february and that the nominee will be a black woman. >> the person i will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the united states supreme court. it's long overdue, in my view. i made that commitment during the campaign for president, and i will keep that. in the end, i will nominate a historic candidate, someone who's worthy of justice breyer's legacy and someone, who like justice breyer, will provide incredible service on the united states supreme court. >> breyer's announcement today takes his relationship with the president full circle in a way. then senator biden presided over breyer's confirmation hearings in 1994. let's go now to cnn white house correspondent m.j. lee. the president, he made it clear he's not chosen his nominee to the court yet. so, what happens now? >> reporter: that's right. though it is clear that the search has already begun, choosing a person to fill a vacancy on the supreme court is, of course, one of the most important things that a u.s. sitting president can do, and now for president biden, there is this added layer, his commitment to making history by appointing a black woman, the first black woman to the supreme court. we also just got a little bit of a sense of what we might expect to see just in the next couple of months in terms of the timeline, president biden giving himself this self-imposed deadline of around the end of february. that is when he would like to publicly announce his nominee to replace justice breyer. now, on the one hand, there was, of course, real gravity to this event that president biden had with justice breyer. of course, biden himself saying this is one of the most important, biggest responsibilities that he can do as president, and on the other hand, there was also this sort of levity and almost a tone of optimism when president biden and justice breyer were speaking. president biden, on the one hand, saying that he sees justice breyer as a model public servant at a time of great division and also saying that he wants to name someone who is going to reflect justice breyer's sense of decency, and then when it came time for justice breyer to speak, he talked about the future of the country, and he said that he is optimistic. here he is. >> it's an experiment that's still going on. and i'll tell you something, you know who will see whether that experiment works? it's you, my friend. it's you, mr. high school student. it's you, mr. college student. it's you, mr. law school student. it's us, but it's you. it's that next generation. and the one after that. my grandchildren and their children. they'll determine whether the experiment still works, and of course, i'm an optimist and i'm pretty sure it will. >> reporter: and speaking of optimism and decency, president biden saying that he is wanting to consult with many people as he decides who he's going to replace justice breyer with. you know, washington has been so mired in gridlock recently, he made a point of saying he will want to consult with senators on the other side of the political aisle, so that is sort of an unusual tone of partisanship -- bipartisanship, rather, that we heard from the president at this very important moment. guys? >> you're right. that is noteworthy. m.j. lee, thank you. and joining us now, senator hirono from hawaii. she is on the judiciary committee, which, of course, will hold the confirmation hearing. senator, welcome back. let's start here. >> good to be with you. >> good to have you. there is this call coming up to talk about the timeline of the confirmation. the president said the nominee will be named sometime within the next month. what can you tell us about how quickly after that nominee is named that you could get the confirmation through? >> oh, our judiciary committee will operate expeditiously as we have been with all of the other judicial nominees by president biden. i'm looking forward to this confirmation process. >> do you expect it will be as quick as the amy coney-barrett confirmation? >> well, i don't see why not. but we will move forward expeditiously, and by the way, i was so delighted that justice breyer referred to the gettysburg address and reminding all of us, yes, we are still in a -- what is it -- a democracy, that all men and women are created equal. it's an experiment, yes. it's an experiment that is still becoming, and it's up to us to make it happen. >> so, you know, on that point, as we watch the outgoing justice make those remarks, we heard from the president that he will be looking for someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. you said it will be a black woman. what are you looking for? is there a specific type of experience you're hoping for in this nominee? >> what i have always looked for in all of the judicial nominees, because these are lifetime appointments, is someone who can be fair and impartial and not having an ideological axe to grind, which was mainly the kind of nominees that president trump sent to us, including, by the way, as far as i'm concerned, the three supreme court nominees or now justices. >> all right, so, let's talk about what we're hearing from republican leadership ahead of this nomination. this is from minority leader mitch mcconnell. he says that looking ahead, the american people elected a senate that is evenly split at 50/50. to the degree that president biden received a mandate, it was to govern from the middle, steward our institutions, and unite america. the president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. the american people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our constitution. your thoughts? >> well, that's rich coming from a person who very much supported president trump's outsourcing his supreme court nominees to the federalist society, a pretty conservative, far-right organization. what i'm looking for in the supreme court is fair, even handedness, an adherence to the rule