as covid those so goes the biden presidency. it began with the covid chaos and here we are again. joining me now, mike memoli. mike, there is going to be plenty of people that say is this a pretty good straeblg for strategy for the president, why didn't they unveil it a two months ago, a month ago. this issue having tests available to everyone who wants it has been a promise made but not a promise kept. >> and it was just a few weeks in the briefing room that this white house was scoffing at the idea of sending a test to every american. their rationale was they don't want to waste them. and that is why you see the system that they have devised now. but it is interesting to see the internal debate about how much to use the presidential bully pulpit and how much value is there in using it at this stage. and we know what side is winning that argument because the president will be speaking in 90 minutes to the country. but the audience that they have in mind is one that they know will actually listen and is very frustrated, right? there is a population that won't listen to this white house when it calls to masking, testing, vaccination, all the common sense ways that we know will get us through the pandemic. they are hearing evermore from the very frustrated population. so i think that you will hear the president channel some of that frustration. he will outline the steps that he is taking, and one of the biggest challenges is on testing. but they also need to make clear that there is almost a normalization of late from white house officials on breakthrough cases that you may get one, it will be mild, but then much more stark terms for those who are unvaccinated, that you are facing a harsh winter of potential severe illness and even death. that is the audience that is he talking about, frustrated americans want to hear from the administration. >> the frustration that i hear, whether anecdotal or you talk to those on the level of public health, be clear about what happens if you have covid in your house. what do you do. how do you go about it. if you have vax been vaccinated. there ambiguity in the guidance. will he clear it or will he recommend to this more bureaucratic front where we get to what i think has been an odd picture over the last few months which is jeff zients standing in front of tv monitors. >> from an early point in the campaign and one that has carried through into the administration, they decided to stand behind the science, that this is not going to be a politically influenced process. but a challenge is that science takes time and science doesn't speak with one voice. the nature of what this violence violence -- science leads to is taking in all views. and as we heard just today, a lot of the time lines that we've sort of become used to in terms of how long of a quarantine, when symptoms might come, is now being studied again because we're still waiting for more data on omicron. so the president can't give a clear message because it is too early. we learned about omicron at thanksgiving dinner in my case and a lot of other americans. so still early day, but still a lot that needs to be learned before they can speak with any certainty about it. >> sam brock, you are at a testing site, they are going 24/7. look, i think that some people know this, i've got a covid case in my house, we've been dealing with trying to get testing. no line around here is less than an hour. what are you seeing in miami? >> reporter: sorry to hear that, chuck. absolutely it is getting worse by the day. when you look at the folks that are out out here, i've been at this location, tropical park, about 20 minutes west of downtown miami, for a couple weeks now. it was 20 minutes in and out 2 1/2 weeks ago and now the lines are -- it might be hard to see, but beyond this tent, the line wraps around about a mile long and spills in to the street. they have county officials and police officers that are out there right now directing traffic to get all these people in. maybe an hour half at some points, but it could be up to 4 points. and the mayor has expanded the testing sites to 24/7. but the issue is not just the demand for testing, it is where is the surge for booster shots. here is what the mayor told me earlier. >> most important of all is vaccine and boosting. and i can tell you right now, we are here with a long, lon line every day, every night for test being. and it is 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. if you hold out, you are hurting your loved ones, your family members, your community. risking our hospital census. it is the responsible thing do. it works. >> reporter: and who is getting hospitalized as omicron is expand throughout the southeast, if you look at miami-dade as a snapshot, there is about 50 or so uvaccinated people admitted every day. and 15 to 20 without a booster. if you look at folks who are boosted, it is within or two a day out of the total 75 or 80. that tells you that beaster booster shots are the difference. >> and i can attest to it personally.shots are the differ. >> and i can attest to it personally. sam brock, thank you. and dr. otez, what would you like to hear from president biden and what would you like to see done that hasn't been done yet by the federal government? >> what i want to hear more anything else, our greatest vulnerability in this surge that now is beginning and yet will get worse over the next few weeks. and that is our health care workers and our vulnerability to collapse in our health system. here is why. we'll clearly see -- we still have delta, so still seeing hospitalizations from delta. we're still -- we'll see a lot of hospitalizations from omicron as well. and there is too much happy talk about omicron being mild illness when in fact it is still a serious illness. and if you are unvaccinated or only have two doses, we'll still see a lot of hospitalizations because so many people will get swept up in the firestorm. and so many health care workers