in the middle of all of the madness we faced delta, omicron, a war on u.s. history. we also saw something we rarely see in the criminal justice system for black folks, accountability. a year that woke many americans up. next year is going to be just as wild or probably wilder. anxiety on folks. there is a lot of work to be done. jason johnson a resident at morgan state university. we like to do a segment called who won the week. you guys are all veterans. we want to know who won the whole year. chairman steele, my friend. we are going to ask you a big question. >> big one. >> in your mind, who won the year? >> i am ready for that. i am so happy to be with this crew. this will will be a great conversation. in my book only one person. the honorable nancy pelosi. she has demonstrated time and time again a level of political resilience that is unmatched in modern politics. i know this firsthand. i am the guy that got her fired in 2010, right. >> i remember. >> i know what i am talking about. from her leadership, her tenacity, i disagree vehemently with a lot of the policies that nancy is out there promoting and i am ready to get into the trench and do it all over for the fight. but in terms of trying to hold the line on our democracy, number one, and at the same time trying to navigate and move the biden administration into a position where she can get a win. you have to tip the hat to the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. >> i agree with you. i think she will go down in history with tip o'neill, some of the greats in both of the chambers. the sam rayburns. people you name buildings after. i would say she is the most effective speaker of the house probably in u.s. history because she had to navigate the most difficult times with the first black president, getting through the most massive health care change, you know, really since f.d.r. was in or l.b.j., you know, she has been the most effective speaker. i think it is a really strong choice for you. remember the days that we argued about policy and it was so normal. wasn't that fun. do you remember? policy. >> i love the fact that you were so wrong. >> it was so wrong. it was so wrong. tiffany cross, remember how raw michael steele was on everything. who in your mind, tiffany cross. who won the year? >> so much of what we talk about come from print reporters. print reporters won the year. the people that go and pour through thousands of pages of government documents, cultivate sources and spend months. we wouldn't know what we do have it not been for print reporters. >> the miami herald, breaking the stories that we can follow up on and can do the deep dives we did not have the resources to do. it was the miami herald. we recently did a story from a local utah reporter uncovering the door to door canvases by nefairius -- that was another local reporter. >> i got the city star, the herald. they all add up to a cable subscription. >> journalism is not free. gift them to people this holiday season. people have to remember that this is something that stands on the frontline of democracy like voters do. >> you are absolutely right. while you are getting subscriptions, the 19th news. that is a journalistic outfit very worth supporting. you know we like to do this. the pressure is on. amazing answers from the chairman, michael steele. from the chairwoman, tiffany cross. to you jason johnson. what you got. who won the year? >> so my winner of the year is steve bannon. our country is much less safe and much less democratic and less capable of protectings it citizens than it was a year ago. we all wondered when you split up brady and belichick. who is worse and what is behind what has fallen in america. ground zero for that is steve bannon. this man has won the year. none of us are better off for it but that is the state of american politics in 2021. >> it is interesting. a guy that has four shirts and none of them fit. he looks like a hobo. he has managed to own a president. his plan of he manages to do it. i think he lives for free. i don't know where he makes money but he has managed to destroy and destabilize the country. it is kind of accurate. despite all of the attacks and the fight that we had to destroy this experiment that never worked. i would say black women won the year. the fight like people like stacey abrhams, so many of the women that refused to lay down and stand down and insisted they will continue to push forward. darnella frazier who filmed the floyd murder and changed the world. black women are fighting the good damn fight. y'all won the year. can i get an amen. >> we won the year, joy. we are in that. all black women. black women as natasha brown said. it is true, you know. even though black women won the year, joy, we are not out here saying that it is our job to save the world. >> it is not. >> we are trying to save ourselves and our husbands and daughters and sons and sisters and mothers and parents. i hope that there are certain people that take note and lessons. we are tired. it wouldn't be such a brutal battle. i hope we are showing a blessing for others. >> i think of corey bush, presley, all of these women that are taking all of the heat and all of the death threats. women of color. the squad. they vice president fought together arm and arm linked. the progressive caucus, god bless them. we trying to save this country y'all. can you let us please. my panel is sticking with me for the absolute worst of 2021. that is next. absolute worst of 1 that is next every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. >> 2021 was hardly a slow news year. we saw a lot of awfulness. bounty hunting abortion laws. we had plenty of targets. plenty for our absolute worst. kremlin cruz who thinks swamp creature realness will make him more electable. ted cruz is the absolute worst but wasn't he always. >> grim reaper of the south. sacrificing citizens lives. totally plausible under study for rickey schroder in silver spoons. we now know the male version of a karen should be called a tucker. puppet kevin. hypocrite kevin. gates managed to make beavis and butthead respectable again. she blamed the california wildfire on a jewish controlled laser beam from outerspace. trump will be the absolute worst. the anti-vax movement has been hijacked by a far right agenda putting a dangerous target on the backs of educators and young people. >> the absolute scariest. come closer. closer. closer. it is what america can look like in january 2025. the republican party is a lot of things. anti-democracy, voting, history and facts. what they are not is pro-life. the modern day republican party is the embodiment of the race to the bottom. i feel like i had a whole journey. >> at