>> former president trump announced he has gotten his booster shot. maybe one of the few things he and i agree on. "all in" starts right now. ♪♪ good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the only reason that anyone knows kyle rittenhouse's name is because he shot three people and killed two of them. last month rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges after his lawyers argued that he acted in self-defense when he shot those people. i think most reasonable people, even those who believe it was the correct legal finding in that case, understand the key facts of what kyle rittenhouse did in kenosha, wisconsin, last august, what brought him to that moment. he was a minor, 17 years old at the time of the shooting. he took an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to another city that he didn't live in and inserted himself in the midst of protests and chaos, and he then took the lives of two people including robbing a young child of her father. his actions are not worthy of celebration independent of that verdict. yet kyle rittenhouse is being turned into a right-wing hero. you should see the moment that tucker carlson was lucky enough to meet him. >> oh, kyle rittenhouse! >> tucker. >> it is so nice to meet you. >> really good to meet you. >> i can't believe you're here. >> see every show. >> we're fans of yours, as you know. >> yeah. >> you will have to excuse tucker. he gets giddy in the presence of his heroes. we're big fans of you, as you know. think about that sentence. what does that mean? there's literally nothing to be a fan of. kyle rittenhouse is a child who shot and killed two people and wounded a third. that's his body of work. that's it. you're a fan of that. it is not just fox news. i want to show you what that looked like at the right-wing america fest 2021 taking place over the past four days in phoenix, arizona. kyle rittenhouse received the rock star treatment there, complete with pyrotechnics and a theme song. >> ladies and gentlemen, please let's get loud for kyle rittenhouse. ♪♪ >> this event, hosted by the conservative group turning point usa, is the kind of place woo are seeing a certain grim aspect of right-wing politics getting increasingly more pronounced. it is a sort of celebration and modelling of fundamentally abberent behavior like being a jerk. that's the donald trump, maga, what turned marjorie taylor greene and lauren boebert into stars. this thing seems to be the thing on the right that makes you most adored. it is the fascinating thing to watch at some level. that's the recipe, the secret sauce of this current version of right-wing politics. it is not just rhetorical. this is key. it is not just rhetorical. it is not just saying stuff that makes people upset. as you saw with the welcome for kyle rittenhouse, i mean he is known for one thing. they are literally celebrating killing people. now, all of this comes in a larger context and that's the broad fetishization of guns and violence on the right. a recent poll from the public religion research institute found 30% of republicans agreed with this statement. because things have gotten so far off track, true american patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country. we know there are more and more guns in america and they are held in fewer and fewer hands. we have more guns than people. about 121 firearms in circulation for every 1200 residents, making the u.s. by far the most heavily armed society in the world. most of those guns are owned by republicans. 50% of republicans personally own a begin and 61% live in a household with a gun, compared to 21% and 30% of democrats. now, the right celebrates this. this has become a sort of core identity aspect. they celebrate it this week at turning point usa's so-called america fest with kyle rittenhouse at the center of it all. i have to say, watching that tape of him walking out and the big cheering is one of the most ominous, despicable developments in our politics in recent memory, which is really saying something because, boy, we have been full of them. now, at turning point usa events are also the kinds of places where you get questions about when to start killing people. this happened at an event at boise state university in eyed owe hoe in october. >> at this point we're living under corporate and medical fascism. this is tyranny. when do we get to use the guns? no, i'm not -- that's not a joke. i'm not saying it like that. i mean literally where is the line? how many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people. >> some, no. no, hold on. no, stop. hold on. now i'm going to denounce that and i'm going to tell you why, because you are playing into all of their plans and they are trying to make you do this. >> when that guy says, i'm not joking, take this seriously, you should take it seriously. he wasn't joking. the person responded to that question was the founder of turning point usa, charlie kirk, who did knock down that suggestion, which is a low bar but, you know, give him credit for crossing it. the celebratory message around violence coming from the right wing, coming from charlie kirk's group saying, here is kyle rittenhouse, guys, is very clear. sometimes that message is implicit, sometimes it is explicit and sometimes it is a rhetorical flourish sort of laying out there. saw another version of it from jesse waters. again, he is one of those people that the only reason anyone knows his name is because when he was a younger fox news personality staffer, he was the one willing to acts like a bit of a sociopath, hounding people in the street, sticking a microphone in their face and ambushing them. sometimes he would