will become sick themselves with covid over the next few weeks. one, because they have only gotten two doses of the vaccine which is not doing very much, and even though whoare boosted, within two to three months after getting the boost and many health care workers were early adopters like i was, we know that there is a sharp decline against omicron over the ensuing couple of months. so when you get boosted, 70% to 75% protection against symptomatic illness. but within two to three months, that goes down to 30%. so we'll have all of these health care hospitalized, but at home sick unable to take care of patients and this is when things can start to unravel. >> and i can attest to this booster thing. the covid positive i have in my house, there is a circle about seven different families in a similar situation, not a single boosted person has tested positive. only person that have gotten it were those that were not boosted. so let me ask you this, number one, did we wait too long to approve the booster for teenagers and why haven't we approved the booster for the next set of teenagers below 16? because this could very well be an think in an emergency that we're staring out. there is a sense of following the science, but come you wait too long to follow it.you wait too long to follow it. >> whole messaging around boosters was not handled very well. there was not the situational awareness of what the need for a third booster was, how it gave you a big rise in virus neutralizing antibody and could actually prevent long covid and other major aspects of disease. and so even to this day, i think that full vaccination is considered two immunizations. when we've talked since the beginning, that this is a three dose vaccine. on top of that though, now we have an added problem and that is specific to the omicron variant, that third booster this was holding up so well for delta, alpha and other variants, for omicron, it is waning really quickly. so the question is how are we going to keep our health care workforce in the health care workforce. what are we going to do if they are all home with covid. so i put out a suggestion over the weekend in the "los angeles times," so far no one is very happy with it, but i think that it could be very important and that is to offer a second booster to health care workers in order to rev up the virus neutralizing antibodies if they are more than two months out from the last boost and at least keep them in the workforce and prevent them from getting sick from covid. but otherwise i worry that there will be too much instability. >> so we know that moderna is apparently working on a booster that would tackle omicron. are we going to be in this sort of gap it sounds like? i mean, look, we're all thinking selfishly i'm sure when people just heard what you said about the booster for health care workers, are you saying at three months from our booster we probably need another booster? >> i think so. and again, it is to prevent infection and long covid, particularly among our health care workers. i'll leave to the federal agencies to offer an opinion about the general population. but at least let's protect that population because that is critical. as far as the omicron specific booster, we won't have it in time for this epidemic. and also we have other vulnerabilities. at least one or two of the monoclonal antibodies does not work against the omicron variant. so we take that off the table. and also we won't have the drug in time for this epidemic. so i think that we have to maximize -- >> doctor, why? why are we -- i mean, is the fda -- i understand they are being small c conservative about things, but again, i go back, we are in an emergency. do you feel as if the fda is dragging its feet a bit on this? >> on the paxlovid, not necessarily. i don't know the inside baseball on what the fda is doing on the paxlovid. but it could be just a matter of production. there is a learning curve before you can make hundreds of millions of doses. so more than likely that is an outstanding issue. >> doctor, mike, sam, appreciate all three of you helping us get started today. so thank you for that. coming up, democrats on the hill are now trying to revive "build back better," they don't become it becomes "build better bitter." so senator michael bennett will be joining me on the daunting task ahead. and tomorrow, we're premiering meet the alternative history, each episode looks at like things might have changed if we look at it differently. what if jfk had survived. what if bill clinton has resigned. the special series launches toll. so if you are not subscribed, do it now. at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. do i need to pretreat my laundry? 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>> well, he was surprised because i thought that on things like the child carbon monoxide credit that the white house actually had a deal with him. unfortunately the result is that we are now raising taxes on working people in this at a time when we've cut child poverty almost in half, at a time when we've cut hunger in this country by 25% because of the tax credits in the american rescue plan. it would seem it me the last thing that we'd want to be doing right now is raising taxes on working people. so i hope to have more of a conversation with joe manchin over the coming days to try to persuade him to come back to the table and negotiate a bill that is satisfactory to him but also to the rest of the caucus. >> i guess the reason i ask about whether it was a surprise is joe manchin's position was well-known in july. he was talking about means testing the child carry tax credit, we knew he had issues there. he said that his top line thumb was $1.5 trillion. he talked about the concern he had of inflation. it seems as if the democrats thought that we'll just jam him at the end. it didn't seem as if they thought let's talk with him in july and go from there. instead it was this three month which turns