weeks. also tonight, hundreds of homes in colorado are gone. consumed by this vicious wildfire that forced thousands to flee. we are gerting new details on the fast-moving disaster. beloved actress betty white has died just shy of her 100th birthday. we'll look back at her remarkable life, her iconic roles and how she became a pop culture phenomenon late in life. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. wolf blitzer is off today. i'm poppy harlow. this is "the situation room" special report. let's begin with the covid-19 surge and the grim pandemic forecast for the start of the new year. senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen has the latest. good evening to you. how much worse could this get as we head into the first few weeks of the new year? >> poppy, it's going to get worse because omicron is such an incredibly transmissible variant. we are just seeing cases skyrocketing. let's take a look. if we look backwards at the peak for the entire pandemic, over the past two years, the cases peak was in january of this year with 252,000 cases. we have surpassed that by a lot. now with 356,000. these are both cases per day. let's take a look at what the cdc is forecasting. the cdc is forecasting this. first of all, right now, we have 9400 new hospitalizations per day. they are forecasting that in mid-january we'll have 17,400 new hospital admissions per day. in the next four weeks, the cdc is estimating 39,000 deaths. i'm sorry, in the last four weeks we've had 39,000 deaths. the cdc forecasting that in the next four weeks we'll have more than 44,000 deaths. so many more deaths in the next four weeks than we've had in the last four weeks. and the experts i've talked to said they don't think it's because omicron is particularly dangerous in and of itself. it's not more virulent, but so much more transmissible. so many more people are going to get it so we'll see more hospitalizations and more deaths. >> and elizabeth, we both have school-aged children and most children around the country will head back to school next week. and that leaves, i think, all of us and experts bracing for covid cases to surge even more. what do you see happening? >> unfortunately, once these children go back to school, cases are going to go up. there's just no way around it. so let's take a look at hospitalizations because that's, of course, what we really care about. very small for children. the numbers are small, but you can see we've also set records in this arena. so the peak of hospital admissions for children was back in september with 342 admissions a day. now it's 378 admissions per day. so more children being admitted, even though this is a milder variant. part of the problem, not enough children are vaccinated. this is the percentage of children who are not fully vaccinated. children ages 5 to 11. 85% are not fully vaccinated. ages 12 to 17, 47% are not fully vaccinated. those numbers just have to come up to protect children and because children are such great disease vectors to protect the rest of us as well. now poppy, we know that soon we're going to have boosters. that's what we're hearing. we'll have boosters for children in the 12 to 15 age bracket. that's important, but still that first round of vaccinations that just aren't happening in the numbers that we need. those are even more important. poppy? >> so critical. elizabeth cohen, thank you for your reporting. the pandemic is certainly altering new year's eve plans for millions of people, including those attending the big new year's eve ball drop in new york's times square. polo sandoval joins me live from there. so it's smaller this year, but -- well, but it's loud. and they're still having it. >> and the sound check, poppy, is a reminder that things are still moving forward. the show is still on. a massive crowd still gathering. but the crowds are smaller than prepandemic, according to authorities. they're only allowing 15,000 people versus the usual 58,000 people to file into these pens. this is one of the requirements, obviously. scaling back. and the number of people out here. one of the measures. also all of these individuals are required to be vaccinated, h hang onto their masks and use them and how are they going to potentially enforce social distancing? i'll leave you with an answer to that question and that's, they can't necessarily enforce it but encourage it this way. a lot of these -- they have plenty of room for people to actually be able to socially distance. however, because of the excitement, a lot of these folks are actually getting as close as they can, trying to get the best view of the ball drop and that's why a lot of folks are taking advantage of that. but ultimately folks are hoping this will be not only a happy but healthy new year as there are concerns this could lead to a superspreading event. >> let's hope not. keep those masks up. polo sandoval, you've been great there all day. thanks for sticking around. joining susdr. peter hotez, co-director of texas children's hospital center for vaccine development and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. good to have you, dr. hotez. let's begin there where polo left off because we're heading into this holiday weekend during an unprecedented spike in covid cases. and thanks to a lack of available tests, a lot of americans are confused about how to navigate this surge. what do you say to people who feel like we've done everything? we've gotten our vaccines. we've gotten boosted. we're wearing