tiger woods announced he's returning to golf in a tournament with his son ten months after that horrific car crash. the question is could an official tour be next? it's "way too early" for this. ♪♪ goo morning and welcome to "way too early," the show that loves a good comeback. i'm jonathan lemire on this thursday, december 9th. we'll start with the news. former trump white house chief of staff mark meadows is now suing house speaker nancy pelosi and the committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol. the lawsuit came just hours after the committee said it will move forward with plans to hold meadows in contempt for ending his cooperation in the investigation. meadows, who was a no-show for another scheduled deposition yesterday, argued the lawsuit and overly broad subpoenaed should be invalid. quote, mr. meadows'flawed lawsuit won't succeed at slowing down the select committee's investigation or stopping us from getting information we're seeking. the committee also revealed new information on the role meadows played in trying to overturn the election. in a letter to meadows' attorney, committee chairman bennie thompson outlined some of the documents meadows turned over. they included, quote, a november 7, 2020, email, discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as part of a direct and collateral attack against the election. a january 5th, 2021, email regarding a 38-page powerpoint briefing titled election fraud, foreign interference, and options for january 6th. thompson said they have messages from meadows' private cellphone. one includes a november 6, 2020, text exchange with a member of congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the member acknowledged would be highly controversial and to which mr. meadows apparently said, "i love it." and a text message in early january 2021 and the need about the former president to issue a public statement that could have stopped the january 6th attack on the capitol. thompson said the committee would like to question meadows on the documents he's already produced, but, again, the former aide to former president refused to show up to another scheduled deposition yesterday. ali alexander with the stop the steal organizers is expected to give a deposition today. he's expected to release a trove of documents. that's according to "the new york times." members of the panel said they wanted to explore alexander's communication with members of the republican congress and white house officials, believing he could provide insight into any planning by former president trump and his congressional allies in their bid to overturn the election with all that happened on january 6th. he may also know whether the violence was discussed by the former president and those trying to stop certification of the vote. a lot going on. thankfully here to help us understand it, senior politics reporter at "insider," grace meadow. grace, good morning. good to see you. does this lawsuit do anything other than an attempt to run out the clock on the committee? is it likely it will stop the committee from getting meadows' phone records? >> yeah, this is absolutely an attempt by moe dose and his attorney to try to draw things out as long as possible, and we saw it worked for steve bannon. he has been indicted for contempt of congress. whoa knows at what point his case will be resolved. he's trying a similar tactic to stall and delay and getting the committee records to the greatest extent he can. >> you mentioned bannon. i wanted to circle back on that quickly. july -- doesn't that sort of take away a lot of the teeth here from the committee with what they're threatening to do with the department of justice? if it's pushed to the summer, we know the committee wants to get most of it done by early spring or summer because they know hoe political washington will get with the midterms of the horizon. >> yeah, absolutely. it's important to note the committee is not putting all their eggs in one basket or two baskets. they're casting a really wide net. they've already interviewed over 300 witnesses and they've already obtained reams or troves of documents. although they'll have to fight back, it's something they've completely prepared for. as you noted before, certain witnesses like mark meadows and ali alexander have already turned over very, very valuable documents and information and in meadows' case has talked about the january 6th insurrection in the public and in the book. >> so some of these people are boldfaced names, right? the audience knows steve bannon. they know mark meadows. they may not know ali alexander, who's one of the organizers, of course, of the stop the steal rallies that we saw pop up all over the country in the aftermath of the election. tell us a little bit more about who he is, and also what do we know about his expected contribution to the record? >> yeah. so ali alexander as you mentioned is an organize never the stop the steal movement and organized a number of rallies in the lead-up to the 2020 election. in the lead-up to january 6th, he boasted he was working with certain republican members of congress on a rally in an effort to put maximum pressure on members of congress. the night before the insurrection, he led a victory or death chant. and on to january 6th itself, he was seen in a video saying, i do not denounce this. now that he's testifying under oath, he's singing a bit of a different tune. he's distancing himself from the rally, from the violencing. he did not in any way condone the violence. he's also trying to throw other organizers, for example, the rally. he said while he was trying to stop it, others were drinking