the committee is asking the supreme court to make a quick decision on an appeal to the supreme court filed by donald trump today seeking to overturn a unanimous opinion that denied donald trump's attempt to prevent the national archives from handing over dominates from the trump white house to the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol. the first decision the supreme court has to make and possibly the only decision is whether to hear the case at all. most appeals filed with the united states supreme court are rejected without a word of explanation. from the court. the supreme court only hears appeals cases in which at least four justices decide that the case is worthy of a hearing in the supreme court. the committee is asking the supreme court to reject the trump request for a hearing and is asking the supreme court to act as quickly as the lower courts in this case have already acted. in a filing with the supreme court today, the committee asked the supreme court to make a decision rejecting the trump petition for an appeal at the supreme court's closed-door conference meeting on january 14th. the committee told the supreme court, quote, the select committee is investigating a deadly assault on the united states capitol, the speaker of the house, the vice president, and both chambers of congress, and a dangerous interruption of congress's constitutional duty and the peaceful transfer of power. delay would inflict a serious injury on the select committee and the public by interfering with this mandate. today "the new york times" published a guest essay coauthored by lawrence tribe with the title "will donald trump get away with inciting on insurrection?" the professor writes, quote, in his nine months in office, attorney general merrick garland has done a great deal to restore integrity to an agency that was badly misused for political reasons under his predecessor. but his place in history will be assessed against the challenges that confronted him. and the overriding test that he and the rest of the government face is the threat to our democracy from people bent on destroying it. mr. garland's success depends on ensuring that the rule of law endures. that means dissuading future coup plotters by holding the leaders of the insurrection fully accountable for their attempt to overthrow the government. but he cannot do so without a robust criminal investigation of those at the top, from the people who planned, assisted, or funded the attempt to overturn the electoral college vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob attack on the capitol. to decline from the outset to investigate would be appeasement, pure and simple, and appeasing bullies and wrongdoers only encouraging more of the same. leading off our discussion tonight is neal katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general and msnbc legal contributor. when it's a supreme court case, we turn to you. this is a trump legal filing that was filed today. i didn't quote any of it because it's like all trump legal filings, such a peculiar document. what the committee filed with the court made enough sense to me to present to the audience. but i leave it to you to tell us what we need to know about the trump filing and what the supreme court might choose to do. >> yes, lawrence, i think you're right. congress's filing today was in ordinary plain english, and trump's was garbled russian as far as i can tell. it's a really lousy filing, and that's putting it charitably, and i don't think the supreme court will hear the case. i think as you were saying a moment ago, the supreme court gets 8,000 or 10,000 requests to hear cases a year. it hears about 65. the supreme court is the big leagues, so you can't afford a false move when you're making a filing to the supreme court. but the document that trump filed today is written, frankly, by lawyers who appear not ready for this kind of filing. it's riddled with loose language and absurd claims. it's kind of surprising to me that trump couldn't get a supreme court lawyer to file this document for him. he is a former president and all that, but then it's not that surprising when you look at his actual claims. and so what this filing is all about for our viewers, basically congress is trying to get information about what trump was doing on january 6th, the whole set of documents and testimony about that. and trump has invoked executive privilege, the idea that he has a zone of secrecy around him as president and doesn't have to tell the truth under oath to congress. and he faces two big problems in that claim. one is that two different federal courts have resoundedly rejected his claims on multiple grounds, including a very important decision by the d.c. circuit. and the second problem is the current incumbent president, president biden, has rejected his executive privilege claims, and the supreme court has said when you're deciding this presidential secrecy thing, it's really the incumbent president that has the lion's share of the decision-making power, not the former president. >> and so, when you look at the trump filing, did they add anything to their case, to their argument that hasn't already been rejected by the district court that heard it first and then the appeals court? >> no, not a single new thing. now, there is new rhetoric, rhetoric in which they say trump is, quote, more than an ordinary citizen. the document portends that he's still the president. but he's not the president. and the thing about living in a democracy is once you're out of office, you're an ordinary person. yes, you were the president at one point and you had a special zone of privacy around you for all sorts of good reasons, but afterwards you're not. and there's one other thing that's really striking, lawrence. like, as a supreme court lawyer, if i were representing trump, the first thing i'd do is think, god, you know, the thing is people perceive my client as all about delay. what do these lawyers do? they wait until the last minute to file their document, the very last day the court gave them to file, instead of filing earlier to signal, look, we're on the ball, we want this, we think these are strong legal claims, this isn't about delay, that's why we're filing quickly. no, not