distribute 500 million rapid covid tests and creating a government-run test site that you'll run for free. it is unclear, but distribution being begin as soon as next month and that rollout can't come soon enough. this new wave has made it clear that the u.s. is still not where it needs to be when it comes to testing. people across the country are still waiting in line for hours to get tested as they try to protect themselves and their families. by the way, the government is adding 20,000 -- 20,000 or 10,000, i'll get that right. many thousands of testing sites across the country. on the plus side, the fda just authorized two antiviral pills from pfizer and merck to treat covid-19 at home. merck says it will have 10 million medicine pack available by the end of the month and pfizer said it's ready to roll out immediately and it is limited. the pfizer drug is best option. it has a 90% reduction rate in hospitalization and death. the merck pill could only lead to only a 30% reduction in covid hospitalizations and is not recommended for people who are pregnant or people who plan to become pregnant. new studies found that people infected with the omicron variant are between 50% and 80% less likely than those to end up in the hospital the united states army says it's close to developing what it's been describing as a super vaccine which protects from an array of covid variant and coronaviruses including omicron and its one shot. scientists at the walter reed institute have been working on a vaccine since early 2020. researchers are currently analyzing phase one of human trials. the vaccine has not been tested on the omicron variant yet. remember, to get a drug you have to get past phase one, phase two and then phase three. it's not here yet, but it might be. >> despite all of the good tidings, hospital across the country are bracing themselves for a possible new wave of covid patient, but this time they'll handle it with fewer staff. according to the bureau of labor statistics, 450,000 health care workers have left the industry since february 2020 which is basically when covid started and the highly infectious omicron variant is threatening to exacerbate staff shortages. the cdc has had new guidelines saying doctors and nurses who test positive for covid-19 but who are asymptomatic can return to work for seven days after the negative test including 10 days and that should really, really help. joining me is the host of "in the bubble with andy slavitt," that's a podcast. good morning. merry christmas to you. talk to me about one of the things i mentioned that it the government is doing in addition with these at-home tests is they're setting up thousands of free testing sites across the country and thousands more vaccination sites across the country and they're sending staff, military medical staff to hospitals that are embattled around the country. talk to me about some of these big policy things that you think could move the needle. >> good morning and merry christmas to you, as well. it's a dizzying array of news you just reported and it could be confusing to folks and our chances, if we do get omicron hospitalized are probably lower and what that doesn't mean is that the hospitals aren't going to get a significant number of cases. they are, just based on the volume of spread. as the biden administration announced, we risk in this near-term and the resources and the hospital and that's test and the booster and those things are high in demand and so over the next four weeks or so where we're going to see a lot of cases, the president has announced another mobilization and effort to get the army, to get fema and new sites and to get free tests sent out to folks to get tested to community health centers and all of those things will make a big difference and hopefully get us through this with the least amount of pain possible. >> i want to talk to you about boosters. the eu is requiring booster to call yourself fully vaccinated. israel has started talking about a fourth shot meaning another booster. you wrote an opinion in "the washington post qwest "which said if you are in a position to decide whether to create a vaccination requirement, you do not need to wait, the same way you would if there was a super spreader, vent. you're arguing for boosters becoming sort of mainstream, for everybody to get them. >> look, i think omicron changes the definition of fully vaccinated to having the third shot. i hope everybody out there goes and gets the third shot and a 20fold increase in the antibody response. the good news is even if you don't have that, the two shots alone are still likely to protect you against hospitalization. they're not as likely if you get a booster. when it comes to our lives i don't think anybody wants to play games. omicron changes things. it means that we should be getting three shots. in terms of things like the fourth shot, et cetera, et cetera. i think the way to think about this is it will be a period of time, maybe it will be a year. maybe it will be six months with which you'll want to re-up our shot just like we do with the flu, but for now the three-dose base seems like from what science is showing us, a really, really critical in the fight. >> it is important to point out that with the deaths. it's amazing that we have more than a thousand people a