average over a two-week period climbed by more than 200%. those figures only illustrate part of the story. testing sites are overwhelmed as omicron spreads at breakneck speeds. many americans are turning to at-home tests, if they're lucky enough to get their hands on one. think about all the positive tests that aren't being properly counted. some experts believes if all all the active cases were accurately counted, we would have somewhere near 1 million new cases a day in this country. and the serious cases are again overwhelming hospitals across america. in many parts of the country, long lines at testing sites have become commonplace, whether waiting on foot or in a vehicle. massive lines stretch for blocks. i like countless americans went out this past week to search for a local testing site that could do a test. the woman at the counter of one of them said they were full and taking no more walk-ins or appointments. it was only 2:00 p.m. when i said, okay, i'll come back the next morning, she said, the line began at 5:30 a.m. the fact that we are 22 months into thing and we still don't have the infrastructure for proper testing is an american scandal. just before christmas, david mueller of abc news asked the president why the white house wasn't better prepared for the omicron surge. >> how did you get it wrong? >> how did we get it wrong? nobody saw it coming. nobody in the whole world. who saw it coming? >> that is just not true. we've been talking about variants for months and months. we've been talking about how european countries send their citizens free tests at home for months and months. biden now has ordered over half a billion at-home kits to be made available to americans, and according to "vanity fair," the white house was pitched a proposal to roll out free rapid testing for the holidays back in october, but the proposal was rejected. that piece outlines how confusion, distrust, and a single-minded fixation on vaccinating americans left testing on the back burner for so long at the white house. and look, i get why the administration was so focused on vaccinating america. it's a laudable goal. but now, here we are, two months later, fully immersed in a record-breaking spike in cases driven by a highly transmissible variant in the midst of a complete testing fiasco. just as children get ready to return to school from winter break tomorrow. joining me now to discuss all of this and more, is libby rosenthal, editor in chief at kaiser health news. she's been covering health care for over 20 years at multiple news outlets and author of "american sickness: how health care became big business and how you can take it back." libby, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. happy new year. let's begin by talking testing. i believe you, like me, went out in search of a covid test. you wrote about it in a piece for "the washington post." as i said in the intro, it's totally ridiculous at this point in the pandemic, is it not, to be unable to get access to rapid tests, pcr tests. what do you think is behind this testing failure? >> well, i think the problem is, throughout the pandemic, we've trusted in the private market to deliver. and we really should be thinking about public health as more like homeland security being proactive, looking for upcoming threats and reacting, you know, ahead of time. and the private market reacts when there's demand. so, you know, suddenly there's a big spike in omicron, and we think suddenly that all of these private players, the cvs, the walgreens, the pop-up testing sites are going to be ready. and they weren't, of course. so, you know, for me, as for so many people, you know, i had exposure, i had symptoms, and finding -- getting a pcr result took five days. at which point it was mostly useless. and the process was like this crazy scavenger hunt, as you describe, checking here, checking there, driving 30 miles. seeing all of these places that said, if you are going on a flight to europe tonight, sure, we can get you a quick result. but if you're just a sick person or a potentially exposed person, sorry, no luck. >> and if you got on that flight and went to europe, you would find out that europeans don't have these same issues. i was there over christmas and lots of people have free tests that the government mailed them. biden now says he's going to try to do something similar. let's see. how do you think this whole idea of the federal government distributing free tests, maybe mailing tests to people, can that turn things around? they've announced half a billion tests, which sounds like a lot, but that's less than, what, two rapid tests per american, total. that's a drop in the ocean, isn't it? >> yeah, i think we're very late to the game. i know kids who were in university in england who came back with rapid tests to the u.s., not this christmas, but a year ago christmas. this has been the norm elsewhere. we need many, many more rapid tests. it's really good that the biden administration is now taking action, but it's kind of too little, too late. and there's going to need to be a lot more done. and we just have to think about it in a totally different way. and ps, you know, a rapid test is a screening test. many people will still need pcr tests. and those are taking five to seven days to come back. and as we see new drugs for covid coming on the market, you will need a result within 48 hours to make those drugs effective. by day five, day seven, the new pills we're hearing about are not useful. so we need to really up our game. >> yes, we do. and it is depressing to think this late in the pandemic, experts like yourself are still saying, too little, too late. libby rosendahl, we'll have to leave it there. thank you for your time. joining us now is kathleen sebelius, the former