masks and we're still seeing breakthrough infections. and you see people tonight in times square that just want to be back to normal. they want to gather. they don't want to socially distance. what do you say to them? >> yeah, no, it's frustrating. everyone is exhausted. everyone is totally sick of this pandemic but the reality is this omicron variant has some new features. it is highly resistant to many of the vaccines so if you get three doses, it's about 70% to 75% protective. but then it goes down within a couple of months after you have gotten that booster to around 30% to 40%. so that's why you're still seeing some symptomatic breakthrough infections. that's problem number one. problem two, as we have heard about, it's so transmissible. almost as transmissible as measles which is the most transmissible virus that we know about. at least in terms of common viruses. so that one-two punch is really causing a lot of problems. so definitely want to keep your gathering small tonight. try to surround yourself with vaccinated people. but get ready. i mean, we have to remember that the next few weeks, there's going to be unprecedented numbers of social disruptions. it's going to be really hard for the airports and the airlines to stay afloat because of all of the tsa absences that we're going to see. grond crew, air traffic control. so be prepared for significant disruptions in air travel and other transportation hubs. be prepared for having -- if you have doctor's appointments, having significant numbers of staff out because they're home with covid. and if you're hospitalized, that's the real danger point because that different type of one-two punch. people going into the hospitals because, even though it's milder than what we've been seeing, they're still getting sick and all the health care workers. >> pediatric hospitalizations in this country are at the highest they've ever been in this pandemic. and one infectious disease professor is warning of a, quote, tidal wave of covid-19 hospitalizations, especially in children. that that may be coming. do you agree with that projection, a tidal wave? >> well, i don't know if it's going to be a tidal wave but certainly a lot of pediatric hospitalizations. more than we've ever seen. and it's not because the virus is selectively targeting kids. what we've seen in south africa and the uk is when you have this firestorm or what my friend mike osterholme calls virus blizzard. there will be pediatric hospitalizations. and the other tough piece, keeping the schools open because of this high transmissible. you start seeing absences of teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff. that's all going to feed into this. the bottom line is we have to explain to americans that this is going to be a difficult time. be patient. >> yeah, at our children's school, they are now mandating a pcr test before the kids can go back, right? not even not just a rapid test, a pcr test. i completely understand why. what do you think? how do you weigh the two? should children be heading back to school on monday in your estimation? >> well, it looks like it's happening. i just don't know how well it's going to go. and it depends where you live. remember, this pandemic -- this phase of the pandemic is not hitting the country all at once. it's going in waves. and the first part of the wave is in washington, d.c. and new york city. and then moving into pennsylvania, over into ohio and indiana, illinois. it's also likely going to be the place where it starts to subsides fairly quickly, too. so one option would be to hold off for a couple of weeks. see if it subsides and then open the classes. >> dr. peter hotez, thank you very much for being with us and all year, you and your colleagues have been exceptionally helpful. we appreciate it. and happy new year. >> happy new year. coming up, how the investigation into the january 6th capitol riot is evolving as the one-year anniversary of the attack approaches. plus, honoring the life of television icon betty white who died today at 99 years old. this is "the situation room" special report. ww's all-new personalpoints program is made just for you. you take an assessment, enter your goals, the foods you love and ww builds a plan just for you. i lost 26 pounds and i feel incredible. oprah: no two people are alike so no two plans are alike. with ww, i lost 30 pounds. this new program changed my life. live the life you love. lose the weight you want. the all new ww personalpoints program. start the new year with three months free. join today at ww.com. hurry, offer ends january 3rd. football, is a game of inches. but it's also a game, of information. because the nfl is connected. and at any moment, the fate of the season can come down to this. billions of secure connections, per second. when the game is on the line and the game is always on the line touchdown! the nfl relies on cisco. it's the most wonderful time of the year. it is all about t-mobile with their great phone deals for everyone every day including customers on sprint. tell us more dianne. new and existing customers on the magenta max plan can trade up to the new iphone 13 pro and t-mobile will pay for it. customers can also get a free year of apple tv plus. i know you love ted lasso, george. guilty as charged. t-mobile is bringing it all together for the holidays. upgrade to the iphone 13 pro on us. plus get a free year of apple tv plus. only at t-mobile. just six days before the one-year mark of the january 6th