do it to famous people, which that's fair, fine. a lot of times they weren't famous people, just being bullied by him. that was his path to right-wing fame. yesterday at america fest jesse waters had some instructions for those who want to follow in his footsteps. he described a way to ambush, interview dr. fauci to catch him in a lie about the origins of the coronavirus, and just like everything else about this it is laced with violent rhetoric. >> now you go in for the kill shot. the kill shot, whew, with an ambush, deadly because he doesn't see it coming. this is when you say, dr. fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy chinese lab, the same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. you know why people don't trust you, don't you? boom, he is dead. he is dead. he's done. >> he's dead, that's the kill shot, the question about the chinese lab that spread covid which, by the way, that is extremely, extremely undetermined at this moment, but you knew that. of course, again, in the immediate context on that sort of vegas-style stage where you are sort of basking in the adoration of a lot of young people who want to grow up to be a sociopath like you, that language is metaphorical. but dr. fauci has had to have security as a result of language and threats like this. of course, these words come in the broader context of everything being said and done on the right and they were spoken at this america fest event where they are celebrating kyle rittenhouse's literal kill shot against two people. it is hard to see and hear all of that and not hear something that sounds a lot like, you're next, lib. the right's celebration of violence, their fetishization of guns, which there's a lot to say about where that is coming from, but the fetishization of guns and the celebration of violence is one of the most ominous developments in american politics, and sometimes -- it has been happening for a long time but they're putting it now on full display. joe lawnie cobb is a staffer at "the new yorker," professor at the columbus school of journalist. linda chavez joined as the highest ranking woman in the reagan administration. they join me now. linda, i want to start with you because i noticed something in interactions with people on social media about kyle rittenhouse that it is a little bit of a wedge among conservatives, similar in to ways to the vaccines. a lot of conservatives are like, i'm a trump person, i hate liberals, i hate fauci but i got the vaccine. then some people are like, no, it is a secret plot by george soros. there are a lot of conservatives who are obviously we should not be celebrating what this person did, just common sense, and i just am astounded. i mean i know that exists, but i am astounded that that is not the obvious consensus view of people on the american right. >> i agree with you, and, by the way, if this kyle rittenhouse, the tucker carlson/charlie kirk kyle rittenhouse had been the young man who had testified on the stand in his own behalf, i don't think he would have been acquitted the way he was. i think he was acquitted -- yes, i think he did have the law on his side whether you agree with the way the law is written or not, i do think he had the law on his side. but he also was a sympathetic figure. he seemed to be genuinely sorry over what he had done. and soon after he seemed to think, you know, that he shouldn't have been there, he shouldn't have been having an ar-15 or whatever other semi-automatic weapon he had on the streets. but now, you know, he has become a cult hero and my guess is, you know, we're going to see more of this. i think it is a real tragedy. it is a tragedy for rittenhouse as well as for the conservative movement. >> jolani, you have written a lot about gun culture and the role of the gun and the fetishization of the gun as an instrument of politics. what do you see when you see this rock star introduction? >> well, i mean there are two things, chris. you know, the first is -- i want to be consistent. you know, i have written a lot about juvenile justice and the way that our system treats young people who have not psychologically developed into adulthood and cognitively developed into adulthood. in order to be consistent with that, the thing i have to say, i'm horrified there is this fetishization of guns and this valorization of killing people under the circumstances under which they were killed. but the other thing that strikes me is this is profoundly unhealthy for a young person. >> yes. >> i mean we just know about the psychic toll and the emotional toll that celebrity takes on young people. it is a well-known story of the child star who is very poorly adjusted as an adult. compound that with being a celebrity for killing two people and shooting a third. i just think that this is wrong. i think it is immoral and unethical in ways that go across partisan lines. about the firearm part of it specifically though, this is about him realizing an objective, which has been fairly well-stated on the right for a long time. there's a great book on this, you know, "gunfighter nation" talking about the psychology of the firearm and how it relates in american history, but just as a quick point of it, a decade ago this was george zimmerman and he received a similar kind of treatment. so this is what goes to the core of the values of people on the right, the increasingly reactionary and violent right. >> yeah, i'm glad you said what you said, too, jelani, in that first part because i feel the exact same way. in fact, when he was acquitted i tweeted something about how i hope he takes the opportunity to recognize what he did was awful and atone for it and change his