champagne in a hotel. he's trying to distance himself as much as possible, but he is cooperating and handing over a lot of information of the committee. >> grace, finally and briefly who else is the committee looking to have come testify soon? >> yeah. well, obviously as they're pursuing these contempt cases against mark meadows and jeffrey clark, i think definitely working on this threat of stop the steal organizers. people who are involved, for example, in the women for america or women for trump movement are going to be very significant. and the committee has issued subpoenas for cellphone records for a lot of people involved in organizing these rallies beforehand. those could be very, very illuminating as well. don't know if they subpoenaed records from congress. organizers like ali alexander may not have the sort of resources to fight back as mark meadows and steve bannon did, so i think these other organizers may be an interesting thread. >> moving toward a subpoena of records of members of congress would certainly take this to members of congress. we appreciate it. meanwhile, in the fight to contain the omicron variant, they say two doses may not be significant but a booster shot offers significant protection against the variant. nbc news correspondent tom costello has the latest. >> reporter: the new research from pfizer is critical as the country tries to arrest the spread of the omicron variant. pfizer says its first two vaccine doses do not hold up well against omicron, but the third shot, the booster, provides 25 times the booster against omicron. >> three drosses against omicron are almost equivalent to the two doses of the original variant. that's very good news. >> reporter: the bottom line, as the virus mutates, the booster may be the shot that keeps you from contracting covid and staying out of the e.r. >> if you get the booster, that's really good shape. >> reporter: as the country enters its third cold winter, many americans are growing tired of so many vaccine and mandate developments. over 787,000 have died from covid, more than people who died in the civil war, america's deadliest conflict. six states now make up half the country's hospitalizations. michigan, ohio, indiana, pennsylvania, new york, and illinois. most patients unvaccinated, but some are breakthrough cases. massachusetts is now coping with a third covid wave. trauma rooms at umass memorial, 120% full. the staff, utterly exhausted. >> what we're hearing now is people crying on the way in to work knowing what they're about to face. that's what health care workers are going through right now. you're tired, but you're not as tired as the health care workers that have to deal with this right now. >> reporter: despite the axios poll, americans are eager to put this pandemic behind them. only a third say they'll stop dining at restaurants. 28% will skip gathering with friends and families outside their households. >> for folks who are not vaccinated, you are at high risk of ending up in the hospital or icu, no matter how young and healthy you are. for the rest of us with those vaccines, we can have an added layer of confidence. >> we'll be talkinging with a health expert later on in the show. democratic governor whitmer calls it a problem. according to a local community paper, whitmer met with residents and sympathized with their fears over labor shortages. whitmer said, quote, we're an employer, too, the state of michigan is. i know if a mandate happens, we're going to lose state employees. that's why i haven't proposed a mandate at the state level. ite goes doing be a problem for all of us. still ahead, the new data that shows americans are quitting their jobs at a record pace. plus, the warning by the top doctor of the worsening mental health crisis among the youth. what he says should be done to address it. those stories and a check on the weather when we come right back. the weather when we come right back ♪day to night to morning,♪ ♪keep with me in the moment♪ ♪i'd let you had i known it, why don't you say so?♪ ♪didn't even notice,♪ ♪no punches left to roll with♪ ♪you got to keep me focused♪ it's the most joyous time of the year. ♪no punches left to roll with♪ especially at t-mobile! let's go to dianne. i got the awesome new iphone 13 pro and airpods, and t-mobile is paying for them both! and this is for new and existing customers. upgrade to the iphone 13 pro and airpods both on us. only at t-mobile. i've lost count of how many asthma attacks i've had. but my nunormal with nucala? 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[ding] find your rhythm. your happy place. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. first, australia and now the uk and canada have also followed the united states in a widening diplomatic boycott of the upcoming winter olympics in beijing. the western allies are acting against china because of long-standing concerns about the country's human rights records with calls for an olympic boycott over the tennis star peng shuai. meanwhile the president of the international olympic committee tried to spin the international snub to a positive saying in an online news conference, quote, we have our full focus on the athletes. we welcome that they can participate. the rest are politics. the games are set to open on february 4th and we should note nbc is the parent company for the olympic games. tiger woods plans to play in a pnc championship with his son charlie. it will be the first tournament for woods since the duo tied for seventh there a year ago, and that, of course, comes less than ten months after woods suffered major injuries in a car crash. that was in february. that crash nearly cost