states, and i want to show you how in the world it happened so quickly. the first case of omicron was identified in the u.s. back on december 1st. that week the cdc said it caused around 1% of all the cases in the entire u.s. the rest were delta. just one week later, it was still less than 15% and then last week, that number jumped to more than 70 percent with omicron cases far out numbering delta cases almost 3-1. we saw 244,000 new covid cases just yesterday, that is the highest for a single day since mid september. hospitalizations are up 14% over the last two weeks however, this is good news. deaths are basically flat. the numbers are bad enough that it prompted the nhl to put the entire season on a temporary hold. in some cities and states are now starting to take back their restrictions and go to where we were months and months ago. places we thought we left behind. washington d.c. reinstating a mask mandate starting today. rhode island did the same. it raises new questions about where we stand just a few days before christmas and what all of this means for your holiday plans. here is dr. anthony fauci earlier this morning on "today". >> if you are vaccinated particularly boosted and going to be involved in an indoor home setting with family relatives who are also vaccinated and boosted, you could feel comfortable in doing that social interaction. >> let's dig deeper. gabe gutierrez is in queens new york and mike at the white house, dr. jha of brown university health and a surgeon and board chair of the new jersey doctor patient alliance and white house correspondent for pbs news hour and of course, moderator of "washington week." michael, we got to go to you first. we need these tests today but they're not going to be sent out until january. that's a week away. right now, if i go to a local pharmacy, they are hard to find. >> reporter: we've been talking about supply challenges but with this surge of omicron, the availability of testing, we've seen long lines around the countrychallenge for this white house. they have quadrupled it since this summer and the president will talk about the steps he's taking. yes, you can go to a new website the federal government will stand up to request half a billion tests that the president says administration has purchased to make available for everyone. the white house announcing they're establishing new testing federally supported testing centers around the country starting with one in new york, which will be up and running before the holidays this week but this is also a number of other challenges the white house is confronting with the omicron surge starting with the fact many americans aren't listening to the president and his wards. the president will make it clear if you're vaccinated and boosted, you may face mild risk from omicron but not compared to the risk of those unvaccinated. the risk of serious illness and death and the white house is dealing with the population that so far isn't vaccinated at this stage and that's why the president is also going to be laying out how they will deal with and try to support the very fatigued health care workers around this country deploying fema response teams to hospitals to set up extra beds and deploying 1,000 military members to add to these existing personnel at our hospitals. this is a real challenge for the white house. they're making it clear this is not a speech about locking down the country. it not a speech about any new restrictions but the president wants to make it clear what is at stake here and that the administration is responding as quickly as it can. >> but is it, dr. jha, testing should be easy peasey but it's not. do we need operation warp speed for at home testing? that is what is going to keep us safe? >> yeah, first of all, thanks for having me back. it is what will keep us safe. administration have done things well. i don't think the strategy on testing until recently has been as aggressive and focused as it needs to be. we should have been building our testing supplies through the spring and summer, certainly by the fall with delta it was clear we would need testing for awhile. we should have billions of these tests widely available for a country our size. we don't and that hurts us this holiday season. i'm pleased to see us moving forward. we have to always look forward and we should have a lot more tests in january. we got to keep going. this virus isn't going away. the ability to test ourselves quickly and efficiently is something we need for months and maybe years. >> gabe, take us to queens. why are these people waiting in long lines for hours and hours? are they sick or are they traveling and need it for work and need a negative test to move forward with their lives? >> reporter: hi there, stephanie. several people here in line tell us any variety of those reasons. one woman thinks she might have been exposed by a roommate. she's here checking. others say no, they don't feel any symptoms however they plan to travel in the next couple days as you mentioned. stephanie, new york state reported another record number of covid cases for the fourth consecutive day and just we've been seeing testing lines for several days and i want to take you over here and it extends much further than you think. it surprised me when i got here this morning. it extends around the block. look over here as my photo journalist shows you. this