day dying from this and we got to a point much higher than this unvaccinated people are still dying at a rate 13 times of that vaccinated people. this is still emotionally a problem of unvaccinated people. >>. >> that's right. we risk the ongoing, continued flood of people into our hospitals and people dying so long as we continue to have large, unvaccinated population over 100 million people. so not withstanding that there are other pieces of good news that you reported including a new drug which will slowly come on to the market which people will be able to take if they do get sick with covid. and it's always better to prevent in the case of an infectious disease because that reduces the opportunity of spread. so hopefully more people will get vaccinated and hopefully it will become more routine and mainstream over the near-term and that will take the number of cases down to zero, but it can take the number of deaths down to low numbers and that's exactly what we hope to see. >> thanks for your time this morning. andy slavitt is a former white house senior adviser for covid response. i want to bring back dr. roy. she's medical director of the covid isolation and quarantine sites and internal medicine physician. she's wearing a leafs hat because she's in toronto. they play next on december 30th because the nhl has delayed the season and paused the season a little bit because of covid. lippy roy believes our hometown team last won the stanley cup, i believe before both you and i were born. >> 1967, ali. >> yeah. that would confirm it. libby, let's talk about this, andy and i were talking about the bigger policy stuff. you deal with people straight on and we are in the season in which people are getting the flus at a rate they haven't gotten before covid because we're out and about. they're getting the common cold. i had it for a week and it had all of the same symptoms as covid and i tested three times because everybody around you when you cough or sneeze these days think you have covid. i didn't. i had a cold. what are you supposed to do in this world when you think you're getting covid. >> merry christmas and happy holidays to you and your viewers. yes, i'm in toronto and i am so glad that the leafs games have been cancelled. what happens in professional leagues like the nhl, the nba is a reflection of the greater society. to your question about respiratory symptoms. you know, it's a very important reminder to all your viewers, ali, especially now that we're in the winter months and we'll see more respiratory infections and the common cold still exists and one of the more common symptoms when it comes to respiratory and viral illnesses, nasal congestion, cough, sore throats, fevers, headaches and bodyaches and covid causes those things and then some. covid causes g.i. symptoms like nausea and neurologic symptoms, dizziness and headache. it's important if you have the symptoms particularly when covid is so widespread get tested for covid and if the covid test is negative, ali, people should get a flu test. >> interesting. all right. and if i have these symptoms and i test negative, it's entirely -- and if i've got symptoms and if it's covid, does that mean a covid test would show it at that point? if i have cold symptoms and i test and it's negative, does that mean it's not covid? >> i'll unpack that. so it depends on what kind of test you get? remember, the pcr test and the chain reaction, it amplifies the viral dna. it's actually more accurate. the results take longer to come back. it takes 24 to 72 hours. the rapid antigen test, you get it back in 15 to 30 minutes and it's less accurate. it depends when you get it in your symptom course. if you're having symptoms you should be able to be producing enough viral load to test positive, but remember, if you have symptoms and you're covid negative it could depend on the type of test, when you get it, but if it's negative get the flu test because influenza is still around. ali? >> a quick question for this one, lippy. why get vaccinated since everybody is getting this anyway? >> yeah. i mean, my own patients are asking me this. my own family members are sometimes asking me this. it's important to get vaccinated because it is the best way based on the science and data to prevent getting covid. sars covid 2, the virus that causes covid-19 has proven to all scientists and health experts to be a very tricky virus. it is not the common cold. it is clearly here to stay and the more people who remain unvaccine aid the more opportunity the virus has to replicate and mutate and form more variants that are more transmissible like the omicron variant. it is our best chance to get out of this pandemic, ali. >> lippy, good to see you, give my love to toronto and as the head says the maple leaves, and coming to us from our hometown of toronto. president biden is celebrating the holidays right now and things will pick up quickly in 2022 and from portland to savannah, georgia, and a lot of places in between we highlighted justice and brought you deeply personal stories all year long. stay tuned for more "velshi across america." so they only pay for what they need. (gasps) ♪ did it work? only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ spider-man no way home in theaters december 17th nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. ♪ liyou get advice like:rty. liberty. ♪ try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette [music: sung by craig robinson] ♪ i'm a ganiac, ganiac, check my drawers ♪ [sfx: sniffs / long exhale] ♪ and my clothes smell so much fresher than before ♪ ♪ yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ i'm a ganiac, ganiac, check my drawers ♪ ♪ it's a freshness like i've never smelled before ♪ one sniff of gain flings and you'll be a gainiac too! the only detergent with oxiboost and febreze. hi, my name is cherrie. i'm 76 and i live on the oregon coast. my husband, sam, we've been married 53 years. we love to walk on the beach. i have two daughters and then two granddaughters. i noticed that memories were not there like they were when i was much younger. since taking prevagen, my memory has gotten better and it's like the puzzle pieces have all been [click] put together. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. as we head into the new year democrats are scrambling for the cornerstone build back better agenda after senator joe marchin tanked the social spending bill on live tv. president biden remains optimist take he and the west virginia democrat can find some common ground and move forward. another piece of legislation that's been tabled until next year is voting rights. senate democrats hope they can pass either the john lewis voting rights act or the for the people act. however, the prospect of that seems highly unlikely because of the senate filibuster in which you need 60 people to vote for something. however, this week president biden said he would support a rule change for legislation that's as critical as this. >> whatever it takes, change the senate rules to accommodate a major piece of legislation without requiring 60 votes. >> so you support a carveout of the filibuster for voting rights. >> the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster. i support making an exception on voting rights for the filibuster. >> joining me now is nbc's josh letterman at the white house. josh, good morning to you. why is joe biden optimist take he can work with manchin even though he's been hindered by manchin on build back better at every turn. is this joe biden being joe biden being in the senate for so long that he thinks he's optimistic. >> he has to be because there's no plan b. build back better might have derailed for the moment, but it's still the only train that's leaving the station and so the fate of all of those campaign promises that joe biden made on climate change, family services and pre-k, on whether they can get build back better back on track. we know that president biden less than a week ago spoke by phone with senator manchin after he dropped that bombshell announcing he wasn't going to support the current legislation and white house officials tell us one reason that they're still speaking optimistically about this is that manchin made clear it's over, let's go home i'm not pursuing these issues. he's saying no to the legislation the way it looks now, and so i think that while the white house is working over this christmas holiday and says that they will have more to say about this early in the year, we should be very open with people, what we are hearing privately for democratic sources is if they'll get build back better on track, it's not about trying to persuade joe manchin to support the version of build back better that we've been talking about for the last many months. it's essential he let's go back to the drawing board and see what joe manchin will support and try to add and build from that, ali? >> thank you for your work. nbc's josh letterman for us at the white house. >> as we just mentioned, some of the key elements of build back better are on the cutting room floor. the programs at risk are the ones that bring transformational change to economic inequality in america. - oh...oh. - what's going on? - oh, darn! - let me help. 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. so this one's kind of interesting. i know you don't care all about all of the sausage that's being made all of the time, but senate majority leader chuck schumer has promised to hold a vote on president biden's build back better agenda later this year. we don't know what exactly will make it into the bill's final form, but we do know it's likely to fall short of the transformative legislation that president biden and the democrats have run on. we're not even sure it will pass. whatever gets to a vote joe manchin has got to be on side with. take the child tax credit, for example, it's set to expire at the end of the month and not entirely clear on what that has to do, since it was first passed earlier in the year as part of the covid relief bill and it's been put into the pockets of working families. that was just confusing me. working families struggling with affordable child care and necessities. one analysis on policy and social policy found that it lifted over 3 million children out of poverty. despite those overwhelmingly positive results, all of that could be for nothing if this is not made permanent. 