these folks, not donald trump. and that delay tells you all you need to know about what this document they filed today at the supreme court is about. it's just about trying to stall this thing out as long as they can. >> so in a normal case that doesn't involve a former president of the united states, instead of normal, let me just say a case that doesn't involve a form president of the united states. i think we could easily predict that a faulty filing like this coming after very solidly reasoned written opinion in the lower courts would be summarily rejected by the supreme court, and the the only thing that would come out is simply one sentence that would emerge from the court just saying denied, meaning the application to be heard at the supreme court is denied. can the supreme court do that in that case that is this prominent with a former president? or would they be concerned that the 75 million or so trump voters, 70 million trump voters would feel as though donald trump was somehow slighted by the supreme court and not given his full rights? >> yes, they can do it, lawrence, and i suspect that they will. and of course they faced the same decision in december when he brought lawsuits to the election to the supreme court and it was that one-sentence denial you're referring to. one of the greatest legal scholars, alexander bickell wrote in the 1960s that the supreme court maintains its legitimacy by denying claims. here this would be a political thicket, but legally this is not a strong claim by donald trump in any way, shape, or form. there's an overwhelming need for this evidence because it goes to what the president was doing on january 6th, and there's very little need for secrecy here as opposed to legitimate claims of executive privilege like foreign affairs discussions and the like. so i really don't think that this thing should go anywhere and i suspect that it will not. >> and what the trump petition is asking the supreme court to do is write a new law out of thin air that takes a power away from the president of the united states, joe biden, and gives it to a man living in florida. >> in a way, you could say . that, i mean, it is the case that the supreme court said in an earlier case involving president nixon that largely executive privilege, the zone of secrecy, is decided by the incumbent president, not by some former one for all sorts of good reasons. the whole claim donald trump is making or supposedly making in his filing is that he's trying to protect the office of the presidency. and that's why he's doing it. it's not about self-interest or because trump is scared of telling the truth, but that's what he's at least claiming with something of a straight face before the supreme court. and, you know, i think the real problem with that is when it comes to protecting the institution of the presidency, the supreme court has said, well, we look to what the current president says about that, not what some former one says. >> neal katyal, thank you very much for starting our discussion tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. joining us now, encurb cadori, contributing writer at "new york" magazine, also a former federal prosecutor. thank you very much for joining us tonight. you had written a piece for new "york" magazine that proceeded the large tribe coauthored piece we see today saying that it is very important for attorney general merrick garland to do a serious criminal investigation of donald trump himself along with the others he was engaged in, apparently trying to overturn the election. what is the case you would make to the attorney general? >> look, i think this attorney general has talked a lot about the rule of law as being sort of central to our legal system and central to americans' confidence in our legal system and our democracy. he's invoked that phrase and that principle over and over and over again from his -- the speech in which he accepted his nomination, confirmation, and ever since then. and i think in terms of his legacy and the legitimacy of the rule of law in this country, this is the most important case. how he handles trump's misconduct and many shenanigans leading up to january 6th and the wake of the election is going to define merrick garland's legacy whether he likes it or not. and i think unfortunately right now we have no indication of any sort of criminal investigation concerning trump regarding january 6th or some of the weeks leading up to january 6th. and if that is correct, and if that holds, i think it's going to be a very bad precedent for our country and it's going to reflect very, very poorly on garland's legacy, whatever else he might do while in office. >> if you're still working with the justice department and the attorney general said to you, well, what we will do is wait for the january 6th committee, the house select committee, to complete their investigation. we will read their report and decide what to do then. what would you say to the attorney general? >> you know, that would be a great idea except we have midterm elections coming up in which the democrats are going to probably lose the house and they also lose the senate, at which point any investigation is going to get substantially complicated and interfered with by republicans in congress. in addition, trump may run for re-election in 2024. he could announce any day at this point, and that would also vastly complicate any ongoing criminal investigation, and i find it very hard to believe and envision this attorney general and this administration conducting any sort of criminal investigation surrounding trump, much less seriously considering charging him if he is actively running for 2024. >> now, i can imagine merrick garland responding to that in this private, you know, command-level discussion at the justice department by saying, everything you've just said is a political consideration, which includes possible outcomes of elections, and the attorney general should not take such political considerations into account when deciding how to proceed with a criminal investigation. >> well, i think, unfortunately, politics is unavoidable. we're talking about the former president, someone who may also be a candidate for 2024. and, you know, the relationship between