approaching 200,000. "the new york times" reports the now-dominant omicron variant is spreading faster than any variant so far and daily case counts surpassed those at delta's peak. experts who've been watching this latest outbreak expect invocations skyrocket, and many fear we may be looking at an unprecedented winter surge. >> it's going to be quite an ordeal. the virus is leading everything. we're in reactive mode constantly. >> there are now growing concerns about shortages of health care workers. late today the cdc revised its guidelines saying those workers who tested positive who are asymptomatic can come back to work after seven days and a negative test, adding that isolation time can be cut further if there continue to be staffing shortages. in many parts of the nation, lines to get a covid test continue to stretch for blocks ahead of the holidays. and supplies of at-home tests continue to run out. nbc news reports the dozen or so companies authorized to make those tests are scrambling to step up production. the white house has pledged to send out 500 million tests to americans, but that starts next month. today the administration was asked for more details about that program. >> we're just working to finalize the contracts. >> as we understand it, there's going to be a website people can go to starting next week. >> we've been planning for the website to be ready when tests start to be ready. >> how many tests will each american be able to get? >> it's a great question. it's something we're looking to finalize guidance on, and we'll have that available as soon as it's ready. >> meanwhile the fda has authorized merck's antiviral pill to treat covid. it is the second such approval after an authorization for five years's treatment came yesterday. we're going to have much more o on these just ahead with dr. vin gupta. officials in new york are scaling back new year's eve celebrations, limiting the crowd to roughly 15,000 people and requiring masks for all. there's also important news about former president trump's battle with the january 6th committee. having been turned down by everyone else, trump has now asked the supreme court to block the release of his white house records related to january 6th. frump's lawyers argued that he has a constitutional right to keep congress from seeing those materials, even though president biden declined to invoke executive privilege over them, noting that, quote, president trump is more than an ordinary citizen. he's one of only five living americans who, as former presidents, are granted special authority to make determinations regarding the disclosure of records and communications created during their terms of office, end quote. >> late today the january 6th committee asked the high court to move quickly on trump's appeal. lawyers for the committee say they will respond to trump's appeal by december 30th. the select committee is also waiting to hear from ohio republican congressman jim jordan, this man. they invited him for a voluntary interview about his conversations with trump on the day of the capitol riot. earlier today congressman jordan was asked what he plans to do about the committee's request. >> we intend to respond to the letter at some point here. >> are you worried about it? >> it is what it is. we're going to review the letter and we just got it yesterday. >> with that, let's bring in our guests on this thursday night. peter baker is the chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." donna edwards is a former democratic member of congress, now a "washington post" columnist. and barbara mcquade, former united states attorney for the eastern district of michigan. she worked with the department of justice during the biden transition. she's a professor with the university of michigan's law school, and she hosts the podcast sisters in law. good evening to all three of you. peter, let's start with you. rough week in general for the white house, particularly with the collapse of build back better unexpectedly on the news last sunday. but the omicron virus and the testing requirements that it calls for are something the white house has been on the curve. >> one thing biden promised as a candidate last year for office was he was going to tackle covid and help us get through this pandemic. now, through faults of his own or no fault of his own, we're not there a year later. we seem to be back to step one, at least in terms of infections. but for a lot of americans, it feels like we have yet to kind of move past this two-year crisis we've been living in and there's a lot of exhaustion and a lot of it is being taken out on the president. you see that in his approval rating. people want the president to get his hands on it. there are things he hasn't done that critics say he should've been done. there's also the resistance to the vaccine that's being encouraged by a lot of people on the right. so one thing he knows he needs to do is encourage people to get past this holiday safely. until we can get past the peak that this omicron seems to be heading toward spring when there will be more available boosters and more available tests and more available therapeutics like the two approved in the last two days, there's light at the end of the tunnel if we can get past this particular surge now to a