rollout but it's still ended as the deadliest year of the pandemic and misinformation has proven dangerous to people's health. we have been talking with dr. fauci and his guidance and what to do with the facts change and new variants emerge. >> the best way you can prevent the virus from evolving and mutating, it's an interesting tenet of vierology, the only way to mutate is if you allow it to replicate. when you have a lot of infection in your country, when you're getting 3,000 to 4,000 new a day, that's when you get the dangerous mutations. one of the best ways to prevent that from happening in this country is to double down on the public health measures to prevent the virus from going from one person to another. the masking. the distancing. avoiding congregant settings. get vaccinated. the vaccination and public health measures will bring the level of virus down so low, you won't give it a chance to mutate. that's what you need to do. >> there's the other side of the coin. the contentious policy that stirs controversy larger than what you think about covid itself. comes back to liberty and the social contract. i'm talking about the mandates. >> the idea of mandating a vaccine is not something new. that is done all the time. how about schools? i mean, we've been doing this for decades and decades and decades. if you want to go to certain schools -- >> doctor, sir, i'm not saying i think this but part of my job, what people who object to this say is, as you know, those other mandates had much longer periods of time. you're familiar. and they said it feels unfair to demand them to try something so new. >> you know, i'm not so sure. again, you could have arguments all the type. all the time. i'm not sure that argument holds water. this is the most dangerous respiratory disease virus we've had in years. sometimes you have to say, and i'm not an anti-libertarian person when you want to say, take away everyone's liberties but sometimes you've got to face the reality of what you're looking at. we have an outbreak that is ongoing now for a year and a half and it's killed more americans than any other infectious disease in such a very long period of time. sometimes you've got to do -- >> well, doctor, when you put it like that, the answer sounds a lot better than the question. no secret dr. fauci has been at this work for a long time across administrations in both parties. but it is only in this divided particularly polarized era we have seen him become more attacked than any other time in his career. that may tell us more about the rest of us than him, as some have tried to make fauci the face of the controversy surrounding the virus and many on the right targeting him. >> i think he now is destructive. i think he is dishonest. >> he decided to unilaterally end christmas. >> we want to take fauci down and put him in an orange jumpsuit. >> in any reasonable society, fauci would be gone. >> we'll give you the last word of any thoughts on how you're playing across the internet again this year and then i promised you, you had a question. go ahead as well. >> well, ari, i'm not in it for a popularity contest. i've devoted my entire professional career of 50 years to try to essentially safeguard and preserve the health and the lives of the american people and as an infectious disease doctor who deals with outbreak, that gets really extended to the rest of the world. that's what i do. the praise or the arrows and slings are really irrelevant. i do what science drives you to do and that's what i do. and i'm not in it for a popularity contest. i'm trying to save lives. and the people who weaponize lies are killing people. so the only question i have is that when you show tucker carlson and peter navarro criticizing me, i consider that a badge of honor. >> that's just some of what we have all heard from dr. fauci over the course of this pandemic, and like it or not, much of it remains very relevant as people plan for a new year with the pandemic still a part of our daily lives. now we turn to another big story of 2021 which was the launch of a new presidency. a very familiar figure in joe biden trying to turn the page. here on the beat, we went inside the biden white house. this was back when they were just getting started. so it was a really interesting time to see new staff turn the page, new vibes. we had reporting from inside the west wing because the president was preparing for his first address to congress. of course, joe biden's given many speeches, but this was his first as president in this forum. it's a process that will be coming again this january. >> president biden is about to deliver his first speech to congress and final preparations are under way at the white house. where we got a rare chance to report from behind the scenes of this address. with key staff prepping in the west wing during the pandemic, as others work remotely. >> there is a huge amount of energy around tonight, around the building, because of the pandemic, of course, we don't have the full staff on site that we would normally have, and in a normal year but we've grown accustomed to everybody in the country who is doing office jobs. we've grown accustomed to working by zoom. >> communications director kate bedingfield and general psaki anticipate a speech historic for many reasons, including a nearly empty house chamber. >> the empty room is about responsibility. interacting with people is, for him, i think a huge part of how he draws energy. so it is a channel. challenge. >> how do you convey