an investigation and the political landscape is going to exist whether or not merrick garland likes it or not. and the question is whether he's going to do the right thing or whether he's going to abstain. whatever he does, he's going to have an effect on the 2024 election. if he does nothing, it's going to have an effect if trump rounds, and he conducts an investigation -- even if trump does not run for 2024 for the presidency, this is going to have a lasting effect or sort of "t" structural stability of our democracy because someone else can do some of the very say things that trump did, maybe not the violence, but things like the call to brad raffensperger and intimidate him into changing the outcome of the election. we have a long history in this country of an elite political impunity. even if it's not about trump, we're going to pay the cost for forbearance on this issue, whether it's in the next couple years or ten years from now. >> thank you very much for joining our discussion tonight. thank you. >> thanks for having me. coming up, 'twas the night before christmas eve and americans' packages have mostly been received on time, except for one i'm still waiting for. the supply chain disaster that the news media was telling you about a month ago and telling you it was going to leave a lot of empty space under christmas trees did not happen. demand for goods is higher than it has ever been, but the supply chain has held up reasonably well under that pressure. labor secretary marty walsh will explain why when he joins us next. this is your home. this is your family room slash gym. the guest bedroom slash music studio. the daybed slash dog bed. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash classroom. and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. ♪♪ superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. want your clothes to smell freshly washed ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ all day without heavy perfumes? now they can! with downy light in-wash freshness boosters. just pour a capful of beads into your washing machine before each load. to give your laundry a light scent that lasts longer than detergent alone, with no heavy perfumes or dyes. finally, a light scent that lasts all day! new downy light, available in four naturally-inspired scents. packages are moving. gifts are going delivered. shelves are not empty. >> that was president biden yesterday on the day "the new york times" published this report. the warnings started to stream in early this fall: shop early or you may not get your gifts on time. global supply chain problems that have led to long delays in manufacturing and shipping could ripple outward, slowing package deliveries to millions of americans in the weeks and days before christmas, experts warned. the prospect even became a talking point in conservative attacks on president biden's policies. despite early fears, however, holiday shoppers have received their gifts mostly on time. here's more from president biden. >> i see marty walsh, my labor secretary. marty, you've done a hell of a job, pal, cutting the red tape so that companies can set up, registered apprenticeships for truck drivers in two days instead of two months, which it was before you took over. these apprenticeships are going to help new drivers get trained better and faster and help companies retain drivers in a field that has a lot of turnover. >> joining us now is president biden's labor secretary, marty walsh. thank you very much for joining us tonight, mr. secretary. really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. great to be on the night before christmas eve. >> so a month ago and beyond that there were a tremendous amount of fear-based reports about christmas gifts not arriving on time, shelves being empty in stores because of the supply chain. you responded to those fears in the administration, but what did you found to be the reality of the supply chain and what you needed to do to make sure that the christmas deliveries were working well? >> certainly, you know, we still have work to do with the supply chain. there's no question about it. myself and secretary buttigieg and other folks have toured ports all across this country both on the east coast and the west coast. but the president was very clear back at the end of summer, early fall, that he wanted to make sure that we weren't going to have a problem here during the holiday season, working to open the ports 24/7, allow them the opportunity to do that, started working on trucking issues. we've gotten a little more fine tuned on those. we met at the white house last week with trucking industry experts as well as the teamsters and some of the trucking industry companies, and we set up a program, a 90-day challenge basically to start apprenticeships across the country to get more people into trucking. we're living in a pandemic, so we still have work to do, but the president was clear that the holiday season -- he talked to the big stores, he talked to the local stores and he said we want to make sure those shelves are stocked so that they won't have problems at christmastime. if you look at that, retail is up. they're doing great sales inside stores. if you look at u.p.s., fedex, and the postal service, i believe all three of them, their numbers of service is higher than this time last year. so everyone's been laser focused on making sure this is a success all over the place. >> as the administration looked into it, what did you found were the kind of covid-driven problems with the supply chain as opposed to pre-existing problems with the supply chain that needed to be modernized? >> i would say the pre-existing stuff is really trucking. we're losing about 80,000 truckers a year in this country. people have looked at it as a job that's not long term when, in fact, it is. you can raise a family. some of the covid concerns are warehouses around the world that had to shut down because of covid-19 and we're behind on semiconductors and batteries and other supplies out there. and i think we can't lose sight of the fact that we're still living in a pandemic time. i think a lot of those factories now are open. we still have ships off the coast out in california, los angeles, and long beach. we'll