10 million children could sink into poverty or deeper into poverty if the child tax credit is allowed to expire. my next guest says a cut to the child tax credit could disproportionately affect families. he's the author, dr. perry, good morning to you and merry christmas to you. i have been looking to talk to you the whole time during build back better because we have been talking about this as a $3 trillion bill and a $2 trillion bill and a $1.8 trillion bill. the things that matter to people are that there are things in this bill that are transformative about the climate, about people's wages and about pof are they, the degree to which we should not be suffering in 2021 in america. i want you to tell us about the things in this bill that change people's lives in an institutional and structural way that can help us get away from this world of inequality that we're in. >> i have thoughts on a reason why santa claus was pictured there is because everyone wants safety and security and health -- good health during this holiday season. we can make a lot of this permanent by passing the build back better act, the child tax credit, as you mentioned will reduce the child pof are thor by 45% to 50% by some estimates. and this is the thing that joe manchin needs to be careful. he is leaning on the myth that providing this child tax credit will disincentivize work, but we know from this current state where we have been using the making it refundable and the child tax care credit some 91% of families with low income. those making 35,000 a year are using their monthly tax credits for the most basic household expenses. so utilities, education, food. so it really is saving people's lives and education. the making early child carefree would be a lifesaver for many because what disincentivized people from working is the high cost of child care. so if you have a preschooler or you're struggling to make ends meet then you're going to take care of your child yourself. housing subsidies. it goes without saying, everybody is talking about the rises in the home prices both in buying the market as well as the rental market. the rental market has gone up close to 10%. so if we don't pass something that gets money in the hands of people, investing in actual people and we're actually going to make people poorer in the long run. so we need to pass this bill. >> this whole concept of disincentivized work. republicans talk about it a lot. nobody as far as i know, republicans and democrats hope to disincentivize work, but when you talk about the high cost of care. we talk about child care obviously, there's also care of parents and care of spouses and care of people with long-term illnesses which this bill also tries to address. there are things that go into this bill that fall under a lot of different categories of dealing with these wealth inequalities. i think the point you make is interesting that when you get people that are struggling this kind of money. study after study gets spent in the local economy and the return to taxpayers are good. it's an actual investment and it's not the spending that disappears. >> i remember when the pandemic first hit and people were saying the sky was going to fall and we were in the worst depression since the great depression. actual people uplifted their me and people used the money to feed their families, to purchase goods and it really helped us stave off a depression and we had low wages in the long run. we know that the business community for so long have had a growth model built on low wages. so what is a disincentive, actually is poor work conditions are the disincentive and not providing people with the essential goods that they need. >> yeah. a work, a system that is built on low wages is a solution that you and i need to have entirely separately. good to see you. merry christmas. he's a senior fellow there and author of "know your price. valuing black lives and property in america's black cities." coming up, the pandemic has affected each and every one of us in the united states. in the united states asian-american communities have been particularly affected facing a major uptick in violence and xenophobia. for softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free & gentle. just pour into the rinse dispenser and downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, fluffier, and gentler on your 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(vo) t-mobile for business helps small business owners prosper during their most important time of year. when you switch to t-mobile and bring your own device, we'll pay off your phone up to $1000. you can keep your phone. keep your number. and get your employees connected on the largest and fastest 5g network. plus, we give you $200 in facebook ads on us! so you can reach more customers, create more opportunities, and finish this year strong. visit your local t-mobile store today. come on everybody, let's get to work. johnny, you're gonna be and fin working with strong. the number one choreographer in redshore city. wrong. i'm trying, he's freaking me out. tippy-toes, tippy-toes, i don't see your tippy-toes. if you could just give me some dance lessons you would be saving my life. ♪ in a sky full of stars ♪ ♪ i think i saw you ♪ [ cheering ] that's my boy. there are more than 800,000 americans who are not with us because of the coronavirus. it has up ended society ney untold ways. it's affected almost every facet of life. it changed the way many asian-americans operated on a day-to-day basis. amid the