place when covid becomes an endemic, but not necessarily always fatal disease. that's what the biden administration is trying to get to, but they have a lot of dark days between now and then. >> donna , what do you make of it? obviously we're in different places than we were for all of 2020 when it was an adversarial relationship with the white house in terms of what it was doing about covid. it almost indeed downplaying it. now we got a practical, logistical problem. all of a sudden everybody wants a test. >> i mean, i think that's true. i mean, we basically went from delivering a vaccine sort of skipping over that process of beginning to integrate testing with our vaccine strategy. and i will say this. we are in such a different place. today over 200 million americans have gotten a vaccine, and so you hear these reports of the experience of those who have gotten fully vaccinated and have boosters that, they're not experiencing the same very devastating symptoms that the unvaccinated are. but we still have a challenge in this country because vaccination has become so politicized. you know, i look at the former president trump as he's now encouraging people to get vaccines, and i wonder what would have made a difference, you know, a year ago or more if he had been encouraging the same thing instead of essentially encouraging the disinformation and the chaos that erupted and we find ourself in a situation now where fully a third of americans are still not vaccinated or 40% of americans are not fully vaccinated. >> it's a strange thing to see donald trump pushing back against right-wing journalists who are criticizing the vaccine. barbara, let's talk about donald trump for a second. he has now asked the supreme court to stop the handover of documents to the january 6th committee. what do you make that have move and what's likely to happen? >> the least surprising thing happened today when he filed this appeal and filed it on the last possible day. i think everybody predicted that because part of his game is to stall, stall, stall, in hopes that perhaps if republicans win the midterms they will disband this committee and he will not have to reckon with decisions or disclosures there. but this is a decision that has already been looked at by an appellate court and trial court, both of them have said president biden is the one who gets to control executive privilege. president biden has determined it must be waived here in the best interest of the republic. donald trump continues to persist that the national archives should keep these documents secret. i think he will lose in the supreme court and, in fact, i don't think they'll even hear the case. i think they will instead simply let the appeals court decision stand. >> peter, the committee and its lawyers asked the high court to deal with this one way or another. very quickly they say they'll have a response by the 30th and the extremity may not even entertain this at all. but this january 6th committee is gathering lots of information and evidence. do you know what it is they need from donald trump's documents to make their case? are they getting stuff by going to these people around him and gathering the information that they're gathering? >> they are gathering stuff from other people. that tells us a lot about president trump even without president trump's cooperation, but they want to know now. they want telephone records, records of the president's movements and, you know, actions on the day of. in a normal white house at least, they keep a minute-by-minute of what the president does every single day. in this case we don't know a lot yet about what president trump did on january 6th. we saw, as you remember, a couple tweets in a video he put out that seemed belated and half hearted when he finally said, you know, go home, patriots, to his supporters without saying we love you. but we don't know a lot about what he was doing, who was he talking to on the phone, who was in the oval office with him and what he was he doing and saying during this violence? was he, in fact, satisfied that his supporters were putting pressure on congress in such an extreme way as some people have suggested? was he horrified as his own supporters in the white house have claimed? we don't really know. that's one of the things the january 6th committee would like to know more of. one of the things they're talking about is the idea that president trump may be legally liable for obstructing the electoral college count by not stopping this violence, by not acting more assertively. that's something liz cheney raised, they'd like to know more about what he did that day and didn't do. >> donna, i'm interested in your perspective as a former member of congress. liz cheney on december 13th said by action or inaction donald trump may be criminally responsible. this committee moving ahead despite a lot of road blocks in its way, asking two members of congress, two sitting members of congress to come before them and give evidence. one said no way. jim jordan, interestingly enough has not said no way yet. but we know these guys both have information. what's your sense of how this committee is operating right now? >> well, i think that they're acting very deliberately. we noticed there haven't been a lot of leaks coming out of the