the new strategy comes as people are spending another day waiting in long lines to get tested. preparing to join the huge numbers of people who are getting away for the christmas holiday. all of this as restaurants and other small businesses please for help to stay afloat, as positive cases shut down dining rooms and cancel entertainment, including broadway shows and pro sports. and customers go away. and then you have companies with some very tough decisions to make, whether to bring employees back to the office or send them back home. all as washington considers what it can do to help. and democrats continue to search for an opening to push forward with their huge climate and social spending bill, build back better, as it's called. we'll look at what comes next with democrat senator, alex padilla. we're also watching for juries for verdicts in three high-profile trials. but we begin this morning with omicron overwhelming the country, becoming the dominant variant in the u.s. in what seems to be the blinkover an eye. the cdc says it now makes up 73% of new infections, a stunning escalation from just a week ago when it was about 13% of new cases. in just hours, president biden will announce his administration's plan to tackle the covid surge, including shipping half a billion free at-home covid tests to any american who wants one starting next month. this wave, of course, happening just days before christmas. the tsa is expected to screen 30 million people between now and january 3rd. and this morning, dr. fauci addressed families who are planning to get together. >> if you don't have the availability of the test and you are fully vaccinated and boosted, you should feel comfortable having a holiday meal or gathering with family members who are also vaccinated and boosted. >> reporter: joining me now, nbc's ellison barber, sam brock, and mike memoli. good to see all of you. ellison, i know you're at hartsfield-jackson atlanta airport. this is the busiest airport in the country. what are you hearing from travelers as they get to set to travel with this new jump in cases? >> it is very busy here. this airport is always busy, especially during the holidays. last year was an exception to that rule, but this holiday season, officials here at hartsfield-jackson international airport, they say that they expect to welcome about 3.7 million travelers in the next two weeks. airports across the country are expecting a lot of flyers. aaa says airlines will see an increase of 184%, compared to last year. in general, travel is up by about 34%. again, that's compared to this time last year. it's not quite pre-pandemic levels, but very, very close. aaa expects 109 million people to travel 50 miles or more this holiday season. that is 92% of 2019 levels. some of the travelers we spoke to at this airport were a little surprised to see longer lines this morning. others said, it was what they expected and they'd shown up early. they figured a lot of people who stayed home last year and other holidays would want to travel this holiday season. but a new covid variant that seems to be spreading rapidly, that is something no one expected, and quite a few travelers told us it made them nervous, but not nervous enough to change plans. lesson to some of what we heard. did you have any nervousness about flying with the pandemic and the new omicron variant? >> yes, a little bit. yeah. i was kind of reserved -- but because i already booked my ticket earlier in the summer, so i said, i'm just going to go ahead and use it. >> no real concerns. i've been vaccinated. happy to wear a mask. so, you know, was willing to do it for family. >> definitely, we wanted to be especially safe and careful. and we felt like we took all the precautions and we felt confident that airports were taking precautions that we needed. >> reporter: of course, no plan is foolproof, but health officials say there are things we can do to try and travel safely during a pandemic this holiday season. three key things, one the cdc recommends that if you're not fully vaccinated, that you not travel. they also recommend that you get tested before and after traveling or after a trip. and the final one is, they say, if you have any known covid exposures, you should stay home. you especially should not get on an airplane. >> good advice, all of that. sam, you're at a testing site in miami. that's the problem, right? a lot of people want to get tested before they travel. it's not so easy. i know you spoke with the mayor of miami-dade county last hour. what'd you hear? >> reporter: she had a very simple message, chris. which is get vaccinated, get boosted. we're in miami-dade. we've seen a 330% increase in cases between december 10th and december 17th. the state of florida has logged more than 18,000 new infections just over the weekend. the seven-day average right now is the highest it's been in florida since the end of september. you talk about testing, chris. what i have seen personally, just since i've been at the same site the last several weeks is that it has exploded. the lines behind me right now, you can only see really the folks that are registering under this tent, but this park that i'm at, tropical park, goes around a mile, the perimeter of cars, all the way out into the street, which the thorougfare there, the cars are backed up in both directions. i spoke to folks this morning, they said they've been waiting about an hour, hour and a half this morning, but the waits have been as long as four hours just to get a test. the