life and do something that makes the world a better place. i think people, you know, were angry at that because they felt a lot of rage at the unjustice they felt of the verdict. but like that core point again, to put the politics aside again, this is a sick, sick spectacle. this is a very sick spectacle. >> it is. >> where a lot of people who should know better who don't -- i mean watching tucker carlson, linda chavez, like quiver and squeal in delight, you know, you are a grown man. like grow up. grow up. >> right. >> you are a man and you're groveling at the foot of this kid because of the people he killed. >> yeah, no -- >> what is wrong with him? >> it is really scary. there is this very strange idea of masculinity that seems to prevail on the right, and tucker carlson i think exemplifies it. it is really -- it really is unfortunate. i think just as a matter of public policy. i mean ronald reagan, who was a real man, was someone who had sensible views on gun control. he was opposed to the open carry law in california, for example. he did not want -- there was a law that was passed actually by the state legislature which he signed which made the deal legal to open carry in the state of california, and he came out for other sensible laws. the nra itself used to be all about gun safety. not anymore. >> well, i should note i think reagan signed that after the black panthers started open carrying on the capital steps, which i think points, jelani, to the sub text of all of this, right? which is like you hear it all the time, all of this stuff, when do we get to use the guns. it is the narrative here has moved from, we like these, this is my way of life, i learned to hunt and fish with my dad, and that's still there, but we have to turn these against our fellow citizens when the time comes. >> sure. >> that's increasingly explicit, not just implied. >> i mean it is charles bronson. we go back to the 1970s, it is bernard goetz if we are familiar with the incident in the 1980s. there's a long lineage of this. the other thing i think is increasingly important is that the rhetoric has changed from simply being about self-defense to a kind of preemptive self-defense. quickly, if you think about what ties rittenhouse, zimmerman with the trayvon martin case, and the death of ahmaud arbery together is that all three of these incidents involved people who were going out to protect property that was not theirs. >> yes. >> so this is fundamentally about the idea that you can construe self-defense to mean anything. >> yes. >> you can proactively pursue people and still say you were defending yourself. >> jelani cobb and linda chavez, thank you both for sharing your perspectives. i really, really appreciate it. you remember that bizarre video that surfaced from police body cam, we played it on the show, and it showed one of the weirdest stories of the past few years. a publicist for kanye west attempting to strong arm a georgia election worker into falsely claiming election fraud so donald trump could steal the election. it now appears that incident what was it looked like. we just learned why that publicist showed up in georgia from the trump campaign guy that sent her there. that story next. t. i have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. so i'm taking zeposia, a once-daily pill. because i won't let uc stop me from being me. zeposia can help people with uc achieve and maintain remission. and it's the first and only s1p receptor modulator approved for uc. don't take zeposia if you've had a heart attack, chest pain, stroke or mini-stroke, heart failure in the last 6 months, irregular or abnormal heartbeat not corrected by a pacemaker, if you have untreated severe breathing problems during your sleep, or if you take medicines called maois. zeposia may cause serious side effects including infections that can be life-threatening and cause death, slow heart rate, liver or breathing problems, increased blood pressure, macular edema, and swelling and narrowing of the brain's blood vessels. though unlikely, a risk of pml--a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection--cannot be ruled out. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions, medications, or if you are or plan to become pregnant. if you can become pregnant, use birth control during treatment and for 3 months after you stop taking zeposia. don't let uc stop you from doing you. ask your doctor about once-daily zeposia. frequent heartburn? 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>> harrison ford is about -- with authoritative powers to get you protection. >> okay. so i come to these people, all of this cloak-and-dagger talk, harrison ford, he's going to get you protected. before we go on we should note reuters identified harrison ford, his name is actually harrison floyd. his phone conversation with ruby freeman was not caught on camera, but they told her if you don't tell everything you are going to jail. you will get locked up unless you confess to your sins. what is happening is bizarre. we kind of knew it at the time but now we know it for sure. they are trying to bully ruby freeman to admit she rigged the election because then that would give donald trump and his allies something concrete to use to challenge the results because they've been striking out all over the place. floyd is not a black progressive like he was claimed to be. he is a right-wing operative head of an operation called black voices for trump. he once got a shout-out from trump during an atlanta rally. >> we are delighted to be joined by harrison floyd of our black voices coalition. >> harrison, thank you very much. i appreciate it. great job you are