escaped death. today we remember harry reid's remarkable life. and a diplomatic follow-up. we're now learning president biden plans a thursday phone call with russia's vladimir putin. just moments ago at a white house coronavirus briefing, the nation's top health officials reminded us about complacency as covid cases are skyrocketing in the u.s. they said data overseas points to the new variant being less dangerous to vaccinated people, but its exact severity especially for children is still to be determined, and a contract for billions of free home tests is expected to be completed next week. health officials are also defending new guidance to allow people who test positive to leave isolation sooner if they don't have symptoms. the cdc director told cnn they're following the science but also human behavior. >> it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate. we have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic, so we really want to make sure we have guidance in this moment where we were going to have a lot of disease that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to, and that spoke to when people were maximum maximally infectious. >> elizabeth cohen is here with us. talk about this to some degree. >> reporter: the isolation time was cut from ten days to five days, and i should add here if you're asymptomatic or if your symptoms are quickly dissolving. let's talk about what dr. walensky laid out today. she said transmission occurs in the one to two days before you develop symptoms or in the two to three days after you develop symptoms. focus on that second line there. what she's saying is beyond three days, your chances of transmitting covid are very small if you are asymptomatic or if you've had symptoms and you're getting better. so what she didn't go on to say, but i'll go on to say based on what they did, many people have essential jobs, they're doctors, they're nurses, they're airline pilots, they have jobs they need to do, so do we really want to be keeping them away from those jobs if the chance of them giving covid to anyone is so tiny. that's the basic underlying justification for this new policy. phil? >> elizabeth cohen filling us in as always with details. here to share his expertise is the dean giving us his time as always. there is a lot of questions over the last 48 hours about this decision and kind of the rationale for it. the main question i have is, is this guidance a science-based decision or is it a science plus cost benefit plus this is the moment we're in as a society with this new variant decision? >> yes, phil, thanks for having me back. a couple of things. first of all, i've been calling for a shortening of isolation for some time now, so i do welcome a shortening of the isolation period, and part of the reason is that, as dr. walensky laid out, 90% of people are not contagious beyond five days, and for a lot of people that's burdensome for the ability to see their families, to provide child care, to get back to work, to ask all those people to isolate. i think that reality has been with us for a while, and there is a practical reality here of we've got a lot of people out. they want to get back to their lives. if we make it easier for them to do that, they're more likely to test and isolate in the first place. we also shouldn't forget that the last part of the cdc guidance was wearing a mask for those additional five days. it's not just five days of isolation and then you go about your business. you should also be wearing a mask which reduces that risk for the last 10%. >> one of the questions when this guidance came out was the decision not to include testing here. there has been speculation that perhaps that wasn't being recommended for asymptomatic people when they leave isolation for five days because perhaps there is a testing shortage. there is a testing shortage. dr. walensky said those two things aren't connected, that an at-home rapid test is not the best for trancetransmissibility. >> i find that comment that it's somehow not as good at picking up trans mismissibletransmissib. i find them good for picking up contagions. wearing a mask is a reasonable alternative. those tests will become widely available, and i hope the cdc will include a rapid test as part of isolation. >> so do you think it's because there's not enough tests and they're just not willing to say that right now? >> i don't question people's motivations and i don't know what the explanation is, but i believe the tests are working just fine for picking up contagiousness, and i believe the test should have been included. they chose not to. i don't know their motivation. they chose not to. and i believe it would have been helpful if they had, but they did pick up asking people to mask up for five days as an alternative, which is a reasonable alternative at this point. >> can i ask you on a macro level, we've reached an average of daily cases but hospitalizations are still lower. you made clear the u.s. is in for a tough month ahead, particularly in hospitals across the nation. what do you expect in the weeks ahead given what we're seeing on the case side of things right now? >> yeah, so cases, we have more infections right now than we've had nature point in the pandemic. we're hitting those records and we're going to see case numbers really explode