insurrection, the house investigation into the deadly riot is heating up. cnn congressional correspondent ryan nobles has the latest. good evening. what are the committee's priorities as they head into the new year? >> poppy, it sounds like the committee will take a much more public footing here as the new year begins. and start to present some of the findings that they had. and then talk a lot more in a public way about exactly what they hope to accomplish. that includes hear,s that could happen as soon as this late winter. they also plan on providing somewhat of an interim report in the summer before issuing their final report this fall. the committee members i've spoken to say one of their big goals is to create a narrative so that people understand exactly what happened, not just on january 6th but in the months and weeks leading up to the insurrection so that americans understand exactly just how close we came to democracy being toppled on its head. and what we can do to prevent it in the future. >> as they do this, the committee is facing several legal battles. some big ones. maybe even one in the supreme court. >> that's right. and the committee is hoping the supreme court doesn't even take up this case that has to do with whether or not they should be given access to 700 documents from the former trump administration that are currently in the hands of the national archives but it's an example of this myriad of legal challenges that the committee is facing when it comes to answering their subpoenas, handing over of documents for witnesses sitting in front of them. what's interesting is that the committee believes that they are on sound legal ground. that they should have access to all this information. but the problem is not whether or not they're right on the law but it's an issue of timing and what the trump allies are attempting to do is run out the clock ahead of when this report really needs to be completed by the fall because, of course, if the midterm elections turn out the way many expect and republicans take control of the house, it's very likely this committee will dissolve or take on a much different scope and so that's why these legal challenges present a problem because if they're not resolved by then, then the committee is out of luck. >> ryan nobles, thank you for the reporting. let's get more on all of this. senior legal analyst elie honig is with me. i am so fascinated by this and i'll be watching very closely. i think it's by january 14th, the supreme court committee has asked them to decide whether or not they'll take up the president's case. this is the president's last chance to try to get those documents blocked from the national archive, otherwise they'll go -- they'll go to the committee. do you think that the court is going to get involved here? i mean, there's an argument to get involved and to resolve what is an unresolved constitutional question, the reach of executive power. when a president is gone out of office. but there's also this unanimous appellate court decision that seemed fool-proof. >> the committee won this case in the district court, the committee won this case by a 3-0 vote in the court of appeals. they're going to win in the supreme court in my opinion. either the supreme court is not going to take this case or if they do, i just don't see any way they can rule against the committee. the law here is new, but it's not really that close of a call. the two arguments that trump is making is executive privilege but he's the former president. he can't outweigh's current president and current congress. and then this argument that the committee has no lifting purpose. but the committee has said, sure we do. we're looking at the electoral reform act and other laws. so really trump's argument is just sort of adhomimun and for that reason the supreme court may not take this. there's just nothing that they need to step in and fix here. >> dave, what do you think? the question came up in the nixon administration. we know how that went. that was about a president, an executive privilege in office. do you think the supreme court should take this case to resolve the question of, well, what about when they're out of office? >> i don't think so, poppy. why would the supreme court get involved here? chief justice john roesberts ha said that he wants people to buy into the legitimacy of the supreme court. yet, if he gets involved in this political mess it would be like stepping on a rake. he would be taking on an issue that is a political hot potato. he doesn't need to. the lower court gave a very sound reason. and bad facts make bad law. even if you have conservative justices on the supreme court who want to expand the power of the chief executive, why would you do it in a case like this where executive privilege is trying to be used to conceal a criminal conspiracy, namely the overthrow of the government of the united states. so i don't think they'll hear it. if they hear it, i don't think trump is going to win. >> this is, to dave's point of why would the court take up such a political hot potato. this is the term that they took up abortion and guns. >> sure, sure. look. this case, though, is going to be seen as very political because we're talking about congress, the powers of congress. and look, we have a 6-3 majority on the court in favor of conservatives. i think that's clear. but this case really isn't about conservative/liberal ideology, left/right any of that. the law is so clear. how can it be that the former