mayor assures me they have enough tests, it's how long they have to wait to get them. they're expanding testing sites in miami-dade. a good snapshot of what the rest of the country is looking at. for the last week, you have seen people who were unvaccinated constitute about 15 new hospitalization administrations -- i should say, people who are administered, 50 who are unvaccinated, 15 to 20 who are vaccinated without a booster, one or two who have been boosted. that tells you everything you need to know right now. i spoke to the mayor about a jarring contrast between testing and shots in arms. here's what she had to say. >> i can tell you right now, we are here with a long, long line, every day, every night, for testing. and it's a good thing that people want to be tested, to be safe during the holidays. however, right across the field, we have a vaccination site. no wait. >> reporter: as you know, chris, florida tends to be an older state and at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a campaign that was specifically engineered towards getting into nursing homes to vaccinate those older populations. on a national scale right now with regard to booster shots, that really does not exists. but in miami-dade and throughout the state of florida right now, they are really making everies to get folks inside of those long-term care facilities and nursing homes, because that is the most vulnerable population when you're talking about who's affected by covid. and now, of course, omicron. >> it's stunning that there are places where they're not doing that, frankly. mike, talk to us about what the president plans to announce today. what do we know? >> well, chris, just a few weeks ago, the white house dismissed the idea of sending a take-home covid test to every american. well, now they're embracing an idea just short of that. the white house is going to be standing up a new website where americans can request take-home tests to be shipped to them through the mail. the administration purchasing 500 million of these take-home tests to try to meet the demand. they're doing more. they're standing up more federally supported testing sites across the country. you'll start with one in new york city before the holidays, there are 20,000 now. the white house wouldn't specify just how many more we might see. we're also seeing the white house address what is a real concern, which is that these health care facilities, hospitals around the country, are now overwhelmed and we're seeing staffing shortages among nurses and doctors. they're going to deploy a thousand military members to help ease that burden as well as help deploying fema response team to help build extra capacity at many health care sites. this after the white house made another announcement related to covid, this time involving the president's own exposure to it. a mid-level staffer, as the white house is describing it, was on air force one, traveling with the president on friday, tested positive for covid. the president did test at the white house yesterday, a pcr test, tested negative. we have new reporting from my colleagues, monica alba, kristen welker on the white house team, who according to white house officials, the president was masked the entire time that he was in the proximity of this staffer. he will be tested, a pcr test again tomorrow. they say the guidelines are for him to be tested on the third and fifth day, so not today. but the white house is ramping up and encouraging staffers who haven't yet been boosted to do so. and i will tell you, chris, walking around the white house, talking to some staff, we are seeing much more rigorous masking. sometimes over the last few months, we've seen that get a little bit lax. now, everyone, including the press corps, i will add, are ensuring that they're wearing those masks full-time. >> i don't think that's limited to the white house. that's almost everywhere you go. mike memoli, ellison barber, thanks to all of you. let me bring in nahid bhadelia and larry garrett, a journalist for "foreign policy" magazine. i can't imagine two better people to talk to today. so doctor, where are with we this as you see it, and how much can these moves by the administration help? >> i think we are approaching a rapid increase in cases. and the breakthroughs are expected. we saw those in terms of the way that this variant has provided a way to evade part of our immune infections against infection, but because it's moving so fast,ic what you're seeing is, it's going to find those who are vulnerable, unvaccinated, but also those who are older, extremes of age who haven't been boosted, their immunity might be waning. and so the measures that are being put are wonderful. i think we need to have the increased testing, i think there should be more ability to sort of -- the website is great, but we need to get these tests where there are surges of cases. the thing that i think that people need to hear is that it requires work not just from the administration, but from all of us. we've all become a little lax. and even if we're vaccinated, we all need to take those steps of wearing good-quality masks and avoiding large crowds right now. because avoiding that surge will protect our health care systems from getting overwhelmed, which they already are in some places in this country. >> so, lori, we're going to get this half a billion tests that are going to be distributed to folks around the country, but -- and this is a big but -- people are traveling now. people are getting