energy to a room that is mostly empty because of safety protocol? >> we've never experienced anything like this before. none of us have. he's going to do the walk down the aisle. he'll wear a mask, take it off when speaking. there will be about 200 people in the audience. but it's not going to be the same size, and he knows he's speaking to the audience of millions of people watching at home too. >> good afternoon. >> psaki a familiar presence behind the podium and she's been working on the big speech. >> how many drafts would you say have been in this computer, this speech? >> several times a day. >> as the top spokesman, psaki in a familiar theme for anyone working with this president. make it clear. >> it takes an enormous amount of prep and an enormous amount of grappling through. does this sit with how he would talk about this or think about this? >> how do you know when he likes a line? how does he engage with the process? >> i can tell you how, you know when he doesn't like a line. >> the type of thing he's most likely to strike is what? >> an acronym. don't give him an acronym. he does not want to see an acronym. >> there will be no acronyms, i think we can confirm, in this speech. >> told you. >> that kind of clarity takes time. >> he started on a draft two weeks ago. working on it almost every day with mike donalan and then line editing, asking for clarification, wanting more information. he's more of a night owl. he really likes to work in the afternoon and evening on speeches. he's a details guy and sometimes, he wants to bring in a policy person and ask more questions about what more to put in the speech. it speeds up on the way to the speech. the president looks at the country and he sees 10 million people still out of work. he sees the fact that we still have people dying every day of covid. we have made a lot of progress but the speech focuses on the work we have ahead. >> biden has seen his share of these addresses. >> he served 36 years in the senate. he's attended this speech as vice president for eight years. of anyone, he knows exactly what this opportunity is. >> this time, he's moving a few feet forward to center stage. and those two spots behind the president, the top officials in the line of succession will be filled for the first time ever by two women. historic moment that aids say biden will formally mark on the big night. >> this speech is the first time that we'll see both those seats behind the president, which are the line of succession, women. >> it's about freaking time. amazing, isn't it? i think the president will note that in his speech as everyone at home will note as well. and you have female speaker of the house, female vice president. these are two of the most powerful people in our country. i have a daughter. i hope she'll look at that and see, wow, look at those two women behind the president sitting there. they're playing important roles and hopefully it sends that message too. >> it's a reminder that pandemic or not, these nights matter because the nation is watching, the stakes are high, and while the speech itself may finally be done, how america rebounds from this tough time and its future are yet to be written. >> madam speaker. the president of the united states. >> we have a lot more coming up for you on tonight's edition of "the beat." the veteran of the obama administration and the man who took google public. eric schmidt, talks about social media polarization, and why he thinks barack obama was so far ahead of the technological curve. and later? one of our special reports on law, justice and civil rights in america. looking at the reform movement to deal with police brutality, i want to share some thoughts with you and what we've learned. stay with us. ughts with you and what we've learned stay with us there's a different way to treat hiv. it's once-monthly injectable cabenuva. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. if you switch to cabenuva, attend all treatment appointments. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. ask your doctor about once-monthly cabenuva. it's another day. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. only comcast business' secure network solutions give you the power of sd-wan and advanced security integrated on our activecore platform so you can control your network from anywhere, anytime. it's network management redefined. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. now we look at the ongoing debate over policing in america. george floyd's killer was convicted and dramatically cuffed this year. which has some claiming that justice system now works. >> right now, what people need to understand is that the american justice system works. it works. >> i think it's a celebration of our justice system. >> it's important we also push back against the notion that all police officers can never be trusted. >> that's the promise of our justice system, it's impartial. >> how many black unarmed people were killed by police officers? it's a massive distraction. >> citing a single verdict to pretend that that verdict automatically reveals anything about every other case is misleading at a minimum. so let's just look at the evidence right now. the data actually shows that consistent discrimination continues, and it shows a system that does not work, to use the term you just heard in some of those clips, doesn't work for everyone. because people brutalize and killed by police rarely get justice. that brings us to tonight's special report and it's about facts, not