committee, that the statements that have been made on the public record are very deliberate. they're intentional both to send a message and to be clear about what the committee is doing. i think we're all looking forward to those open hearings, public hearings coming up in the new year because that will reveal a lot about the hundreds of interviews that they've conducted and about the thousands and thousands of documents that they've been able to go through. so i think we still don't know what we don't know because i suspect that the committee even in calling jim jordan and other members of congress really is beginning to piece together the information that they would hope to glean from their testimony or from their documents. but i suspect they know an awful lot about what happened from the other witnesses who have come before the committee. >> i would like to get your view on this, barbara, as a former prosecutor. liz cheney was paraphrasing, a law, which would make it a felony to attempt to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding. there are important words in there, whether it is done corruptly, and the idea of obstructing as opposed to simply protesting something, and of whether or not the events on january 6th constitute an official proceeding. there are three standards that need to be met in order to charge donald trump with his associates with criminal behavior here? >> yes. in fact, when liz cheney uttered those words, they're the magical incantation. every prosecutor in america had their ears perk up and say she just recited the elements of the obstruction of justice statute. the way you might be at a cocktail party but when someone says your name, you snap your head around. most of us had that same reaction. number one, corruptly, you had improper purpose of what you did or didn't do. most of the time it requires action. but for certain people, it can ban omission. for donald trump who has a duty to take care of the laws and act by omission could also be criminal to obstruct or impede, that means to put a stop to or tamper with an investigation in some way. we had a couple of courts now decide on this. some have said this is different, this isn't like lying or intimidating a witness. it's simply to interrupt the proceedings by allowing a protest to go on. courts held that this is sufficient for the obstructing or impeding an official proceeding. in fact, i had cases ali in the past where people if you would fire alarm at the courthouse to interrupt the proceedings for the day so they didn't have to have their hearing where their bond was going to be revoked. that counts. so i think it fits there. finally, is it an official proceeding? i think that one is clearly yes. the statute includes sessions of congress. so it's really just a matter of do the facts support it and that's why congress is so eager to get their hands on these documents to see if he did know people were dying and yet he continued to persist in his omission of not putting a stop to it when he had the power to do so. >> donna, you actually worked with jim jordan. for viewers of this network, they may not know him all that well. from another network, they know him very well. he's on fox every day. what do you make of him and his role in this as far as you know? >> well, look, i don't know, but, i mean, i think that his earlier interviews on fox that he's tried to clean up since then sort of speak to what he might -- may have been doing on january 6th. and i do note jordan was actually in my class. i was a classmate. i came in later, but he's belligerent and he will get in the way. and i think that right now he's trying to figure out how he can reconcile what he actually did on january 6th, what his documents say that he was doing, and what he said about what he was doing. he may not be able to square that circle. >> thank you to the three of you for joining us kicking off this important discussion tonight we appreciate your time. coming up, dr. vin dpupt is here to talk about the increasing strain that the unvaccinated are putting on the health care system. later, we'll talk to purls prize winning presidential hitchhiker jon meacham about the state of our democracy and the critical challenges ahead for the president. "the 11th hour" just getting under way on a thursday night. qunol's ultra purified omega -3, is sourced only from wild caught ocean fish, not farm raised and comes in an easy to swallow mini pill. the brand i trust is qunol. people with moderate to severe psoriasis, or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the way they exaggerate the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. [school bus passing by] [kids laughing] [bikes passing] [fire truck siren] [first responder] onstar, we see them. [onstar advisor] okay. mother and child in vehicle. mother is unable to exit the vehicle. injuries are unknown. [first responder] thank you, onstar. [driver] my son, is he okay? [first responder] your son's fine. [driver] thank you. there was something in the road... [first responder] it's okay. you're safe now. early fletcher south africa and the united kingdom suggests omicron infections may result in milder illness than earlier variants. but health officials related to warned that the unvaccinated are at higher risk. already-strained health