get those ships in. we're working to clear up a problem with truckers to make sure we address the problem, not just during the supply chain, but also in this country of issues with bus drivers and other types of drivers. and the president and his task force is very focused on staying on top of those issues and we're working on them weekly. we're having not just meetings, but action, and that makes a big difference. generally you hope the task force produces some success and what the president's done in a short period of time is not only shown success, but we're going to have long-term success and the problem is trucking in our country. >> one of the challenges is trucking is retaining drivers. we have enough trained drivers in the united states, but they don't want the job. one of the things that's been made very clear when you look at the retention numbers is unionized truck drivers have a much higher job satisfaction level and a much higher rate of retention in the job than the nonunionized independents. >> yeah. you know, when you talk about a uniized truck drive, oftentimes you're talking about a living wage, you're talking about the ability to earn a pension, you're talking about in some cases health care. we had a meeting at the white house last week with truck drivers. we met with unionized and nonunionized and independent drivers. the association for independent drivers says that over the last several years their salaries are gone the wrong direction. they've gone away in some cases and we need to do a better job of making sure that people are getting paid in these jobs. 20 years ago truck driving was a job, ten years ago -- today in some cases it was a job where you could put food on the table and make a good leaving. it was hard work, don't get me wrong, really hard work, but lots of people in that industry -- i don't think people have lost interest in the industry. quite honestly, the industry needs to compensate these drivers better and to be able to create opportunities. truck driving is not going away. as we said many times, when a ship hits the shore, the product on that ship needs to go somewhere, and the only way that's going to happen is in some cases rail, but you need a truck for that last mile. >> labor secretary marty walsh, thank you very much for joining us tonight. we really appreciate it. have a merry christmas. >> thank you. same to you, lawrence and to everyone watching. hope everyone has a safe holiday and take care of yourself. >> thank you, mr. secretary. coming up, president biden says it's time to change senate rules to pass voting rights legislation. that's next. if you're washing with the bargain brand, even when your clothes look clean, there's extra dirt you can't see. watch this. that was in these clothes... ugh. but the clothes washed in tide- so 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simple majority to pass in the senate. senator schumer says he will bring a voting rights bill to the senate floor in early january. joining us now, jonathan walter, msnbc political analyst. he just wrote an essay on joe manchin, which is posted on his substack page. and eugene robinson, msnbc political analyst. and eugene, we have arrived at the voting rights moment in the united states senate, obviously in early january, according to chuck schumer. and here's the president of the united states publicly lining up with, yes, change the senate rule in whatever way you have to to get voting rights passed. it's been a long road for joe biden. initially very reluctant to talk about changing senate rules. now he's ready. he's out there using all of his years of experience in the senate to urge on the democrats in the senate to just do it. >> yeah. lawrence, first of all, let me say merry christmas and happy holidays to everybody. >> merry christmas to you as well. >> safe, peaceful, and joyous holiday season. yeah, that is big deal, actually, because joe biden is, as you know a creature of the senate. having almost literally spent the bulk of his adult life in the senate. he is a great respecter of senate tradition and senate customs and mores, and for him to say, no, this is important enough to change the filibuster rule is a big deal. he struck that same sort of tone. i was with him in south carolina in my hometown last week where he went to speak at south carolina state university graduation. he was strong on voting rights and all but said that, look, this is more important, this is more fundamental. build back better, after all, is a matter of arithmetic. this is fundamental to democracy and he's serious about it, and i hope other senators are serious as well. >> jonathan alter, we three have watched this, the debate about the senate rule evolve over what is now many years. i can remember the first time it started to come up as a serious discussion point was during the george w. bush presidency. and i immediately said no to it, no, no, no, you have to preserve the 60-vote threshold because having worked in the senate, i knew how it worked when you needed it when you were in the minority. and every senator i know was opposed to the idea the first time the idea was proposed to them. but over time -- i mean, it seemed to me that it took the average senate mind a number of years to change on this. each individual took two, three, sometimes five years. joe biden was among the slowest in terms of changing his thinking about it, but it's not stylistically unusual from the rest of us. we were all very, very slow to come around to opposition to the 60-vote threshold. and i now am just completely opposed to it in any form in the senate. but this is where my thinking began, and i think you've witnessed this change of mind that has gotten up to just about every democrat in the senate. >> right. i think it was really important when you saw senators like mark warner who had been there for a while, when they started to come around in recent weeks, you can see real movement. the question is why. i think the answer is that democracy is in crisis, and saving our democracy is now a bedrock issue in the democratic party. and so all bets are off on the old way of doing things. and so it's sort of like all hands on deck to protect our democracy. this voting rights bill, which, by the