over the next two or three weeks. my guess is peaking sometime around mid-january. the question is how much will hospitalizations rise? they will clearly rise some. my hope it will be less with this variant. i'm worried we'll find hospitals struggling to take care of people both with covid and other conditions. >> we've seen the administration move to try to address that on the federal level. in terms of hospitalizations, we've seen more kids admitted to the hospitals now pretty much at any time since the delta surge in early september. based on where we are now with testing and kids, what is your sense of what parents should be thinking now as they prepare to return to school after the holidays? >> i think one thing you can do to keep your kids safe is make sure they're vaccinated. the hospitalizations we're seeing among children is pretty much in only unvaccinated kids, so we absolutely should be v vaccinating all of our kids. we do know how to get kids back safely with mask wearing and testing. that should continue. we can get kids back to school and keep them safe. >> dr. fauci, in the briefing a short while ago, said everything they're reading right now is the verity is certainly less with omicron than delta. there's a sense that's good news, not that case levels are good news, hospitalizations are good news, but maybe this is better to change the course of the pandemic. is that your sense, that it's better in the long term? >> we never want to see a spread of infection across society. i do think if this ends up being a dramatically lower severity of disease, it will be helpful in terms of building up population immunity. i would much rather have population immunity built up because of vaccines, but i think we'll see a spread of this virus. >> doctor, thank you for sharing your expertise. >> thank you. breaking this hour, president biden plans a follow-up phone call with vladimir putin tomorrow. the call will be the second direct contact between the american president and the russian leader this month. a u.s. official tells us the call came at putin's request and biden accepted because he believes there should be leader-to-leader dialogue. coming up next, long-time democratic senator harry reid died at the age of 82. he served with president biden for 20 years. the president calling the nevada lawmaker a giant of history, one of the senators who served with him, coming up next. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. liz, you nerd, cough if you're in here! shh! i took mucinex dm for my phlegmy cough. what about rob's dry cough? 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>> yes. well, he was a great leader of the democrats in the senate and he was a great opponent to the republicans, always respectful but tough. you know, he knew each of us very well, he did. he knew the issues that moved us. he knew what we could do well and what we couldn't do well. he knew when to call on us when he needed help. you know, that's what makes a great leader. it wasn't about him, it was about all of us. and, you know, he comes from the same school of politics that i come from, which is your word is your bond and who cares what anybody else says, as long as in your heart you're doing what you think is right for the people. but harry was a man of few words. i mean, he couldn't stand small talk. he would hang up on you if you veered off of the conversation. one day i said, harry, where are you? because after he talked business, he called me on me that i was chatting about something irrelevant to him, and that's what harry would do. so he was a man of very few words and many, many, many deeds, and what a fighter. he literally was in the ring. he was a boxer at one point. but he fought so hard for what he thought was right. and his personal fight to get out of the deepest, darkest poverty family with alcoholism and violence, this is a one of a kind human being. i think for him it was he knew what it was to live in poverty, for things to be really tough. he'd walk miles to get to school. he had to even physically fight to win over his love of his life, landra, which is a heck of a story. and he didn't want other people to have to struggle so much. so when he stood up and fought for the dreamers, he meant it. when he stood up and talked for families that needed jobs, he meant it. what a beautiful human being is all i could say. >> i was always struck with senator reid. you mentioned his family. his wife, who i think everybody would acknowledge was his best political advisor, his best friend, his best ally, his best everything, his children, his grandchildren. that's what he cared about. he didn't care about what i wrote or what his colleagues wrote or what we said on tv or what mitch mcconnell said on the floor. he cared about his family and he cared about nevada. one of the interesting elements in terms of how he operated within your caucus, there were no posters with harry reid and the word "hope" underneath them. he wasn't a political giant in terms of being an ora ttor. we all had to stand close to him with our tape recorders, and yet he commanded so much respect in the congress, and why? >> because he was real. and because he was a person of his word. and, you know, in politics that's all it is. i have to tell you a story. i don't know how much time we have, it will