opinion or ideology. the protests were largely against police brutality and force. and we have now, tonight for you, the latest data on the use of force since then. since those protests last year. police are shooting and killing americans at roughly the same rate this year as last year on pace for the same aggregate total of police killing about a thousand people per year. you can see the number, this year, 2021, basically matching what people were protesting against, which was the rate of killing last year. this is from "washington post" data. now, this fact on your screen shows something that everyone needs to know in america right now. that after all that protest and pressure and heat and scrutiny and video evidence and even that murder conviction i just showed you, take it all together, it's not even budging the rate that police use lethal force. as these killings around police departments themselves, don't claim that they are all okay with all these use of force. in fact, we have, even since last year, documented situations in which they admit mistakes and put out statements with the loss of life and typically pose investigation and prosecution of the officers who created that situation. and i want to tell you something else. the protests have certainly gotten people's attention. most americans are aware police violence is a serious problem. that consensus has grown. it's even stronger than a few years ago. but numbers, which are part of evidence, also only tell part of the story. because when you look at that chart of the killings each year, every point on it is a dead person and a family grieving. now, these tragedies, they play out across the entire country here, and sometimes we don't have a lot of details. other times, we do get some clue of what happened. we get these grim videos that tell an all too familiar story like wisconsin police shooting an unarmed man, jacob blake, in the back several times, paralyzing him for life. california police confronting unarmed man over alleged jaywalking. that's how the interaction began. we brought you this story earlier this year. they then shot him to death in broad daylight over a jaywalking stop. he was unarmed. or go back to george floyd's community where minnesota police killed another unarmed father, dante wright. there was some video of that. or police shooting andrew brown death as he tried to drive away from police. the video showed him fleeing, not attacking. just those last two videos you see were part of six police shootings that came just within 24 hours of the verdict in the floyd killing. this is not some massive distracting attention grabbing issue constantly getting people's attention and certainly not getting the powerful people's attention or the corporations who influence so much policy in this country. no. the truth is, most of these incidents on that endless chart, they don't even make the national news in the first place. take another story within this past year. police went to the home of 32-year-old isaiah brown for domestic disturbance call. and then they killed him right by his own home. why? he was holding a cordless phone, they, the police, wrongly thought was a gun. and they demanded he drop the gun when he didn't have one. a warning, the video is disturbing. >> show me your hands now. show me your hands. drop the gun. >> he's got a gun to his head. >> stop walking towards me. stop walking towards me. stop, stop. >> shots fired, shots fired, one down. >> eight of those bullets entered brown's body. he did live through it. charges in these cases are rare. there were no charges related to the shooting or assault, the battery there. the officer was indicted for reckless handling of a firearm. these stories are all from the past year since the protest. you watch the news, but if you don't know some of them, if some of those names and details that are unfamiliar, that may be because so much of this is treated by our system, even after all this, as normal. if we stay on these facts, even when they're not trending, what does this period show us about solutions? well, that brings us to the final part of this special report. first, this recent activism and scrutiny alone are not bending the curve of police shootings in america. that's just a fact. not talking about whether we like it or not, but that's what this year and that chart shows. now, an observer might have thought or hoped that a year like the one we just lived through would impact some officers' conduct. when it comes to shootings in the aggregate, it did not. second, some valid policy reports are also failing to bend that curve. whether we like that or not, we should show the evidence. the body cameras can add to the type of mechanisms that law enforcement oversight needs but in this past year, they're not reducing shootings. tonight, in fact, among some of the few examples we chose out of the many available, we saw stories of police just unilaterally turned off their body cameras. now, part of my job on the news is to just be straightforward. have you ever seen surveillance video at a bank which could just be flipped off by any visitor or bank robber? that would kind of defeat the point. so when videos do incriminate the police, what happens? even when they exist, departments often hide them, in one study, the majority of incidents caught on body cameras were never released by police. some of these reforms won't work very well if they still depend on the original issue here in american policing, which, again, not every country