of law and precedent, which, by the way, this court and two offensive 6-3 decisions reflects they are bent toward the right and therefore it's not the kind of court that i cthink reflects the diversity of our country and that is why this nominee is going to be so important, a black woman, about time. past time. and she will reflect the diversity of our court by providing much more diversity to the highest court in our land. >> let's stay on mitch mcconnell, because the judges and justices that you say that he ushered through during the trump administration, that was, of course, when he was the majority leader. now, he's -- his party is in the minority. and there are, i'm sure, democrats wondering, if there's a way that he can block, hold this seat open, delay it past the midterms, do you see that possibility from the republicans? >> well, he may be trying to come up with something, but at least he doesn't have the excuse that we should wait for a presidential election, because we just pretty much had one. i'm looking to make sure, though, that all the democrats who voted unanimously for all of president biden's judicial nominees, my expectation is that there will be strong democratic support for whoever the supreme court nominee is, and it would be great if we could get some republicans to be open-minded about it and support someone who can be fair and evenhanded and impartial on the supreme court. >> of course, we know that at the top of the list or near the top of the list is judge brown jackson who was just confirmed in june, i believe it was, with three republican votes. murkowski, collins, and graham. is there anything that suggests now that they could reverse course and say, yeah, i supported her for the appellate court, but the supreme court, no. >> judge brown is the candidate, i certainly hope that the three republicans will continue to support her, but you never know. it is really critical, in my view, that all of the democrats will continue their support for president biden's judicial nominees, and i want to thank justice breyer for his advocacy for decades on behalf of voting rights, reproductive choice, and healthcare support. that's the kind of justice that i hope will -- i know that president biden will nominate and i hope that the republicans can see their way to support such a justice. >> all right, senator ma mazie hirono, thank you for your time. >> thank you, aloha. okay, let's bring in cnn senior political analyst n nia malika henderson, former republican congressman charlie dent and former federal prosecutor harry litman who helped prepare justice breyer for his confirmation hearings in 1994. great to see all of you. charlie, i want to start with you because we just heard from the democratic side, from senator hirono but i know that you think that it wasn't a great idea for president biden to lead with the notion that he wants a black woman for this position. why not? obviously, president reagan did this in 1980, where he talked about how he was going to find a woman to put on the supreme court. how is this different? >> well, i think it's totally appropriate, and i sympathize. i think it's appropriate to put an african american woman on the bench. i think that's fine. i think it's just better to lead with, you know, we're going to have a process, welcome all applicants, people of all ger genders and races and then after you go through that process, then nominate an african american -- a highly qualified african american woman. i think it looks better this way because it basically told everybody else, don't bother applying. that's more of a procedural thing with me. i think that's the better way to do it. having said that, i think the president is going to get a victory here in terms of getting an african american on the bench. >> i don't know, congressman, the first 108 white men who were appointed to the supreme court wasn't enough of a message of, don't bother applying? >> no, my point is, i think it's good that he's going to nominate an african american woman. i just would have said, set the process up in such a way that, you know, you welcome all applicants, then interview them all, then nominate an african american woman. i just think it's better to proceed that way and in terms of diversity on the court, i hope the president nominates someone who's not from an ivy league school. i think eight of the nine are from the ivy league, harvard and yale. let's talk about diversity in that sense too. there are a lot of good lawyers and law schools out there who apparently don't get a whole lot of consideration for supreme court nomination. this has been a pet peeve of mine more some time. >> obviously charlie is not a lone voice in the way he wishes this was done a little differently. your thoughts? >> listen, it would be great if we lived in an america that was color blind and that certain people didn't get advantages and other people were disadvantages, but that's not the world we live in. this obviously was a campaign process from joe biden in the south carolina primary. it was sort of a political promise, and so he's making good on it. i think it's actually great that we have a very diverse field of african american women candidates from all sorts of different backgrounds that we're talking about. i mean, if you think back to the last administration, i think 85% of the folks that trump appointed were white. 