health and human services secretary during the obama administration, also was governor of kansas. thank you so much for joining us. we heard a clip of biden earlier saying "no one saw this coming." that's not true, is it? numerous epidemiologists warned of a new variant, of a winter surge, that we're behind on testing. we should have been better prepared for all of this, should we have not? >> i think libby is absolutely right. the private sector is not going to solve this and the federal government was hoping that would happen. in spite of the fact that across europe, we could watch their government step in and take over the testing capacity. we've been talking about tests, as you say, since march of 2020, and we are still in a terrible situation. now president biden, thank god, is moving ahead with a major order. we're going to need to continue that to make sure that the private sector produces tests and know that the profit is a willing pair. we've got to distribute these free to people. trying to find them online, even rapid home tests is very expensive. lots of people don't have insurance policy that will go back and cover the tests. if we want people to get tested, and kids to be tested to go to school, we need to make them free and available to folks. here in the midwest, you can make an appointment and go into a pharmacy and get a test. you can't find them easily on a shelf, in a walgreens or cvs or any kind of supermarket. you can order them online, but they're expensive, so we need people absolutely, mehdi, the big thing, do not go to a hospital to be tested. do not go to an emergency room. what we're seeing is hospitals really struggling with very sick patients, but also, emergency rooms being overrun by people who have determined that that's the only place they can get a test. >> i guess people need clearer guidance on what to do when they can't find a test. i went into a supermarket the other day, and the pharmacied a the back of the store had five different signs saying, we're you have tests. they get asked the question so often, they felt they need to put up five signs. >> but that's really terrifying, because doctors there cannot cope with it. so that's happening all over the country. and nothing could be more dangerous for truly sick patients than hoards of americans showing up, trying to get tested in an emergency department of a hospital. >> so, have a listen to what former biden covid transition team member dr. celine gounder told me in the last hour of this show about testing. have a listen. >> of course vaccination is important, but we also need to be testing, in the meantime. we need a way of identifying who is infectious, who needs to be isolated, who should not be at cool or at work, because they are a danger to others. many of us have been advocating for over a year for massive ramp up of testing. other countries have done this. part of the strategy in the uk, for example, was placing large-volume orders, which creates stability and demand from manufacturers and brings down the costs and we should be employing similar strategies here. >> i think dr. gounder is absolutely right. the federal government has to be the willing purchaser. you put money on the table, amazing things can happen with collaboration with the private market. if there's no willing buyer, the private market moves elsewhere. and that's what happened in this interim between the surge initially and omicron hitting, is the private market turned their attention elsewhere. we have to say, we'll buy tests, we will send them free. we will be as the federal government to put up the money, and widely distribute them to people free of charge and as quickly as possible. we need businesses to stay open, and schools to stay open, and that really involving testing rapidly and testing frequently. >> you mentioned a couple of times now, as did libby, the failure of the private sector or relying on the private sector to get this done. is this entire covid crisis not yet another reminder that the american health care system is just not fit for purpose. it's geared standards making money for big corporations, but not delivering basic stuff like free tests to the american public. there are studieses suggesting a correlation between low-income, uninsured and not having access to a primary care doctor, as a result being unvaccinated. >> i think we see the holes in the american system throughout this entire process. we see front line workers who, as you say, don't have access to primary care or have more pre-existing conditions, are more susceptible. they are the same ones were going to have the toughest time finding tests, frankly. we have a kind of hunger games of tests right now. and if you have resources and can get online or figure out a way to get them shipped from someplace else, you'll be fine. if not, you're in real trouble. we have gaps throughout this system. the only developed country in the world without a universal guarantee to health care and we see it showing up over and over again. and unfortunately, people with the fewest resources, people in the worst health care conditions, going into a difficult situation, are the ones on the front lines that suffer. >> yes, they are. kathleen sebelius, thank you for your time this morning. >> nice to see you. still to come, a member of the house intelligence and armed services committees, congressman jason crow is here to talk about an emerging pattern that you should really know about. plus, what to do when the extremism is coming from inside the hallways of congress. and how we should approach the conspiracy-peddling cranks who also pose a pretty big danger to democracy. and a final farewell to a political institution. you've all heard about a what a committed leader and fighter harry reid