thousands of violent attacks on members of that community. between march 2020 and september 30th of this year, the organization stop aapi hate tallied a total of 10,370 reported incidents of hate against asian americans and pacific islanders in the united states. as part of our velshi across america series i traveled to san francisco's chinatown to sit down with six locals who spoke openly about the emotional and physical trauma that they've endured during the pandemic. >> you know, i've been really heart broken. i've been very fearful. i felt powerless and invisible, to be honest. i felt like we weren't seen. from my store walking to my car i'm carrying pepper spray in my hand and just scared any time i hear a sound coming at me. i look behind me every time i turn a corner to make sure there's no one behind me i might need to run from. one incident someone was biking down the sidewalk and i thought someone was trying to attack me and i almost hit them in the face because it was a loud sound by my ear. my storm has been vandalized and i don't know if it's a hate crime, but i'm constantly living in this sphere. >> hearing my aunts and family having to make this cost/benefit analysis if it's worth going grocery shopping on this particular day. my aunts were going to the museum and it happened to be the same day that a woman was being assaulted here on market street and to make that call, if it was worth it to see some beautiful art because there was a potential that they could be assaulted or hurt in some way, and during my work with collaboration, as i've been talking to different artists and creatives, to hear people navigate losing jobs and trying to still share and create art, but also have that fear and anxiety hanging over them is just a lot to hold in detention and try to navigate that as we're also just trying to live our lives. >> so one of the thing about this hate crime and the heightened rhetoric of the hate crime, like josh has talked about having to make the decision whether they should risk going out and getting food or staying home, the fear is real, and i think the rhetoric sort of triggered their past history, too. so the fear may not only be about the current incident. the fear may trigger from their history and can look even worse and feel even -- [ no audio ] >> that's exactly where the conversation did end. we're just going to fix that video in a second, but it was an interesting conversation with those people in san francisco. i mentioned that it was in chinatown in san francisco, but for those of you who know about america's asian heritage you'll know that is a misnomer. there are people in san francisco and across this country who came from all parts of asia, many of them well over 100 or 150 years ago. i spoke to people who were sixth or seventh generation american and they might have been chinese or japanese or different groups and one of the things that they were talking about is when they came to attacks on asian-americans there isn't a sense of community the way there has developed in the black commune the in the face of let's say violence by police and that is one of the challenges that the community is talking about trying to fix or various asian-americans are trying to fix. is there a common voice that they can respond to challenges like racism and attacks with and we'll get to that in just a moment. we'll take a quick break. when we come back we'll continue with more of "velshi across america." don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. 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[music: "i swear"] jaycee tried gain flings for the first time the other day... and forgot where she was. you can always spot a first time gain flings user. ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ we talked a lot about infrastructure this year. what was once a long-running joke about the trump administration finally became passed legislation in november. billions were doled out to federally fund infrastructure across the country. one up groo of people that especially need that money is the native-american community which struggles with clean drinkable water. velshi across america travelled to window rock, arizona, the capital of the navajo nation. there, i met with six members of the tribe. we covered the navajo people's desperate need for infrastructure and the fight to preserve the native language and what it means to be a native-american in the united states today. >> you know, it really is talking about our way of life and who we are as navajo people to help come through our emergent stories and all of the way to who we are today. that is what has shaped me into the individual that we are today. i always like to say that our ancestors' prayers are answered and it instills pride in me and a lot of us and many of us grew up listening to our grandparents and their teachings and their stories and how that affects us today as leaders and i believe it instills a sense of pride and confidence within us. >> that's what you hear and feel, if someone says what is it to be a navajo? >> yes. >> it's pride for you. >> it's pride. >> your perpetuation of navajo tradition, heritage and language is fairly significant including something that just happened last night. >> yeah. that's probably one of the most common things that the navajo