together in groups now. are we again behind the movement here? is this going to be potentially too late? >> chris, once again, we have a new phase of this pandemic and once again, the virus is in the lead and we're playing catch-up, trying to figure out what the virus is doing and trying to adapt with strategies that can save lives. in this case, i think everybody has to realize, this is a very different phenomenon. what we're in right now is an epidemic of something so contagious that all the precautions that you took in the past have to be taken plus more. even more strictly. we know now that this virus colonizes in the upper airways, which means that casual conversation with your best friend can transmit virus if one of you is infected. we also know that unless your mask is really sealing tightly, all the way around, this virus can get through. it can get up and around and over. and all of these people that wear the mask below their nose are putting themselves at great risk. i think as far as government action goes, testing and encouraging vaccination, these are of course the tool kits we need, but we really need for everybody, everybody to recognize that this is a new ball game. they're going to have to go back to hunker down mode. they're going to have to be willing as ted rose, the head of w.h.o said yesterday, sure, it's tough to cancel an event, it's harder to cancel a life. that's where we are right now. >> so dr. bhadelia, to the point of miami-dade mayor, we've been talking about the power of vaccines for more than a year now. i want to play a little clip of the protection being vaccinated gives you from getting really sick. take a listen. >> reporter: according to the latest cdc data, here's the difference between those who are vaccinated and those who are not. among the unvaccinated, there are 451 cases per 100,000 people. among those who are vaccinated, that number drops to 134 cases. among those boosted, still lower, 48 cases. but here's the crucial part. among the unvaccinated, there are six deaths per 100,000 people. among the vaccinated, that drops considerably to 0.5. among those boosted, 0.1. >> so doctor, those are the facts. and yet the other day, sunday, former president trump and bill o'reilly both said at a public event that they were boosted and they got booed. are we never going to be able to convince a significant part of the population to do what we know works? >> i worry about that. and time is running out, chris. i want to point out one other thing. that this omicron variant, because of it immune evasiveness, it's making some of the tools in our medical tool box not as effective. many of the monoclonal antibodies, who we could use, or people who are unvaccinated high risk, many of those don't work against omicron, as well. you know, and one that does, the one that works is in shortage. so if you get sick now, if you're unvaccinated, your chancing of getting infected are much higher because it's a more transmissible variant. but if you do end up getting sick, we don't have all the tools and the hospitals are overwhelmed. i cannot stress to people enough why, again, from my side, it's so important to get vaccinated and boosted, but even if you do, right now, the middle of the surge, vaccines are necessary, they're critical, but they're not sufficient. we all need to wear those masks and we need to think about reducing the size of our gatherings, because that immunity takes time, even if everybody were to get vaccinated today. >> which begs the question, laurie, and we're out of time, but i want to ask you really quickly. new york city, we may see whether or not they're going to hold the new year's eve -- we know it's already been canceled in paris. other big events have been canceled. do we need to see a lot of this? >> i'm shocked that we haven't already canceled the times square gathering. it's not time to have 100,000, 200,000 people crammed together. trafalgar square has canceled, paris has canceled. all over the world, people are realizing. unfortunately, this is going to be another grim holiday season. and if i have just one second, i want to say to all of you who are not yet fully boosted, here's a little scientific tidbit. we don't know for sure yet. the science is still being figured out, but it looks like this virus, omicron cultivated and multiplies in your upper airways. and doesn't immediately go down into your deeper lung to cause pneumonia the way delta does. okay, that's good news, because if you're vaccinated, you may be able to put up a good immune system battle right up here, and keep the virus from going down into your lungs, where it can kill you. it's as simple as that. >> something everybody can and should understand. laurie garrett, dr. nahid bhadelia, thank you both very much and happy holidays. a quick note, my colleague, andrea mitchell will talk to dr. anthony fauci about all of this noon eastern right here on msnbc. coming up, can build back better be salvaged after joe manchin sank it? 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(cheers) xfinity brought us together, after all! power your whole home this holiday with wifi speeds faster than a gig. click, call, or visit a store today. sing 2 . 