sites, they were empty, and they had lots of capacity. now because of the new covid strains, we have long lines, and we also have to anticipate and know what the schedule is for vacations and everything else. so you can fault the biden administration. i would not do that. i would simply say we know what to do and we need to get it done. >> 500 million tests are on the way, but not until january and we need those tests now. like you, i've been driving around trying to find tests. you have to drive to at least three or four pharmacies, in my experience, to find one. donna shalala, thanks so much. >> thank you. coming up, prosecutors in colorado are asking a judge to reduce a prison sentence against a truck driver for his role in a deadly crash. we'll have details in a live report next. i've always dreamed of seeing the world. but i'm not chasing my dream anymore. i made a financial plan to live it every day. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual advisor at nm.com what happens when you block heartburn with one prilosec otc in the morning? 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>> reporter: this is a status hearing so we're not expecting a ruling. we are likely to get new dates for the court to reconvene on this. we're talking about a plan that could get rogel aguilera-mederos's 90 years off of that sentence, according to the district attorney, alexis king. he was 23 years old at the time of the accident. he was driving 85 miles an hour. his brakes failed. he was convicted of vehicular homicide amongst other charges. the d.a. is not looking to overturn this conviction, but she is asking the court to reconsider that lengthy prison sentence, potentially reducing it to 20 or 30 years. in a statement, she said mederos made multiple active choice that resulted in the death of four people, serious injuries to others, adding that the shorter sentence reflects an appropriate outcome for that conduct. of course at issue are these mandatory minimum sentencing laws that require sentences to be consecutively, which is how those 27 counts turned into more than century in prison for the now 26-year-old driver, a sentence twice as long as some murder convicts. the judge himself said, "if i had the discretion, it would not be my sentence." colorado lawmakers are calling for legal reforms. take a look. >> our system here has created a situation where a judge at their own discretion doesn't want to issue a sentence has had to issue that sentence. what we hope to achieve reforms. that's what this is all about. we have to reform the system that is creating a situation where we are creating more victims of our justice system. we have to do that now. >> reporter: this case has gotten national attention with nearly 5 million signatures on a petition asking the colorado governor to reduce the sentence or to grant mederos clemency. kim kardashian got involved, tweeting about this. the governor's office says they are reviewing the clemency request, but we don't expect the governor to weigh in before the legal proceedings. >> lucy, thank you. we'll watch that closely. also developing at this hour, police expected to release today body camera video of a deadly police shooting that claimed the life of a 14-year-old girl, valentina orellana-peralta. she died after longs police officers opened fire on a suspect inside a department store. we do have breaking news that we want -- actually, we're going to josh campbell for more on this story. josh, this is such a tragic story. what more are we learning about? what happened inside that department store? >> reporter: tragic and devastating is how the city's police chief is describing that incident. on thursday, law enforcement in north hollywood here in the los angeles area received a call of an assault in progress at a department store. as officers were on the way, that call was escalated to shots fired. as police arrived, they found a woman suffering bleeding. witnesses say a man had assaulted her with a bike chain. police made contact with that suspect. something happened that caused one of those officers to open fire on that suspect. he was shot and killed. but as police began a sweep of that department store looking for other potential victims, they found something truly heartbreaking. have a listen. >> the call was upgraded to possible shots fired. officers encountered the suspect and during that encounter an officer-involved shooting occurred. behind the dry wall, a solid wall you can't see behind, we went behind it, it turned out to be dressing room. what we did is western able to locate a 14-year-old female who was found deceased in that dressing room. [ inaudible question ] preliminary, we believe that round was an officer's round. >> reporter: i talked to the former -- president biden is addressing the nation's governors in a call with his covid response team about the omicron surge. let's listen in. >> welcome, mr. president. this is actually the 40th time we've convened this group of governors, and in addition we're in constant one-on-one contact with the governors and their teams. >> more times than i've seen you. >> their leadership on the ground, they are on the front line as you know, has been essential to the progress we've made so far. i'm going to turn to governor hutchinson, who has done an outstanding job as chair of the national governors association, leading this group and ensuring we're all working together every step of the way. over to you, governor hutchinson. >> thank you. and i want to thank all of the white house team for being such great support of the governors. and i want to thank mr. president, your address to the nation last week. thank you for your comments designed to depoliticize our covid response. i think that was helpful. as we face omicron, the governors and your administration must be working together more closely than ever. i particularly appreciate your comments about increasing the supply chain and rapid covid tests. this has become a real challenge for the governors. and your task force led by jeff zients has been responsive and has kept us informed every step of the way. a good example is this last week i asked for more monoclonal antibody treatments. we received them last week. still we have a limited supply, but the responsiveness is very much appreciated. i'd like to give you a glimpse of arkansas today. first, haixs are down by half from where they were this time last year. our omicron case count and the demand for testing has increased. in arkansas, we have a test to stay, a school program, a pilot in 50 schools. we want to expand that. right now we have sufficient tests to be able to do that. but we also, as governors, are getting pressure to do more, and the need is great to do more in terms of the rapid tests and the availability of it, and so one word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as the -- as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions and the production of 500 million rap i would tests that will be districted by the federal government is great. but obviously that dries up the supply chain for solutions that we might offer as governors. so just that brief comment before i turn it over the you, mr. president. i want to say personally i've enjoyed working with you when i was in congress, as held of the dea, and i appreciate your leadership and thank you so much for giving us the time today to hear from us but also so that we can hear from you personally about the challenge that we face. so, mr. president, the microphone is yours. thank you, president biden. >> thank you very much. look, there is no federal solution. this gets solved at a state level. i'm looking at governor sununu on the board here. he talks about that a lot. it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that's where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help. look, thank you for what you're doing. thank you for the national governors association, and vice chair murphy across the river, all is well in new jersey, i assume, guv. >> amen, mr. president. >> and here today democrats and republicans. we've discussed the rising covid cases especially coming out of the holidays. as i said last week, omicron is a source of concern, but it should not be a source of panic. if you're fully vaccinated, you get your booster shot and you're highly protected. the you're unvaccinated, you're at a high risk of getting severely ill from covid-19, being hospitalized and in rare cases even dying. this is not like march of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. we're prepared and we know what it takes to save lives, protect people, and keep schools and businesses open. we just have to stay focused an continue to work together. my message to the governors is simple -- if you need something, say something. we're going to have your back any way we can. last week we took steps to bolster support for you in, one, more capacity to get shots in arms with more places, more vaccinators, more times for folks to get vaccinated or get a booster shot. and we've added appointments for booster shots, adding hours, getting more convenient to get a booster every day. the second thing we're doing is more testing. seeing how tough it was for some folks to get a test this weekend shows we have more work to do. let's talk about how we got here. i took office ten months into the pandemic, and even so, we had no, zero, over-the-counter home tests in the united states. none. and if you wanted to get one, you had to go to a clink or a drugstore to have someone give you the test, and there were very few places to go. we got to work. we quadrupled the number of pharmacies offering free test, and there are 20,000 place where is you can get tested for free. in many locations, you can book an appointment online in advance to minimize your wait. we've worked with goog sol you can search covid test near me on google to find a location. and now i know the lines have gotten very long in some states. that's why i ordered fema to set up pop-up sites in places with high demand to shorten the wait. we stood up six new sites in new york city in five days, and there are more coming. for over-the-counter at h-home tests, there were none when we took office. none. now we have eight on the market, and just three days ago another test was cleared. we went from no over-the-counter tests in january to 46 million in october, 100 million in november, and almost 200 million in december. but it's not enough. it's clearly not enough. if i had known, we would have gone harder and quicker if we could have, because steps we have to take in the number of authorized tests, we're now able to purchase 500 at-home rapid tests to be sent to the american people for free. we're going to continue to use the defense production act to produce as many tests as possible. starting in two weeks, private insurance will reimburse you for the cost of at-home tests. we're providing access to free tests for folk who is don't have insurance. but we have to do more. we have to do better. and we will. the third point i'd like to make is more support for your hospitals. on hospitalizations, let me start with this, because we have so many unvaccinated and boosted we're not seeing hospit hospitalizations as sharp as march of 202 or even this past fall. america has made progress. things are better. but we do know that with the rising cases we still have tens of millions of unvaccinated people and we're seeing hospitalizations rise. it means our hospitals are some places that will get overrun both in terms of equipment and staff. that's why we stock peopled and prepositioned millions of gowns, masks, and ventilators, moeblgizing doctors and nurses to help staff hospitals. fema is deploying hundreds of ambulances and ems crews to transport patients. we've already deployed emergency response teams in colorado, michigan, minnesota, vermont, new hampshire, and new mexico. we're ready to provide more hospital beds as well. the bottom line is we want to assure the american people that we're prepared. we know what it takes, and as this group of bipartisan governors has shown, we're going to get through it by working together. i want to thank the governors for their partnership, i mean that sincerely. with that, i'll turn it back over to jeff. i understand you have some questions. jeff? >> good. i think we're going to clear the press first. >> you were just listening live to president biden addressing the nation's governors in what has become a weekly call during the pandemic. i think this is the first time president biden joined in on this call. let's talk more about what he had to say with cnn's john harwood joining us live if the white house. john, we heard president biden kind of lay out what he's doing to support these states when it comes to the rising hospitalization rates, of course vaccinations, but also testing. and we heard there from aisah hu -- asa hutchinson, saying it's challenging when it comes to access not just testing at these sites where it's free but also at-home testing. can you talk more about how the biden administration is planning to ramp up accessibility of covid-19 testing? >> reporter: well, they're doing a couple of things, amara. one is providing those 500 million tests that people can order off a website and get sent to their house for free. secondly, they've implemented the defense production act to try and increase manufacturing of testing, but the president acknowledges, as tony fauci has acknowledged, it's not enough and the combination of the demand generated by the omicron variant, the holidays, all this sort of thing, has way outstripped what they're able to do. he did get some welcome words from asa hutchison, the governor of arkansas, saying he appreciated