nation museum is known for and we're totally proud of it and that's -- we've been dubbing major motion pictures in the navajo language and it all started with star wars, and that's dubbed in the navajo language. it's on disney+ and "finding nemo" was dubbed in the navajo language and we did our first motion picture, "fistful of dollars." it's a classic western. i would get older folks asking you should do a western. yeah. our older generation, they're the ones that are holding on to our language, and the big number one reason why we push for that is because language is at the core of any culture. our language is -- it's at a tipping point for navajo people and if we don't do anything about it we'll lose it forever. >> can i just get a show of hands of who here speaks the navajo language? okay. >> the colleagues and panelists here have spoken about the need to preserve language. it all hinges on the difference in that we are the people. we speak the language. we have a connection to our land and when we speak these words into the universe in prayer it's how we find our grounding with who we are. >> my viewer may not be familiar, denay is what the navajo people refer to as their language and culture. >> yes, ali. yes. >> for months we have talked politics about this infrastructure bill and it finally got done, but it is uniquely not abstract to you in navajo nation particularly as it relates to water. >> for many decades the issue about water has really been overlooked by the united states for tribes, and not just navajo, but in particular navajo. we've had a rolling log of constant need for water development on the navajo nation. today i just -- in the health service they have a listing of over 10,000 -- almost 10,000 homes that don't have water today and -- >> this is in navajo nation? >> in the navajo nation there are almost 10,000 homes that lack water, and if there's approximately four family members per home, that's easily 40,000 people. money is one factor in all of this, you know? right now i -- i see the money that could come, $3.5 billion for ihs water projects, to get water to homes, but i know too many of the details about the process to get water to homes. it's going to be a real struggle. yes, the money is coming, but there's still a long ways to see a lot of families get water. >> with native americans like deb holland being in congress, you know, i think we've kind of gathering more support and dr. jill biden was out here a few months ago. so we have some allies, i think, in a higher level that sees what he's seeing as far as need for our navajo people, basic needs. so on top of water, of course, we need infrastructure. there's still a whole lot of dirt roads that we have it travel on and our police vehicles are getting torn up, the internet. the internet, everybody else has internet, but a lot of our navajo people don't have internet, cell service. so being optimistic, eventually our leaders see it and they're going to forecast and say hey, let's help our native people a little bit more and a little bit better because they are invested in us. they have treaties with them and it's their -- it's their agreement with us that they would take care of our native people. >> you know, really when you look at the history in the federal government and then our stance of working with them with the government to government relationship, oftentimes we don't have a seat at the table and it is other individuals who are making decisions for us and about us and not having the first-hand knowledge from individuals like myself, or the president ones what's going on actually on the nation and the reservation impacting our communities. so when i think about representation i think about how this new administration has come in and really wants to gauge what it really feels like to be a part of the navajo nation or part of other indigenous communities that are out there. and so just having that seat at the table and making sure that we are heard from our perspective, because your perspective and my perspective, i live here, i'm navajo 24/7. this is all i know. and then you have come to visit or other people are trying to understand what this perspective is like to live here on navajo. you've heard a little bit about the water issue that we have here, about the public safety and the health, how it's vastly different compared to western society and the western world out there, so having that ability to know the difference between the two world societies that we have to live by is very imperative that we continue to voice our opinions and make sure that we continue to get strong men and women of native heritage in these high positions within d.c. or the state legislatures or even here within our tribal government as well. >> if you know me, you know i love going on the road and talking to people. that's why doing velshi across america is one of the my favorite parts of this job. we covered a lot of important issues in 2021. here's to doing even more of that next year in 2022. e of that next ye ar in 2022 p. rns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. 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[ yelling ] wayfair is my therapy. amen, kim! yup! i'm hiding from my kids, as we speak. ♪ [text alert] ♪ son of a— —beth? if it's “i thought we said no gifts” season, it's walgreens season. if it's “i thought we said no gifts” season, when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. [daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. 