keeps going. some of these folks have been waiting here now for three hours, stephanie. this is the frustration that is mounting. several days air go mayor bill de blasio urged the biden administration to get a handle on this testing situation and this is the result. there is a lot of frustration from the folks that have been waiting in line here for several hours already in freezing temperatures. now, another point i want to make, stephanie, new york's governor has said because there is a lot of concern about parents and schools and what might happen on next coming days and weeks if this surge continues to mount with the omicron variant as you mentioned making up 73% of new cases. it made up 13% last week. but the new york governor is insisting, she's vowing that schools will stay open. we have to have better access to testing but right now ahead of the holidays, there is mounting frustration here by many folks who say that it should be easier to get a test at this point. the biden administration, stephanie, trying to calm those fears with its announcement today. stephanie? >> is the administration seeing this? because vaccinated people are not getting super sick. but they are trying to do the right thing and get tested and there you have it, people waiting hours in line in the freezing cold. if it remains this difficult, a lot of people will say forget it, i don't want to know if i have it and that will be much more dangerous. >> that would be much more dangerous. the president is understanding testing needs to be ramped up so he's giving a speech where they will make available half a billion at home tests. for weeks they are facing questions why they haven't been doing that. we've seen countries mail free tests to every member of their society and free tests be available in europe. there is a big question why the united states wasn't doing that. the biden administration's answer is making it we're making it so insurance companies have to cover the at home tests. we don't want to waste tests and they don't want to mail tests to people's homes that don't request them. the question is how long will that take? there will be new testing sites set up. this comes from really a response in someways to criticism. the president has been saying and doing of course much more than the last administration needs to be talking about the virus and telling people to get vaccinated and boosted but there is this criticism of the president of why aren't you doing more especially as we know the variants will get worse and worse? i have to add one of the biggest challenges for president biden is something that he didn't create and that is that the people that need to hear it most don't find him credible. the people most likely not to be vaccinated in this country are republicans, specifically white male republicans last time i checked the research. that group of people are not going to look at this speech president biden is giving and probably not going to be moved talking to doctors. there needs to be strategy to get into their homes and the people they trust, most likely doctors and focus groups i watched and that will be a real challenge, how do you cut through the politics and conspiracy theories of scientists to try to explain to americans this is really a life and death situation they need to take seriously. >> let's talk to a doctor. you're in jersey. there are all sorts of vaccine hesitant people but there also vaccinated people who are getting sick. we want to get your reaction to the omicron becoming this dominant variant. on one hand, it sounds like good news because cases aren't as bad as delta but take us to your hospital and tell us what you're missing. >> in the tri-state area, what we're seeing is a pretty bad breakthrough effectiveness of omicron. it seems have been very adapt at doing the right thing, getting vaccinated and boosted and seems to be breaking through. there is mixed news it's not as deadly but you still have to worry a -- about disability. it's eight times more contagious than delta. it's like the regular covid was regular, this is going to burn itself out and spread like wildfire for lack of a better term and unfortunately, we're being told now that our federal stock mile of monoclonals is gone and depleted and we've pleaded with, i don't think you can lay it on the president but maybe the covid response, the chief covid response team negotiated our request for the stockpile. we're getting emails from massive systems like sinai saying we're shutting down the monocone l. we have patients breaking through who are immune compromised like leukemia patients that got both doses of the vaccine and a boost and breaking through with infection and say where do i go for monoclonals? >> that makes no sense. two things, do monoclonals work on omicron? >> one is, the one we're short on. >> why on earth are we short on them? why don't you have enough? >> from the explanation we got, the feeling is the vaccine would make it moot but the problem is that we knew that other variants could come making the vaccine less effective and that's what is happening. it's not -- we do know the vaccine is effective but not as effective and why we're seeing breakthrough cases and you have to consider a large segment of the population still being unvaccinated but on top of that, the people who are vaccinated who are frail immune compromised to