doing. >> now, journalist hunter walker spoke to floyd who denied being involved with trump at the time of the incident. the way he tells it, he was offering a helping hand. i started getting phone calls saying ruby freeman wanted immunity and to talk to the president. floyd just wanted to help poor ruby freeman when he reportedly told her she was going to jail if she did not admit to crimes she did not admit. the piece is called "former trump campaign aide admits involvement in incident involving kanye west publicist in georgia and election worker." hunter joins me now. it has been truly one of the most bizarre stories i have ever seen. so who is harrison floyd and what is his connection to trump world? >> well, i think it is important for your readers -- sorry, your viewers to understand that black voices for trump is part of the trump campaign. he was the executive director of this coalition which was basically the centerpiece of the trump campaign's effort to wu black voters. this links it directly to the trump campaign. in my conversation for harrison floyd, who ran for congress briefly in 2019, he insisted he was not employed by the trump campaign after november 15th of 2020. at the same time he didn't exactly deny being in touch with the campaign, although he said to me repeatedly that any conversation he had with them was in a, quote, unquote, personal capacity. so he is someone connected to the trump campaign and he also was the man on the phone in this police station meeting with kudy and ruby freeman. >> let's hammer on this because i don't want it to be lost. he is a trump campaign aide. trump campaign aide teamed up with kanye west's publicist to pressure a random georgia election worker and intimidate a georgia election worker to intimidate to confessing to crimes she did not commit so donald trump would have a predicate to overturn the election. that is the story? >> right. and prior to this there were already questions due to the number of republican operatives on kanye's staff about whether his whole, as you said, half-baked campaign was an effort to help trump take away votes from biden. people i have talked to about that wondered, you know, was it a grift or was it dirty tricks because kanye sort of threw $12 million around so people might have had motivation to join him besides helping trump, but it is also a connection between the trump campaign and the kanye west campaign. but i think as you alluded to, one of the most interesting things here is that it took place on january 4th, two days before president trump stood on the elipse and told people to march to the capitol. as we talked about last week, chris, at this time, this whole loose confederation of trump allies were sort of looking for evidence of voter fraud from the january 6th organizers to talked to both of us, they were hoping to present it on that stage and, coincidentally, treveon kudy was in the room saying to ruby freeman, i need to move you within 48 hours and you need to make the confession within 48 hours. >> she keeps saying 48 hours like the clock is ticking and the strong sense you get is this is the last shot because everything else has not worked, every claim has been laughed out of work, the lawyers have been sanctioned at this point -- that not sanctioned yet. the audits have come back with nothing. there's no in. here it is, the last shot, get this woman to confess that she and her daughter, i think, you know, the two of them stuffed thousands of ballots and that will be the thing that brings down the whole house of cards, and here is the pressure. it is a team effort between a kanye publicist and a former trump campaign aide who, by the way, ran for congress with this ad to give people a little bit of what this individual's vibes are. take a listen to his ad. >> i'm running for congress because my family and i didn't fight for our freedoms to allow our country to fall to socialism. i'll fight socialists in congress the same way i fought terrorists in the desert, so help me god. >> which, you know, i'll kill them is the point there. he didn't win his congressional race. hunter walker, fantastic reporting. thank you for joining us tonight. >> thanks, chris. all right. coming up, possible criminal referral for donald trump and a stonewall from a sitting member of congress. the latest developments in the january 6th investigation with committee member adam schiff. that's next. finding the right e tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org. (soft music) hey dad, i'm about to leave. don't forget your hat . good morning. how can i help? i need help connecting with my students. behind every last minute save, ok, that works. and holiday surprise, thank you! a customer service rep is working unseen, making it happen. and at genesys, we're proud to help them help you everyday. ♪♪ the january 6th committee is taking the first steps in trying to talk to lawmakers who may ohr or may not have relevant information. the first person on the list is a republican member of congress. yesterday a let requesting pennsylvania scott perry's cooperation. the chair writes, then-president trump considered appointing jeffrey clark as acting attorney general, as mr. clark pressed his department of justice superiors to use agency authorities to challenge election results. we have received evidence from multiple witnesses that you had an important role in the efforts to install mr. clark as acting attorney general. perry responded this morning saying, quote, i decline this entity's request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical left." tonight the committee is indicating a firm response to perry's resistance. we will talk about