was, but i want to talk about the time he hung up on the president. bout the time p on the president tradition in a cadillac. don't just put on a light show—be the light show. make your nights anything but silent. and ride in a sleigh that really slays. because in a cadillac, tradition is yours to define. so visit a cadillac showroom, and start celebrating today. ♪ ♪ as we begin what's sure to be a dramatic year in politics, the democratic party is mourning a man who was an institution. former longtime senate majority leader harry reid passed away at the age of 82 following a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. flags have been lowered to half-staff at the u.s. capitol, as the biggest names in democratic party politics remember his life and legacy, which included everything from saving social security from george w. bush and getting the affordable care act passed into law under barack obama, to voting for the iraq war, which he later rightly called his biggest regret. former president obama shared a letter he wrote to reid where he said quite plainly that he, obama, would not have become president if not for reid's encouragement. president biden wrote that senator reid, quote, looked at challenges and believed it was within our capacity to do good, to do right, and vice president kamala harris tweeted that reid, quote, always fought for working families and the poor, and that he was kind, generous, and always to the point. and all of those memorials are very nice and very true, but in the spirit of entering the new year with the kind of ir reverence vows, i want to zero in on how harry reid was always to the point. some of my favorite harry reid remembrances are about that now legendary straightforwardness of his. so i would like to share some of those stories in a tad more detail. reid's communications director, adam gentleson remembers learning quickly how little his boss cares about getting bad press. how the worst thing he could do was to tell him not to say something he didn't want him to say. if anything it made him want to do it more. at the 2008 opening of the capitol visitor center which for the first time allow tourists to wait indoors, mr. reid says, in the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the capitol. reid also famously did not say good-bye at the end of phone calls, including, incredibly, in a call with the president of the united states, who was on the lineo thank him for getting the affordable care act through congress. former senator max baucus related that story to huff post. quote, he's a westerner. he gets to the point. he doesn't mince words and he hangs up on you. once the president said, whoo, he hung up on me! and his adviser said, look, he hangs up on everybody. and despite as coming across as soft spokesman in public, reid and his team were never one to shy away from a fight. i love this story from 2008 that zach carter played in politico, of trying to get reaction from using a quote from reid from grover norquist as bait. quote, when i presented the quote to reid's spokesperson, jim manley, he replied, well, zach carter, you tell grover n y once told to go "f" himself and his response is perhaps the best bit of harry reid color i've read all week. reid was anger with then republican house speaker john boehner for refusing to compromise in the run-up to the infamous fiscal cliff of 2012. and reid accused boehner of running a dictatorship and putting his own political interests above those of the american people. as reid himself later admitted, quote, i stepped out of bounds. boehner thought, so he said, go "f" yourself. oak, i can accept that. it wasn't the first time. i appreciate his being honest with me. a politician who can appreciate the honesty of being told to go "f" himself is a rare man indeed. harry reid is a man who will be much missed by his former colleagues and by millions of americans mer colleagues and by millions of american don't settle for products that give you a sort-of white smile. try crest whitening emulsions... ...for 100% whiter teeth. its highly active peroxide droplets... ...swipe on in seconds. better. faster. 100% whiter teeth. shop crestwhitesmile.com. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. . the insurrection a year ago in washington, d.c. was sadly only one part of the explosion in domestic extremism. and domestic terrorism that we've seen in this country in recent years. the u.s. attorney's office out of washington have arrested more than 175 people in connection to the january 6th attack, but domestic extremism continues to be a real threat across the united states. it's something that even the pentagon final began to address a couple of weeks ago. quote, warning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, pentagon officials are issuing detailed new rules, prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. the new guidelines come nearly a year after some current and former service members participated in the riot at the u.s. capitol, triggering a broad departmental review. and again, the rise of extremism and violence in american isn't just about 1/6 and isn't just a problem in the military. in denver, colorado, last monday, 47-year-old lyndon james mcleod allegedly shot and killed five people and wounded two others in, including a police officer. what's disturbing is that mcleod wrote books that included details eerily similar to the killing spree that he carried out, characters killed off in his books even had the same names as some of the victims he allegedly targeted. last week, nbc news reports that denver police chief paul pazen was on the radar of law enforcement and had been investigated twice, once in mid-2020 and again this year. neither inquiry led to state or criminal charges. there were clearly