least your hair has a journey. >> that was a journey too. y'all had your souls froze when you had them. >> yeah. y'all had a gumby. >> i did. >> jason. i know that. >> you know. let's talk about the worst. let's go in reverse. let's go to jason. jason. tell me what you think. it is hard to think. what is the absolute worst in your view? >> you went through a lot of the most terrible people who we can be unhappy with. the absolute worst person for me is defined by the fact that we had expectations they have disappointed it will harm us all. merrick garland. he will go down as the neville chamberland of american politics. stood in the way of the things congress has done and sat there passively as abortion rights have been sacked. he has been the single worst political figure this year. >> yeah. listen, when he was president obama's pick for the supreme court, you know, you had all kinds of other people out there. my face was like -- i am not sure he is the man for the moment. i call him merrick the mild. he seems to be very calm but perhaps things will change. tiffany cross, who is the absolute worst? >> i am going to tell you the absolute worst. i am so tired of wearing masks everywhere that i go. events getting cancelled. not being able to gather in large places. the absolute worst are the ridiculous uninformed disillusioned people who thinks their google search matches a medical degree and refuse to get vaccinated. people will say if you are vaccinated and i am not. everyone should be protected. that is not how the vaccine works. there are people out there with a legitimate reason that have an idea for not getting vaccinated. for everyone else, you are causing society to come to a screeching halt and that casts a dark shadow over so many other areas of the globe. i think of the people in india where we saw videos of sons trying to revive their mothers because they can't get their hands on the vaccines. and refuse to wear masks sometimes. and you wonder. i say it all of the time. people that have not known actual oppression can mistake a mask for oppression. you wonder if you managed to live your entire life and the first thing to oppress you was a mask. go live on a little island with all of your unvaccinated unintellectual people. >> it is not sunday but you can get an amen. it is not church. but you can get a hallelujah. okay. i don't even know how. the doors of the church are open. come in and get vaccinated. only if you are vaccinated. michael steele. pastor, bishop, dr. michael steele. you have to follow that sermon. i don't know how you are going to do it. i feel sorry for you. it is your charge. you are the chairman. help michael steele. help him jesus. >> i don't know how i am going to do better than her who laid out her sermon. what i want to do in sort of addressing the worst one big bucket. put everything in had there. every last one of them. matt, marjorie, paul, mccarthy, all in the same bucket. the performance artist, they have become the big drifters and emancipators of white fear and those that want to address the plight of the downtrodden, living in suburb yeah. this is the mess they have created. they have put out on the street a cesspool of stupid. they are the worst. >> you can get an amen on that. i feel like with everything that you all have said, to me they have failed utterly their job to protect the most vulnerable. they only want to protect the rich, the powerful, the corporations, the religious extremists. they have allowed the bounty hunter law to stand. the discrimination against voters to stand. they have failed us. they have three trumpers on there. good by to roe v. wade. god help us if that court is supposed to be our salvation because they ain't doing it. up next, i recently spoke with the world food program's goodwill food ambassador about the worrying rise in food insecurity here in the u.s. it was a fascinating discussion. do not miss it. a fascinating din do not miss it >> the world has been grappling with the grueling realities of the covid pandemic for two years now. covid-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 800,000 americans. stress and anxiety have taken a brutal toll on millions more. they are struggling to feed their families. researchers at nyu found 15% of u.s. households reported food insecurity early in the covid-19 pandemic. >> if i can feed my family for 10 to 12 months a night, that works. >> he lost his home and job during the pandemic and joined snap to help feed his family. >> you want noodles. >> forced tough choices in the checkoutline. >> what is it like? >> humiliating. not going to be the full fulfillment of a meal. >> staying on budget can mean the difference between fruits and vegetables swapped out for sugary cereals and processed food. >> more than 38 million people lived in food-insecure households. 6 million childrens lived in households in if which the children and food were food insecure. i recently spoke with award winning chef, social activist andrew zimmer and asked how covid exacerbated the food insecurity problem in the country. >> just like it has done globally we have experienced a 15-year setback in the fight against hunger and food waste, you know globally it is the same as it is here at home. conflict, climate change, covid-19 and the rising cost of food. it is staggering to me that in america the end of 2021 we are still sitting here talking about a problem that is solvable because we produce enough food to feed all-americans as well as the 7 billion global population. the numbers up on the screen are 10 to 25% too low. one of the problems of stats is that there are not a lot of people jumping up and down. those that are willing to say yes, yes, yes, i need food. that very brave man who in the scene we saw is out there saying yes. there is so much stigma with hunger, it is the people that are above the poverty line. those are the ones not jumping up and down raising their hand. it is all related to climate change, cost, covid and climate. >> it is interesting you mentioned that. there is a big debate about whether or not democrats can get through the build back better act. making sure that it all kind of works. there was help for people back then. does it strike you as insay we are still talking about whether or not to spend more money to make sure that people can get three square meals a day? >> i think that it is beyond insane. it is not a problem that we don't have a solution to. we have enough food in america. we don't have the political will to change the laws. if we fed young people and we used schools as the hubs. they are all over. whether or not a child is attending a certain facility, they all have cafeterias. if we