take me a minute. we were at the end of putting together obamacare, and it was very late at night and it looked like it was a lost cause because abortion came up as an issue. and it had to do with the fact that the exchanges were offering abortion coverage because that's the law, and people who don't want a woman's right to choose tried to take that out, and, of course, there was a huge standoff. harry calls me, it's snowing out. i find my staff, i get there, and harry becomes the shuttle diplomat between me and the pro-choice groups and ben nelson, who was a colleague on the other side of this particular issue. and we finally did it. and we worked all night. it was a compromise that not everyone loved. ben came over, we hugged on it, and harry was responsible for making sure that we got it done. but these things aren't written about, but these are the things i hope will come out about harry. he fought hard. even though his own personal views, because he was a mormon and he had certain views, it did not color the fact that he understood that people have a right to make their own decisions. i mean, he was spectacular. i wrote to him, texted him just a few days ago and congratulated him because an airport was named after him. he never let on that he was sick. he just wrote back and said, thank you, love to stu. and that was the last time we wrote. >> people were still making pilgrimages to visit him, talk to him constantly until the final days. he was always everybody's leader inside the democratic party. senator, thank you for taking the time and sharing your thoughts on that. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, more details on a just-announced call between president biden and russian leader vladimir putin. breaking developments coming up after this. full prescription-strength? 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[cheering] that was awesome. and, the hits won't quit, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. all that entertainment built in. xfinity. a way better way to watch. president biden plans to hold a phone call tomorrow with russian leader vladimir puwtin. the call comes as tensions on the border remain extremely high. natasha has the details. the president asked for this call? >> reporter: that's right, this call was actually made at vladimir putin's request and biden agreed to it, because he believes there is no substitute, especially when it comes to russia, for direct leader-to-leader dialogue. it's especially important because the russians and the americans are going to be meeting a week from monday at a meeting of u.s. and russian strategic security die alogue i which they're going to hash out the insecurity that exists between russia and nato. this is a way for biden and putin to get on the same page about what their teams are going to be discussing with each other, not only at that dialogue but also in multilateral conversations between russia and nato countries and between russia, the organization for security and cooperation in europe, and the united states which will follow in the days afterward. so this will be the second phone call, the second direct engagement between biden and putin this month alone, and it just shows the level of tension that there is right now in the region with the u.s. trying to get russia to scale things back. but the talks coming a week from monday between u.s. and russian offi officials, they are not going to be contingent upon russia drawing down. that is because the administration says they believe diplomacy is the best path forward regardless of whether they get, quote, unquote, everything they want out of those discussions, bill. >> -- phil. >> natasha, you covered this closely. it seemed like after the virtual call, it seemed russia would have to deescalate for things to progress on the diplomatic side. that seems to have shifted. why? >> they ton r contcontinue to s would be more constructive with dehe de-esc de-escalation. but they also think it's the most responsible way to address russia at this point, especially since russia is not letting up. to be clear, the biden administration has been sending lethal and military aid to russi ukraine, and ukraine has been eagerly waiting for that, but the biden administration is still hoping there is a window here where they can deter a potential plan by russian president putin to launch that missile to ukraine. >> natasha, thank you. i want to bring my panel in now, margaret talev, jeremy diamond and washington correspondent for the atlanta journal constitution, tia mitchell. jeremy, i want to start with you. this has been simmering. this is not going away even if the news has maybe shifted since that call between president putin and biden. where does the white house see things at the moment given the buildup on the border? >> i think this is a moment of extraordinary tension for the white house, for the world, really, and you can see that in the fact that president biden will now be having a second call with vladimir putin in a matter of just several weeks. the president clearly feeling the need to accept this request from vladimir putin to have this conversation, and we know that this is something -- this is kind of the way that president biden also operates. he is very much a politician and a leader who believes that it's important