warning signs about mcleod before he carried out this gruesome act of violence last week and was doing a poor job of identifying threats like this until it was too late. and not doing enough to combat the rise in violence across america. i'm joined now by the democratic congressman from colorado, jason crow, a member of the house intelligence committee. he also serves as an impeachment manager during donald trump's first impeachment. congressman, welcome to the show. happy new year. let's start with the big picture here. the january 6th committee's investigation is so important, because people nod to be held accountable for what happened in that period between election day 2020 and the insurrection on january 6th. with often of this continued rise in extremism, with the lack of accountability so far, are you concerned about more political violence in this country in the near future? >> good to be with you. happy new year to you, as well. i'm incredibly concerned about it. it's surging right now, and it's not just one-off events. the shooting in denver, january 6th. the pervasive misinformation, disinformation on internet and social media. it's all tied together. it's part of this effort by donald trump and his enablers and is being supported by some of our adversaies like russia and others. part of this effort to undermine democracy, undermine our elections, and further this extreme right movement right now, that's actually the number one danger to our nation's a law and order and security. that's what federal law enforcement has said, unequivocally, that the number one terrorist threat is the right-wing extremist threat. and we better make sure we're taking it seriously. >> and congressman, you're a former army ranger. the pentagon recently issued new rules aimed at combatting the rise of extremism within the military. does that come as a surprise to you, or something that you witnessed yourself growing during your time in the armed forces? >> it is interesting to me that i spent the last two decades of my life and really the formative part of the early part of my adulthood fighting terrorism and external threats to the united states. for the last decade or so, what we've seen is that that threat has shifted to internal domestic threats. i raised my right hand and took that oath to defend the constitution from all threats foreign and domestic. and now it's the domestic threats that are the predominant threat. but the rise of extremism in the military doesn't surprise me, because the military is a microcosm. it's a reflection of our society. it's a cross-section of our society. it's drawn from our communities across the country. and when you see a trend or something increasing across america, that's always reflected in the military. so when he see the surge going on throughout the country in extremism, and of course, that is reflected in the military, as well. but it's troubling that that is a position of public trust. we are putting the people in a position of national security. they have access to our most critical secrets. they have access to a lot of tools that can be very dangerous. so we have to make sure we're taking it very seriously. and we are upholding that trust. >> you're part of colorado, congressman, experienced a tragedy last week. five people killed, two people wounded in a night of violence. do we know if that was extremism related or just yet another example of american gun violence? >> well, it's certainly another example of american gun violence. we know that for sure. we have this gun culture that is gripping our country and it's creating this permission structure for extremists. people who otherwise may not lash out in the way they are. i mean, listen, i agree up around guns. i started hunting when i was 12. i became an army ranger miami a i'm a gun owner now. i've very familiar with them. but we've created this gun that romanticizes it where people's identity gets tied to guns, and it takes people who otherwise might be mentally disturbs and makes them a very dangerous person. at the same time, ma does appear to be clear is this person had extremist beliefs, was on extremist blogs, wrote about this, was promoting right-wing ideology in many ways. and ef-to take a look at this and law enforcement tells us that we have to be part of this broader trend of this type of extremism. >> one last question, congressman. you have a wildfire in colorado, destroying hundreds of homes, displacing many families. what's the situation on the ground like there today? >> completely devastating. we have almost a thousand homes destroyed. this morning, i'm going to go and tour some of the sites, the devastation, meet with the fema administrators. we're working with several members of the colorado delegation to make sure that we're getting fema resources, disaster response, tens of thousands of families remain displaced. this is truly a disaster that we have to make sure that we're addressing. but we also have to be very honest. now is the time for real talk. and the real talk is, this is all tied to the changes in climate. this is tied to what we're seeing in the west, severe drought, severe weather. we've had three of our largest wildfires in colorado history in the past couple of years, that's not a coincidence. we have to start taking this very seriously and doing what's necessary to address the climate crisis and respond to these disasters at the same time. >> yes, we do. congressman jason crow, thank you for your time this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. still to come, the flashing red warning lights in marjorie taylor greene's latest online diatribe and the conversation on how we should treat the cranks and conspiracy theoists who we know are far from harmless. back with that in just a