25%, i think, were women. so, you know, i don't know if charlie thinks that, you know, 85% of the applicants who were white were the most qualified and that there's sort of an open process for this. there isn't. i mean, that's just sort of the reality. so i'm not as bothered by it in the way that charlie dent is. i do think he makes a good point about the diversity in terms of the public school background and diversity of law students. oftentimes, we do think of diversity just in terms of race and gender, but there are all sorts of ways to look at diversity, and i think that's one of the reasons why you've got a judge from south carolina, michelle childs, who is being pushed by a number of folks as a candidate that might add more diversity to the supreme court in addition to being black and female. >> yeah. harry, as alisyn said at the top, you helped justice breyer prepare for his confirmation hearing in 1994. i wonder what you thought as we watched the justice, comfortable, kind of speaking off the cuff, leaning on the podium today, announcing his retirement. >> somewhat professorial, you might say, which i think is his personality, even though he styles himself a pragmatist, and he announced in '94 that the measure of law should be what it does for ordinary people. here's what i thought. i saw a kind of sober contrast, even though he was upbeat, calling himself an optimist. in 1994, he said, where but in america can you be sure in 100 years you'll have a free and fair election for president. that is kind of ironic now and what he said, he quotes the gettysburg address, saying, we are now engaged in a civil war to see if this nation or any nation so conceived can last. i thought it was a very kind of telling, even while he delivered it in an upbeat way, telling indication of the change in the political culture since he was nominated. >> yeah. harry, i want to stick with you for one more second because you tweeted you do not believe this will be a particularly bruising confirmation battle and i just want to play for you something that one of our cnn contributors, scott jennings, who knows mitch mcconnell very well, has worked with him for many years, said yesterday on our program that i think flies in the face of that. so, listen to this. >> okay. >> my political advice is, there ought not be one republican vote for this, and furthermore, i think they ought to treat the president's nominee with the same level of respect that brett kavanagh was treated with and amy coney barrett. >> would you like to amend your opinion? >> not at all. you heard hawley saying stuff. but those numbers, as charlie just said, look to a democratic victory. what mcconnell doesn't want to do is fight a long fight and lose. he would like for biden to take his victory lap and go back to pill loring him on the economy and covid. they don't have the numbers here, manchin and sinema have never departed, and they have a chance of sysome republicans. there will be nasty words thrown around but i don't think a real prospect of a loss here and that will affect the whole campaign as it were. >> nia, breyer's confirmation was 87-9. scalia, 98. >> the supreme court confirmation votes now are close to, if not maybe this will be the first time, on party line. why? why is this happening increasingly? >> you know, increasing partisanship, obviously, in washington, very stark dividing lines in terms of the issues. i mean, you had donald trump come into office or campaign, trying to be president, saying he wanted to appoint somebody that would overturn roe v. wade, so the political issues, very, very stark, and so you have the nominees, the folks who end up on scotus, end up reflecting those partisan divides and i know this is something the justices don't like, stephen breyer, particularly, talked about this, not wanting to be seen as a political body, but it is a political body. listen, i'm sure years in the past, the supreme court might have been a much more united body, but listen, those times, in many ways, weren't good for black people. they weren't good for women. they weren't good for gay folks either. so, now, i think you're moving forward to a situation where the supreme court is going to be much more diverse. it's going to stay essentially ideologically the way it is now, but it will look much more like the country. >> hey, charlie, very quickly, will biden's pick get any republican support? >> it may if it's judge jackson. i think it would be hard for those three who voted for her previously to vote against her. i do -- i would not count on republican support, but i hope that he anonynominates a highly qualified person and i think if that woman is qualified, i'm sure she will be, republicans should vote for her, regardless of their ideological differences. >> nia-malika, charlie, thank you all. the kremlin says that vladimir putin is not rushing to judgment on the west's written responses to russia's security demands but also warns that major concerns were not addressed. plus, china is telling the u.s. to stop interfering with the winter olympics in beijing. we have more on what that means next. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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[a vulture squawks.] there he is. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ hello, how can i? sore throat pain? ♪honey lemon♪ try vicks vapocool drops in honey lemon chill for fast acting sore throat relief ♪ahhh!♪ wooo! vaporize sore throat pain with expand your limits in the 2022 lexus gx with apple carplay support. get 2.49% apr financing on the 2022 gx 460. ♪ president biden will speak with the ukrainian president this hour. the kremlin says it is not satisfied with the u.s. and nato's written responses to their security demands. a spokesman for vladimir putin says the russian president will not rush to judgment while he analyzes the responses but added there are few reasons for optimism. >> russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said they failed to address the key concerns. >> translator: there is no positive reaction on the main issue in this document. the main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further expansion of nato to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the russian federation. >> joining us now to discuss this and more, cnn political analyst and "washington post" columnist josh rogin and cnn and political and