out now to be a big waste of time hoping that they could jam him. why was his opposition back in july not taken seriously? >> i think that it was taken seriously all the way along. everybody's opinion was taken seriously. and i think that the record shows that nobody tried to jam anybody. this thing went on for months and months. and i wish that, you know, months ago the white house had had senator sinema and manchin there and said this is what i have to deal with as president, i have to deal with russia, i have russia on ukraine, i have to deal with china and taiwan, i have to deal with covid, i got to deal with the ukranians, i have to deal with the southern border of the united states, i got to deal with all of these things. and let's spend the next 48 hours negotiating a deal that we could live with. i think that would have been far preferable to what ended up happening which i think is a bunch of trading and retrading that is throwing 10 million american children back into poverty. it is disgraceful. >> let's talk about the child care tax credit. i'm one of those that assumes that it is a standalone bill, this can get negotiated. where are you on means testing? >> i think that 97% of the people that are receiving there are working and bureaucratic obstacles that we get involved with trying to figure out how to get the tax benefit to poor kids would far outweigh any benefit that would come from it. what we know from other countries that have a child allowance like the child tax credit is that they have higher workforce participation rates than the united states of america. and that is not surprising. this a country where 50% of the people say they can't withstand a $400 incremental expense, the result of an economy that has worked really well for the top 10% of americans and not for anybody else. we've cut taxes in this country since 2001 by $8 trillion almost all the benefit of that has gone to the wealthiest people in the country at a time when we've got terrible income inequality and very low economic mobility. so i think that we should not be making life harder for poor people that are working trying to support their family, especially at a moment when you see consumer prices rising the way they are. the other issue that is important is that lot of people that receive this benefit are grandparents who are raising their children and a work requirement would be a nightmare for them. >> at this point do you think that it is a better strategy to still try to put together a bill that does a little bit of child care tax credit, a little bit of climate, a little bit of this, or do you now try to do this more piece meal? you may have to eventually use reconciliation to pass these measures, but start basically deal willing with them one at a time and get to your 50 votes? >> first of all, i want to say that it is not as much president biden is empty-handed in terms of what he has worked on. the american rescue plan which was supported by the democrats, not supported by the republicans, the reason why our schools are still in session and while we can support small businesses and hospitals and why we have three vaccines all over this country. that was a major accomplishment of this administration. and they also bypassed the bipartisan infrastructure bill which was generational. so first of all, he's done a lot and we've done a lot. second, i think that we have to figure out a way to make sure that we extend the tax credit, and i think that there is important work to cut the cost of senior prescriptions and to cap it at $2,000 to extend the obama care health credit so that we keep prices down in terms of health care. and then there is important climate things that we can do. there is no way that we shouldn't be able to get to an agreement here if everybody understands that no one has a monopoly on wisdom and the american people are looking for us to tuck seed. and i think that we can't wait until we get back, we have to begin these negotiations tonight when chuck schumer brings together the caucus. >> with omicron, it is a tough time to turn your back to it and work on the "build back better." >> i agree, the new variant is a difficult backdrop for all of us in america. and we'll have to pay a lot of attention to how it plays out. and the other thing, chuck, your point about reconciliation versus not reconciliation, this is another reason why we should be changing the rules in the senate. we are putting everything into both republicans and democrats into these reconciliation packages because we can't pass anything in the order course because the ways that the rules work and abuse of the rules which is relatively recent. that would be a great relief to the american people as well and to bring back legislative order as we're contending with the emergency of the new variant. i think that that would be very appropriate. >> and be pretty healthy for the country to see that there are folks on both sides that care about some of the issues that one side swears the other side doesn't care about. anyway, senator bennett, appreciate you giving me the time. >> thank you, chuck. have a great holiday. >> you too. up next, how does a president who spent decades in the senate end up with his hands tied by one senate. i'll talk to one of the leading progressive organizations next. progressive organizations next - oh...oh. - what's going on? 