to have that face-to-face dialogue or that leader-to-leader conversation with other world leaders. he's very much personality driven in how he approaches diplomacy on the world stage, whether it's with vladimir putin or xi jinping in china. so i think the president will see tomorrow's call as an important step going forward here. it's also going to be important for those officials who are meeting with russian officials in just a matter -- in less than two weeks, i believe, because it's going to help set that agenda and set expectations for what exactly can come out of those talks. we know that the u.s. obviously wants russia to withdraw from the border. russia has been calling for the u.s. to never allow ukraine into nato. we will see whether or not there is some kind of middle ground. this call will be determinative to that effect. >> it's interesting, we talk about conditions. russia has laid out a proposal filled with a bunch of bullet points that i think a lot of officials are considering non-starters. the president will address this in a press conference. >> translator: not to the east, i told them in the '90s. and what do you know, they cheated. they just deceived us blatantly. nato suspension, and there we go, now poland is threatening someone. if we come to the -- we didn't come to the borders of ukraine, they came to us. >> the issue is nato expansion. the eastern countries in terms of nato did this, they weren't force sbudd into nato. how does the u.s. thread the needle right now given the demands put on the table by the russians? >> phil, you're right. there is so much signaling going on here, and a lot of it in mr. putin's case is to a domestic audience and to a regional audience. i was talking earlier with my colleagues dave waller who cover the u.s.-russia tensions for us, and they found out two interesting things around this upcoming call now. one is that putin seems to have found out that this sort of threat hanging over ukraine, having the 100,000 troops or so massed near the border, is giving him extraordinary leverage with biden just to get another call, right? this should have been a wendy sherman phone call, someone at the state department, instead he gets biden twice in a matter of weeks. but the second is that the biden administration seems to be taking great care to make sure that both zalensky is in the loop and ukraine is in the loop so this doesn't become a proxy resignation around ukraine and around nato. but when that invasion of ukraine occurred on president obama's watch back in 2014 and crimea was annexed, can you imagine how it's eight years later, and that has just been sort of the defining pivot point in the last nearly a decade, the last several years' worth of foreign policy, russia is ruling the world, russia is ruling the economic corporation, russia is ruling these negotiations. it has just become entrenched now seven or eight years later. and for biden not going to commit or send u.s. troops there, he's made that perfectly clear, he's got the power of sanctions and the convening power of a region, but in the end, to a big extent, russia makes the next move and the u.s. will have to respond. >> tia, how does this factor in to the u.s. foreign policy from the macro view of things if you're president biden? >> i think president biden wants to show leadership. he doesn't want this to be a potential embarrassment of his administration, because we know there is so much going on, and we know that there have been aspects of his international policy that were questioned in hindsight, you know, afghanistan and some of the other things that have come up in his short tenure. i think on the big picture that you're asking about, he wants to try his best to get it right so that there isn't as much second guessing, that there isn't room, for example, for republicans to come behind him and say, this is what you could have done better. so, you know, of course there are higher stakes than that, but i know that the white house is aware of the stakes back home. >> no question about it. we'll get back to you guys in a sec. coming up next, how to hold a grudge. trump endorses the alaska governor and says there is one thing he can't do. james taylor in an unforgettable conference film "just call out my name," sunday at 9:00 eastern on cnn. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose. so you can enjoy it even if you're sensitive to dairy. so anyone who says lactaid isn't real milk is also saying mabel here isn't a real cow. and she really hates that. i would've called yesterday. but... i could've called yesterday. but... i should've called yesterday, but... would've, could've, should've. we hear that a lot. hi. i'm jonathan, an insurance professional and manager here at colonial penn life insurance company. sometimes, people put off calling about life insurance. before you know it, another year has passed. and when they do call, they say, "i wish i'd called sooner." call right now for free information on the $9.95 plan. are you between age 50 and 85? 