care workers are struggling with an overwhelming burden of patients. "the washington post" reports that in new england hospitals are struggling under immense pressure driven by the daechlt. quote, doctors in the region all said that a substantial majority of the patients currently hospitalized with covid between 60% and 80%, were unvaccinated. the breakthrough cases, meaning those who were vaccinated, that end up in the hospital, tend to be milder and are concentrated among older and patients people with other health conditions, they said. back with us tonight, dr. vin gurngts critical care pulmonologist in seattle. he's advised us on public health throughout this pandemic since those terrible early days in 2020. he's also on the faculty at the university of washington institute for health metrics and evaluation. good to see you as always, my friend. these increased hospitalizations we were seeing prior to the onset of omicron, are these mostly delta hospitalizations or omicron hospitalizations, or widow we not know? >> ali, good evening. great to see you. the answer is we don't know. what we do know is that omicron is of all the tests that ultimately get sent to an advanced lab to get sequenced, most of the now are coming back omicron positive. i think it's a fair bet to say it's probably a bit of both. really important, just to emphasize this to all your viewers out there, that these vaccines are doing exactly what they should. vaccines against a contagious respiratory virus never were meant to preventative positive test for mild symptoms. they were only meant to keep folks out of the hospital. that's why we say get the flu shot. flu does not prevent a positive test. it only keeps you out of the hospital. same paradigm here. it's entirely expected and not surprising. >> vin, what do you know about the degree to which this is behaving, the omicron virus is behaving unusually and it spreads easily and very quickly. but if you're vaccinated, very few people are, in fact, getting seriously ill? >> what's really interesting from south africa scientists and europe, it's illuminating for the rest of the world the geography of our immune system. something we talked about on national tv together two years ago, but here we are talking about it. what we now know is we just don't have a lot of defenses in our nose, in our upper respiratory tract. but in our lungs we have t cells, immune system fighters that prevent severe illness. we have a lot more antibodies. omicron has been able to overpower our initial defenses in our nose because there's not as many. but by the time it travels down our throat to our lungs, it's an armada of immune cells. yes, you might test positive if you're triple vaccinated but by the time it hits your lungs, it's going to get defeated. that's why you don't end up seriously ill. >> i saw you tweet that and i didn't understand what it meant until i heard you say this right now. so i appreciate you for letting us understand that a little bit better. let's talk about the speed at which omicron starts, spreads, takes off like a wildfire, and then what we're seeing in south africa where it's slowing down at almost the same speed. dr. fauci said, look, we don't have enough information to understand what the differences are there in demographics or population concentrations or things like that. but is it possible that this is a different sort of graph of this infection? >> very well may be. i will say that its doubling time was so extraordinary that those that are unvaccinated, those watching that are unvaccinated right now, this version of this virus will come find you. that to me seems like it's a foregone conclusion here. whether it's going to spike and then come down like it did in south africa, that remains to be seen, like dr. fauci said. but they are forecasting 10,000 weekly deaths week over week well into march just from covid, whether it's delta, combination of omicron. so we're not out of this yet. we're still in cold and flu season. flu is approaching pre-pandemic levels, so vigilance is the norm. but if you are triple vaccinated, doing all the right things, travel safe, you are safe as long as you're vigilant >> by the way the institute for health metrics and evaluation at the university of washington is the gold standard in terms of projections. it has turned out to be very adequate over the last two years. talk to me about health care workers, vin. we are seeing shortages and people get sick. we've seen the cdc has changed its guidelines about a health care worker testing negative and they're isolated and asymptomatic and they get a negative test, they can get back to work sooner. how serious is this issue of a potential shortage of health care workers? >> well, it's acute and chronic. this is a problem here that we knew has long existed. 40% of nurses are due to leave the workforce by 2030. 