national security analyst david sanger, also the white house and national security correspondent for the "new york times." welcome to you both. josh, let me start with you and these written responses now handed over to russia. what was the point of these documents? they knew what they would say. they weren't going to reach their demands. was this just a way to delay and to paint the west as intransient? >> you're absolutely right, victor. this is a kind of kabuki diplomacy. everybody knows what the parts are but they have to slowly play them out anyway. that is a function for each side. for putin, he can say he's trying to avert the crisis, even though he might be lying, and for the united states and its allies, they can say, we tested putin and did everything we could. as you rightly point out, there's a risk here because right now russia isn't ready to invade ukraine but in a couple weeks, they just might be so maybe he's just tapping us along until he's going to invade anyway. nevertheless, we got to do it. meanwhile, build up deterrents and hopefully hold the allies together at the same time. >> that's really interesting. so, david, if this was all just a stalling tactic, what is putin stalling for? is this about the winter olympics in beijing or something else? >> could be two things, alisyn. as josh suggested, he may not have his forces all in place. he's also got some weather issues here to make this invasion really work, he's got to go across frozen ground with really heavy weaponry, tanks, personnel carriers, and the ground isn't fully frozen yet, which is why, in addition to having a lot of american strategists in the middle of this, we have a lot of american meteorologists in the middle of all of this as well. but the other element of this may be that putin wants to make a show of going the extra mile on diplomacy and then say the west just is not willing to recognize what he himself said in last summer. which was, that he views ukraine as a part of russia, ethnically, culturally, and of course we view ukraine as a separate country with a seat at the united nations and its own democratic government. >> david, let me stay with you on this, a conversation happening between president biden and president zelensky of ukraine. there's a disagreement on the urgency, i would say. the white house says that an invasion is imminent. the ukrainians say, no, it isn't. the white house, they pull out diplomats out of kyiv. the ukrainians say, that was unnecessary. try to reconcile that. i know that the ukrainians don't want to panic ukrainians. what do you think they're -- they need to do in this call today? >> well, it would help if they got on the same page. they're working from common intelligence gathered by the united states, by britain, by other members of nato and some provided, i'm sure, by ukraine itself. as you suggest, victor, the ukrainians don't want anybody to be panicked. they don't want their currency to tank. they don't want their stock markets to tank. they don't want to see people flowing out of the country. on the other hand, the united states has an interest in raising the alarm level because that's how you hold the other allies together and send stronger messages of deterrence to the russians. but it is a little bit strange to have the country that is the target of this potential invasion be the one that's saying, oh, you know, we've been under threat for a long time. they have been, but not with more than 100,000 troops across three different borders. >> josh, beyond russia, there seems to be tensions ratcheting up with other u.s. foes. just some examples, china, as you know, they have been maneuvering regarding taiwan. they are saying that they don't like how the u.s. is handling the beijing winter games, then there's north korea. six ballistic missiles, they have launched, just since january 5th. there are things happening in iran. is this all of the usual testing that goes on with a new u.s. president, or is there something particular with the biden administration? >> right, no, alisyn, i think you're noticing exactly right pattern, that all of the countries in year two, they spent a year kind of testing out the biden people, seeing what they had up their sleeve, and now they're rolling out their own plans and this is putin's plan, xi jinping has another plan, the taliban have another plan and because the united states has global responsibilities, we can't afford to pick and choose, yet here we are in washington, we're always chasing the shiny object, always focusing on the near term crisis instead of the long-term strategic competition, and every administration says they're going to pivot to asia and then they get distracted by something that blows up. hopefully not literally this time. on their watch. if you ask the biden people about this, they'll say, we can walk and chew gum. but the fact is that what you're saying is completely right. things are getting worse a lot of places. we're in the middle of a pandemic, and the reason that's important to ukraine is that what happens in the ukraine doesn't stay in ukraine. think of the war. think of the devastation. think of the economic fallout. it will spread to europe and then to the world, and you know, here in america, we can try to hide behind our walls, but that only lasts for so long. >> really interesting conversation, guys. david sanger, josh rogin, thank you so much for all the insight. >> thank you. >> thank you. okay, now to this. stormy daniels. she is on the witness stand right now. she says her former lawyer, michael avenatti, lied to her and stole money from her. we have more on her testimony in his trial next. living with diabetes? 