president can overrule the current president? chief justice roberts is conscientious about not having this court be perceived as political. we're talking about democrats, republicans, house. they'll want no part of it. >> that's a great point. the documents aren't even the president's. they are the public's documents being held in the national archive. what's the big unanswered question about january 6th that lingers in your mind a year later? >> we need to figure out who paid for it, who organized it. we need to go up the chain. the department of justice has gone after hundreds and hundreds of the foot soldiers. what about the organizers, the people on top? so far there's no evidence that the department of justice is investigating the leadership. and it just empowers people to do it again. my biggest question as we approach the new year, poppy, is whether merrick garland has the stomach for this fight. because he is a good man, someone of high integrity but i'm not sure if you want to send a judge to do a prosecutor's job. this will take a strong stomach. and i'm not sure that he is made for this moment. >> thank you very much, dave, elie. up next, hundreds of homes absolutely destroyed in colorado after sudden wildfires forced families to flee for their lives. and losing a legend. honoring the life and legacy of comedy icon betty white. this is "the situation room: special report." the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop rybelsus® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking rybelsus® with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. wake up to the possibility of lower a1c with rybelsus®. you may pay as little as $10 for up to a 3-month prescription. ask your healthcare provider about rybelsus® today. what does a foster kid need from you? 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>> reporter: earlier today when it wasn't snowing yet, we could see down the hill from us. and when you look at those neighborhoods in superior, you could see the pockets of blocks where houses were completely leveled. you see burned out property lines. right next to homes that were just fine. and we were also seeing the same thing in lewisville, a nearby community, also experiencing real devastation from this event where we would see a burned out lot next to a house standing there still with christmas lights on. so that's an example of how precarious and random those wind gusts behaved. these were hurricane-force winds. we're talking about people who had sometimes hours but in some cases just a few minutes to really pack up the things that mattered to them most. we talked to one person who lives just down the hill. he had to put his children in the car and it took them 2 1/2 hours just to travel about a quarter mile. that's how many people were trying to get out in a hurry, poppy. so it is a real miracle, if truly there are no fatalities, and currently we're not hearing of any, but right now the folks that we're talking to are just glad that it is property damage and not the loss of life right now, poppy. >> that's exactly right. if it is the case, no fatalities, a miracle indeed. are the fires contained now with all the snow? >> we don't have an exact containment number at the moment, but officials have talked about how helpful it is to have this moisture come in. we do know from their press conference earlier today that they don't expect this fire to grow beyond 6,000 acres. but already, 35,000 people had to evacuate. some of them can come home. some of them are coming back to find that their homes have been completely destroyed. so that rebuilding process will take some time and they will have to find somewhere to stay in the meantime. >> natasha chen, thank you to you and your team on the ground reporting on this. we appreciate it. let me bring in clint folsome, the mayor of superior, colorado, and joins me on the phone. mayor, how bad is the damage in superior? >> hi, poppy. thanks for having me on. it is horrific here. you drive around and you see homes that you know the owners of these homes and you just feel terrible that there's such an extent of damage throughout our town. >> we're looking at images of what is this tragic combination of rapidly spreading wildfires and hurricane-force winds that made it so much more devastating and damaging. how about your home? your family's homes? did they make it? >> our home survived, but we have family members whose homes did not survive. a total of three homes lost by family members. immediate family members. so it's definitely a difficult situation for our family. >> i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry. what about fatalities? the initial reports we've heard of maybe a miracle, no fatalities? >> we have -- that's what we've heard as well, but given the limited amount of time that some of these people had to get out of their homes and just how fast the fire was moving, i really hope that, you know, once the assessment is done of kind of where everyone is, that we don't discover that there are some people inside those burned homes. >> we all hope that. i am told you actually picked up a garden hose. is that right? >> we did. we were driving around last night and i was driving around with the town manager and sheriff's sergeant and we saw a little hot spot in an area that didn't have the others, and thought that it would be useful to try to put that little hot spot out with a garden hose and we did it. now whether that, perhaps, prevented another