him his life and said it nearly caused him to lose a leg. he tweeted this. although it's been a long and challenging year, i'm very excited to close it out by competing in the pnc choich with my son charlie. i'm playing as a dad and couldn't be more excite and proud. it's a happy story and will spark rumors of whether he'll get back out to the tour for even event or two at some point. the arizona coyotes could be kicked out of their home for the holidays. the city of glendale announced that they have filed notice of state tax lien for unpaid taxes by the ownership company and a balance due to the company that manages the team's facility for this city. the reported amount owed is $1.3 million including a quarter million to the city of glendale. the coyotes will be locked out of their arena if the taxes and back rent are not paid in full by 5:00 p.m. on december 20th. that's rapidly approaching. in a statement issued last night the team said it will make good on all of its debts by this morning, adding this, we've already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened, and initial implications are the results of an unfortunate human error. they've had trouble for quite some time, and no offense to the good people, but that's a team shah should move to a different city. time now for the weather. let's go to meteorologist bill karins for the forecast. what's it looking like out there, bill? >> a little heads-up to our friends in the northeast, especially new england who got a coating of snow. many roads are reported as icy. especially the bridges. they were melted and now refrozen. be careful out there? there? new england. it's bringing a little bit of rain and a little bit of snow. it will get stronger as it begins to move across the country. this is one of our biggest storms we've had yet. we're finally getting snow in the mountains of utah and colorado as we go through tonight and tomorrow. and then there's going to be a heavy band through nebraska, possibly sioux city north of omaha. minneapolis could get into the mix on this one. the snow forecast, once you get into the blue colors, that's 3 to 6 inches. pink and purple, 9 to 12 inches. a few areas, especially the mountains to the west are going to get a good deal of snow. south of minneapolis north of sioux city and north of wisconsin, that's a 6- to 12-inch swath of snow also. there could be a warm side to it. we could be dealing with tornados friday evening into the overnight hours. a heads-up to my friends in little rock, especially memphis, nashville, paducah, evansville, and tupelo, mississippi. there may be an isolated nocturnal tornado. those are the ones at night. they tend to be the most deadly because we don't really get a big heads-up when they're approaching. that's friday night into saturday morning. the forecast, warm in texas. 80 in dallas. a severe threat friday night in the southeast. snow in the plains. by the time we get to saturday, yes, it's 60 degrees in boston on saturday, but the rain and wind will move in as we go throughout the afternoon and even. it's a two-part saturday for the east coast. it starts nice and then the rain and storms will move on through. finally, sunday, jonathan, a cooler more typical december day, and next week we will talk a lot about an epic december heatwave. indications are we could be 70s in the middle of the country next week. >> 70s? all right. bill karins, thank you so much. still ahead, senators grill the head of instagram over its effect on young people with one lawmaker calling the company the new tobacco. but before we get into that and before we go to break, we e want to know, why are you awake? email your reasons. they'd better be good. email me at waytooearly@msnbc.com or tweet me @jonlemire. we'll read some of our favorite answers later in the show. some answers later in the show. when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. [daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. pain hits fast. so get relief fast. only tylenol rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. and now get relief without a pill with tylenol dissolve packs. relief without the water. welcome back to "way too early." it's precisely 5:30 on the east coast, 2:30 out west. i'm jonathan lemire. two moderate democrats, senator joe manchin of west virginia and jon tester of montana joined all 50 republicans in voting against the mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees to require that they be vaccinated or tested regularly for covid. both democrats cited concerns from businesses in their states as the reason to objecting to the mandate. the move is largely symbolic as it's unlikely to find enough support in the house. president biden has promised to veto the measure should it make it to his desk. joining us now, capitol hill correspondent leigh ann caldwell. great to see you. what are the chances -- where does this go from here? as we go to the house, do we actually anticipate it will get to the floor and, therefore, republicans can try to knock it down? what's going to happen? >> the way this works, this was an attempt to roll back a bind administration rule. so it goes through special rules in congress. in the senate because a republican brought it up and started the process, it automatically has to come to the floor. there's not many things in the senate that work that way. so that's why it got a vote. this was a republican measure. it now goes to the house where there's different rules in the house, and speaker pelosi does not have to bring this up, so this might not see the light of day. the only way it could reach the house floor is if a republican force as vote, which