30% of doctors. now you couple omicron, everybody getting exposed, some testing positive, this is a major problem for a system that's already stressed. so what the cdc did today was a great first step. you'll see airlines, flight attendants, other places where there's key staff, maybe not in the health care sector also clamoring for this policy change. it's good for health care workers, it's good for other frontline workers, just like in terms of in the u.k. you're going to see this across sectors. >> i want to talk to you about these antiviral pills. merck's drug reduced the risk of hospitalizations or death by 30% according to "the new york times" when given to high-risk unvaccinated people within five days of the onset of symptoms. pfizer's pill reduced the risk by 88%. explain this to me. what do you make of the efficacy of these two drugs? >> the problem with the merck pill in addition to the fact that the pfizer pill is dramatically better at keeping people with early diagnosis out of the hospital to the tune of 90%. merck does it to the tune of 30%. it's pretty self-evident. if you're a patient, which one would you want me to prescribe to you? the pfizer pill. in addition, the merck pill has some concerning potential side effects. for example, looks like pregnant women who might fit this demographic, high risk, early diagnosis of covid, they're not advised to get this pill based on initial findings. when you couple that, ali, with the fact that it's all about perception and trust, who is actually going to want the merck pill relative to the pfizer pill? it's important to scale manufacturing to pfizer pill. people are going to trust it more. there's no concerning side effects with the merck pill. people are going to want that. that's going to be critical to saving lives both here and globally. but the key issue here is supply. >> dr. gupta, thank you for being with us. critical care pulmonologist in seattle, faculty at the university of washington. what we're hearing from the president about hi accomplishments over the past year and his push to get as much done as possible on his social spending plan in the future when "the 11th hour" continues. ues. 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(music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ (music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ how were you not able to close the deal? >> look, let's talk about what we have done. we have passed more major legislation than anybody in their first year ever, ever, ever, ever. i haven't given up on this. >> senator manchin's main sticking point, it would appear, is the child tax credit. are you willing to take that out if it means bringing him on board? >> look, i want to get as much as i can possibly get done. it's extremely consequential. >> president biden hoped he had be heading to christmas with a signature on his piece of agenda. from what we just heard, he's hoping people will start talking about what he's already accomplished. back with us, victoria defrancesco soto, and stewart stevens, veteran of the mitt romney and george w. bush presidential campaigns. he's now with the lincoln project. hisses latest book "it was all a lie: thousand republican party became donald trump." good evening to both of you. thank you for being with us. let's ask you about what joe biden is trying to message here. he's trying to get the point that a lot's been done. he started you go to the performance on the economy, which some headlines indicate has been struggling. it's actually doing much better than some people suggest. trying to draw attention away from this build back better fiasco. >> right. he's framing the message in terms of what is positive, right? looking at the glass half full rather than half empty. and one thing i think a lot about, ali, is leading up into the election there was so much comparison between joe biden, build back better, fdr, the new deal, lbj. we're comparing apples with oranges here, and it's so frustrating. the political moments that brought about the biggest congressional legislating changes that this country has known in terms of the new deal and the great society are different from what we have today. so what we need to do is look at build back better, look at joe biden's moment and understand this political moment of unprecedented, hyperpartisanship and take stock of that and not compare it to what we saw 50 years ago or 80 years ago. he's doing exactly what he needs to do. he's drawing attention towhat he's done and not comparing it to other things. >> interesting point, stewart. those other big moments of bipartisan or unity around major legislation have followed things in which the country has experienced sort of a shared tragedy. i would have thought that covid might be that shared tragedy, but the bottom line is we're so polarized that the country doesn't have a shared view of what the future looks like, and that seems to be stymieing some of biden's best instincts. >> i think that's disappeared perhaps forever. the a lot of the country doesn't believe joe biden is a real president. it's beyond partisanship. they believe they live in an occupied country. that's so extraordinary and unique that i think the biden administration has done a good job trying to get this stuff passed. i mean, how long did it take republicans on infrastructure? if you've ban kid born during the first week of republican infrastructure, you'd be in the first grade now and biden got it done. look, i'm a biden optimist on this. i think the administration is very steady and they ran a very good campaign. they don't panic. i think by the end of january they'll have this bill passed. >> victoria, what is the pivot here? is it a pivot? what does biden need to