20 past the hour, now to washington, where democrats are desperate looking for a way forward on their nearly $2 trillion bill to reshape the social safety net and fight climate change after west virginia senator joe manchin said he would not vote for it. two sources familiar with the call tell nbc news that manchin and president biden did speak on sunday, just hours after manchin made his bombshell announcement. the call said to be cordial. the two men agreed to keep the door open to continued negotiations. despite manchin's opposition, key advocates are vowing to push ahead. >> we will pursue a two-track strategy now to both push for the build back better legislation, to pass the senate, and we are also calling on the president to take some significant executive actions that will make people's lives better. >> but you've got to bring that bill to the floor. and if it goes down, we can decide what the next step is. but we cannot keep just talking and talking. we've got to do something, bring that bill to the floor. >> joining us now, nbc news, senior capitol hill correspondent, garrett haake, and philip rucker, an msnbc political analyst. so garrett, i took note of the wording on this statement that the two men agreed to keep the door open to continued negotiations, which is different, i think, than agreed to keep talking. where are we with this? >> well, look, i think we're about to go into a little holiday break cooling off period. after manchin's announcement, you saw a lot of anger from democrats, including from the white house. but the bottom line is, for most democrats, this bill, or at least this agenda is too big to fail, they're not going to simply walk away from it, because manchin says he intends to vote "no." you could see a couple of things. as bernie sanders has suggested, as chuck schumer has said, an actual vote on the senate floor to put everyone on the record about this bill. and a process that might be long and arduous, to figure out what joe manchin can support of these agenda items that could eventually become law. there's plenty in this bill that manchin does like, and he may, much to the frustration of the entire rest of the party just want to be at the center of the action in choosing what it will be that ultimately passes. >> phil, the question i keep getting from folks is, is there no other way. does joe manchin call the shots on all of this or is there a way around him. >> he does, chris. because until democrats enlarge their majority in the senate, it is a 50/50 body, so they need every single democratic vote in order to pass any piece of legislation, unless, of course, they receive support from republicans, which they don't have in this case. so manchin, being that 50-th vote, is hugely consequential to any democratic agenda. and so i think garrett's right, you're going to see an effort here in the months and weeks to come in the new year, to pare this bill back, to identify the elements such as pre-k and health care, prescription drugs, some of the elements that manchin does support, and see how they can get that over the finish line, and effectively strip away the pieces of the child tax credit that manchin is objecting to. >> so garrett, for the first time, the house committee investigating the january 6th insurrection wants information from a sitting member of congress. that's the republican from pennsylvania, scott perry, about a plan to install jeffrey clark as the attorney general, so he could execute a plan to overturn the election. what do we know about what the committee wants to know about perry involvement, and what are the chances, if any at all, that he cooperates. >> perry's involvement on the doj side of things was first documented by the senate judiciary committee, which issued a report a little while ago, which details what they saw as the effort inside doj to try to interfere in the election results process. perry's name came up there. he's the person that led the challenge to pennsylvania's election results on the floor, on january 6th. he's a key trump supporter and the chair of the freedom caucus. he's right in the center of the things that the committee is trying to get to the bottom of. as to whether he's cooperate, the committee seems to have some hope of that. i say that, because they sent him a letter asking him to show up, rather than a subpoena compelling his testimony. remember, adam schiff said very early on in this process, they were going to look at people in two categories, those who they think might be willing to cooperate, and those who they know won't. there's perhaps the slightest bit of hope there, but we'll see. the committee, it's not frankly entirely clear what levers they can pull on a sitting member if he refuses to cooperate. >> garrett haake, phil rucker, good to see both of you guys. thank you so much. joining us now to continue the conversation, california democratic senator alex padilla, who sits on the budget committee. it was one year ago today that gavin newsom appointed him to fill the seat now held by vice president kamala harris. good to see you, senator. lots going on, obviously. i understand that the democrats are holding a virtual caucus tonight to talk about the next steps forward on build back better. where do you think things are going from here. >> well, thanks, chris, what a year it has been. the bottom line is this. the agenda remains the agenda. and so, while some people are pretty upset about manchin's comments -- senator manchin's comments on sunday, and there's been encouraging conversations between he and president biden, it shouldn't really be surprising. we saw the bipartisan infrastructure package have its ups and downs repeatedly, before it was finalized and signed into law. and i think we're going to see the same thing played out with build back better. >> what