on high alert amid growing concern of the new strain of the coronavirus. the world health organization has named it omicron and classified it as a variant of concern. omicron was first reported to the world health organization by south africa where the new variant, quote, appears to be increasing in almost all provinces. fears of another deadly wave of the coronavirus has forced some countries to act swiftly on friday. several nations including japan, canada and the united kingdom announced travel restrictions for people coming from the southern region of africa. the biden administration decided to do the same. beginning monday november 29th the united states will restrict travel from botswana, eswatini, former swaziland and mozambique, namibia and zimbabwe. belgium, israel and hong kong have had one case of the omicron variant within their borders and you know there is never just one. no cases have been identified in the u.s. to date. we expect omicron to be identified quickly if it emerges in the united states. this morning on weekend today, dr. anthony fauci addressed concerns about the omicron variant. >> it seems to have spread rapidly in south africa, even though the numbers are relatively small. its ability to infect people who have recovered from infection and people who have been vaccinated make us say this is something you have to pay really close attention to and be prepared for something that's serious. it may not turn out that way. >> right, but you really want to be ahead of it and that's the reason why we're doing what we're doing. >> omicron is emerging as the delta variant that continues to infect and kill many americans. in michigan, hospitals are so overwhelmed with covid-19 patients that the federal government has started sending military medical staff to help battle its current surge. overall cases in the united states are up more than 20% from two weeks ago. in a statement released yesterday, president biden acknowledged that his administration is keeping an eye on the omicron variant and reiterated one simple message. get vaccinated. joining me now is dr. rick bright, immunologist who serves as senior vice president of the pandemic prevention and response at the rockefeller foundation and part of the covid-19 advisory board. rick, it's good to see you again. i think back to last february and march when cases were spreading and the biggest problem we had in the united states is we weren't actually testing. our surveillance couldn't be that good because we weren't testing. i assume at this point with as many people vaccinated as we have and with testing sites i see all over the place, we should be better at detecting when, not if, but when omicron gets to the united states. >>. >> ali, good morning. it's great to be back with you. this is a reminder that this pandemic is far from over. it is not a surprise to us that we see another variant. we are going to continue to see variants emerge until we get the world vaccinated against this virus and stop it, but you're exactly right because of the efforts around the world to increase genomic surveillance and the sequencing and testing of these viruses, we can get an early read on something new emerging. a big hat tip to the scientist in south africa, botswana, hong kong, israel and belgium for alerting the world that something new has emerged, for sharing that information into the community that now has 5 million of these genomic sequences. we have 118 genomic sequences of the variant into the database. it's one thing to ramp up testing in genomic surveillance. it's another thing to share it rapidly and transparently and we need to do muchmore of that global sharing. >> yeah. the world health organization were grateful, 118 or 116, genomic sequences. does that mean different variants or different examples? >> there are 118 different genomic sequences of omicron. many of those coming from south africa and some of them coming from botswana and you have one from belgium and israel, as well. so we're getting more information and the rockefeller foundation, pandemic prevention institute is set up to track and monitor this very closely. zee an all-points bulletin or apb out on this variant. i'm encouraging scientists around the world to ramp up their sequencing and testing. one thing we do know is there is a unique feature in this variant that allows our pcr test to pull it out quickly and then do more analysis so we can share and look at this information quickly. scientists need to share that information so the look can look to see where this virus is. >> rick, when we talk about a variant of concern, is that about transmissibility? is that about how dangerous this particular variant is or is it about the fact that we don't know whether our current vaccines work against it? what is the variant of concern mean to us? generally, ali, it doesn't mean that we should be alarmed in any way. right now it means that the w.h.o. has looked at limited information that we have about this new variant omicron. there are a number of mutations. there are many more mutations in this variant than we've seen in other viruses. some of those mutations are in regions of the virus that may impact transmissiblity and how they react with this virus. it's really important not to get too excited about just the sequence data. we have to verify that in lab studies and i know there are labs around the world that are looking at antibodies that are induced from our vaccines to see how they neutralize or halt this virus. we're looking at models and other data to see if these