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(announcer) call now and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. an endorsement from former president trump. in the case of alaska governor mike dunlevy, there are strings attached. trump said dounlevy has his toeltotal endorsement. trump says this endorsement is subject to his non-endorsement of senator lisa murkowski. we're back with our panel. i love how he, like, takes the time to explain -- it's like a publisher's clearinghouse thing. tia, look, you've covered many races very closely and we all understand the effect of the former president's endorsement inside the republican party right now. but the idea of hanging this over a state official to try to pull an endorsement from another very high-profile state official, what does this tell you about the former president and the republican party? >> yeah, and what's surprising about it is it's wholly unnecessary. you have an incumbent governor who is running for reelection, and you have a competitive primary in a senate seat. he has no incentive to get involved already. and so it's moran indication of how president trump wants to continue to be perceived as the leader of the republican party, and he wants to keep his finger on the pulse of all these competitive races so that he can establish himself as a team maker. >> margaret, the last governor was elected in 2018. he's a conservative republican, fought for vaccine requirements, he was endorsed by former president trump in 2018. he doesn't really have much of a primary challenge if he has one at all in this point in time. so it's not like this is a competitive race. what's the rationale here from the former president? >> to stay in the news and to stay relevant and to try to keep endorsements of murkowski at a minimum. murkowski is the only gop senator who voted to convict in impeachment who is up this year, and trump is furious with her and has been for a long time and wants anyone but her and has endorsed someone else in that primary. don't forget, though, murkowski is the one who, when she lost her own gop primary to a candidate a decade ago or so, went back as a writing candidate and won, anyway, and retained her seat. she's tough. to me it's like did he even have to say it, because doesn't everyone already believe that just because you endorse someone, you wouldn't retract it if they did something to make him angry? guess what, we're giving it to him. happy new year. >> i get it, he's very explicit about what an endorsement would mean. margaret, you make a good point. if you want to beat lisa murkowski in alaska, you better pack a lunch, right? she's done this before. their primary process is not just a republican primary and done, it's a state where she and her family name are very popular and has delivered. the president went after anybody who voted to impeach. he had some success with people not seeking reelection broadly. how effective has he been on that target list he laid out? >> yeah, this is the politics of vindictiveness, politics by vendetta. it's been, frankly, one of the most salient characteristics of the president's year out of office. we've seen him get involved in local races around country, and usually it's been because of some personal grudge the president has, whether it relates to his impeachment, whether it relates to the 2020 election and his claims of voter fraud, including going after officials who he believes did not do what he would like them to do in trying to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election. in that respect, i think this is a continuation of donald trump continuing to practice politics based on his personal feelings about individuals and the things that he cares about, not necessarily thinking about the republican party more broadly or, frankly, a republican getting elected in any kind of competitive race. >> yeah, i don't think he ever cares about that. i think it's entirely personal with him. all right, guys, thanks stoo mu, as always. how maps control washington. an intensive fight over redistricting. aspercreme. ♪ when you have nausea, ♪ ♪ heartburn, ingestion, upset stomach... ♪ ♪ diarrheaaaa.♪ try pepto bismol with a powerful coating action. for fast and soothing relief. pepto bismol for fast relief when you need it most. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire is (gentle music) ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us gordan ramsey this is a cold call! nfl teams are turning to cold with tide. will you? that will never work! if it works on nfl jerseys it'll work for you. and it's cold. so you will turn to cold? fine! that guy needs to chill out! moving is a handful. no kidding! fortunately, xfinity makes moving easy. easy? -easy? switch your xfinity services to your new address online in about a minute. that was easy. i know, right? and even save with special offers just for movers. really? yep! so while you handle that, you can keep your internet and all those shows you love, and save money while you're at it with special offers just for movers at xfinity.com/moving. . redistricting. it is a wonky word for political mapmaking and the process around it, but don't be fooled, it matters an enormous amount. the maps last for ten years and will hold a big sway on which party controls washington for that next decade. michigan approved a new map yesterday. it draws lines for democrat and republican and five would become swing seats. the managing editor at the eugene center for politics. he's also the author of "the long red thread: how republican dominance gave way to republican advantage." he is also head of the