are the differences here -- i'm sorry to interrupt, but one of the differences here is that you're building at least from joe manchin's point of view, you're building on the debt, right? spending, spending, spending. now this is in addition to the infrastructure bill that you got, which is part of the problem, right? >> well, look, not to get too far into the weeds here, but that's one of the points that i think senator manchin has wrong. build back better, as before us, is fully paid for. he may be only focused on the spending part of it, and not paying as close attention as to the how we pay for it part of it, but there are differences on how we get there, that's fine. one of the encouraging things is, he's saying, why cover just one, two, three years of child care. let's do all ten. great, come up with a plan to pay for all of them. the child care and elder care piece is critical for parents with youngs to be able to get back to work, if that's part of the goal. climate, it's not just hurricanes in the southeast and flooding in the northeast, wildfires in the west. tornadoes hitting kentucky, far from quote/unquote, tornado season is another indicator. and expansion of health care, again, if we haven't learned anything else from this pandemic, it's the need to invest and modernize in our health care infrastructure. so it's all important. there are many ways to par for it. and kudos to senator manchin. he said, well, let's start by revisiting the trump tax credits from a few years ago. hey, that's music to my years. do we have more work to do? absolutely. but the agenda remains the agenda. >> so let's see how we get there. this is one suggestion from a column in the "wall street journal." let me read it. the most logical strategy for democrats now is to deconstruct and reconstruct build back better to include fewer programs, but also to also ensure that those programs are fully funded for the life of the bill. in other words, go deeper on fewer items. senator manchin has suggested that that could be a way to get his vote. is that something that you would be willing to do? what would you be willing to lose in order to get there km >> i'm happy to go deeper, but i think we need to go deeper on all the items. and trust me, there's plenty of room to fix a tax code, to make sure that the most wealth families in america and multi-national corporations pay their fair share. >> but realistically, senator, do you really think at this point that you're going to get everything? that's not the way these negotiations look like they're going. >> no, i hear you. but i think the immediate point is, do we keep trying or do we give up. i didn't take this job to give up. a year ago, you wished me a happy anniversary. i knew full well when i got the call from the governor that i wasn't taking this job because it was easy, i was taking this job because the issues are too important. >> let me ask you really quickly about one more thing, because last week, the senate parliamentarian rejected provisions that would provide temporary protections for undocumented immigrants who have been in the u.s. since 2011. where are we on this? is anything on that going to get done? >> well, again, i don't give up that easily. so all options are still on the table, whether we go back to the parliamentarian with yet another proposal. they may meet the reconciliation criteria, or we take something straight to the floor of the senate and have the senators -- the senators who have been duly sworn in to make the decisions here, take the steps we need. but i will say this. immigration is critical to our infrastructure investments. you get any segment of critical infrastructure from the transportation industry to our food supply, to the care sector. so many immigrants are working in those essential jobs, immigration reform is a vital part of this build back better agenda. >> senator alex padilla, after what has, indeed, been an eventful year, thank you so much. we appreciate your time, senator. >> stay safe. >> thank you. we are on verdict watch for three big trials right now. up next, we'll be live in minneapolis with the latest on the kim potter case. you're watching msnbc reports. e. you're watching msnbc reports. mm. 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this morning after three straight days of losses brought on by those concerns, but still, so many decisions for businesses, from whether to bring people back to work to requirements if they do. joining us now, msnbc anchor and nbc news senior business correspondent, stephanie ruhle. steph, let's start with wall street. what do we make of this roller coaster ride yet again? >> it has been all about omicron, down for three straight days, now up again. for the markets, it's all about, where are we in this economic recovery? can businesses and schools stay open? the biden administration has said "yes," but the markets have said, i'm not so sure. as we get more and more numbers, yes, the case numbers are spiking. that clearly spooks the markets. however, hospitalizations aren't up that much. deaths are basically flat. so from the market perspective, their main thing that they are looking for, are we going to have lockdowns again? because, remember, supply chain issues, shortages, were all about things being shut down. and as the market looks at things today, omicron isn't good, it's massively inconvenient and problematic, especially on the testing side. but does it look like things are going to shut down? no. and that's why we see the market