mutations would impact the transmissibility of the virus. you know, what's interesting some mutations, ali, will hurt it and will restrict its ability to transmit and will restrict its ability to evade the vaccine immunity. that's why we're concerned because we see a lot of mutations in this virus. we've seen it in a handful of people and we've seen it in a couple of countries. when we don't yet know and we need to get quickly and honestly, it shouldn't take us two to three weeks. we need to know that functional data to understand, is it more transmissible and does it evade our immunity? one thing that's important to note right now, ali, is many of these cases that we're finding of omicron are coming from unvaccinated people. so it gives us some encouragement right now that when you're vaccinated and when you're boosted that you're likely still have a significant amount of immunity to this virus and that is what we are going on until we get more information about this virus itself. most of the cases are in unvaccinated people as are most of the cases from delta and the other variants that we see around the world today. it's critical to get your vaccine and get your booster. the other important thing, ali is this is an airborne virus. we know that masks work and social distancing helps and we know it's important if you have symptoms or you feel you've been exposed to seek testing and get treatment. we have these tools regardless of how this variant ends up being, we know these tools help save lives, reduce your risk. >> rick, thanks, as always. you've always been at the forefront of giving these clear messages about the way we protect ourselves. rick wright is the senior vice president of pandemic, prevention and response on the the rockefeller foundation. he's former director of the biomedical research and development authority at the department of health and human services. thank you, my friend, as always. on monday, congress returns to session for the first time since the house passed the $1.7 trillion build back better package a week ago. the focus shifts now to the senate as it tries to reach consensus the bill. meanwhile, it's been a consequential week for racial justice. a jury in georgia found the three white men who chased down ahmaud arbery guilty of murder. joining me is emanuel cleaver of missouri. he's a member of the house financial services and homeland security committees. congressman cleaver, good morning to you. thank you for being with us this morning. i want to ask you first about the arbery verdict. there were a lot of pins and needles, a lot of people on edge about this because despite the overwhelming evidence that suggested this is what people called a modern-day lynching, we are not secure enough in our justice system to know that the right outcome was going to occur. >> that's absolutely right. as it relates to the united states, we should not the least bit be surprised when justice doesn't present itself. our system is still not what it should be and that means that our resistance must be what it must be, which is that we have to continue to fight. i think that arbery's murder was kind of a throwback to my childhood days, frankly. i can remember growing up in texas and hearing my parents talk about things like this, and i, you know, arbery was out and out murdered and the reason i'm saying there are some things we should not expect, and that is when the prosecutors side with the criminals we're in trouble and that's what we have here. had there not been the persistence of the family and supporters, this trial may not have ever happened. our system is still damaged and it still doesn't work the way it should in all of the cases and in this case, we should extract hope and say that, you know, we're going stay on the case whenever something happens. we're not going to do anything until everything is okay and we have the naacp and the organization and the national network, and i think those organizations must be supported because they're doing the hard work of bringing these kinds of things to the international and even international attention. >> representative cleaver, i want to ask you about something closer to home and a very different situation and the case of kevin strickland who was released from prison on tuesday after 42 years on a wrongful conviction. there's been a go fund me page that's been set up for him because he's not getting a cent from the state of missouri. missouri doesn't pay if you're not cleared as a matter of dna. he was cleared by a completely different process. the go fund me page has raised a lot of money and the point is what do you think the state should be doing about kevin strickland? >> well, the -- thank god that people around the state and around the country and even internationally are giving money, and so i think that there will be some opportunity for mr. struckland to live out in a decent kind of way his final years. this is missouri. i live here and not going live any place else, but we have a ways to go in our state and we need new legislation and i don't think there's any number of the missouri general assembly, particularly on the democratic side who believes that introducing some legislation is going to correct this problem and that's, of course, what's needed is the legislation to be changed so when we imprin someone you can go get a happy life, and mr. strickland is not in the best of health and i'm hoping and praying and others should be praying, as well that you know, that he is able to enjoy some good and that, you know, he can