a republican has said that he would do. but in order to bring it to the floor, it has to have the support of 218 members. that means it would need at least the support of five democrats in order to trigger this to come to the floor. democratic leadership in the house are very confident there will not be those five democrats in order to trigger that vote on the house floor. so this might probably will not see the light of day, jonathan. >> it does come, though, as these vaccine mandates are certainly under some fire and some scrutiny here, opposition in the senate. we know that the senator's efforts have also been tied up in the courts. switching gears, give us an update now. we know there's going to be a lot of attention on capitol hill the next two days in the life of senator bob dole, a legend certainly of that body. and then what is your sense as to what happens next with the build back better agenda? is that something we're going to work on this week? will it get pushed to next week? what's the timeline with christmas fast approaching? i know chuck schumer may be the only one left in the billing who thinks it may be done by then. >> yeah, i think he's tonal one left in the building. speaker pelosi was asked about it, even though it's not on the house anymore. they stopped talking about timelines, and that was a big sign it's going to be very difficult for this to come up and pass the senate before christmas. there's a couple of reasons. the first is that it still has to go through this very deep held process with the senate parliamentarian to make sure every single line is compatible with senate rules. this is a process. the parliamentarian actually is going through cancer treatment right now, so this is taking longer than expected. it will probably take all next week. i am told by my sources that if this gets to the floor by december 20th or the weekend before december 20th, then that is very optimistic. and so it will push right up to christmas if it gets there before. another thing they're look at is where joe manchin stands. joe manchin hasn't said he supports this legislation yet, but one source told me yesterday, the good thing about that is he has not yet said he won't support it. the democrats are hoping to get joe manchin to come on board. they want him to go to the floor as soon as possible, but there are some technical reasons they're not able to, jonathan. >> the joe manchin tea leaves. we shall continue to read them. instagram ceo adam mosseri is denying the company's own research which shows the app's harmful effects on young people. the silicon valley executive testified before the senate and defended instagram after a wave of backlash. it comes after a whistle-blower said its parent company, meta, facebook, said there are thoughts of self-harm to teenagers. >> do you believe there's short-term or long-term body image issues on your platform? >> senator, i appreciate the question. the research that we have found shows that many teens use instagram to get support when suffering from issues body issues. for 11 out of 12 girls and 12 out of 12, body image, anxiety, depression, we found more teens struggling, found instagram made things better than worse. >> will you commit to make the pause on instagram kids perm permanent, in other words, stop developing a site or app for children under 13. >> senator, the idea of building a version of instagram for 10 to 12-year-olds was to solve a problem. we know they're online. they want to use platforms like instagram, and it's difficult for a dpaep like ours to verify age for those who are so young they don't have an i.d. the hope or plan was to always make sure no child between 10 and 12 had access to any version of instagram, even when it was designed for them, without their parents' consent. what i can commit toe today is no child between the algs of 10 or 12 should ever be able to build instagram for 10- to 12-year-olds or have access to it without explicit parental consent. still ahead, despite a growing labor market, americans continue to quit their jobs in record numbers. we'll have a live report. and as we go to break, another item we'll be paying attention to today. president biden is set to kick off a virtual meeting with more than 100 companies to rally global companies. this is to rival tensions with both russia and china. tomorrow we'll take a close look and assess president biden's foreign policy so far. we'll be right back right here on "way too early." t here on "way too early. are you tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? 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ask your health care provider today about once-weekly ozempic®. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! you may pay as little as $25 for a 3-month prescription. ♪ ♪ what the- henry? thanks. if it's “out decorating the neighbors” season, it's walgreens season. ♪ ♪ what a pain in the- alice? if it's “lets wrap this up?” season, it's walgreens season. time now for business. for that let's bring in cnbc's julianna tatelbaum from london. all three indices are brushing off omicron. is it safe to say, wait for it, santa claus rally is starting to take shape on wall street? >> the narrative so far is omicron is not as severe. whether it continues from here to year end, right now u.s. futures indicate a weak start to the trading session. for the week the u.s. stockmarkets have been incredibly strong, on pace for their best week since february. this afternoon the investors will turn to the labor market. the jobless claims are due out this afternoon. >> that's where i wanted to go next. americans continue to quit their jobs in record numbers as