does it this way on the premise that police should just police themselves. that brings me to a third and final point. some reforms do have an impact, when they assert truly independent authority over police. reforms to patrol the police works better if someone other than the police have control of what happens. that's why citizen videos have an immediate impact. police do not have control with them in the first place. the video of george floyd's murder went viral swiftly, so fast that police were still stupidly falsely claiming that floyd died in a medical incident. a cover story shredded by the public video. people forced facts into the system that otherwise would never have come to light. same goes for reforms where independent prosecutors investigate these allegations against police instead of the d.a.s that are usually on the police's team. there's also a plan that police unions are fighting hardest to stop, which is to reform the legal immunity that prevents courts from ever finding facts in the first place. right now, under the law, most cases against police are actually tossed before getting to a trial because of this type of immunity. the alleged victims don't get a day in court. if caught in alleged his conduct, like the colorado police handcuffing and detaining unarmed women and children at gunpoint, unarmed in broad daylight. it was very hard to see why those kids would pose that kind of threat, and the question legally becomes, is there accountability for that conduct? >> we brought you that case earlier. it never gets easier to watch. police admitted in that instance, it was a case of mistaken identity. they apologized in public and legally, that's what these cases typically end in, but here's a model for some change that occurred in real life. colorado, one of four states that limited immunity. there's more room to sue, alleging racism among other things. the only reason is because she has lived in a place with reformed police immunity in the past year. that's one of the sticking points for republicans opposing the george floyd act which did pass the house but stuck in the senate. those are some policy implications. what we do know is that this shooting rate remains steady with a disproportionate numbers of minorities shot or killed by police. so that's the same as last year. if we want to change this, which a lot of people and companies claim they did last year, then, again, my job here as a newscaster pretty simple. i can report to you by definition, as a policy, we would to do more than we did the last year because this whole thing is holding steady and most of what we covered in this report tonight focuses on the category of police killings. that's this chart. keep in mind, there's the even more common issue of extensive and allegedly excessive use of police force in america. our police officers sent over 50,000 people a year to the e.r. on average, half a million visits since 2015 according to a cdc count. i told you at the beginning of this, we were just going to go through the evidence and the facts. that's all this is. this is what's going on. these stories grind on whether they're covered or not, whether the system notices or not. and while the last year did provide some scrutiny and progress and change, any person or corporation that claimed to care then should logically care now because the numbers haven't budged. the killing rate is just as bad now as it was when people were posting passionately after the murder of george floyd. this is the same america with the same rate of police shootings and killings. these are real lives. these are black lives lost, and while the rare conviction of that officer for murder was significant that people saw him let off in cuffs to serve time, that rare conviction is not the goal of this blm movement according to many of its leaders. it's also not the goal of a functioning justice system. now, why do i say that? again, listen to the civil rights leaders. they've been telling us the goal is not to send more people to prison for the unnecessary illegal killings of innocent people. the goal is to stop the police killings of innocent people in the first place. and if those people's lives mattered last summer, then they matter now. and until we actually change this and keep up with the overall evidence, wait for the moments arbitrarily caught on tape. but you can't fix a problem like this in moments or hours. we're dealing with a problem of years, centuries. stories do help people see reality. but the reality is unfolding in years and years of government conduct and most of it is not on tape. so you have to go back to the steady line. it's on the same pace this year. this is not a time for told you sos but people did tell us. they did challenge americans at the time, support us when it's not trending, one protester put on record on that sign. another says we are not a trend, black lives still matter, and that's right. it's not a trend. it's people's lives. human lives that matter. and this police epidemic is way worse than a trend and we can't begin to fix it until we face it. face it hi susan! honey? 