back up. >> but you do have various businesses who have a ton of decisions to make. maybe people have already gone back to work. do we, as i've seen with some of my friends, tell the folks, go back to working at home. if they're working, do we need to provide something extra, test them? what are you hearing from business leaders? >> businesses are confused and don't know what to do. over the last few months since the vaccine mandates were put in place, big businesses liked it. they like the government saying, you have to do this, because they don't have to make this decision. but here were in the last few days, companies like apple, google, uber, lyft, all delaying those in-person return to work plans that we were expecting in january, saying, you know what, you should stay home for a little while longer. that's very bad for small businesses that are around our offices. the dry cleaner's, the diners, the lunch places that were all thinking, they were going to rev up in january, and businesses are saying, let's pause. even here in new york, financial firms, citi bank telling their employees from newark and new jersey, if you can work from home, let's do that until we can get a handle on omicron. >> thank you for sticking around to talk to us. we appreciate it as the explosion of covid cases is shaking the service industry, which was already pleading for more federal help to recover from the first waves of the pandemic. examples, "hamilton," "hadestown," "aladdin" joining other shows that have closed this week, and "jagged little pill" has closed for good. throughout the country, restaurants are shuttering as outbreaks sideline employees. joining me now, chef tom colicchio, chef and owner of crafted hospitality and head judge on "top chef." tom, i just wish we could talk about something else. but here we are again. you're in the business, you're constantly in touch with restaurant owners. what are the conversations like right now, tom? >> the conversations right now are, you know, turning back to where we were, you know, a year and a half ago. it's pretty dire. and to pick up on what stephanie was saying, i don't think the government is going to force us to shut down, but we are finding it very, very difficult to staff our restaurants, because so many of our employees are sick right now. so we're all very, very nervous. >> yeah, i mean, i see it in my neighborhood, which is very near the theater district, so you have that, that you have employees who test sick. but you also have, if a couple of shows around you close down and all of those christmas tourists go away, maybe you ask the question, is it worth it for me to stay open. and i know the independent restaurant coalition is now saying, 86% of restaurants that didn't get grants are at risk of closing permanently. what do restaurants need right now? >> right. we need relief. the rrf, the restaurant relief fund, you know, great intention, but of the 300,000 plus restaurants that have applied, only about one third actually received grant money. so for the restaurants that didn't receive money, we're at a real competitive disadvantage. if your neighbor up the street received money, they're going to get through this, but for the two-thirds of the restaurants that didn't receive grants, we're in trouble. and so we are, we're working with senator schumer, cardin, and wicker, to try to get the language on this bill written, to try to get it out there, because we believe we have enough votes to get this passed. it's not a -- it's not a partisan issue. it's a -- you know, we have bipartisan on our bill, and so, you know, we're all hoping that that the government can get together and do what they did during the early stages of covid. and really focus on the needs of these small businesses, and not only restaurants, this also includes stages and gyms. and to really put a package together that's going to help us. and we're close. >> are you getting an indication, tom, that it is, indeed, close that this is going to happen? >> we're close to 60 votes. so we believe if we actually saw language and put this on the floor, that this would pass. senator schumer is doing a great job. i'm in touch with his office on a regular basis, and they're doing a great job to try to rally the troops to get this over the goalpost. but obviously, you know, the white house is focused on bbd and build back better, and rightfully so, but they have to learn to walk and chew gum. we need to focus on the plight of small businesses, as well. >> and in our seconds, tom, for those of us who love our neighborhood restaurants, is the pest advice for those who want to help is order dinner out tonight or keep doing it or is there a place where they can help out? folks who -- look, i live in new york, so there's a million restaurants, but it kills me every time i see a sign that says, "we're closed." >> you know, my friend who's a chef and restauranteur in atlanta or georgia, tweeted out yesterday, buy gift certificates, and then burn them en masse. don't use them. but, listen, the other thing i would say, if you're going to a restaurant, this is hopefully, this will be short lived, we'll get through this. but i can tell you from personal experience, i have about $1 million in back rent that i owe right now. it's -- i don't know where that's coming from, but i've been lucky. i've had landlords that are working with me. a lot of other chefs and restauranteurs that aren't as fortunate and lucky to have landlords that are working with them, they're about to