section of homes from going up we'll never know, but it seemed to be the right thing to do at the time because these embers were blowing in from across the road and they would light up fences and then those fences would light up houses and we thought, if we could perhaps contain that, might have prevented another couple of homes or several from going up. >> i'm sure it did. one thing that was so striking about this series of fires is that it wasn't in the mountains. this was right in town. a costco store in superior was suddenly evacuated earlier today. had one of the customers who was evacuated on, hunt fry, on the show with me. listen to what he said. >> the staff told us to evacuate, and one of the staff mentioned the store might be on fire. and as soon as everybody kind of walked out the door they were really calm and they started running like an antelope and just running all over the place. and it was pretty scary. it was kind of like a life beyond a dream. it was just apocalyptic feeling. >> it does look like the apocalypse in those images. he and i were both wondering, did the costco survive it? >> costco did survive it. the target -- super target store next door had some fire damage on the roof. but it -- and then some water damage inside, i think a sprinkler line went off and it got some pretty extensive water inside. but both buildings are -- or that entire stretch of commercial buildings are still intact. but the -- that individual's assessment was correct. we were driving through some of that blowing wind, and the amount of -- you can see in the videos, the dirt, just the dirt that was being blown from the open space to the west just all over. it's just coated everywhere. we get these strong winds occasionally, but it's rare when it really moves soil like this one did, and then you combine it with the fire element and then our extremely dry -- extremely dry conditions that we've had over the last several months. it was just a recipe for disaster. >> the worst possible combination. mayor clint folsom, we're so grateful you could join us and so sorry for all the loss your residents and family endured. >> thank you. sorry i couldn't join you by video. internet seems to be down everywhere around here. >> not a problem. >> thanks for having me on. >> of course. our thoughts with all of you. next hour i'll speak with the governor of colorado, jared polis. also just ahead for us here, honoring the life of american sweetheart betty white who captured hearts on and off the screen for decades. hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were. i heard about prevagen and then i started taking it about two years now. started noticing things a little sharper, a little clearer. i feel like it's kept me on my game. i'm able to remember things. i'd say give it a try. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. break news tonight, actress and comedienne betty white has died at age 99, just weeks before her 100th birthday. stephanie elam has a look at white the extraordinary career. ♪ ♪ it's a good day how can anything go wrong today ♪ ♪ it's a good day from morning till night ♪ >> betty white's career began in her teens and by her 20s was a fixture on television with her own daily talk show. ahead of the times, white co-founded her own production company in 1952. she worked on a variety of television and film projects over the years before turning a 1973 guest appearance on the "mary tyler moore show" into a permanent role. white was a scene stealer as the man-hungry sue ann nivens. >> i think a man should be virile and macho and wreak with masculinity. >> reporter: her second signature role was on "the golden girls" as the comical rose nylund. >> and they attacked chickens. >> i don't care about chickens. she didn't call me chicken. she called me peacock. >> you look more like a chicken when you're angry. your neck sticks out. >> with "the golden girls," i got to play with those silly ladies every week. and i loved rose nylund. she was positive and she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she wasn't dumb. she was just terminally naive. >> reporter: off screen white married three times. she called her third husband, tv host allen ludden, the love of her life. they were together almost 20 years before ludden died of stomach cancer in 1981. >> and you never remarried. >> nope. when you've had the best, who needs the rest. >> reporter: a devoted pet lover, white was a longtime advocate for animal welfare. she called television her hobby and animals her work. yet her hobby kept her busy. white's talents as an actress and comedienne were in demand well into her senior years. following a grassroots facebook campaign in 2010, white became the oldest person ever to host "saturday night live" at the age of 88. >> you know what's an accomplishment? staying awake on the toilet. >> the show earned huge ratings and white, her seventh emmy award. later that year, white took on another role on tv land's "hot in cleveland." >> i thought you weren't coming? >> i ran out of vodka. and i thought i'd come over here and freshen up my drum. >> in her 90s, white was as popular as ever with several ongoing film and television projects. >> how lucky can a 90-year-old broad be? i have no idea. and i'm still working. that's the thing that's such a thrill. >> reporter: love for her warm smile, wit and off color humor, white didn't miss a beat when asked if there were any hollywood projects she would still like to do. >> i usually answer that