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nope! with tide pods, you don't need to worry. the pre-treaters are built in. tide pods dissolve even when the water is freezing. nice! if it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide. in the words of bill belichick, gone to cincinnati. here is kamala harris this morning. >> i don't have any personal feelings about this, this is about let's get the job done and talk with families who say i can't afford to do the basic things that i need to do as a responsible adult like care for my children, care for my older parents or afford to get life-saving medication like insulin. >> how do you do it without senator manchin is this. >> you don't give up. >> and joining me now who is familiar with strategizing from inside and outside. he was president biden's first political director and currently from the center of american progress. appreciate you spending time with us. >> thanks for having me on. but i'm pained that you opened it with bill belichick. as a new yorker, that hurts me. >> i gave up my hating on belichick and brady about two years ago. >> this is two minute offense time for democrats. >> let me ask you this. here we are with we've got -- look, you've been inside the white house where you have 20 fire hoses coming at you, not just one. you have multiple fire hoses coming at you. the reality of trying to negotiate -- get this bill back together in january and february while dealing with the pandemic, i know that you can walk and chew gum at the same time, but that is hard in washington. so how does the white house prioritize this? because at the end of the day, you can only go as far as joe manchin will take you. >> that's right. and it is incredibly difficult. but you remember i was part of a white house where the health care act was given up for dead six times before we finally passed it and it is not dissimilar. so i think that the way the white house prioritizes, the way progressives and moderns prioritize is by listening to joe manchin's words. i want to push back a little on what you said to senator bennett that senator manchin was clear on where he was. he wasn't. he wasn't clear on what he was for but just what he was against. he is very clear that he supports universal pre-k and the efforts to lower broad cross section of prescription drugs. he is clear that he is on board with proposals to tax billionaires and some corporations for social services and for some climate change elements. and he is specifically indicating interest in tax credits for electric vehicle purchase and for some child care tax credits. that is a place to start with joe manchin. if we have clarity there and consensus from both progressives and moderates on this from the white house and from the house and senate, there is space here to push hard and drive hard in this two minute offense between now and state of the union or even slightly beyond that if we have to go. >> and you also served as ambassador overseas, so you are somewhat familiar with other democracies and how they work. the democratic party, if america were to sort of organize the way other democracies are, there would probably be a four part city system and we'd be talking about this is a democratic coalition. progressives may be the biggest portion of the coalition, but not a majority. you are only as strong as what gave you your majority to govern. are progressives starting to get more comfortable with the fact that they have to be on joe manchin's page? >> you know what, i think that progressives have always been comfortable with the fact that they are part of a legislature that has to negotiate and compromise at the end of the day. we would not have gotten historic stimulus package done, bipartisan infrastructure bill done and moved on vaccination and the elements of the care economy in the democrats didn't recognize that. we're getting some portion of the care economy piece and climate change country based on joe manchin's clarity of where he stands now. the progressive caucus has compromised, has negotiated, but there are principles and some integrity that has to exist in all of this and trust matters here. so center man chen has an opportunity to be accountable to the power of his vote and build trust. >> do you think that it could backfire on manchin? there there are questions being asked in west virginia and newspaper. and i'm in a state that has life span six times longer than west virginia ians have. and there are provisions in this bill that virginians want on health care, on climate. they know that an average family of four in west virginia earning $40,000 will save $10,000 per year on drugs, access to health and child care based on this bill. and i think that the senator needs to be accountable to that and let's get out of this overstated thing about the white house mentioning his name in a letter. everyone in america knows that hangs on joe manchin. so let's get past the performative aspect and dig in to the substance. >> what would twitter be without the performative art of ridiculousrhetoric? anyway, thank you for taking the time. >> thank you so much. up next, as the secretary of state prepares to take reporters into the question, we're looking ahead to next year's challenges including increasing tenses with china, fears of russian invasion of ukraine, and by the way trying to see if we can prevent iran from making a nuclear weapon. firefighter maggie gronewald knows how to handle dry weather... ...and dry, cracked skin. new gold bond advanced healing ointment. restore healthy skin, with no sticky feeling. gold bond. champion your skin. the snapshot app from progressive rewards you for driving safe and driving less. okay, what message did you hear this time? safe drivers can save using snapshot? -what's snapshot? -what the commercial was about. -i tune commercials out. -me too. they're always like blah, blah blah. tell me about it. i'm going to a silent retreat next weekend. my niece got kicked out of one of those. -for talking? -grand larceny. how about we get back to the savings? 