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>> ai will transform fundamentally and all sorts of problems. we're not ready for this revolution and the revolution is that the scale of the age of reason, that's how profound ai will be in our society. >> one of the larger concerns is that if you mix this self-perpetuating or self-improving system, it's information or processing, with some sort of vaguely stated creation, it can then eventually just do things on its own. how real is that or how much of that is just from our movies? >> at the moment, it's from movies. today, the important thing about ai is it does not have its own volition. it still requires humans to tell it what to look for. in other words, it doesn't have its own independent creative judgment. it can't say, i want to study physics or do art. it can be told to do physics and told to do art, but it can't decide it on its own. many people think that we will cross that boundary and at the point when the system can decide what it wants to work on, it's a whole new ball game. >> most of your background is in technology and the sort of initially started off or early tech space. a lot of your peers are very proud of those results and tend to be quite dismissive of government or public sector or other older models. i'm curious, your take on that and specifically, is there anything positive that you saw working through bureaucracies or with the defense department as compared to the tech and business space or do you stay in that group to say, it works a lot faster and better on the private sector side? >> in my five years working for the defense department, i developed an extraordinary respect for what i view as real heroes of our nation. i also developed an enormous distaste for the system that was erected around them, but very little freedom and very little opportunity to really drive things. the notion of innovation sort of is counter to the way the system was designed and they're stuck in because they're not allowed to run quickly, not allowed to innovative or take risks. if you want to sort of reform the way government works, we have to be willing to take the following risks. we have to be willing to put really competent people in charge and let them run and let them make mistakes. if you make a mistake on government, you get fired. if you do nothing, you don't get fired. >> i mentioned barack obama, you interviewed him when he was a candidate before becoming president. let's take a quick look. >> senator, you're here at google, and i like to think of the presidency as a job interview. it's also hard to get a job at google. >> right. and obviously, google is a symbol of one sector of our economy that's just been extraordinary. innovative, creative, and lucrative. but there's a whole other part of america that has been left behind. >> what did you learn about him? what did you think of his ongoing concern about a digital divide and how does he stack on tech compared to the two presidents who came after? >> well, i had the privilege of serving as a presidential science adviser under president obama, so my biases should be very clear. that president, president obama, understood the opportunity of essentially agility of technology. he understood what we were doing at a level that was really extraordinary. such a gifted man. especially the digital divide. i keep saying to my colleagues, you're so good at building systems that do "," "b" or "c." what about everyone else? president obama cared a great deal about that. >> google provides a lot of informational value around the world, including to a lot of people who may not have very much, if they can access it. and has done that and organizing a whole range of information over years. social media, which is very profitable and ubiquitous seems to be a little more of an entertaining distraction. do you think it provides the same value at this point in tech? >> it may in the future. not sure if it does today. the issue is social media does roughly the following. social media had major businesses and their job is to maximize shareholder return and revenue. and the best way to maximize revenue is to maximize engagement and the best way to maximize engagement social media is with outrage. literally, outrage on the left or the right. these systems nationally push to the extremes and do so for engagement reasons, not because there's some moral or social reason. that problem is an unsolved problem, and we need to address it. and we need to figure out a way so that these companies can be profit about companies without driving us insane. and further more, i would tell you that ai is going to make this much worse because if i were sort of an evil founder type, which hopefully i'm not, i would build a social network that knew so much about you by getting you to give that information, that i could target the information precisely toward your personal biases, political belief and duplicitous strategies and that would maximize my revenue but terrify the world. because that's not how human societies work. >> it's fascinating and horrifying, as you lay it out. i hope people understand what you're saying in the expertise behind it and on facebook, their vision of a more immersive virtual digital experience, whether that's their meta brand or some other type looks to you as a probable future reality or unlikely? >> i think it's highly likely and it's usually not in the way people like me describe it when you start. but the important point is, will you stop spending your day looking around the room and instead, spend the day looking at a screen in a world where you and your friends are younger, smarter, more beautiful, handsome, faster and more exciting drama to be in a narrative to spend more time there than the real world? if we create a world so seductive that if people stop doing the essential things we need for humans to do, it starts with having children, making families, all