the labor market grows hotter this holiday season. what do you make of this? is this a sign the economy has maintained its momentum despite the pandemic? what is the labor department saying? >> so the labor department has come out and said that at the end of october, more than 11 million job openings were reported in the u.s. this is up from 10.6 million a month earlier. so clearly people have been leaving their jobs. another measure of how difficult it is to find workers has hit another record high. in terms of what this means, there's a lot of different interpretations, but one interesting one that's been gaining momentum is this idea we could be on the verge of a pendulum shift. morgan stanley has come out saying this could be a point where the power shifts back to labor. or the past decades we've seen them accrue more employers versus ploys, but it could be the beginning of a shift. something to watch. >> the united kingdom announced a new set of covid restrictions, suggesting some sort of lockdowns. tell us what's going on there. >> so last night, jonathan, the prime minister came out, addressed the nation, and said we are moving to plan b. and plan b, it's not a lockdown. it is actually fairly modest in terms of the restrictions being imposed. we've got work from home guidance being imposed. mask mandates in most public places, and the implementation of covid passes to approve your vccination status or tests. there's a scandal other whether or not there was a christmas party held last year when we were in lockdown and it was against the rules around if that wasn't enough, jonathan, we'll throw into the mix, boris johnson, the prime minister, announced he and his wife just had a baby girl this morning, so a lot going on in the uk today. >> congrats to the british prime minister and his wife. if everyone is locked down, there's more time to catch up. cnbc's julianna tatelbaum live from london. thank you so much. still ahead, omicron concerns cancel celebrations around the world. we're going to catch up with dr. patel. look at this date in history. 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(vo) visible. switch and get up to $200, plus our best ear buds, on us. find your rhythm. your happy place. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. joining us now to look at axios am is alexi mccam mond. what's axios' one big thing? >> now that trump is not in office, he's working quietly and diligently behind the scenes to really reshape the party, in terms of policies and at school boards and all this matters because as you know well if trump enters the 2024 presidential contest, a number of these candidates he endorsed and trying to install in other places, he'll walk into that election with far more people willing to do his bidding when he thought the election was fraudulent because he lost. >> there is a concern among democrats that we are seeing trump's loyalists being installed in state legislatures and various states, secretaries of states who may have a say in how the votes are counted next time around. trying to put his thumb on the scale. talk to us more about that. we saw him weigh into a high profile race this week backing david purdue to be governor of georgia which is a direct challenge to the republican incumbent brian kemp because trump did not let him win georgia. >> governor races are going to be hot next year because of the ways in which democrats and republicans are going after these state executive positions because of the down ballot implications they have all the way down to school board as we have seen education become a hot issue for the election already. donald trump has proven that no office is too small for him and we have seen how republicans kind of dictated by donald trump and these lies and conspiracy theories move to enact voting restrictions and in at least 19 states this year alone, the bigger picture is the republican that trump is trying to install and support are folks who would want to overturn the election results, not just past restrict activity voting laws. that's a bigger issue for democrats and the country. if these loyalists become secretary of states, if they're unhappy in the results of the elections, they can pass laws that can overturn the results and help trump win an election in the future. axios have done a great job in tracking omicron. what's our severity. >> you just had dr. patel talked a little bit about the booster, i am glad our reporting suggests what she's saying, too. boosters are effective against this new omicron variant. symptoms is milder. this could be one of the fewer final variants that we are going the see for a while and it's not going to affect as much as we have seen the past variant like delta and the original covid-19, that does not mean people should be relaxed and preliminary you can take it straight to the bank and that you should not do anything else but it gives them hope that science is working. >> it's preliminary but potentially encouraging. i got my booster, you should do the same. >> i like your christmas tree, thank you so much for being with us this morning. thank you all of you for waking up way too early with us on this thursday. "morning joe" starts right now. >> the prime minister of finland apologized for missing a message to quarantine because she was out clubbing at 4:00 a.m. and left her work phone at home. americans are shocked, you can leave your work phone at home. meantime, the only time joe biden was up at 4:00 a.m. was to use the restroom. >> oh, you can't say that. >> that's just not true. >> comen. >> good morning. >> is it friday yet? no. >> that's fantastic. we have several more days. >> one