question with robert redford. no, i think i've been lucky enough to do just about -- so much that if i start complaining about anything under the sun, throw me out of the business. >> what a life. stephanie elam, thank you for that. joining us to remember betty white, "inside edition's" jim moret. jim, what's your favorite betty white memory? >> you know, i remember her on "password" where she met allen ludden, her husband. she was a guest. they fell in love. and i think my favorite is "mary tyler moore." she was so loveable on screen. and then this man-hungry lunatic and that's what she won two emmys for. you can understand why. >> "people" magazine recently collaborated with betty white on a retrospective. i think we can show it to our viewers. talk to us about what you learned from her, from your reporting. >> i mean, one of the remarkable things we really learned was just betty's day-to-day life which was very full, even within a few weeks from now. she loved balogna and peanut butter sandwich. her favorite movie was "my octopus teacher" and loved to end the day with vodka on the rocks with a splash of lime or grapefruit, which is certainly how i will be celebrating her this evening. >> i was just going to say that. i think that i'll do that after the show this evening in honor of betty white. jim, so many roles and one thing i love is she could turn down roles left and right, right? but she was such an animal lover and protector that apparently she turned down a role in "as good as it gets" because of the scene where they toss the dog down the laundry chute. that's how much she believed in her values. >> she was a woman of her convictions. i've never heard a mean word said about her and you can understand why. she co-starred with ryan reynolds in 2009 in "the proposal." for years he's referred to her jokingly and lovingly as his ex-girlfriend. he tweeted she was great at defying expectations and managed to grow very old and somehow not old enough. and i think that's how people feel that they're saddened by her loss and we were all looking forward to january 17th to her 100th birthday. but we will now pay tribute to her instead of celebrating. >> yeah, celebrate in her honor. it was amazing scrolling through social media just within the hour after her death. everyone, everyone, every age group posting about her. and i think that speaks to how many lives she touched. how many careers she had that it wasn't that she was remembered by one generation. it's that she'll be remembered by all. >> all. she is actually the guinness book of world records holder for the longest running entertainer on television. >> wow! >> she was given that many years ago. she absolutely hits all of the generations, and one of my favorite things about betty, she's always making jokes about her crush on robert redford which we heard in the package. and robert redford just gave "people" an exclusive quote and said he had a crush on her, too, which really touches me. >> it really does. i'm glad that she lived to be able to read that and hear that. jim moret, thank you. we'll all toast to betty white tonight. >> cheers. coming up -- president biden renews his warnings to russia that invading ukraine would come at an extraordinarily heavy price. orrrr... you could find the answer right now in slack. and give steve a break. slack. where the future works. ww's all-new personalpoints program is made just for you. you take an assessment, enter your goals, the foods you love and ww builds a plan just for you. i lost 26 pounds and i feel incredible. oprah: no two people are alike so no two plans are alike. with ww, i lost 30 pounds. this new program changed my life. live the life you love. lose the weight you want. the all new ww personalpoints program. download the ww app today for a 14-day free trial. earn about covid-19, the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next? what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. . welcome back. there is more breaking news that we're following tonight. president biden closing out the year with a warning to russian president vladimir putin against invading ukraine. jeremy diamond traveling with the president in delaware. what did the president say about his message for putin? >> reporter: well, poppy, president biden issued a stark warning to the russian president, happening during the 50-minute phone call yesterday. president biden warning the russian president not to invade ukraine and if he does, he said the russian president and russia as a whole will pay a heavy price. >> i made it clear to the president putin that if he makes any more moves and goes into ukraine, we will have severe sanctions, we will increase our presence in europe with our nato allies and it will be a heavy price to pay for it. >> reporter: and for now at least, as even though russia has more than 100,000 troops on the ukrainian border, they are engaging in the diplomacy. the by lateral security talks are set to begin on january 10th but they said there could not be any progress until the russia will de-escalate the situation. and that was the main message on the call, to show there are two path as head, there is some diplomatic path that the russian president could choose to follow or serious economic sanctions and those increased nato milita military movements should putin move forward with that invasion and the president was asked whether he has a better sense of whether or not the russian president is likely to invade ukraine? he didn't