breakthrough. it's a big problem. like the previous speakers said, we need to start acting and not reacting. we need to be prepared and this is our third wave. i'm a weary guy dealing with patients. last week i had multiple patients with covid i was operating on and really slows down the care all together. i see a patient with covid, i have to go home and shower and come back to the hospital. it's a complete disaster and we need to be able to think more forward thinking. we had congress allocate billions of dollars for testing and unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the money has been spent yet. these are questions way over my pay grade but we need to actually start getting ahead of the ball, getting ahead of the game. we can't -- like i said, i feel like a soldier on the third wave of an attack finding out we're out of bullets. it's a big problem. we're seeing patients having problems getting monoclonals and breaking through. >> are you hearing this, not enough monoclonals, that doesn't make sense. if that's true, can we ramp up production? >> we can ramp up production and i think in testing, i think administration has gotten better on this and they're starting to move forward and i think that's great. we can forget -- we don't have to go back and relitigate what happened in the months before then. on monoclonals, most of them, regeneron, lily, they don't work well against omicron until a week or so ago it was mostly delta and now it's omicron so that's a real problem and we've got to ramp up production so other monoclonals that do and build new ones. that's going to take a little time but yeah, we've got to put all of our efforts, defense production act, everything we need to throw at getting more monoclonals out there for people having bad breakthrough infections. >> you said president biden is not going to convince those who are unvaxed and dug in to now get the vaccine, however, former president trump might be able to. here is what he said yesterday. >> what we've done is historic. don't let them take away, don't take it away from ourselves. you're playing right into their hands when you sort of like oh, the vaccine. if you don't want to take it, you shouldn't be forced to take it. no mandates but take credit because we saved tens of millions of lives. >> both the president and i are vaxed. did you get the booster? >> yes. >> i got it, too. okay, so -- >> don't, don't, don't, don't, no, no, no. >> does trump's message matter at this point? is it something to say i'm vaxed and i'm boosted? >> it's a good question based on the focus groups that i've seen. he's sort of in someways lost control of the trump supporters when it comes to just specifically when it comes to vaccinations because the president essentially downplayed the virus for so long, said it would disappear and said people didn't need to take it seriously and trying to convince the same people that listened to him where he didn't tell people he got vaccinated in office as president. now he's sort of trying to put the milk back in the carton and say yes, you should follow me. while president trump has done a lot of things that are problematic, some criticize him for racist statements that he said, in this moment, the fact he said yes to getting a booster shot and didn't really miss a beat, that shows you that at least with the people around him they're telling him this needs to be a clear answer. he could have been very wage. he's been vague in the past. after he got booed he's telling people to think about this. the problem is it goes back to the people that are most vaccine hesitant in this country are republican men and followers of the president. this shows you the level of challenge that biden and really former president trump have to deal with as they try to convince people to get vaccinated and it was a tough moment for him. you can see he was uncomfortable but also that he in someways wanted to be clear. >> it would be more uncomfortable if he didn't have the booster, however he got it. operation warp speed, they got it done. he can take credit for that. now tell people to do it. thank you-all so much. you definitely made us smarter in the last few minutes. coming up, president biden and senator joe manchin who from trading fire to a phone call. what is the path forward for the biden agenda and the investigation into the january 6th insurrection reaches a new phase. the first sitting members of congress, the select committee wants to interview. congress, the select committee wants tont ierview this is your home. this is your family room slash gym. the guest bedroom slash music studio. the daybed slash dog bed. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash classroom. and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. ♪♪ as i observe investors balance risk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. your strategic advantage. ♪“i got you babe” by etta james♪ ♪ get groceries, gifts, & more fast and easy. so last minute guests are the only thing you'll be waiting on. ♪ joy. fully. ♪ it's another day. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. only comcast business' secure network solutions give you the power of sd-wan and advanced security integrated on our activecore platform so you can control your network from anywhere, anytime. it's network management redefined. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. president biden's agenda still in limbo but this morning looks more stuck than it does dead. we learned that the president and senator joe manchin spoke after manchin said he'll vote no on built back better and the call left the door open to more negotiations next year. it comes as the west virginia senator aired frustrations about members of his own party. >> they figured, surely to god we can move one person. surely we can badger and beat one person up. surely we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough they will say okay, i'll vote for anything. quit. i'm from west virginia, i'm not from where they're from. >> let's go to capitol hill and john joins us and heidi former democratic senator from north dakota. negotiations are not dead. so what is the number? how much will manchin spend to get this thing through or at least a portion of it? >> step knew, manchin told me and others he's okay with the number. he needs to believe that's the actual cost. he believes that's not the actual cost for this bill because the sticker price masks the real price. you make every program last for ten years. that means painful sacrifices, getting rid of programs like the child tax credit that expire after one year because they're expensive over the long haul. there are questions about possible bad blood between mansion and biden and whether that will affect the outcome. i don't believe it will because of who these two men are. neither are known as vindictive or hold a grudge. i talked to a confident of him yesterday, he said this person tried to make manchin hold grudges against people and refuses to do it. he says water under a bridge. it's hard to estimate how high the stakes are. biden having spent nearly half a century in public office, his legacy will turn whether he can salvage this big moment and joe manchin has been in public service for four decades and finds himself in this position to write a $2 trillion bill on his own and the democratic party has to accept it because they don't have another option. will he take it or walk away from the table? >> you and your squad of "punch bowl news" are reporting manchin might not be on this call tonight. chuck schumer and nancy pelosi say they will get this done. i'm pretty good at math. how do they get it done without the guy in west virginia? >> they can't. look, this diversion of the build back better act democrats are working on is gone. is there some smaller less ambitious more focused version of bbb that could pass? remember, this is a sprawling piece of legislation, an enormous piece of legislation, you know, manchin's problem is you do a one-year extension of the enhanced child tax credit, you know, everyone knows congress is not going to let it fail. you're going to come back in another year and ask for it again. his whole thing is a truth and budget thing. we'll do ten years but again, you know, he doesn't -- he wanted work requirements there so maybe there is another program, prek, universal prek, child nutrition. there are other programs he could foresee doing ten years but he wants a truth in budgeting instead of gains, what he sees as gains by democrats. >> people from very blue states, heidi, go after joe manchin and say he's not a true democrat but you yourself have represented a red state as democrat just like mansion has to do. but here is what i don't get. west virginia is the sixth poorest state in the country. a lot of these programs would have a hugely positive impact on the people what live in his state like the child tax credit. why wouldn't he want to support them? >> i think you have to look what creates consistency for politicians and joe is a fiscal conservative and doesn't like the games of one year or two years on programs so we're going to fund everything but we're going to fund it with two years and said we paid for it. so owe also have to look at the consistency of someone's political philosophy. when you look at all of this, one thing i think that's getting lost in all of this is i'm not convinced every senator was on bbb, build back better. you take things like the deduction, there is many, many senators that thought 80,000 was too high. there is a lot of senators concerned about the price tag and so joe kind of was out there on the point but i think there is a lot of discussion behind it that needs to happen. it's not just the negotiation, isn't just with joe. joe will have to compromise. both joes have to compromise. but there are also other senators that will be brought to the table whether it's on housing, whether it's on salt whether it's on what we do with the child credit, what we do with means testing and so now we're in a different negotiation than just the take it or leave it. >> that's really interesting. so beyond just democratic senators, do you think there are house members that said yes to this knowing that mansion was prepared to be the human shield and everything would go through and they wouldn't have to take the bad news, just he would? >> i think there is a whole lot of people letting joe manchin take the incoming but joe, you know, he asked for some of that. i think at the point where he was this weekend was people kept saying can you support, can you support and finally, he said no. i can't. and that recreated a new opportunity for new negotiation for a new discussion on how this can work. you got to remember that the promise was