wipe any bitterness away so that he can truly tray to reconnect to family and probably a few friends around that he can connect with. he was a teenager, so there is some yoi and there is also some pain that in many ways he's still in prison. >> he has been in prison sense before he was 20 years old. the man has virtually nothing to his name, but thanks to the generosity of donors, last i checked his go fund me was over $1 million. by the way, less money that you would get if you were entitled to it. it would be above $2 million and in the state of kansas it would be $2.7 million. emanuel cleaver is the democratic representative from missouri. >> the omicron, we'll take you where the highly transmissible variant has been contracted and part two of the conversation with the navajo nation at window rock. >> the arbery trial is not over. far from it, in fact. 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[uplifting music playing] no one can deliver your mom's ♪ i had a dream that someday ♪ ♪ i would just fly, fly away ♪ november is native-american heritage month and i was honored to travel to the navajo nation to see what it means to be a native american in 2021. we took velshi across america to window rock which is the capital of the navajo nation in arizona. while there i spoke with six members of the tribe about topics that affects their daily lives and one of them is the complexity of policing the tightly knit navajo people in an era marked by police brutality and killings. here's some of that discussion. >> i think being a navajo police officer is definitely different than being a city cop, and i think we have the support of the community. honestly, i think we do because we are from the community. everybody where i'm from they all know where i live. they all -- he lives right there. everybody knows who the cops are and where they're from because we are a part of their family. it's not all hunky-dory as far as being a police officer. there's a whole lot of challenges. one of our biggest challenges right now is trying to get more police officers. so right now we are only probably about 189 strong, and so we should be at 500 or 700 strong. >> wow. >> so we are understaffed big time. >> is that a money thing or is that a recruitment thing? >> it's a recruitment thing and i think some of what's happening off the navajo nation is impacting us because they view that bad police officer hitting national news, he's a cop, too. so it does make an impact on our recruiting. >> coming from behavioral health services the similar issue is how do we recruit and how do we maintain our staff, but that just mean, you know, we probably have less providers from substance use disorder treatment and mental health as police officers. i would say we have a hundred or less. >> right. >> and that just shows the needs that are there. >> jason, two people who are watching this who just don't have the familiarity. they don't get the chance to get out here or to get to other homes and other tribes. what do you want america to know? >> we want them to know that we still exist. native people, navajo, we are here and we're always going to be here, and we are part of our heritage, we are proud of our land and i think that there's a lot of things that people can learn from native peoples. i think we've endured, as you heard, a lot of the things that are occurring now had been experienced by the navajo people previously. >> think what people can learn is that we have people in these prominent positions who are navajo and understand the issues. it's not all dismal. we have capable people. what we would hope is that we continue to have a better established working relationship with the white house and other decision makers so that we can continue to be empowered. i think it should be known that we're very capable. everybody has responded in the best way that they are able to and we need the infrastructure buildout so that we can continue to grow as a people. >> we're diverse in our politics. we are diverse in our beliefs. we are diverse in our economics, but we are probably all the same in living below the financial median of the united states. so that's not good, but you know, we're just a diverse people and we are around the world and our diversity is, you know, that's our strength. >> the whole essence of being miss navajo is that you are everyone's mother, sister, aunt, friend, cousin to all through that relationship and having that relationship with your people is very important. it's vital to the continuation of my work as miss navajo not only for this reign, but as my work continues to move forward and one of the main things that do i and that every other miss navajo has done before me is advocate for the perseverance of our people, the revitalization of our language, our culture, our ways of life. we are all unique as indigenous people. there may be 574 of us, but there are many more still fighting for federal recognition so that's another thing, as well, but most importantly, you know, to learn and educate yourself on native issues that are out there, not just what is presenting itself in media. this is just -- this has been our way of life for so long that we didn't feel that we were in poverty. we didn't feel like we were living below the median of the rest of the world. this was everyday life for us and this is everyday life for us, so you know, it's important for people out there and for everyone to understand that we are still here. we have a saying in navajo called -- [ speaking foreign language ] >> and that is