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exactly. wait, shouldn't you be navigating? xfinity mobile. it's wireless that does it all and saves a lot. like a lot, a lot. stormy daniels is on the witness stand today, accusing her former lawyer, michael avenatti, of stealing about $300,000 from her book deal payments in 2018. now, avenatti has ditched his own attorneys to represent himself in his criminal trial, and that means that he'll have a chance to cross-examine daniels. >> avenatti, you'll remember, once represented the adult film star in the hush money scheme that she was paid to silence her allegations of an affair with donald trump. so, let's go straight to cnn's kara outside the courtroom. give us all the details of what's happening in court today. >> reporter: well, alisyn and victor, stormy daniels has been on the stand for about two and a half hours. this time, it's the prosecution's turn so they're questioning daniels about this book deal that she struck that she says michael avenatti helped her get but then the essence of this case is that he allegedly stole $300,000 from her and he's charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. daniels has been testifying. she's described how excited she was to get this book deal. she said when she was sitting in a car in a gas station and she saw across her phone on an app that the first payment came through of $200,000, she said she screamed so loudly that she scared the security guard sitting next to her. then, she went on to explain how she was, you know, she had received that first payment but then she wasn't getting the second or the third payment and prosecutors walked her through and had her read text messages that she had sent to michael avenatti as she was asking, where's my money? so, they went through more than a dozen text messages where she was reading her texts to avenatti and the prosecutor reading his response and she was quite animated when she was doing this. you could feel the frustration returning to her voice as she was saying, she was texting him, get me my money. where is my money? she had gone through -- they have gone through methodically, one text message after another, comparing it to when the payments came in to avenatti. she said one of her last statements at the end, she said, he lied to me almost every day for five months. she also said when she signed this deal with avenatti, she agreed that she would only pay him $100 and that he would not receive any other money. she said they never had any other payment for that and when she spoke to him about that, he said he would never take a penny from me, i was courageous, i earned it, i deserved it. >> kara scannell. the car of democratic congresswoman cori bush was hit by gunfire early saturday morning. this happened in the st. louis area. luckily, congresswoman bush was not in the car at the time. >> there is no evidence the congresswoman was intentionally targeted. bush released a statement on twitter. i'm touched by everyone who has reached out. thankfully, no one was harmed but any act of gun violence shakes your soul. the former cdc chief says that he is more optimistic about the pandemic today than he has ever been with omicron in retreat in several parts of the country. we'll talk about what comes next. but first, here are some other events we're watching today. since suzie's got goals, she'll want a plan to reach them. so she'll get some help from fidelity, and she'll feel so good about her plan, she can focus on living it. that's the planning effect, from fidelity. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. some good news today about the pandemic. the former director of the cdc making an encouraging prediction. >> i am more optimistic about the pandemic today than i have been since it was declared a pandemic nearly two years ago. in another few weeks, the omicron flash flood, not a wave, but a flash flood will have largely passed. >> now, until that day comes, the chief medical officer of moderna says being vaccinated and boosted almost obliterates the risk of the omicron variant, but that unvaccinated people could still get very sick. joining us now is dr. f. perry wilson, an associate professor of medicine at yale. doctor, welcome back. so, frieden says if we do it right, that 2022, let me get it right here, covid doesn't dominate so much of our life. but we haven't been doing it right. people aren't getting vaccinated as quickly as they should. they're not getting boosted. so is the inverse true? if we don't speed this up, we are just in it for the rest of the year? >> i tend to agree with dr. frieden here. what we've seen is this omicron wave cresting and with this cresting, a lot of infections that fortunately did not result in an attendant increase in deaths among vaccinated people. so, it really does show the power of vaccination, the power of immunity to fight against coronavirus. i'm hoping this is a lesson moving forward. i'm hoping people are getting convinced to get vaccinated because they see how dramatically different the outcomes are for vaccinated people versus unvaccinated people. there are good lessons to learn here with regards to testing as well and making tests more available so i'm hopeful too. i think we're making real progress at this point. >> maybe this will convince them because every day i am astounded by the numbers. 