subsidize schools to the degree we do farmers growing crops for export. farm to freighter, not necessarily for human consumption we would be doing ourselves a greater service. hungry children, the cost escalates. then they become a health care problem and get diabetes and heart disease as young adults. we are seeing early onset pediatric diabetes numbers going through the roof. they are being fed cheap calories instead of healthy calories. >> turns out it is the same states that have the lowest rates of getting people vaccinated. where medicaid wasn't expanded. isn't it the case that the more kids are out of school because of covid. the more they are away from a good nutritional program and trapped by covid. the hungrier that your kids will be. >> you are not incorrect. you just have to drop in and solve the problem. eventually question by question you can solve it. i will describe it a slightly different way. we have talked about the near 800,000 people dying. some say they died of covid and others saying misinformation. there is disinformation about food in the states, nutrition in the states. if you increase those it makes you more vulnerable to dying of covid. andrew zimmer, thank you. i always appreciate the chance to talk to you. >> thank you, joy. >> up next, an amazing documentary takes us back to the street so many of us grew up on and reminds us how conservatives rejected the show's groundbreaking diversity then as they are today. we will be right back. n as they are today we will be right back. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? 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[sfx: voice relief] ♪ ♪ >> i remember thinking are they singing about what i think they are singing about? of course they were singing about race. also about being down in the dumps about a little green frog. some kids thought about a puppet and other kids maybe something else. >> for more than 50 years the muppets living on one of america's most famous streets have been entertaining and educating different generations of children. "sesame street" taught my kids important lessons like the idea that we can all live together. just months after the debut the showed was temporarily banned in mississippi because of its diversity. the new hbo documentary street gang, how we got to "sesame street" shares the origins of the american treasure and how such a talented ensemble came together to create a brand-new concept in learning that still holds true today. the address that played maria on "sesame street." i am excited to talk to you. you helped to raise me and my kids. just talk about what you talked about in that clip. it is not that easy being green. that song meant something to a little brown kid and my little brown kids. it was about being different. talk about what "sesame street" mean. >> i will. i will never forget that moment. i walked in on the song, lena horn was singing it with kermit the frog. i wasn't a writer and didn't know the behind the scenes what was going on. i knew it was working on a lot of levels and it was sophisticated. i was thrilled to be a part of it. >> it is incredible. a lot of people probably missed that point. it was pretty revolutionary whether we still had an active fight over civil rights. we just lost dr. king. there was a lot of volatility racialally. how did this incredible thing get started? >> this is one of my favorite things about the story. yes. it is a movie about "sesame street" but it is a story about the performers, writers and educators that came out, the vietnam war, the women's movement, the civil rights movement. this group got together saying we want to make a difference and reach underserved children. >> it meant so much to me to get on the show. i was raised in the bronx watching hours of television. never seeing any latin people on tell. . >> you might have been the first latina i saw on a regular basis. we were not seeing a lot of people of color. we saw you. you were our friend. we had a little puppet that was asian american. muppets that it were black and african-american. what do you make of the fight about this adorable asian american muppet? >> i can't understand it and why it is difficult. i wish it came on sooner. too street. not street enough. too hip-hop. not enough. they cut the puppet because everybody could not agree how a black puppet should be presented. there wasn't another black puppet on "sesame street" for 50 years. >> absolutely. i think that is the point. there is no character that can make everyone happy. "sesame street" probably tried more than any in history to represent every child, you know, even red muppets and purple muppets. i am a grover girl. he is super and he is grover. every fantasy creature and fairy tale friend. what will we learn about "sesame street". what do you want people to take away? >> "sesame street" has done what they did throughout history. reflect the world back to children as the world should be without calling attention or pointing attention saying there is a black puppet or asian puppet. it is just what is. creativity and art can make a difference and change the world. you can inspire them in a way that is pure and loving. i am going to be so excited. my kids will be so jealous. it happened. thank you. thank you so much for being here. happy holidays. we will be right back. here happy holidays we will be right back. it's time for our lowest prices of the season on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to relieve pressure points. and its temperature balancing so you both sleep just right. save up to $1,000 on sleep number 360 smart beds. plus, no interest until january 2025. ends january 3rd. (swords clashing) -had enough? -no... arthritis. here. aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength? reduces inflammation? thank the gods. don't thank them too soon. kick pain in the aspercreme. >> we made it through another smoking hot mess of a year but one thing that kept me going is the fabulous show and the magical gorgeous staff and crew and thank to you everyone involved in the making of the show and thank you for watching. happy holidays to you and your family. roll them. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. >> the two issues most known, sex and money. >> fun place, a comic bookstore, but not that night. >> they said you can't go through. somebody was killed. >> she was a young wife and mother minding the store for her husband. it was robbery, revenge or something else? >> we might want to look at his relationship with rene. >> cozy, check it out. >> yes. >> years passed without an arrest but for one prosecutor this cold case was personal. >> that was the case that was unsolved for