something written inside the museum when you go into the museum, into the naff yo nation museum displayed very boldly that we are still mere, not just as navajo people, but as all of indigenous people. >> i want to offer my sincere thanks to all six of the members of the navajo nation for coming out and educate us all about the native american experience. we are all richer for that. >> i will continue my conversation with jonathan nez and the first lady. tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. eastern only on velshi. a man spent 43 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. the state has no plans to compensate him financially, but the public sure does. we'll pa to $1000. you can keep your phone. keep your number. and get your employees connected on the largest and fastest 5g network. plus, we give you $200 in facebook ads on us! so you can reach more customers, create more opportunities, and finish this year strong. visit your local t-mobile store today. 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[upbeat music] still fresh ♪ in wash-scent booster ♪ downy unstopables ♪ i remember when you were here ♪ that's mommy! ♪ and all the fun we had last year ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 after spending 43 years almost behind bars for a triple murder he did not commit, kevin strickland has been exonerated. one of the longest standing wrongful convictions in our nation's history was made despite any physical evidence linking strict land to the scene of the crime biannual-white jury. in 2009 a key witness in prosecuting strickland realized she had misidentified him. she reached out to the midwest innocence project and non-profit dedicated to litigating for the wrongfully convicted for help. strickland finally walked free on tuesday, 12 years after that. strickland was jailed as a teenager. he has no savings, no access to social security benefits and appallingly, no compensation from the state that wrongfully locked him up in the first place. missouri has a law that only grants restitution to people who are proven innocent through dna testing. so strickland will not get a single dime from the state and that's where you, the public, stepped in. a go fund me campaign created by trisha rojo bushknell, strickland's attorney for the midwest innocence project has now raised more than $1 million. kind words and support of declarations for strickland number in the thousands on the message board. he hopes to see the ocean in person. it's the first place he visited upon his release -- the first place he visited upon his release was his mother's grave. there's joy, but there's also sadness, grief and anger and all of that combined into one thing. joining me now is tiffany cross of "the cross connection." tiffany, it's so good to see him free, but he had told an abc interview several months ago that if they let me out today. he's in a wheelchair, the wheelchair is not even mine. i have nothing. i'm going to get a box and set it up under the bridge, and i am so pleased that he's got money in the go fund me. this shouldn't be a go fund me. >> on one hand it's certainly wonderful to see this man free, but i think about all of the nameless, faceless kevin stricklands in this country. >> yeah. >> we just talked about the two men who had their cases vacated who were accused of shooting malcolm x and it turns out they were innocence, julius jones remains in jail despite prosecutors and members of the republican party saying this guy is innocent. it's incredibly heartbreaking and sad to see, but i am happy that mr. strickland is out and should have never been in jail in the first place, ali. it's just absolutely terrible, but i do want to say on a happier note, it is so good to see you, my friend, and i hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving. i was in makeup trying to watch your show and get my makeup done, and the makeup artists are displeased with you because i was trying to have one eye on the screen and listen to your wonderful show. let me tell you a little bit on what's coming up on the cross connection. it continues into an abyss of shock and awe and lauren boebert implied that a fellow member of congress, ali. this is so disgusting. congresswoman boebert implied she was a terrorist. what was sad about this it wasn't the party, and it was the laughter and applause that came after and it's the 75+ million people when voted for someone who feeds into the baser instincts of this party and it's disgusting, really. my panel and i will dive into what that rhetoric is doing for the country, plus advice we can all use, relax, relate, release. that advice came from tony, and emmy award-winning debbie allen. world aids day is wednesday and that's a topic as we deal with one pandemic, we still have to remember that there are other diseases still out there that is heavily impacting us, but this is the thing i want to tell you, ali. this is the thing you're most excited about. if you stick around and watch "the cross connection." we will talk about space. hakim, yes, he will join me. you know i've been into this whole asteroid story all week with nasa sending to crash into this asteroid, cue ben affleck and aerosmith, right? because i'm so into it, but that's not the only thing happening, the first black woman is joining the space station crew and she's making history because it will be a long term engagement there and i'm super excited to get into this and more and another packed edition of "the cross connection." since i was watching you all morning i hope you will stick around. >> you had me already. you don't have to do a tease for the show for me. that lauren boebert thing, by the way. she issued one of those weird apologies to all the muslims who might have been offended by her comments about calling a muslim congresswoman a jihadi. to all of you oversensitive muslims who aren't all that tough. apologize or don't, you know? >> i'm not muslim and i was offended. exactly. >> what kind of stupid apology is that? >> tiffany, we will see you at 10:00. tiffany cross right after "velshi." 