way, was not just co-sponsored by joe manchin, but written by joe manchin. it's his bill. it's actually a very good start on protecting our democracy. it doesn't do enough. they're going to have to do some other things, but it really gets the ball rolling. so the president has teed it up in such a way that if you're against changing the rules just for voting rights, they're not going to get rid of the filibuster altogether, but to change the rule for voting rights, maybe if they won't accept a carveout as they call it, maybe go to what's called a talking filibuster on this issue, whatever the reform measure is, if you're not for it now inside the democratic party, you're on the wrong side of history as most other democrats see it. >> yeah. and gene, the president getting on board is an important development in so many ways, including the sequencing that the white house and the president have been working with. people who have been pushing voting rights exclusively for the last year have been very upset that the white house wasn't doing more and the president one point doing more. he actually got to a point of frustration in response to a question about that. it seems like about a month and a half ago where he actually set out loud, i have to get build back better done first because if i say, you know, voting rights now, i will lose two votes on build back better. he was referring without naming them to senator asthma and senator manchin. he was afraid of what he has said this week would mean to senator manchin and senator sinema when he was trying to get their votes on build back better. it seems now that build back better has slipped off to the side of the road and voting rights is passing it down the middle lane of the united states senate as far as president biden and chuck schumer are concerned. >> i think that's -- first of all, build back better ran into a brick wall called joe manchin. i'm sure they would have loved to be done with build back better, but they're not and they're not anywhere near done with it. it may have to be broken up into pieces. this is just the reality. it's not something i like to say, but it's the reality that if they don't have manchin's vote for it, it's not going to pass. you're not going to get a republican vote for that. so that's one reason. the other reason, i think, is that the president and many senators have thought about the issue, have thought about the issue of voting rights, have watched what's been happening in the republican-controlled state legislatures and these laws about not just who gets vote access, but thousand vote is counted, who counts the vote, legislators get to play a nefarious role in counting or miscounting the votes. i mean, this is -- this is -- this is third-world stuff. this is stuff that we would -- if we sent election observe torres watch it in bella rus or something like that, they might give a scathing report. and so i think people are taking it more seriously, and yeah, it has a middle lane right now. >> jonathan, back when the senate was a more functional body, the republican side would notice this tension building on the democratic side, and they would have adjusted in some way to help relieve that tension because they would fear that the democrats would change the truly. but these republicans have done everything every single day to increase the incentive among democrats to change the rule. >> right, because democrats realized that the republicans are so ruthless, so contemptuous of democracy that they would abolish the filibuster in a heartbeat, you know, when they get power if it's in their interest. and, by the way, if they get control of the senate, they will prevent any more judgeships from going through. they'll change the rules to make it harder to do . that -- that. they'll do anything. that means fewer restraints than democrat. so to gene's point, manchin is indicating that build back better is maybe a march or april issue, and there's some real indications that they can put humpty dumpty back together again, but that leaves room even for a long talking filibuster with mr. smith goes to washington kind of event that would bring a lot of attention to voting rights if they don't do the carveout and do a talking filibuster rule change instead. >> jonathan alter and eugene robinson, thank you for joining us tonight and happy holidays to both of you. >> same to you, lawrence. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, one thing you might have noticed about the articles written about vice president kamala harris these days is they rely on unnamed whisperers instead of observable facts. our next guest took a close look at the vice president's first year in office and in his headline for the daily beast, he says she's doing a great job but her story's not getting out. david roth cop joins us next. knows a moment this pure... ...demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. 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- oh, darn! - let me help. don't let uc stop you from doing you. lift and push and push! there... it's up there. hey joshie... wrinkles send the wrong message. help prevent them with downy wrinkleguard. feel the difference with downy. six months ago we launched a call to action for businesses to invest in central america. six months ago, 12 people were around this table. today we have 77 partners who are here and virtually here, with 1,300 more businesses, civil society leaders who are watching this conversation and this convening. six months ago we had a commitment of $750 million. today we have a commitment of over $1.2 billion. we've seen great progress. with a commitment to do much more. >> that was vice president kamala harris announcing private sector investments in central america as part of a program she is leading aimed at reducing migration from that region to the united states. our next guest, daily beast foreign affairs analyst david rothkopf says while vice president harris has not received credit for much of what she has done in this area, she has been undaunted, working with a methodical intensity that has won admirers around the world and among her closest colleagues. vice president harris has played a central role in reestablishing a working dialogue with leaders