of that, that's a pretty big change in our society. but that technology is coming. we don't understand, let me say that precisely. we did not understand when we started the social media activities, the level of impact that it would have on governments and on people and in particular, manipulating people against objectives of one person or another through amplification, crisis, and so forth, so on. we just didn't understand it. i don't want us to make the same mistake with ai. i want us to have teams that are more than just scientists. i want emphasis, i want economists, i want biologists, i want all the people of civil society to work on, what are the right ethics for these systems? so one ethic is what we're really trying to do is really educate the world. the other is we're trying to entertain the world. at the moment, what we're doing, what they are doing collectively is they're busy confusing the world. because the incentives are not in alignment. the more money they make, the more they drive people crazy. we've got to get that fixed. >> yeah. lightning round is something we ask people to do. it's in a sense to go longer if you need, bill gates. >> brilliant. >> steve jobs. >> even more brilliant. of all of the people i have worked with, steve is the one that is the greatest sort of human achievement of all. the fact that he could invent and envision and see the world at such a young age is extraordinary. he's missed every day. >> mark zuckerberg. >> i worry with mark that he learned the lessons from bill gates and others about the pursuit of his corporation and he forgot some of these other principles. we'll see. >> elon musk. >> maybe more brilliant than all of them combined. if you look at what elon did, he did everything right technologically but did one other thing. which is he took enormous risk in a business that required billions of dollars of capital. and remember, when tesla was near bankruptcy and now it's an extraordinarily near trillion dollar corporation, very, very few people in my entire life have been able to combine that amount of risk tolerance as well as technological brilliance. it's very rare to have both. >> and finally, a couple of sentences. the wildest thing about this super successful widely believed to be intelligent person, eric schmidt, the wildest thing about you that people would be surprised by. >> i go to burning man every year. >> failure means? >> in my world, failure means putting your pants on the next morning, start again. >> success means? >> more success. people who are successful tend to create success around them. they do so because of uniquely human aspects such as drive, charisma, and luck. >> and finally, reaching the summit means? >> there's a point when you're successful when you realize that you're at the top, and i don't mean the tippy top. i mean that the people that you're with are also winners. it is incredibly satisfying when you are successful at the summit, to realize that there's other summits and hanging out with the other summiteers is the most fun ever. >> you've been generous with your time. we learned a lot. thank you for joining me on the summit series. >> thank you, ari, and i look forward to seeing this and seeing you soon. >> absolutely, appreciate it. >> you can catch the entire interview of my discussion with eric schmidt as well as some of our other valued guests like sharon stone by going to msnbc's youtube channel. there's a playlist of these in-depth conversations with ari. maybe it's a nice time for holiday viewing. check it out online. coming up, we've been working on something special that we want to share with you this holiday season. stay with us. hare with you thisy season stay with us like subway®. like the new baja steak & jack tender, thicker-cut steak and. wait sooo you're not coming out of retirement? 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what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. all right, so this is our holiday show and i appreciate you spending some time with me on our old beat team here over this holiday season. and the new year period. as the year draws to a close, we actually did celebrate a big anniversary this year. four years of the beat, which made us, for those who keep track, the longest running show at 6:00 p.m. on msnbc's 25 year history. now, that is obviously a credit to you. there's no shows without viewers. so we do want to thank you for sticking with us during these ups and downs and wild times and before the end of the year for something fun because the news isn't always that, we gathered some of our favorite moments. we the breaking news and the big interviews but guess who made us smile or think and, of course, my team told me we had to include it, we have some of the bad jokes and as always, the awkward silences. take a look. >> the premiere of the beat with ari melber. >> a first look at previously secret documents. >> did you speak to the fbi? >> yes, yes. >> that is an admission of get. >> i'm not a lawyer, thank god. >> is this ridiculous? >> it's not ridiculous, sam. >> a fundamental question whether it's even legal. >> he can't win. >> a covid crisis. >> we deal with a very formidable virus. >> january 6th, we saw a mob storming the capitol. you can see the protests, spurred by the police killing of george floyd. >> the aftermath, the casualties of war. >> we can't let trump play us against each other. >> there's not a woman in america who is not now reliving some experience. >> we're shifting the blame and the