it in a moment with adam schiff. it is a sign of how serious it is getting. as "the new york times" reported last night the committee is considering recommending that donald trump himself face criminal charges. adam schiff of california is a member of the house select committee. he also is the lead impeachment manager in donald trump's first impeachment and he joins me now. congressman, first let's talk about congressman scott perry. obviously this is interesting, and i feel like almost uncharted waters. i'm trying to wrack my brain for a similar situation in which you had to sort of special impanelled committee who have witnesses who are themselves a member of congress and how to treat that. what is your response to him saying he simply won't cooperate? >> well, there's, you know, precedence certainly for calling members of congress before an investigatory. in the russia investigation we asked a democrat and a republican lawmaker to come in and both agreed to voluntarily. it is extraordinary for a congressman to refuse and you have to ask why is he trying to obstruct the work of the committee, why isn't he willing to volunteer what he knows. he evidently had some role in trying to install jeffrey clark at the top of the justice department, when reportedly there are efforts to use the justice department to get georgia and other states to not send electors or send an alternate slate of electors. he reportedly was also involved in, you know, these conspiracy theories about dominion voting systems and had communications with the white house chief of staff including unencrypted apps. why is he unwilling to talk to congress about that? if it is above board, why he is unwilling to talk to congress? >> we should say there's quite a bit of public reporting that he was a key sort of intermediary with sort of getting jeffrey clark, who, of course, was at the department of justice and sort of plotted directly with the president to overthrow the acting attorney general at the time and to send out these letters saying, oh, we found fraud in your state, you can just have another election or send your electors. we know that perry was involved in some way with clark, right? that's pretty established. >> you know, on the basis of testimony that we've received, we have good faith reason to believe that, yes, he was involved in efforts to install jeffrey clark at the top of the justice department. why were they trying to effectively decapitate the leadership of that department and install clark and, you know, i think there's good reason to believe it is because clark was willing to try to get georgia to withhold its electors or send an alternate slate and was developing plans to do that with other states. so, look, he has a lot that he could share with the congress and the country and legally he's at this point, you know, been asked to volunteer, but if he refuses we'll have to consider what comes next. >> we should note in that letter that chair thompson sent, he said when mr. clark decided to invoke his fifth amendment rights he understood we planned to pose questions addressing his interactions with you, among a host of other topics. he has not declined a subpoena at this point. this was simply an invitation to cooperate, given he's a member of congress there would be an expectation that, of course, a member of congress would. what happens next? >> we will discuss as a committee whether the next step is to issue a subpoena and to compel him to appear. we've had to take that step with other witnesses and with others it has been successful. now still others have sought to resist. but i would hope none of this would be necessary and yet congressman perry seems intent on refusing to volunteer what he knows. again, we have to ask why. if the congress doing an investigation of a violent attack on the capitol believes he has important information, and clearly he does, why is he refusing to volunteer to cooperate. >> i want to read to you from a "new york times" article that came out last night just before we went to air. i had michael schmidt on the program to discuss it. it reads as follows. according to people briefed on their efforts, investigators for the committee -- that's the committee you sit on -- are looking into whether a range of crimes were committed including two in particular, whether there was wire fraud by republicans who raised millions of dollars off assertions the election was stolen despite knowing the claims were not true, and whether mr. trump and his allies obstructed congress by trying to stop the certification of electoral votes. can you confirm that reporting that you are looking at that? >> i can say certainly our primary purpose as a legislative one is that we want to establish all of the facts, expose them to the light of day, and take legislative action to protect the country going forward. certainly if we discover evidence of criminal activity we will consider referring it to the justice department, if they're not already investigating it. we have made referrals in the past. most of the referrals we made, frankly, are people who come before congress we believe have lied to us like roger stone, like mike flynn and others -- well, not mike flynn in terms of congress, but like roger stone. and so we've made those kind of referrals in the past, but if we discover other criminal activity we will discuss referring that as well. >> all right. congressman adam schiff who sits on that committee. thank you very much. >> thank you. up next, the head of the cdc is here to talk about the new covid variant and the administration's plan to tackle it. that's next. . >> i know you are tired. i really mean this. and i know you are frustrated. we all want this to be over, but we're still in it. we're still in it. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone. more than 200 million americans have been fully vaccinated. in march 2020 no one was fully vaccinated. what that means is today as cases -- a case of covid-19 for fully vaccinated and boosted person almost likely will mean no symptoms or mild ones similar to the common respiratory viruses. over 200 million americans should have the peace of mind that they did not have in march of 2020. >> today president joe biden aaddressed the nation on the omicron coronavirus variant as the administration faces a unique challenge at this point in the pandemic. they want people to get the booster shot because the data show that your vaccine immunity does decline over time. so if your shots were six months or longer ago, a booster shot helps restore it. that can help a lot against omicron based on some of the data we're seeing. at the same time the white house does not want to down play the importance of vaccination itself, because the one consistent takeaway we have is that the vaccine, the normal vaccine course does not just reduce transmission, it also is our greatest protection right now against serious illness and death from the virus. in this week that is more important than ever because omicron is causing outbreaks even in highly, highly vaccinated places. one example is denmark. that is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. 81% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated. 36% is boosted. to give you some context how high that number is, here about 66% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated and 30% vaccinated. so it is a very, very vaccinated place. in denmark they're in the worst wave of the virus case wise they've ever seen since this whole thing started, averaging over 9,000 new cases a day, in a population of about 5.8 million, equal to the state of wisconsin. omicron is incredibly transmissible. but here is the hope. if we turn our attention from denmark to the uk, in the uk, which has 70% of the total population fully vaccinated, we can see a model of what we're hoping could happen here in the u.s. and we are looking at danish hospital data to see if it is happening there. in the summer the uk had a big spike in new cases that trickled into the fall, caused by the delta variant. you will see the number of covid-related deaths stays pretty flat. see the blue on the right there? it does not spike up the way the cases do in red on the left of your screen. the red is cases, they're going crazy. what you see is that the deaths don't spike with the cases. so that's the hope. the wedge between people getting this infectious disease and not getting super sick, that's what the vaccines should do. it is what we know they do do, and we are hoping right now in places like new york city where omicron is exploding, preventing the worst outcomes. hospitalizations because hospitals have been really pummelled throughout the pandemic and, of course, worse, death. that is still the way out of the worst of this pandemic, and it is the one thing that vaccines do really well. that said, it is not the only tool we have. there are other tools we need to fight this outbreak or who knows if there's another variant after this one. today the white house announced they are sending at-home testing kits for free to american households. that's a welcomed announcement. i will ask cdc director, dr. rochelle wilensky, about that announcement next. your plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. vazalore... is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. try new vazalore. aspirin made amazing! . no one can deliver your mom's homemade short ribs. that's why instacart helps deliver the ingredients. and you add the love. mr. president, what's your message to americans who are trying to get tested now and who are not able to get tested and who are wondering what took so long to ramp up testing? >> come on, what took so long? >> i'm hearing that from people trying to get tested before the holidays. >> well, what took so long is it didn't take long at all. what happened was the omicron virus spread more rapidly than anybody thought. if i told you four weeks ago that this was on a day-to-day basis spread by 50%, 500%, you would have said, biden, what are you drinking? >> trying to head off criticism on the covid testing front, president biden today announced the government will start mailing 500 million at-home test kits to american homes for free. joining me now for more on the administration's efforts against the omicron variant, the director of the centers for disease control and prevention, dr. rochelle walensky. i follow this closely. i'm not an epidemiologist, but it's been my job for the last 19 months to follow this. we did know omicron was going to spread quickly. i think the pace surprised some people, but four or five weeks ago when we started looking at what the lab isolation of the nature of the mutation, the earliest data we were getting in south africa, it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone that we have this massive outbreak right now, right? >> yeah, good evening, chris. good to be back with you. so let me just step back and sort of say where we are right now because i know people -- things are moving quickly. we have about 73% of our cases now of covid are the omicron variant. that was projected by the cdc and released in the last 24 hours. and what we have seen as we've watched this virus, this variant in other countries is exactly nearing what we are seeing here. the doubling time for this virus has been around 1.5 to 