in central america and mexico. and last month at the paris peace forum, vice president harris made major steps in mending the u.s./france relationship after a submarine deal strained relations between the countries. for two hours the vice president met one-on-one with french president emmanuel macron who reportedly went to great lengths to show other foreign leaders his respect for her. vice president harris is also making the case for president biden's domestic agenda, attending dozens of events across the country. president biden's chief of staff ron klain, who previously worked in the clinton white house and the obama white house said vice president harris is off to the fastest and strongest start of any vice president i have seen. joining us now, david rothkopf, foreign affairs analyst and an opinion columnist for "usa today" and the daily beast. he is the host of the deep state radio podcast. david, thank you very much for joining us. really appreciate it. i want to begin with the point that vice president harris was talking about at the beginning of this segment. she's there trying to deal with the problems that we face at the southern border, not at the southern border, but where the people come from who are trying to cross our southern border. and the washington news media believes they have you in a gotcha question when they ask when are you going to the southern border, why aren't you at the southern border, why don't you go to the southern border? that's not where the problem is. the problem is in the places where the people live that has then sent them to the southern border and that's where this vice president is concentrating, is on the places where they live and what can be done to change the situation there. >> well, that's exactly right. i think the media maybe used to four years of donald trump where it was all about photo ops and he thought he could wave a magic wand or insert his personality into anything and overnight produce change. obviously immigration is an extremely complicated problem. it was made more complicated by the fact that donald trump shut down the programs that we had in central america to stop immigration at its source. in the course of less than a year, this administration led by the vice president has gone to mexico, gone to central america, restarted those programs, created a whole list of new efforts, including this $1.2 billion from nearly 80 companies to invest in central america, try to create jobs there. they've created new programs to fight corruption, they've created new programs to deal with human trafficking at the border. and that's the work of ten months. i think what the vice president realizes, the president realizes, is foreign policy is not done in front of the camera very often. it's blocking and tackling, and she's been a detail-oriented workhorse. and i have to say, when i spoke to mexican officials, that really impressed them. the president of mexico himself said he wished his staff would follow up in the same way that she had been doing and that her staff had been doing. >> i have to say none of the articles i read about the vice president recently have included anything like the scope of reporting that is in your article. most of those articles are unnamed people who apparently have some perspective on this, and it's full of adjectives about attitudes, but reaching out across borders, as you did with your reporting, to find out what her work actually is in these other countries and how it's perceived is something that's only available in your piece. and you also have real quotes from real people in washington with their names on it, people who have worked in more than one democratic administration like, for example, national security adviser jake sullivan. he told you this. one similarity between obama/biden relationship and the biden/harris relationship is that he insists she be in every core decision-making meeting. she weighs in during those meetings, often providing unique perspectives, and when everyone else leaves the room, he will often ask that she stays and they talk. while their experiences are different, he values her willingness to ask tough questions. what else can you tell us that your reporting found about the biden-harris relationship, the relationship between the two? >> i think it's very strong. i think it started out strong because she was friends with biden's son, beau. i think that's one of the reasons she was selected. i think he respects her. she ran the biggest justice department in the united states. she was on the intelligence committee in the senate and she's been willing to take on the tough tasks. some people will take a long time. he appreciates the fact that she's doing that, she's gone to latin america, she's gone to southeast asia, she's gone to europe, she's dealt with the france issue when it was tough. she's been on the cutting edge of new issues. jake sullivan told me this as well, like cyber, dealing with ai and ransomware, dealing with a number of these other issues. she's made that a focus. her staff told me she's extremely detail oriented, that she reads immensely, she gets up to speed and the people in the state department told me this is somebody who has had a great relationship with foreign leaders around the world. >> david rothkopf, thank you very much for joining us tonight. david's must-read piece about the vice president is in the daily beast. happy holidays to you, david. thank you for joining us. >> happy holidays to you, lawrence. >> thank you. tonight's last word is next. , so we only pay for what we need. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? 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[ cheers and applause ] >> the kids you've been helping in malawi get tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" starts now. good evening once again. i'm ali velshi. tonight brand-new indications of the real-world impact of the omicron variant. united airlines canceled 112 flights for tomorrow on christmas eve because, quote, the nationwide spike in omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation. delta airlines also reported cancellations of 90 flights, in large part due to staffing issues. but this all comes as the daily average of new cases is