moment. s back with that in just a moment. the rocket. ♪♪ lunchables! built to be eaten. (vo) the more we do with our phones, the more network quality and reliability matter. and only verizon has been the most awarded for network quality 27 times in a row. that means the best experience with calls, texts and data usage of any major carrier, according to customers. there's only one best network. the only one ranked #1 in reliability 16 times in a row. we are building 5g right. when the clock struck midnight on new year's eve, new york city ushered in a new era of leadership. i want to bring in jonathan capehart, host of "the sunday show." jonathan, i'm talking about newly minted new york mayor eric adams, on january 1st, his first day in office, he got going, he called 911 to report an assault in brooklyn during his first commute to city hall has mayor, and you have the first interview with him this morning, don't you? >> yes, i do. only the second black person to be elected mayor of new york city will be on the sunday show. he's going to be talking about covid, how he's going to bring new york back, plus whether his administration, his democratic administration holds any promise or is a model for democrats nationally. we're also, mehdi, going to be talking about three people who were in the middle of the insurrection of january 6th. congresswoman madeleine dean of pennsylvania, mayor -- washington, d.c. mayor muriel bowser and capitol police officer harry dunn, all three on together talking about what it was like from their vantage point on that horrible day. >> it's amazing that it's been almost a year since that horrific day. jonathan, i look forward to your interview with the new mayor. he said recently that i wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years to protect this city, and when you've done that, then you can question me. you and i have not done that, but our job is to question these people in power, so i look forward to you doing that. it's going to be interesting to see how many headlines this new mayor creates in his time in office. >> he's got four years to make plenty of headlines. >> jonathan, thank you so much. everyone, stick around for the sunday show that begins at the top of the hour. we'll be back in just a moment to find out what kind of crazy things one of the biggest internet trolls in congress is saying now and why it's so dangerous. saying n aownd why it's so dangerous. me. and there's no place like wayfair to make your reach-in closet, feel like a walk-in closet now that's more your style. make the morning chaos, organized chaos. and make sure everything's in it's place. so nothing is out of place. however you make it, make your home a place like no other. if there's one thing we've learned over the past few years, it's how to identify a troll. someone spewing provocative conspiracyist bile just to get attention and bait their adversaries. one of the top trolls of the last year is republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene of georgia, who has proven there is no rock bottom when it comes to hate-filled rhetoric and conspiracies. just this past week in response to a tweet supporting discriminating against transplants, people who move from blue to red states by not allowing them to vote in their new state of residence, greene also suggested a national divorce scenario, aka, breaking up the united states along so-called ideological lines. the dissolution of the united states 2000 republicans and democrats, basically a secession or a civil war. greene's colleague, congressman ruben gallego of arizona, democrat of arizona, he called her out saying, there is no national divorce, either you are for civil war or not. just say it if you want a civil war and officially declare yourself a traitor. and while it's easy to shrug off march major taylor green's radical behavior as troll like, it's important to note she can be a troll and a threat to our democracy at the same time. she's an extremist with a huge following among the republican base in our country. and as we discussed earlier, her words could be construed as incitement to violence. joining me now is molly jones fast, contributor for the atlantic, and brian klass, associate professor of global politics at university college london and author of "corruptible: who gets power and how it changes us." thank you both for joining us. molly, let me start with you first. we are hearing this morning that twitter has permanently suspended marjorie taylor greene's personal twitter account after repeated violations of their covid-19 misinformation policy. her congressional account is still up. i assume she's going to raise lots of money off of the back of this and do lots of fox news and news max hits. but do you support that decision? do you think that was a wise move by twitter? >> i think twitter has been pretty good about trying to -- you know, clamp down on disinformation. and it's important because, remember, a lot of people are treating these republican politicians as doctor and public health experts, when they're clearly not. i think twitter is a lot better about this than facebook or instagram. i mean, until you have -- there are some really scary disinformation people out there, but i still think that they're trying, which is important. and again, these are people's lives, right? a lot of people, 800,000 people plus have died of covid. i think it is important to be careful with this. >> and it's not just the public health danger that she poses. brian, i personally would have liked to see social media companies take action against republicans who incite violence. marjorie taylor greene just tweeted recently, quote, our foundation is infests with freedom-killing termites, to which you responded, marjorie taylor greene just