greatest state in the union, ohio. that might be a personal thing on the ohio thing. thank you for joining us. kind of the big picture. we had redistricting, and given republican control on the state level in a number of states, this was going to completely shift the dynamics of the house for the next decade. when you look at the 25 -- i think i'm right on that -- 25 that are completed so far and 19 are left -- the balance of power right now is 221 and 213. on that are republicans dominating how these maps are coming out, are democrats hanging in? where does this land? >> i think democrats are hanging in. my own calculations of districts that have been drawn or largely completed at this point, republicans are up a little bit, democrats are down a little bit. we're only talking about a few seats here. you've also got a number of swing districts kind of toss-up seats across the country. although a lot of those basically didn't change all that much from the old maps to the new maps. some of the congressional battlefield districts are pretty similar to what they were in 2018 or 2020. the bottom line here is i think redistricting is really important, and it does potentially matter if the house is really, really close, but i think in the midterm year, the bigger picture environmental questions matter more. the president's party often struggles in the midterm, particularly if the president is popular. we have a relatively unpopular democratic president right now, so that, i think, matters more than the specifics of the maps. i think republicans feel pretty good about their chances in the house next year, and i think it's reasonable for them to feel that. >> one of the things that's been interesting. separate 2022, the first year of a new president. history shows where that's probably headed especially when you look at the current president's approval rating. longer term here, i've seen where you've made a move making seats more blue than red or shifting seats to a more competitive pod of seats. is that correct? are we looking kind of long term here where there is a much smaller universe of seats that are actually in play on an every two-year basis? >> you have to remember that even if we had a system across the country that was designed to maximize the number of competitive seats, you would still have a lot of competitive seats across the country. it's hard to draw competitive seats in places like new york city or los angeles or republican-leaning places like a lot of the midwest and the interior west and the south. but generally speaking, i think what you're seeing is a lot of -- particularly in places where democrats hold sway or the republicans hold sway, they're trying to maximize the number of seats that they feel like they can hold for the rest of the decade and minimize the number of seats that the other party will hold throughout the decade. that said, there have been some states that have completed in recent days where they seemed to maximize the number of competitive seats. you mentioned michigan. michigan, after being in a republican gerrymander the last decade, that state could see many competitive house races this next year, and michigan is one of the growing number of states that's using an independent hypothetically nonpartisan maps, and that's drawing attention across the country. >> you can see nevada on that front. i think you picked this up the other day, the number of battles right now are interesting. i think there's one in michigan, one or two in california right now. what are you seeing there in terms of how that nets out for each party? >> this is something that pops up from time to time, particularly in the eastern district, that you have two members in the same district. there was one created in michigan. the map was finalized this week of two democrats running against each other, haley and stevens in the same district. a lot of this is democrat versus republican in the same district, but particularly in states where there is a lot of midwestern states losing population in the rest of the country, the state loses the seat and it means in the game of musical chairs there is at least one person that will end up out in the cold and that often ends up in a primary situation like the example of michigan that i just mentioned. >> we only have 20 seconds left which isn't nearly enough time to answer this question. the nonpartisan panels that some states have set up, do they work? are they effective on what their intent is? >> look, i think that from a sort of fairness perspective, they're better than having, you know, just the d's or just the r's drawing maps for themselves. however, anything with redistricting you can question with acquittal. >> we know you'll be keeping a close eye on things as the maps are finalized. thank you very much, sir. appreciate it. >> thank you. now, the boys, they're back. join anderson cooper and andy cohen for cnn new year's live. the party starts at 8:00 eastern right here on cnn. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." my good buddy jessica dean picks up my coverage coming up after a quick break. have a great day. if it works on nfl jerseys it'll work for you. seriously! just perfect! and it'll save you up to $150 a year. and it's cold! so you will turn to cold? 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