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to address russia and ukraine, china's a aggressions toord toward taiwan. and i'm joined by david ignatius. and if you look at the biden administration through the lens of foreign affairs, it has been a tough year. no other way to put it. >> yeah, it has been a painful year. it began with a theme that really seemed resonate, america's back. if we think back to president biden's trip to europe in june, his summit meeting with vladimir putin, that team dealing with its partners and allies effectively, seemed to carry some weight. and then came the traumatic departure from afghanistan. and you could feel the wind going out of the balloon of the biden administration foreign policy. and in a that claim that we'll manage our alliances, our foreign relations with a new competence and clarity. so since the summer, it has been rougher going. the russians are amassed at the border of uhe kraen. and we'll talk about that i'm sure. but we have to remember that this started off with some pretty good ideas and some movement forward that was an abruptly stopped. >> on what is the toughest thing for the administration to get back here when it comes -- feels as if getting that euphoria back of the pre-afghanistan moment you described, if we don't have a united nato and united european allies, much tougher to confront russia. >> the theme of the administration remain what is it was when they started. partners an allies, we're back, we'll work with our friends. and in terms of how the response to the russians on the ukraine border has been handled, it has been through nato, through extensive multilateral consultations. last week did not get a lot of attention. nato agreed to move troops forward toward russia if russia crosses the border and invades ukraine. a significant move that said to putin, if you do this, you will have the opposite of what you want in terms of security. that was coordinated carefully by the administration, part of i think a sensible multilateral partners and allies approach. the same thing has been happening in the asia pacific region. have to give them a lot of credit. the aukus deal infuriated france, but it is very effective in ensuring the chinese that there will be limits on their power. so the themes have been constant, the application has varied from place to place. the big test is coming up in ukraine. >> and i was going to ask you, it is very hard to read putin you would assume he doesn't want the burden to have to follow through on what would be -- this is not going to be an easy war for him. it seems as if he doesn't want to do that. but is he crying disguise too much here? >> i wrote this week that the biden administration has formed an inner agency task force, a code for the cia and other intelligence agencies to plan for the possibility of supporting an insurgence i inside ukraine if russia rolls across the border and seizes a lot of ukranian territory. in other words, we'll do to the russians in this case what we did in afghanistan during their ten year war that ended up shattering the soviet union. so there is a lot of planning forward. the administration clearly wants a diplomatic way out and is trying to say to putin every way it can the costs of doing there are way more damaging than you're calculating. economic, insurgency, body bags coming back to moscow. >> let me ask you this, last week the russians and the chinese had their own sort of summit i guess of response to the democracy summit. how concerned are you that that alliance with china is more than just an alliance of convenience that, you know, if we're going to help ukraine with an insurgency, should we be worried that the chinese will support the russians in more than just rhetoric? >> the chinese are an increasingly potent military competitor with weapons that far outdistance what the russians are planning especially in space. the worry i had was these seeming equivalence that ukraine is to russia as taiwan is to china. and that their alliance is to bind those fundamental objectives. and that would be dangerous and difficult for the u.s. if the two countries got together to say these are our red lines, we're prepared to enforce them with military force, deal with it on two fronts. >> yes, it would. david ignatius, deeply reported on parts of this. appreciate you sharing your perspective. up next, what would it take to get effective federal voting reform passed and what would that bill look like? ill look li? strong soothing vapors... help comfort your loved ones. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. the more we do with our phones, the more network quality matters. only verizon has been the most awarded for network quality. that means the best experience with calls, texts, and data usage of any major carrier, according to customers. as i observe investors balance risk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. your 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how we've done it. rooted in science, based on need, with international institutions and with no political strings attached. we've done all this because, as we see happening right now with the rise of the omicron variant, none of us will be safe until all of us are safe. we still have a long way to go to beat the pandemic, but let's not lose sight of the fact that we've come very far. the world, the united states this past year with american leadership in building a foundation for a more effective covid global response and saving lives. we'll keep working for the goal that president biden set in september at the global summit where he convened vaccination in 70% of the world by next fall. we'll keep leading the push to global security to interstate respond to future pandemics. we said we would restore american leadership in the climate crisis. well, on day one, we rejoined the paris agreement. we raised global ambitions to reduce submissions through major investments and climate finance, including quadrupling our own funding. countries that account for 50% of the global gdp, we want to lessen emissions to 30%. more than 100 countries have joined both of those pledges. we've secured countries to move away from fossil fuel is. thanks to american leadership, the log jambs at our ports of physical goods are easing. we brought a global tax to end the global tax raise and investing billions of dollars to invest here at home. we're shaping the governance of new technology so that they