president biden's remarks last week trying to depolite size the response to the pandemic, said that was a welcome step. of course, every aspect of the pandemic has been politicized including vaccinations, where we're seeing a much higher rate of nonvaccination among republicans, much higher rate of vaccination among democrats, and that's one of the challenges for the biden administration because it's the combination of both things, vaccination and testing, that will allow the country to weather this particular surge that we're encountering this winter. but the administration is hoping that reduced demand, once we get past the holidays, will mean that supply and demand will come somewhat more into balance, but they're also trying to ramp up production of that testing, generate the pop-up sites that the president talked about, which is designed to relieve some of that testing pressure. >> which is very much needed now. john harwood, appreciate you. thank you very much for that from the white house. coming up, russia says its troops are on the move again, this time away from the ukrainian border amid fears of a russian invasion. we'll discuss this next. 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is it imminent? >> well, amara, i think that most of the estimates even from a few weeks ago suggested that it wouldn't happen if it does happen until later in january because putin would need more troops there, and as you say he's withdrawn 10,000. we'll come back to that in a moment and because the ground needs to freeze if his tanks and -- and other heavy equipment are going to be able to make it through that marshy land across the border. that gives some time for diplomacy, and the big question is that 10,000 move or withdrawal, about 10% of the troops, is that significant? is it just a jess ture, something to make shower that negotiations get going in geneva, and we don't know how to read it yet. >> talk to us about what russia wants, right? i mean, we know that putin has been lamenting the fall and the dissolution of the soviet union for the past 30 years and he obviously despise is the expansion of nato. is there room for diplomacy? is there room to have common ground with russia? >> well, that's a big question. i mean, yesterday was in fact the anniversary of the dissolution of the soviet union, the 30th anniversary, and putin, us a note, has called that the greatest disaster of the 20th century. i think it's pretty clear that he would like to be the russian leader who begins to reverse that. he started on that way by seizing crimea in 2014. he survived the sanctions since, and so what would he like in ukraine? i suspect that he would just like to have a friendly government that can basically be his puppet and that is not orienting itself towards the west. now, that may be what he settles for. whether or not he insists that the united states and nato stop providing arms to ukraine, that's what we don't know and that's maybe where there's room for diplomacy. >> we mentioned this earlier. vice president kamala harris saying that the u.s. will take action against moscow if they do invade. here's her comments. >> we are very clear that -- that russia should not invade the sovereignty of ukraine, that we must stand up and we are standing up for its territorial integrity. we are working with our allies in that regard, and we've been very cleared that we are prepared to issue sanctions like you've not seen before. >> okay. well, sanctions as you've seen have had little or no effect in the past, right, especially when we saw what happened after the 2014 land grab of crimea, basically, you know, putin flouting all international norms and laws. so when it comes to the u.s. and what action america could take, i mean, this is quite a delicate balancing act, isn't it? i mean, how does the u.s. support ukraine without, you know, threatening or feeling -- or making russia feeling threatened? >> you're exactly right, amar a. this is a really delicate balling act and that's what putin is counting on because putin knows that nateors and the united states are not going to commit troops to ukraine's aid so the only thing we real very left is sanctions, and as you point out we impose sanctions after 2014 and the russians are still in crimea seven years later. so the question is what could you do that would really make the difference? well, you could do a few things? you could disconnect russia from the global financial system by cutting them all from the swift system, the system that basically does international transactions. could you go after the oligarchs who help fund putin. you could go after putin's own money as well. the problem is once you have done that and putin reacts, what's your next step? you always want to leave something in place so that you can basically cap off the escalation, and it's not clear what that is, or as you point out whether putin would say if that's all you've got i'm willing to live with it, and then there's a question of how much would the europeans actually go along with, you know, in a cold winter when they still need russian gas? >> exactly. you also have that gas dependence from europe as well. it's such a complicated conundrum. >> it roly is. >> the putin watch continues. thank you so much. great to see you. >> always great to be with you. >> thank you, david. thanks for watching. "inside politics" is next. phil mattingly is in for john king. it starts right after this break. with ww, i lost 30 pounds and i feel incredible. i love the new program because the app does all the work for you. it's never too late to start. join today for 50% off at ww.com. hurry, offer ends december 27th. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. look, serena williams... matrix... serena... matrix... serena... matrix... ♪ get your tv together with the best of live and on demand. introducing directv stream. switching wireless carriers is easy with xfinity. just lean on our helpful switch squad to help you save with xfinity mobile. they can help break up with your current carrier for you and transfer your info to your new phone. giving you a fast and easy experience that can save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill. visit your nearest xfinity store and see how the switch squad can help you switch and save. get $200 off a new eligible 5g phone when you switch to xfinity mobile. talk with our helpful switch squad at your local xfinity store today. hello and welcome to "inside politics." i'll phil mattingly in washington in for john king. omicron, it's become a holiday nightmare. the u.s. now averaging nearly 200,000 now covid cases per day, and the biggest concern will a spike in hospitalizations and death come next? plus, president biden clotheses out his first year in office where he began, with his giant rewrite of the american social safety net still unfinished and to quote the