3 days. when you have a virus with doubling times at that rate, it can increase very rapidly, and that's exactly what we've seen here. we were anticipating this and preparing for this, and this was the motivation for the president's announcement today to really help with surge support in the hospital setting, to increase access to testing, and then, of course, to increase access to vaccination. and that's all of the package of what we're doing just in this moment. but i do want to remind everyone that we are in a very different place today than we were just a year ago because now we have the science and we have the tools that we know we need to combat this, and that, of course, includes getting vaccinated, getting boosted, and practicing those prevention measures regardless of whether you're vaccinated or boosted, wearing a mask in public indoor settings. >> yeah, but one of the problems, i think, that folks have had is access to high-quality n95 masks and access to testing for, you know, group gatherings, holiday dinners, and stuff like that. it does feel like the capacity -- and again, i know the doubling time is nuts. i watched it myself. i've never seen anything like it. i've never seen an infectious disease do this, but the capacity that we have -- and new york city is a place with a strong public health infrastructure for testing, has not kept up with the spikes in cases. and the worry is that, you know, when it comes to places that have less of a public health infrastructure than new york city, that that's going to be a real problem. >> yeah. so the government right now is doing a lot, and we know we have more work to do. look, there's a huge demand for tests in this moment, not just in new york, not just in this country, but truly around the world. so we have invested now the government and did the president announced an investment of $3 billion in rapid at-home tests. we have today 20,000 sites where you can get a pcr test for free. there are going to be new federal sites for pcr tests that are going to be in places that have high demand just at this moment, and those are happening right now, especially in new york city. so there's a lot of work going on right now as this demand is increasing. >> i want to ask another policy question here about travel bans. scientists in south africa first identified this variant. the world in some ways is in their debt because they're the first ones to figure this out, to notify the world and ridging the alarm bells. we still have in relation to that a travel ban on south africa. former fda commissioner scott gottlieb echoing criticisms i heard from many others that the ban didn't work, didn't even buy us time, but it reordered geopolitical cooperation when it comes to public health. shouldn't we get rid of the travel ban to south africa given the levels of community transmission here now? >> yeah, i think many important points you just made that i want to reiterate. one is how indebted we are to our south african colleagues and scientists and how helpful they have been as we've learned more and more about this omicron variant. at the time that the travel ban was put on out of an abundance of caution, the goal, really, was to diminish the spread that we were going to have here and to buy us some time. and that is exactly what we did. we put the travel ban on in the place that had the most disease with omicron at the time. we are obviously revisit that go decision right now and, you know, we all anticipate that this will be temporary. >> final question for you. i think people are trying to figure out right now, what are we in right now? as a policy-maker, how do you define and how does the administration define success over these necks six weeks as this variant inevitably spreads across the country? >> right. we have a lot of disease out there now, and what we're working right now to do is to decrease the amount of severe disease and death that is associated with this current surge. how do we do that? we have 40 million americans who are not yet vaccinated with their first dose. we want to get them their first and second tos and ultimately we want to get them their booster dose. we want to get our most vulnerable populations and truly the entire eligible population with their booster dose because we know that especially against this omicron variant we need extra levels of vaccine protection in order to remain safe from severe disease and death. and so we're working to support more vaccinations and more booster doses and really to make sure we can maintain our hospitals so that they're not overwhelmed and that we can maintain regular hospital services. so that in my mind, if we can decrease the amount of cases, get more and more people vaccinated and boosted and decrease the surge on our hospitals with low rates ultimately of disease, i think we would come out of this surge successfully. >> dr. walensky, direct of cdc, thank you for mig time with us tonight. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me, chris. before we go tonight, have you heard of nfts? people are making millions of dollars on pieces of unique digital code called non-fungible tokens. i think if you listen about it casually, seems like it must be a scam, right? but is it? that's what i wanted to find out from kevin rus on my podcast. what he told me was fascinating and clarifying and i feel like i have my arms around this now. you can listen to you are conversation on "why is this happening". "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. but it's a scam, right? i mean, just between us, you don't have to say, i mean, bottom line, like, at the very end of it, it's a ponzi scam, right? >> there's