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required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. a little while ago i was playing you the recording of a conversation i had with an asian american panel of citizens in san francisco. we had a bit of a technical problem there. here's the rest of it. >> we need to educate people. i think there's a misimpression of who asians are. a lot of people call us the model minorities. they don't realize there's many asians that live below the poverty line. i think what happens now is that it sometimes scratches the surface where people think that it's okay to behave like this, because we're in a time where it's okay to attack asians and i think we need to send a message that it's not okay. and i think that we need to come together and stand together because i think what bothers me tremendously is when i see the videos of people getting attacked and nobody does anything. bystanders are just there and they're just watching as if it's all okay, and that's not the america that i know. it's not the america that i represent. and it's not the america that i want to have. the one that i want is where we stand up for each other and we help each other get through this and turn the tide on this. >> i want to say on a personal note i feel the same things everyone else has mentioned in terms of feeling helpless and feeling -- somewhat feeling anger towards how people are being victimized right now and that some of that victimization is born of feelings of hate or focuses and prejudices on us as a community. from a professional position there's also a sense of frustration because we've had this perceived increase in crime, where crime has been occurring for a long time now. and for it to be based upon people's biases and prejudices conflicts, it makes it even worse than just having people being victimized in general. and so i think it's really important from my perspective to keep my personal feelings apart from my professional responsibilities, but that frustration permeates in all of us in law enforcement and public safety because our job is to keep people safe. and i think the challenge, as has been mentioned by many, is just to make sure that the word is out. that people are more aware. that people develop behaviors that make themselves safer in light of how people are acting in a negative way towards them because of who they are and what they represent. >> my thanks to all of those who participated in these conversations across the country over the last year. we're wrapping up another year unlike any other. unless you had a crystal ball back in march of 2020, no one could have predicted that we'd still be in this situation nearly two years later. it's not just the 2019 pandemic, it's our politics, witnessing the erosion of democracy and a descent into deep political divisiveness. it's heavy stuff weighing on us all and the pandemic has sabotaged many of our time-honored traditions. many children are waking up fewer gifts under the tree and several of you are probably quarantining and thousands of families will sit down for a dinner tonight with fewer seats at the table. you're not alone in feeling that holiday cheer is in short supply this year, which is why when he see friends and family this season, be gentle. everyone is going through what we can't see on the outside. you never know how far a small gesture of kindness can go. and if you or someone you know is struggling this holiday season, consider reaching out to the substance abuse and mental health services hotline. the number is 1-800-662-4357. 1-800-622-help. i'll tweet that out as well. remember, businesses are perpetually short staffed right now so be extra patient with the workers who are helping you achieve your holiday plans. here's the good news, there are brighter days ahead, literally. we just marked the winter solstice which means the days will slowly start getting longer, meaning more sunlight, and some of that darkness is going to begin to fade. hang in there. we've got this. that does it for me. in the words of the legendary boy band 'n sync, merry christmas and happy holidays. we've got a special holiday edition of "the cross connection" with tiffany cross starting right now. iffany cross starting right now good morning, everyone! merry christmas, and welcome to this very special holiday edition of "the cross connection." listen, we've got a fun, festive show lined up this morning with some of your favorite cross connection guests so i hope your stockings were filled with everything you wanted this morning. listen, if they're not, those great sales start tomorrow anyway. okay, so while you're flipping those pancakes and watching the kids open their gifts, join the conversation. we want to know what your favorite go-to movie is this holiday season and we want to hear from you as well as our panel. my christmas panel joins me, michael harriet, erin haynes and giasi ross, fan favorite, attorney at ross lott, plcc and co-host of a podcast. guys, thanks for being here. merry christmas to all of you who celebrate. let's get into it. i have to tell you, i have my own go-to es