we will pay for this. and now all of a sudden you have the republicans making an argument when you only pay for one year of it, you're not really paying for it. we won't give tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires like you did but the salt deduction clearly puts that promise in jeopardy and so i think there was a level of discomfort with some of these provisions. i don't know that you can just put this all on the senator from west virginia. >> so my take away to a whole lot of moderate democrats in the senate and the house, heidi said we see you. even if you're riding behind mansion. heidi, john, thank you-all so much. we'll leave it there because we need to turn to the other big news out of capitol hill. the house committee investigating the january 6th insurrection for the first time is asking to speak with current members of congress. they want to question pennsylvania republican congressman scott perry. the committee's chair said he played a key role in the events leading up to the riot including efforts to make former trump justice official jeffrey clark the acting attorney general toward the end of the trump administration. i want to go to garrett on the hill. we're not talking about roger stone. this is a sitting member of congress. what are the consequences if he doesn't compile? >> reporter: that's not entirely clear. you have perry head of the freedom caucus, the same position mark meadows whose name came up in the senate investigation during the period between the election and the inauguration. perry is someone who apparently connected jeffrey clark that doj official with the white house, the person who led the objection to pennsylvania ease election results in the house on january 6 th. he's right at the center of the kinds of things that the committee wants to get to the bottom of but not clear what their authority will be to really pursue him here. this so far is a letter asking him to testify. he could potentially be subpoenaed and you might see perhaps additional house based disciplinary measures like threats to remove him from committees or things like that if he doesn't compile. we're not there yet but this is very much uncharted territory. >> unprecedented. you're forgetting, you're saying unprecedented in this hour garrett haake, you owe me 2 bucks. the omicron cases we'll be covering on the other side of the break. why? it's setting off new major market swings but what does it mean for the 2022 economy? it mean for the 2022 economy? re be? why not both? visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond. 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>> you know, actually not. i think right now we are on this roller coaster of more around omicron in terms of what i think the markets are thinking about than even this build back better plan and that of course, the big issue is what the federal reserve does and how fast they effectively tighten to try to deal with some of this inflation next year. that's actually the big issue. but omicron this week is clearly spooking the markets, travel, energy, all of that. the real question is twofold, one is this mild or not? and we pray that it is. but if it is mild, there is actually an optimistic thought, which is given how many people are getting it and again, i'm praying it's mild but there is a lot of people right now who for example can't work at a restaurant because they have it but if they get better and we hope that they do, it's very possible that all of those people ten, 20 days from now will all of a sudden be able to live a life they weren't living before. the markets are starting to think that way about this. >> the white house press secretary jen psaki said biden's first year ranks number one in gdp growth, number two in productivity growth, number two in stock market global performance and number two in dollar appreciation. that's a lot of wins. however, president biden has not reaped any political benefits of this economy in 2021. any sign he'll see those benefits next year? >> well, it's going to be tough because providing this is the virus, the pandemic, as long as we're grappling with that and people are trying to struggle through that, pretty difficult to get beyond it and for sentiment to improve. the other thing is i think the key here for many people is now inflation and andrew brought that up. with this spike in inflation, many americans have not experienced anything like it. the last time inflation was as high as it is today is you have to go back to the '80s. there are many americans that have no experience with this. of course, there is a political environment that is awful to watch. just a very, very difficult. all these things kind off, holiday sales, christmas sales are booming. it could be the best christmas in terms of sales ever but despite all of that, people still feel pretty crummy and i think they will continue to do so until we're on the other side of this pandemic. >> andrew, if omicron continues to spread and worsens and causes things to at least temporarily shut down, could we be back facing shortages and supply chain issues, which then make inflation worse? >> absolutely. that is a big concern how much of this creates additional supply chain issues, how long is this period, how extended is this period? those are the economic issues there are health issues. >> i think we just lost andrew. we just lost