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( ♪♪ ) what a pain in the... alice? if it's "let's wrap this up" season, it's walgreens season. >> on wednesday, nearly all-white jury found three white men guilty of murdering 25-year-old ahmaud arbery while he was jogging through an affluent georgia neighborhood last year. the reverend al sharpton founder of the national action network and our msnbc colleague joined arbery's parents along with other community activists in celebrating the verdict. >> let the words go forth all over the world that a jury of 11 whites and one black in the deep south stood up in the courtroom and said that black lives do matter. >> i never thought this day would come, but god is good. and i just want to tell everybody thank you. thank you for those who marched, those who prayed and mostly the ones who prayed. >> yes, lord. >> thank you, god. thank you. and now quez, you know him as ahmaud, i know him as quez, he will now rest in peace. >> for real, all life matters. >> yes. >> not just blacks and we don't want to see nobody go through this. >> amen! >> i don't want to see no daddy watch their kid get shot down like that so it's all our problem. it's all our problem! so, hey, let's keep fighting, let's keep doing and making this place a better place for all human beings. all human beings. everybody! love everybody! love everybody! >> all human beings need to be treated equally. today is a good day. >> we're going to conquer this lynching. the verdict warranted a celebration, but it was very hard to get to that verdict. ahmaud arbery's killers almost got away with it. it took the leaked video to even get the men arrested. >> auth are on of several books including "eloquent rage." former naacp and president and author of "the american way." brittany, i don't know what you were thinking before the verdict came out. i don't know as a logical person i knew that's the verdict that it should be, but i have grown accustom to not expecting verdicts like that, to come out. >> yeah. you know, what i've been thinking was about the racial whiplash and weightiness of the last ten days in black america, we've had rittenhouse, we've had julius jones and kevin strickland and ahmaud ar berry is charlottesville and there's no way to lan in the country. on the one hand you have rittenhouse going free and we didn't necessarily know that we could rest in the idea that ahmaud arbery could be attacked, that he was lynched and hunted down and brutally murdered and so i'm very happy that he -- that this jury saw fit to do the very basic thing which is to say that you cannot engage in acts of vigilanteism. this is something that happened in the deep south and one of the things that also tells us is that if you have rittenhouse going free in the midwest and a jury in the deep south actually doing the right thing that this is not a problem that is contained to any particular region of the country, right? this say problem that is in our system, and it also has to do with whether we're going to continue to be okay with this being adjudicated locally and whether we'll have a conversation about what it means to deal with the problem of white supremacy. >> ben, i was in mississippi last month, in jackson, mississippi, and i was speaking to a public school trustees. the vice president of jackson board of trustees. a woman who said to this day there is a road down which she does not go because of a lynching that occurred when she was a child. this is very common for people in america. the memory of extra judicial killings looms large in the minds of african americans and americans with any sense of history. listen to a moment to what she told me. >> an experience that i had growing up that when we get off the main highways to go to my parents' home, there was a lynching that happened in the woods and if i were on that road right now, it would be to the right. there was a lynching that happened and to this day, i don't travel that road at night because of the fear that was instilled in me. when it starts getting dark, i'm out of there. >> ben, just the fact is, what happened to ahmaud aubrey, to some degree, what happened to george floyd is the idea that you can still get killed outside of due process. do you think that this helps at all? do you think people like her will fearless and do you think those potential lynchers will think differently? >> oh, it's huge. i'm the editor of the jackson advocate newspaper, and our paper was last fired on to 'nation. we were fired on in the early '80s and shot up with machine gun once. and if georgia, last week, we saw two juries south of the mason dixon do exactly the right thing. both in charlottesville then down in georgia and that's a very good sign. it's a sign that the people of this country, quite frankly, are moving forward faster than many in law enforcement. it shouldn't take video to get a verdict. it shouldn't take protests to get a prosecution. i think the most disturbing thing about the aubrey case is still that