serve democracies, instead of undermining them. and, as with everything else, we're doing it with our allies and partners, including through the u.s. trade and technology council which we launched this year. president biden pledged to end america's longest war. this summer we made good on that promise, bringing resolute support to a close and leading a coalition to evacuate more than 120,000 people from afghanistan. we knew this would be challenging. it was. and there are lessons from the evacuation and relocation that we're learning for the future. but this is also the first time in 20 years no u.s. troops are spending the holidays in afghanistan, and we're not sending a third generation of american soldiers to fight and die there. the last time i was in this briefing room, i faced some appropriate questions about our ability to continue to facilitate the departure of american citizens and others to whom we have a special commitment. in the months since, we've made good on that promise, including our pledge to help any u.s. citizen who wants to leave. since september 1, we've helped nearly 500 americans depart afghanistan. that's virtually every blue passport holder who remained in afghanistan after august 31st who had said they wanted to depart and was ready to do so. and we'll keep at it. we'll also keep working at addressing the deterioration in afghanistan through our aid, largely with the assistance of the people of afghanistan as well as through our diplomacy. finally, we invested in the state department to make it an even stronger, more effective, more agile, more diverse institution that can deliver for the american people in what is an increasingly complex and competitive world. we're building our capacity to lead in areas of diplomacy that will matter more and more to our people in the years ahead, like global health, like climate, like technology, like economics. as we do, we'll never take our eye off the ball when it comes to strategic competition, upholding our democratic values and human rights, working for peace. we lost the sweeping modernization intent, including the policy bureau and an engine critical for technology, to make sure the digital revolution serves our people, boosts our competitiveness and upholds our values. new resources to enable the largest hiring increase in a decade and an increase in our i.t. budget. foreign services dedicated to climate services and new initiatives to win the competition for talent and advanced diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility. this year we also appointed the state department's first chief diversity inclusion officer, because our diplomatic war should reflect our nation's full diversity, talent and experience. and across everything we do, our number one priority is the safety and well-being of our people. later today i'll visit the executive medical center at johns hopkins where some of our colleagues who have suffered from anomalous health incidents are getting treatment. our entire government wants to get to the bottom of what and who is causing these incidents and caring for those ailments affecting our people. critical in foreign policy are the investments we're making in ourselves here at home, in education, infrastructure, research and development and health. domestic renewal fuels our competitiveness and it elevates america's standing in the world. put it all together and there is no question that we're stronger now than we were 11 months ago. we're stronger in the world, we're stronger at home, we're on stronger footing when it comes to covid, climate and other urgent challenges. and we're in a stronger geopolitical system to deal with china and russia as they seek to undermine the system we've built and led, a system that has made the world freer, more prosperous, more connected that has led our country to thrive. in standing up for the rule of law in democratic values and human rights, a level playing field that gives everyone a fair chance to compete and succeed. and we'll continue to drive that positive issue with our allies and partners right alongside us. just about all the work that i've named here today will continue in 2022. ending this pandemic and strengthening global health security, making sure the standards, hardware and policies for new technology secure our competitive edge and improve the lives and livelihoods of our people while keeping them safe and our democracy strong. defending the rules-based order against those who would tear it down. building a state department ready to lead our 21st century challenges. we're much better positioned to make strong progress on those challenges than we were when we began because we're building on the foundation we lay that's here. i'm proud and grateful to all the diplomats and development experts who work so hard to make that happen and who represent the very best that our country has to offer. this year we said goodbye to two giants of american diplomacy -- >> well, that does it for us this hour. we'll be back with more "meet the press daily" tomorrow as we await president biden's remarks as well. you'll see coverage of both of these key events today. we continue with katy tur right now. >> good to be with you. i'm katy tur. the president will address the nation this hour to quell our collective dread that this is march 2020 all over again. we are in a much better place, he is expected to say. even though omicron is here and even though it is spreading fast. in fact, if it hasn't reached you yet, health experts say just wait. take new york city where 80% of adults are fully vaccinated, and still, in one week alone, nearly one in every 100 manhattan residents contracted covid. one in 100 in just one week. and those are just the cases that we know about. already the cdc is confirming omicron is now the dominant strain. 73% of all new cases. it accomplished in weeks what it took delta months to do. if you're lucky enough to dodge covid so far, if you're going to enact