do, particularly with manchin? >> do what he does best, talk, negotiate, be joe. i think this is what he sold us on in terms of he has this experience, he's been in the senate, he can talk to fellow lawmakers. this is the moment where he has to come through. and joe manchin knows very well what he needs to take back to west virginia. and so joe biden needs to meet him where he is. and he may not get everything he wants in build back better, but he needs to get something. and ultimately that is going to be what he then pivots and frames back to the american public in terms of this is what i did. okay, he's not going to get everything in the build back better plan that he campaigned for. he is going to gain something, so let's focus on that something rather on the fact that the whole shebang is not going to come through. >> stewart, he's talking about getting something, as victoria is. there's also a pivot to voting rights, that schumer has made or at least says the democratic party is going to make, and that a lot of democrats would like biden to get behind. this is the most directly he's talked about options around changing the filibuster. your thoughts on whether that is a nonstarter or whether they've got space to make this happen. >> i hope they do. you know, it's sort of amazing that we're having this conversation while there's a committee investigating a coup against the united states government. i mean, why that's not lead story just, i think, speas to where we are as a country. i think it is critical they pass this voting rights. without this, you get republicans -- they're clear about what they want to do. how many people who attempted a coup became more democratic once they got in power? not many. i think that's what we're looking at if republicans get in power. >> you've set us up for the conversation we're going to have next. i appreciate it, stewart. we appreciate your time tonight. coming up, we're going to look back at a tough week for the president amid a stalled domestic agenda and a spike in the pandemic. presidential historian jon meacham is here when "the 11th hour" continues. ur" continues. 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>> yeah. well, i think all great presidents are embattled. all presidents are embattled. the fact is not being embattled, the question is what do you do with it? you know, when we talk about biden's bad week or biden's rough year, you know, it's not really a vocabulary that's commensurate to the challenges we're facing, right? this is democracy's hour of maximum danger. we are as close to losing the constitutional republic that a lot of us have taken for granted for a long time, as we have since fort sumter. that's not hyperbolic. it's self-evidently true. so the president's challenge is to keep a republic together that seems insistent, at least part of it seems insistent, on living according to its own tribal instincts, and not understanding, or at least not choosing to understand, acknowledging, that democracy is about seeing each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors. this is nato mister rogers kind of thing. it's a fundamental aspect of popular government. i help you tomorrow morning not just because i'm a good guy, if i were, but because i might need you tomorrow afternoon. you know, there's a reason the commandment is love thy neighbor as thyself. it's a covenant. i extend a hand because i might need a hand. that's where we are. if anybody can articulate that in the public square, i think it's joe biden. >> does he have other partners who have that worldview? he's been shaped in the united states senate. he has seen it work over time. but that doesn't work in a vacuum. does he have people -- maybe he's got one in joe manchin. maybe he sees something in joe manchin that a lot of democrats don't. but does he have any more partners who are prepared to say we got to choose a different road here and get things done? >> terrific question. and i do think what one of the things we talk about, you know, we talk about senator manchin understandably, but there are 50 republican senators who are simply not part of this conversation. and that's a remarkable thing. you know, 40 years ago when president reagan came to office, you know, he passed significant economic legislation in his first year because he got some democratic votes. now, those democrats ultimately became republicans in the course of things, but this isn't even -- we're not even talking about getting some republicans to vote for this significant domestic legislation. and they're having to talk about undoing the filibuster to talk about the basic building blocks of democracy. i mean, the voting rights stuff here is not just about voter i.d. and the traditional conversation we have. there's a new conversation going on since this time last year, which is about certification. it's about officials in the states, it's about state legislatures not simply choosing to throw out a result they don't like. there's a gravity to this conversation that's not partisan, but it feels partisan, and it feels partisan because the republican party has become a wholly owned subsidiary of donald trump. it can recover. it can become a fully functioning constitutional party again, but it's not, as we sit here at the end of 2021. and i think