referred to her opponents as termites. such rhetoric is the language of dehumanization and it's extremely dangerous and can incite political violence. how are we at this point where right-wing politicians in america in 2021 are sounding to sound like 1994-style rwandan mass murderers? >> i think it's important to say that america is not rwanda, but the number of commonalities between american politics and places around the world that we don't think of as akin to us, is really growing. the red flags are popping up wherever. there are certain precursors to mass violence that we know. when people like me study this stuff, there's all sorts of things that happen. rising conspiracy theories, polarization, authoritarian political movements. demonization of humans, calling them termites and the need to be exterminated. what's important to understand is that we're not some special country in which the rules of political violence don't apply. they do. and we are walking towards a period in our history in which routine extreme political violence, i think, is very predictable, and simultaneously avoidable. but it requires you to take action and stop and show accountability to people who regularly incite violence and demonize their opponents in such dehumanizing ways. >> which isn't happening. accountability certainly isn't happening. leadership isn't happening from the right. just picking up on brian's point about america shouldn't think it's some sort of special country. you also tweeted about greene's termites tweet, and you said, what would you say if you saw this somewhere else. is it time that we in america accept that we are like everywhere else. we are as susceptible to all the problems of political violence and dictatorship and fascism as other countries are and we do have in our legislature a bunch of, for want of a better phrase, fascists in the house gop caucus, saying fascistic things? >> yeah, i think that january 6th was a line in the sand. and if republicans had said, this is bad, this is not what we do in a democracy, this is wrong, and these people must be punished and we need to root them out and we need to condemn violence of any kind, political violence is not okay, then we might have come back from this. and there was a moment where it looked like it might have happened, but ultimately what happened is the republican party is a party that has held itself hostage to its fringe. and its fringe is really its center at this point. and people like marjorie taylor greene, even though there are still grown-ups in the room, they run the show. it's the party of donald trump now. and nobody is standing up for democracy or for freedom. and so what's going to happen is just more and more of this. and i don't think there's any way we put, you know, this back in pandora's box at this point. >> no. i think it's too late for that. certainly in the short-to-medium term. molly and brian, stay with us. i want to continue this conversation after the break and talk about the inciter in chief. . [coughing] ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on by... ♪ if you've been playing down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, and save at trelegy.com. hello? gordon ramsay? ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, this is a cold call! nfl teams are turning to cold with tide, will you? that will never work! if it works on nfl jerseys it'll work for you. seriously! just perfect! and it'll save up to $150 a year. and it's cold! so you will turn to cold? fine! i'll turn to cold! that guy needs to chill out! this was a cold call! when you have xfinity, you have entertainment built in. which is kind of nice. ah, what is happening. binge-watching is in the bag, when you find all your apps, all in one place. find live sports faster just by using your voice... sports on now. touchdown irish! [cheering] that was awesome. and, the hits won't quit, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. all that entertainment built in. xfinity. a way better way to watch. well, you know, it is about 187 minutes, we have now determined he was in the white house, we have determined that a number of people made attempts to contact him through his chief of staff. some of those text messages we shared on our presentation of the contempt citation from mark meadows. we also have information of other individuals who made calls, trying to get some semblance of response out of the white house. >> that was january 6th select committee chair congressman bennie thompson on "meet the press" this morning discussing the inciter in chief and what he was up to on that notorious day. let me bring you in first, brian, and ask you about this press conference, that donald trump is planning to hold on january 6th, this coming thursday, where he will presumably push his usual conspiracy theories. you are an expert on despotism, on authoritarianism. how dangerous a moment is it to have a president openly defending a violent insurrection, calling it a peaceful protest, while calling the election he lost the actual insurrection? >> i mean, your question shows how absurd it is, right, just saying that is an absurdity that's why we are in 2021. and it is extremely dangerous. it is obviously extremely dangerous this is where the press has an elevatd responsibility, especially when it is so predictable what he's going to say. we know what he's going to say. so the press has a responsibility to not carry this live. they should provide key context in what he says, debunking it, after they have actually, you know, gone through it and saying this is what's false about it. i think this is why it is so important that the press doesn't just sort of perform business as usual functions when there is an authoritarian political party operating, trying to take