exactly answer that, instead pointing to the negotiations set to take place on january 10th. but u.s. officials have made it clear they are not listening for vladimir putin's words as much as they are watching russian actions and that is why we've seen u.s. spy plains over eastern ukraine monitoring those movements. >> that would explain both of the flights together, those images. thank you for reporting with biden in delaware. let's get more on this from ro khanna, the deputy whip of the progressive caucus. you just heard the president reiterate his message to putin. do you believe the biden administration has done enough to support ukraine, do you want to see them step it up more. >> i think the president gets it exactly right. ee being tough and putting severe sanctions on the table. we've never had that before. he said we will sanction those in the inner circle and energy and severe financial sanctions on the russian economy. at the same time he's keeping dialogue open with the geneva talks because no one wants this to escalate, with the rise of china or focus on taiwan. we can't push russia into china's arms nor could we have a two-front conflict so i think they're handle it exactly correctly. >> here at home biden is ending this year with at least for now appears to be a loss on the signature build back better plan. how problematic is it for the democratic party heading into the midterms if you don't get substantial chunks of it passed if not the whole thing. >> poppy, we have to get something done on it. we already have passed, as you know, the american rescue plan, we've passed the infrastructure plan, that is said we have to compromise and get something done. i believe universal preschool and parts of climate are things that we could come to a consensus on and we need to move forward with a compromised win. >> so let's talk about one of the key sticking points because it was the child tax credit which is going to expire tomorrow morning. you told wolf last week that expanding that is one of the most important things that we could do. of course it lifts millions of kids out of poverty. you guys are going to have to try again in the new year and i wonder if you agree with this from your democratic colleague congresswoman carolyn bordeaux, listen to what she said earlier today. >> i do think there are ways that we could reframe the child tax credit to target it more at people who are in need. it is done a camera job at reducing child poverty. i think we could cut the price tag and still achieve the same goals. >> do you agree with her? >> i'm open to her. if they want to move down the income limits, i'm open to that compromise. my understanding is that the vast majority of people qualifying for it are under $125,000 as a couple. but if we want to look at targeting it for the working class and middle class that most need it and reducing some of the cost, i'm open to the compromise. i gjust want it to get passed s we could continue to cut poverty. >> thank you very much for joining us and happy new year. >> poppy, happy new year to you and your viewers. >> thank you. coming up, covid collides with new year's eve as cases surge across the country. more than that. this is "the situation room," special room. new vicks convenience pack. dayquil severe for you... and daily vicks super c for me. vicks super c is a daily supplement with vitamin c and b vitamins to help energize and replenish. dayquil severe is a max strength daytime, coughing, power through your day, medicine. new from vicks. this is elodia. she's a recording artist. 1 of 10 million people that comcast has connected to affordable internet in the last 10 years. and this is emmanuel, a future recording artist, and one of the millions of students we're connecting throughout the next 10. through projectup, comcast is committing $1 billion so millions more students, past... and present, can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities. happening now, another day of record smashing covid case counts as the united states is entering the third year, can you believe it, of this pandemic. health officials are on high alert tonight warning new year's eve celebrations could make the omicron fueled crisis even worse. also tonight, wildfires had a terrifying path of destruction in colorado forcing thousands to evacuate. hundreds of homes were consumed in the blink of an eye. i'll talk to him live this hour. and more reaction to the death of betty white at age 99. leaving a legacy of memorable roles and a special place in so many of our hearts. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. wolf blitzer is off, i'm poppy harlow and this is "the situation room" special report. we begin this hour with the unprecedented explosion of covid 19 cases across the nation. our top foreman is tracking all of it for us on this new year's eve. the numbers are growing larger by the day and the hour. >> they are just unbelievable. texas, the latest big state to say basically it needs help with testing material, with treatment material, with people to operate all of that and as we expect many other states to do until the very near future, they're turning to washington. the federal government has deployed disaster assistance teams and ambulances to new york. the new year's eve crowd in times square will be held to about a quarter of the usual, masks and proof of vaccination required. all of this as city is once again an epicenter of the

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