shame to the actual harassers. >> what brings the tears? >> it was a hard fight. >> really important for us as a culture to own the culture. >> it's important to be an artist and to speak truth. >> here we are live on primary eve. >> finally left the white house since becoming the loser of this race. >> without a low key reference to drake's over. >> for trump, yes, it's over. >> a little hair for you. >>automobiles? >> that's a lyric. >> can you say the way benny smalls would say it? even when i was wrong, i got my point across. >> are you a majority leader if you are not running it? >> if i say the ladies run it? yes, we do. >> we run tings, tings do not run we. >> are you sesame? >> the line from drake, which is a wise man once said nothing at all. >> you almost wonder whether it's leading to an awkward silence? the awkward silences. >> oh. >> i don't know. what can you say? >> it wasn't butcher t who said, i believe there is a god above me. i'm just the god of everything else. >> mm-hmm. >> this is weird, right? >> it is super weird. >> i am amazed that millions of people are watching the show. >> there is saying on television news, a hard turn. >> i know a hard turn, luckily, i can find one. >> for a dollar, find collusion. >> oh, god, it's when you collude. >> your microwave dinners we heard about. >> very dry. >> it's like say here, look at it. >> i'm talking to an empty chair. >> earth is in space. we are all on earth. deal with it. >> i don't always see this in advance. that's really funny. >> just ask, sir. >> it's dangerous to step into the political arena. >> it is friday on "the beat." you know what that means? it's time to fall back. >> i think you need to fallback and not give your guests homework. >> this is a toxic mass. >> right here. >> we have to say in the business recuse ourselves out of this acceptingment. a legal recusement joke a. big hit around here. >> a classic miranda joke. do have you time for a bad passover joke? >> it's a lobbyist registration joke. >> do you have a favorite economist vote? >> rapper 50 cent, given recent increases in inflation, his name is now 64 cent. >> you are watching "the beat." >> kamala harris is -- >> almost in her shoe. >> i am the original beatknick on your floor. >> i appreciate you spending some time on can the the beat." >> thank you so much. >> if you don't know, notice you now you know. >> you know, we have fun. we try to. it has been quite a year. when we come back, i've got one more thing to share with you. save big. order through the app. hey, come here! nurtec odt is the first and only medication proven to treat and prevent migraines. don't take if allergic to nurtec. the most common side effects were nausea, stomach pain, and indigestion. ask your doctor about nurtec today! mom, hurry, our show's gonna start soon. ask your doctor won't be too long. i'm leaving work now. ♪ people around ♪ ♪ christmas ♪ oh no. seriously? oh, don't worry. mommy'll be back soon. besides, we can record the show for her. it's not the same if she's not here. ♪ christmas ♪ ♪ the snow's coming down ♪ what the? oh my goodness. don't worry, i'm a nurse. we're on in 30 seconds. i don't suppose you can sing, can you? ♪ deck the halls ♪ ♪ but it's not like christmas at all ♪ mommy? that's mommy. whoa. ♪ and all the fun we had last year ♪ ♪ pretty lights on the tree ♪ ♪ i'm watching them shine ♪ watch the full story at xfinity.com/sing2 . snow, if you want to keep in touch, even when we're not on air, you can always find me @arimelber on instagram and twitter now new, you can go to tiktok. it doesn't have a lot of followers. if you, your family or kids, sign up, i promise, i will share more, including some of my brother only on those accounts. you don't really see him on "the beat." thank you for spending time with us. that does it for the holiday edition. here's to an even better 2022. less sick days! cold coming on? zicam is the #1 cold shortening brand! highly recommend it! zifans love zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds! zicam. zinc that cold! ♪♪ this... is the planning effect. this is how it feels to know you have a wealth plan that covers everything that's important to you. this is what it's like to have a dedicated fidelity advisor looking at your full financial picture. making sure you have the right balance of risk and reward. and helping you plan for future generations. this is "the planning effect" from fidelity. - hi, i'm steve. - i'm lea. and we live in north pole, alaska. - i'm a retired school counselor. [lea] i'm a retired art teacher. [steve] we met online about 10 years ago. as i got older, my hearing was not so good so i got hearing aids. my vision was not as good as it used to be, got a change in prescription. but the thing missing was my memory. i saw a prevagen commercial and i thought, "that makes sense." i just didn't have to work so hard to remember things. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. good evening, everyone. we begin the readout tonight with 2021. it started off promising. a new beginning following the pandemic nightmare of 2020 after the awfulness of the previous four years. then a new horror emerged, six days in, when a pro-trump mob stormed the u.s. capitol to violently overturn the election leaving five people dead. an event that shook our democracy to its tour. trump was still president. but not for long, because that hostile insurrection thing, it didn't work. joe biden became our new president anyway as the constitution demands him somewhere, somehow