a wrecking ball to democracy. we can't just pretend it is business as usual, and that excuse was a long time ago. pretending it is business as usual in 2017 was a mistake. in 2021, it is indefensible. it is a crucial moment, a crucial test of the press and i hope it doesn't lead to any real world violence. >> you and i are journalists, we're going to be covering this thursday's anniversary in our own ways. what do we do about trump? part of me kind of agrees with brian, don't take it live, don't amplify the lies, we know what he's going to say. on the other hand, the other part of me says it is a notable story that a former president continues to incite violence and push dangerous conspiracy theories. what is the right balance that needs to be struck in terms of our coverage of trump? >> well, it is this idea of a truth sandwich, right? you say the truth, then you say what trump says, and then you say the truth on the other side. very careful to be clear on what the truth is. we all know he's a liar, but you can't ignore him, you ignore him at your own peril. you have to be incredibly careful about how you write about him. the problem with the mainstream media, i think, there are certainly are problems, but largely mainstream reporters have gotten a little bit smarter about how to kind of put it into truth sandwich. the worry i think, you know, there is all of these very far right streaming networks that will use this as sound bites and pr for him, and that i think is really scary. and, remember, the other thing i think is really problematic is that the republican base is already in the last year been so radicalized, right. they believe the january 6th people are heroes, right? marjorie taylor greene is not condemning the violence, she's condemning their jailing. we are in a situation where up is down and left is right. so it is really important and i think brian's written about this that the mainstream media has a pro democracy -- and they are committed to pro democracy and then we really need the right wing media to get pro democracy too. i don't know that that ever happens, but it is sort of a fantasy of mine. >> no, they're going in the other direction in terms of being very openly anti-democratic, talking about denying people the right to vote if they shift states. the truth sandwich is very important. people like george lake have pushed the idea, it isn't hard to say, this is a lie, have a listen to trump saying the lie, that what you just heard was a lie. the problem is too many people in our industry still won't say the l word, you can't say lie. we don't know what's in his heart, which as brian points out it was nonsense in 2019, it is certainly nonsense in 2022. rand paul, senator rand paul of kentucky, i want to put up a tweet up of his that got a lot of news recently where he talked about- he was quoting an article and said, how to steal an election, ceding an area heavy with potential democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way and harvesting and counting the results. last time i checked, brian, that's how democracy works. it is not illegal as rand paul himself points out. >> i couldn't help laugh at this. one of my previous books was how to rig an election. i can assure you rand paul has not read it. what he's describing is a normal election. what donald trump did, picking up the phone and trying to use state power to intimidate an election official to fabricate 11,000 votes, or inciting a violent -- taking over of the capitol to try to block his successor from taking office, those are out of the playbook of how to steal an election. so, you know this is the upside down world we live in where it is not just a lie, it is the inversion of the truth. it is not like just sort of wrong, it is actually the opposite of what's true is what's being pedals as lies in the republican party today. it is extremely dangerous. a lot of americans have lost sight of reality. that's what we're fundamentally dealing with. democracy at its core requires a shared sense of reality, you can't compromise if you don't believe that the same things are happening. and that's how bad the problem is, it is not just we have different facts or different spin, it is what we're inhabiting fundamentally different realities, and politicians are preying on that, and exploiting it for their own cynical gain. that's why we're in so much danger heading into, you know, the 2022 midterms and 2024 election. >> the easiest way to understand them among the republican party is projection, they're worried about the democrats stealing democracy because they're actually doing it. molly and brian, we'll have to leave it there. thank you for your time and your analysis. appreciate it. that does it for me today. thank you for watching. ali velshi will be back, you'll delighted to hear, next saturday and sunday mornings from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. eastern. i'll get my lines back. the sunday show with jonathan capehart starts right now. w wit capehart starts right now. a new year means a new mayor for america's most populous city. less than 48 hours after being sworn in, new york mayor eric adams joins me live to discuss his plans for tackling everything, from covid to crime. plus, the insurrection one year later, through the eyes of three people who had three very different experiences that day. congresswoman madeleine dean, u.s. capitol police officer harry dunn, and washington, d.c. mayor muriel bowser. and the senate returns tomorrow with the presidents' build back better plan hanging in the balance. congresswoman pramila jayapal will be here to talk about what she expects to happen. i'm jonathan capehart. this is "the sunday show." a very happy new year to you on this first sunday of 2022. we begin this morning