that's the task before that party. president biden is here trying to do this with the narrowest of margins. it's as if we can take half the country and say they're not part of this? of course they're part of it. >> jon, stand by, i want to continue this conversation about the degree to which you state a democracy is in peril. you called it democracy's hour of maximum danger. we'll take a look at the state of our democracy as we near the one-year anniversary of january 6th right after this when "the 11th hour" continues. ho ho ho! not again. oh no. for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. get a credit toward your first month's payment on select models. people with moderate to severe psoriasis, or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the way they exaggerate the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. no one can deliver your mom's homemade short ribs. that's why instacart helps deliver the ingredients. and you add the love. xfinity rewards are our way of thanking you just for being with us. enjoy rewards like sing family fun nights! rent sing for $1 then belt out all your favorite tunes from the movie with sing karaoke. plus, see sing 2 in theaters with buy-one-get-one free fandango tickets. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards. our friend bill kristol of the bulwark writes that the guardrails of liberal democracy are not stronger than they were a year ago. quote, the anti-democratic forces seem stronger at the end of 2021 than they were at the beginning. the republican party seems to be more catch the to authoritarian demagoguery today than it was a year ago following trump's defeat. jon meacham is still with us. this article is interesting where he says november 3rd w5u679 was w5u679 was like dunn kicker, an escape from a terrible outcome, but ultimately a success that simply louse us to force a longer fight. for those who think this threat is behind us, they're woefully wrong. >> yeah. as churchill said of dunn kicker, wars are not won by evacuations, and i think bill is exactly right there. joe biden's election was not d-day. it was a critical battle. it is a sign that there is the capacity for progress in the country. joe biden is president. 81 million people want him to be president. the problem is so many people who at some level must know better think he's not, think that somehow the election was stolen, and they think it or they say they think it because an authoritarian has told them to think that. and that's the beginning of the end. to play one more churchill card, he once said we're not at the beginning of the end, but we are the end of the beginning. and so i think that what we face right now is a genuine crisis of citizenship. this is not -- let me put it this way. joe biden's not on trial here. you know, we poll on him and it's his approval rating. we should be polling about ourselves, right? i mean, this is about self-government. it's about popular government. it's about all of us making a decision about our habits of heart and mind, and are we, in fact, mature enough? are we strong enough to win a few and lose a few? are we able to do that? and part of democracy is being a gracious loser and saying, you know what? we lost this one. we're going to keep this journey toward a more perfect union going, and we're going to try to win the next time. and that's the way this should be. and interestingly for somebody who does what i do for a living, it is highly, highly unusual -- i don't know, we can never use the word unprecedented because everything is pretended from the garden of eden forward. but, you know, richard nixon in 1960 didn't say john kennedy was a fake president. hubert humphrey in 1968 didn't say that richard nixon was a fake president. you know, this is something different. what we have to do -- it really is about us. we have to be able to say, you know what? we are not going to follow a cult of personality because when you follow a cult of personality, when you put the will of the power at the center of everything, then we're back in a state of nature, right? we're back to what hobbs called the war against all. and democracy was supposed to save us from those worst appetites. >> we have work to do, jon. when you say things like democrat's hour of maximum danger or crisis in citizenship, there are reasonable people in all parties who don't know that that's true and aren't worried that that's true. and i hope they hear what you had to say tonight. jon meacham, we always appreciate your time. that you can't. we're back with more of the "the 11th hour" after a quick break. s to get clay calloway in this show. no one's seen him in over fifteen years. there's no rockstar in here anymore. ♪ but i still... ♪ just sing. ♪ haven't found... ♪ your song's will carry you. ♪ what i'm looking for ♪ at fidelity, your dedicated advisor will work with you on a comprehensive wealth plan across your full financial picture. a plan with tax-smart investing strategies designed to help you keep more of what you earn. this is the planning effect. when it comes to autism, designed to help you keep more of what you earn. finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org wow... that's so nice! is that a photo of tepechitlan? 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