andrew. andrew, you're back. >> i'm back, i apologize. if omicron i don't want to say passes quickly but passes quickly, the only other question something dr. scott was talking about, has it crowded delta to the point all of a sudden there is a new opening, a new window where there will be a lot of people hopefully will not be infected but continue on and won't create the supply chain issues. people are trying to grapple with that. >> mark, last week you predicted we would have another strong economic picture in 2022. if omicron pushes back people returning to work, what would that do? i'm thinking of the big businesses that pushed back to work date and businesses, mom and pop dry cleaners around our offices? >> it's not good. my optimism is based on the assumption that the pandemic is not going away but each wave is less disruptive. also based on the view that built back better would get passed into law and that obviously is not going to be the case. we might get something but certainly a lot smaller than what i envisioned. 2022 won't be the year i had hoped for just a few weeks ago but at the end of the day, the economy remains very, very tethered to the pandemic in a lot of ways. you mentioned we're not going to be able to go back to work to the degree we hoped for as soon as we hoped for and that has all kinds of economic implications for the businesses that are disrupted and anyone else that depends on them. the pandemic is still the issue here and will continue to be the case through next year. >> mark, andrew, thank you both for joining us. we'll leave it there. coming up next, we're on verdict watch. now, in the trial of jeffrey epstein's confident maxwell, the reporter that broke the entire epstein story wide open live from the courthouse julie k. brown. she's in the house. the courtho. brown. she's in the house want your clothes to smell freshly washed all day without heavy perfumes? 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she didn't know she had a weapon. did they prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she caused this death? no. daunte wright caused his own death unfortunately. >> make no mistake, we're here because of the defendant's actions, not daunte wright's. >> as soon as we get a verdict, we'll bring it to you live. while here in new york city, day two of deliberations in maxwell's trial. jurors have to decide if maxwell played a criminal role in the sex trafficking ring of jeffrey epstein or if she herself was manipulated by epstein as her defense team claimed. julie k. brown, you must know this name. she's the ""miami herald"" reporter that broke the story. she's the reason we know about it and the author of "proversion of justice." preversion of justice has been what this is. the prosecution and defense are painting completely different pictures and ghislane herself she didn't see a need to warrant her to testify. what do you think will happen here? >> reporter: this case really comes down to whether the jury believes the four women who have accused maxwell of participating and helping to facilitate jeffrey epstein's abuse of them. i think they will carefully consider each of those victims' testimony and basically determine whether they're credible. >> as somebody who knows this story inside and out, did you learn anything in that courtroom over the last three weeks or were there any major components completely left out, missed by the prosecution? >> reporter: well, i wouldn't call it missed. i think that the prosecution narrowly focused this case. they didn't want it to get into a name dropping where we're going to be talking about powerful men and other people that were in epstein's orbit. i think they carefully constricted this case so that the jury wouldn't lose its focus and it would focus on maxwell herself. >> you broke this story. in the next couple days it will come to a close. how does it feel to see this thing go from start to finish? >> reporter: it's, you know, it's been a real roller coaster. i mostly try to focus my attention on the women that really helped me tell the story. i couldn't have done this story without them. it took a lot of courage for them to do this. it is a little emotional because i do think about everything they did and how hard it was for them after, you know, more than a decade talking about this terrible time in their life. >> will it be worse if she gets off? >> reporter: i think it will be devastating if she's acquitted. i think it will be really devastating. they're hopeful. the prosecution, their closing arguments were masterful yesterday. they did such a good job pulling together all the complicated pieces of this case so i think that they're hopeful that she'll be convicted. >> well, we will be watching and we appreciate your extraordinary reporting. julie kay brown. coming up next, the dea sized enough fentanyl to kill every single american as overdoses become the leading cause of death for young people. what in the world is going on and what are we going to do to stop it? going to do to stop it? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ this looks great. awesome. alright. thank you! what... what recipe did you use? oh. my nonna's! she a good cook? -no. alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. try spring daydream, now part of our irresistible scent collection. ♪ when you have nausea, ♪ ♪ heartburn, ingestion, upset stomach... ♪ ♪ diarrheaaaa.