2,300 americans died yesterday from covid. i mean, we don't talk about the numbers as much anymore because there is a feeling that we are almost coming out the other side of it and i do think that all americans want and are craving a dose of optimism, but that number is huge, and that's what -- i mean, but, vast majority of them, unvaccinated. and that's why this moment in florida yesterday was so curious, where the -- the surgeon general, the nominee for the surgeon general, who is being confirmed, really struggled mightily to talk about whether or not the covid vaccines work. so, let me play that for you. >> just a yes or no. do vaccines work? >> as a scientist, you know, i'm compelled to answer the scientific question. >> scientifically, do vaccines -- do the vaccines work? >> yes or no questions are not that easy to find in science. the most commonly used vaccines in the united states, which would be the pfizer product and the product that was developed by moderna, have been shown to have relatively high effectiveness for the prevention of hospitalization and death. and over time, relatively low protection from infection. >> dr. wilson, why did it take him so long to get there? do vaccines work? is that a gotcha question of some kind? >> no, no, this is ridiculous. yes, vaccines work. the evidence is overwhelming at this point. you have a 90% reduction in hospitalizations, even in the omicron wave. you have a 95% to 99% reduction in deaths. i'm a scientist too. i conduct lots of clinical trials. this is an easy one. yes, vaccines work, and the fact that someone, a public figure, and a doctor, is struggling so much just speaks to the fact that this issue has been so politicized. science doesn't need to be political. data isn't political. and the data is right there. they work. you can admit that. it's okay. >> dr. perry wilson, great to talk to you. thank you. >> thank you. all right, a german archbishop ses he is willing to take responsibility after a devastating report found he and pope benedict xvi mishandled sex abuse cases in the archdiocese sex abuse cases. and it's easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? 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>> reporter: well, alisyn, first let me tell you what he didn't say. he didn't address the findings that he, himself, had mishandled two cases of sexual abuse. instead he spoke more generally about his response to the report. let's take a listen to some of what he said. >> translator: after having read the report, i am repeatedly shocked about the harm and suffering of the affected persons and also what the perpetrators have done and how those responsible have behaved. what is clear here in the expert report is there is a dark side, and this will continue to be advisable in the history of our church. >> reporter: he was asked about the role of pope benedict xvi and he said that the pope will be responding. he wants to clarify this and that he deserves the opportunity to respond. and also, alisyn, cardinal marx said he is not going to resign for the moment. that is something he tried to do last year in the wake of other sex abuse scandals in germany. he offered his resignation to pope francis and the pope declined to accept it. the cardinal said today that he will be staying on in his role as long as he can be helpful. alisyn, victor? >> thank you. president biden reaffirms his pledge to nominate a black woman to the supreme court. now that justice breyer announced he's retiring, we have fresh angles on this developing story. stay with us. ...demands a lotio. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. this is the new world of work. each day looks different than the last. but whatever work becomes, the servicenow platform will make it just, flow. whether it's finding new ways to help you serve your customers, orchestrating a safe return to the office... wait. an office? what's an office? ...or solving a workplace challenge that's yet to come. wherever the new world of work takes your business, the world works with servicenow. i didn't know my genetic report could tell me i was prone to harmful blood clots. i travel a ton, so this info was kind of life changing. maybe even lifesaving. ♪do you know what the future holds?♪ ♪ ♪making your way in the world today♪ ♪takes everything you've got♪ ♪ ♪taking a break from all your worries ♪ ♪sure would help a lot ♪ ♪wouldn't you like to get away? 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i'm glad you asked, and i don't like those two terms either. much like we see with hurricanes when the pressure drops dramatically and they rapidly intensify, with east coast storms we measure the pressure in millibars. so when the pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours, it's bombing out. it's exploding in growth. we could see twice that. here is the problem, though, until this area of low pressure off the coast of georgia forms, we just don't know the track. the energy for this is still dropping out of central rockies. so that will be tomorrow. we're going to know a lot more. we've been watching this for some time, and that's why we have winter storm watches from eastern north carolina up to coastal maine. there's a number of things we know, a number of factors. we know it's cold enough, there will be moisture, we know a storm will develop, we know it will produce some snow. what we do not know is the track. so as this storm moves up, again, it will form tomorrow. we'll know much more, but it's not until saturday that it goes through that bombing process and really starts to explode, hurricane-force winds. but because the path is unknown, there is so much uncertainty as to who will see so much snow. this is the european model, and you can see how it buffets the entire eastern seaboard will snow. this will be gone by sunday so it will be a saturday/saturday evening event in towards sunday. here are the tracks. the one to the left, if it hugs the coast, it will be more inland snow. if it's the one far to the right, most of the snow will be offshore. the models are in such disagreement, boston, sure, you're going to get 20, 30 inches. new york, you're up in the air. that's the most populated city in the area. be prepared for at least 6 or 7. we'll be watching this especially for tomorrow. >> my gosh. >> we're just sitting here shaking our heads, both of us. >> we're just bracing. so, tom, come back to us as soon as you have any more developments or info. thanks so much for that update. >> we're doing everything we can. >> okay, thanks. and it is the top of the hour here on "cnn newsroom." i'm alisyn camerota. >> i'm victor blackwell. president biden wa