close and omicron will be the nail in the coffin. if you can get out there to support restaurants, don't put yourself in danger, try to order takeout, order directly from the restaurants, don't go through a third party, but if you are out there, when you start coming back out, just be nice. we're under a lot of stress. >> yeah, be patient. >> be patient, yeah. >> and it doesn't hurt to let your member of congress know, too, that this is something you might support. >> absolutely. absolutely, thanks for having me on. >> tom colicchio, always good to see you. happy holidays. we appreciate you. >> thank you. and still ahead, the house and senate up for grabs in 2022. i can see him here, steve kornacki back at the big board with a look at the key battleground seats for the year ahead. you're watching "msnbc reports." ahead. you're watching "msnbc reports." : try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette o man, that's a whole lot of wrinkly at least my shoes look good! looking good start with bounce wrinkleguard, the megasheet designed to 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obviously, is 50/50 right now. this is what the history says for midterm elections. what you're seeing here is how the white house party, the party that controls the white house, how many seats in the house they've won or lost. this is going back to 1950. red means they lost seats. there are only two exceptions in modern times. 2002, a year after 9/11. that was the clinton impeachment. the question hasn't been does the white house party lose seats, the question has been how many seats does the white house party lose? it's less than ten seats. there's a democratic majority in the house right now. that's the history that biden and the democrats are up against. that's what makes them uneasy in 2022. in terms of biden's standing compared to his recent predecessors, biden a 44.1% job approval. that is a little bit better than donald trump was at this same point. he was averaging 38.5% on the approval rating. the republicans in that midterm election in 2018 lost 20 house seats. the 2010 midterms for democrats were an absolute wipeout. they lost 63 house seats. >> i never like to call people out, steve, but when i ran into you in the hallway, you gave me hope for my cleveland browns. >> well, then they played the game last night. [ laughter ] >> as per usual. thank you very much. how the kidnapped missionaries being held hostage in haiti made their daring escape. in haiti made their daring escape at progressive, we love your pets as much as you do, like this guy in a hat. that's why progressive car insurance covers your pets for up to $1,000 if they're ever in a car accident with you. this mini majorette's gonna march her way right into your heart. -i'm sorry. can we stop? i know that we're selling car insurance here, but, you know, all the cute little animals, it's too much. define "too much." what's wrong with cute animals? -so are we doing this or what? -nah, it's over. [ sighs ] well, someone's got to break the news to mittens. [ squeaks softly ] she's a diva. [ mittens squeaking ] [music: "i swear"] jaycee tried gain flings for the first time the other day... and forgot where she was. you can always spot a first time gain flings user. ♪ ♪♪ the only thing a disaster can't destroy is hope. ♪♪ donate now at redcross.org time for a look back beyond our borders to a daring escape made by a group of missionaries held captive in haiti. andrea mitchell has more. >> reporter: new images of the once captured missionaries, now safely back home after the final group of 12 pulls off a stunning escape. >> when the timing was right, they opened the door, filed sigh silently to the path they chose to follow. >> reporter: sneaking out in the dark of night last wednesday, navigating by stars and moonlight, moving toward a mountain they recognized in the distance. >> after a number of hours of walking, day began to dawn. they eventually found someone who helped them make a phone call for help. they were finally free. >> reporter: within hours the group was on a coast guard flight to florida where they reunited with the other five hostages, including 29-year-old matt miller who got out in november. were you allowed to pray when you were held captive? >> yes, we were. we prayed and sang for hours every day. our captors got a chance to hear the gospel. they got to see what love looks like. >> reporter: the kidnappers demanded a $1 million ransom of each of the 17 missionaries. it's not clear whether any money was paid. the group was kidnapped in october by a notorious street gang after visiting a local orphanage. do you forgive them? >> we forgive them. we long for them to turn their life around. we pleaded with them to realize the harm they're doing to their own country and to find a better way. that's going to wrap up this hour for me. up next hour, education secretary miguel cardona will give us an update on how the biden administration plans to keep schools open. craig melvin picks up with more news right now. ♪♪ a good tuesday morning to you. craig melvin here. lots to get to. the pressure is on the white house to try and stem the fast-moving spread of the omicron variant. in just a few hours, president biden is going to lay out his plan to do just that. it comes as the need just got more urgent. omicron has overtaken delta as the most dominant strain in the united states. we've just learned of the first omicron related death in this country. this is what dr. fauci told me a short time