♪ try pepto bismol with a powerful coating action. for fast and soothing relief. pepto bismol for fast relief when you need it most. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey, tam-tam! i was thinking maybe... your mom's car? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ merry christmas, dad. turn the up volume for this. it is a staggering story that's hard to hear and hard to report, but it's killing americans in record numbers. we told you drug overdoses killed more than 100,000 people over the 12 months between 2020 and 2021. now we have just learned that fentanyl overdoses are the leading cause of death for americans between the ages of 18 and 45. it comes after the dea seized a record amount of it this year. >> we've taken off 15,000 pounds of fentanyl this year. that is enough, potentially lethal doses to kill every single american. >> how is this happening? as we speak, drugs are killing about one american every five minutes. so let's discuss and bring in dr. joseph lee. he's the president and ceo of the betty ford foundation, an addiction treatment and advocacy organization. doctor, for anyone who's had loved ones addicted to drugs, they know these aren't numbers, they're people. many of them are young people in the prime of their lives. what is going on? >> thanks for saying that. we often say that addiction is really about people and not about drugs. and that's where the focus needs to be. the overdose deaths are at an all-time high. and we should take note of the fact that this is happening during the pandemic. what the public doesn't know is that we're not actually in the same opioid epidemic that we were in ten years ago. there's actually been three different phases. the first one people heard about in the news a lot, the prescription bills and the overprescribing. then it switched over to heroin, and now we're into the third wave of the opioid epidemic, which is with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is really powerful, and that combined with the pandemic has really exacerbated the number of overdose deaths and it's a real public health concern. >> explain fentanyl to us. are young people knowingly taking it, or is it that it's being mixed with other drugs and it's lethal. >> you know, i'm a physician and i'm a child psychiatrist and a medical diction doctor. my trade for over a decade was working with young people for over a country. many of them were quite entrepreneurial, so i knew exactly how this unfolded when it hit the news years before it did. >> how? >> so what you hear in the news is partially rue. there are a number of people who are taking fentanyl accidentally. they think they're taking some other drug. economically, you make more product by cutting fentanyl entitle, so there are a number of people accidentally overdosing, who are not necessarily addicted or seeking out fentanyl. however, there's an increasing number of people who know they are taking fentanyl, and they are willing to roll the dice, play russian roulette, whatever the metaphor is, and that just shows you the power of addiction went it goes unchecked. >> why? is it more powerful? is it a better high? >> it's not necessarily a better high, but it is very powerful in that a little bit of a dosage goes a long way. that's why the window for it being safe and effective is really narrow, and a lot of people overdose mistakenly. the reason it's in the supply chain a lot is because it's cheaper to cut something like fentanyl into a drug than to give a pure drug out. and another thing that people don't know about, that i know from seeing a lot of young people, is that a lot of this fentanyl wave started years ago with the dark web, believe it or not. and it was catalyzed by cryptocurrency, of all things, because those two things made it possible for people to anonymously leave reviews and buy high-quality fentanyl from these clandestine labs across the world. and they became connected with the black market, and a few years later, we see this death toll. it's very, very deadliest. the deadliest phase of the opioid epidemic that we've had. and it's certainly made worse by the pandemic. >> dr. lee, thank you for joining us today and thank you for the work that you do every single day. and for you at home, if you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, there is help out there. please don't be afraid to ask for it. call this number, 1-800-662-4357. that wraps up this very busy hour. i am stephanie ruhle. my friend and colleague, chris jansing, picks up breaking news coverage on the other side of the break. up breaking news coverage on the other side of the break. tide pods dissolve even when the water is freezing. nice! if it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide. 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(gasps) ♪ did it work? only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ spider-man no way home in theaters december 17th good morning. it is 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm chris jansing in for jose diaz-balart on a very busy tuesday morning. four days until christmas and the number of covid cases continues to skyrocket. here in the u.s. and in other parts of the world. president biden trying to tackle the threat from the omicron variant with a new plan, providing much more at-home testing and staffing for overwhelmed