for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, the local lead prosecutor that elected prosecutor refused to bring charges until video was leaked and there were protests. but the good news is that the people are way ahead of that prosecutor and that's ultimately in a democracy where we put our faith. >> i want to continue this conversation on the other side, brittany cooper, ben, we'll be right back. cooper, ben, we'll e right back i don't just play someone brainy on tv - i'm an actual neuroscientist. and i love the science behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger. ( ♪♪ ) what a pain in the... alice? if it's "let's wrap this up" season, it's walgreens season. back me now author and rutgers university former president and ceo of the naacp and president for the american way, professor cooper, ben made the interesting point i've heard a lot this week, you know, in george floyd's killing, we had video at the beginning of the trial. we heard the defense say we will show you things you didn't know about this killing. i watched every second of that trial. they didn't show us video, that was comprehensive. same thing here, there were attempts to make this about something that the video said otherwise about. but you make the point, others have made the point, lots of other people are dead with no video. are we changing the way people think? are we believing the stories of black people that maybe someone killed them for no particular good reason? >> i don't think so. you know, i am typically an optimist, but i'm not particularly optimistic about this. partly because what we are doing is putting a greater burn on black people which is to say if there is no surveillance footage, white people can go on in this denial of reality until they are confronted in ways they cannot deny. the real issue here is many swaths of our country treat these incidents that happen to black people as isolated incidents. we have kyle rittenhouse, is kyle being the aggressor? but his pros skougs landed him you know freedom because other people were able to see him as the victim or defending himself. so i don't think this is actually a really clear cut line. but i do think we have to keep asking ourselves, right, when we think about the long history of lynching, let's not forget we had an anti-lynching movement that startt in the 19th century. when you have black women in 2021 saying they don't go down roads because they experienced lynching in their lifetime, then the idea that video evidence is the thing that will turn the tide of this is short side because it's always been a hard problem, a structural issue. it's never just about the quality of the evidence. right. black people can't rest in a notion of the quality of the evidence. that isn't about the fact that we don't respect the rule of law. you heard ahmaud aubrey's dad say that we want to treat everybody well. we want justice for everybody. we will respect the law more than absolutely anybody else. but we keep getting saddled with the burden to work harder to prove our lives matter and should be valued by the system. >> ben, since you know mississippi so well, you know these stories. one of the conversations i had with that group in jackson was about the fact that just miles from where i did that interview, there was a great movie theater and the black people from that town will not go to that movie theater after town. they refer to it as ton u sundown town. another people thought were gone, the idea after dark black people can't go places. there is much more work to be done in this country. but the optimistic view is that the last year-and-a-half of social justice has brought these things to the attention of society as a whole and some people who are not black, who are not subject to this, have decided these injustices need to stop. >> i agree with professor cooper's outrage, i share her outrage. i am more optimistic. i do believe there is an accumulative value of all of this video for 30 years since the rodney king case. i was in the streets. you know, back then. and i know what we were you were against back then. i went to jail with sharpton when brother diallo was shot 26 times. i know what we were dealing with then. the conversations in cafes of listening to people with real tile. they're very today than we had to deal with 30 years ago even ten years ago when we were down in sanford on the trayvon martin case. so there is reason to be optimistic. with that said, we are 25 years from a point when whites become a minority, too. you are seeing a certain set of whites. there are whites like my father who said, great, now we all, every group has to get along demographically to succeed. white people will have to be allies to at least one other group to succeed. but there are other white folks who are very scared. you would expect them at this point to lurch right to the right. yet we can take hope from the fact that they are merging to the right. they, too, understand that things are changing in this country. >> i have many more hours to talk to boat of off. a good thing we have other opportunities, thanks for your time this morning. i really appreciate you both. that does it for me, thank you for watching. a very full and exciting cross connection with my friend tiffany cross begins right now. tiffany cross begins right now i never thought this day would come. but god is good. >> yes, he is. >> now friends, which you know him as ahmaud. he will now rest in peace. >> good morning, everybody. we begin the "cross

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