after crossing the 54 million mark. cases are piling up at lightning speed now. we've been averaging 1 million new cases every few days. the fastest at any point in this pandemic. and it's presenting new testing challenges. in fact, take a look at this shot of massachusetts from a few hours ago. lines of cars. stretching as far as the eye can see. who would have thought we'd see something like this as we close in on nearly two years of this pandemic? coming up, i'll talk to a massachusetts doctor about what's happening there. we'll also dig into this nationwide testing headache. also apocalyptic. that is the only way to describe this snow-studded burned out aftermath from the wildfires in colorado. we'll have the latest on the ground there. and in just the last 15 minutes, chuck schumer released a letter calling the need to pass voting rights legislation urgent. he ties it to january 6th. he's calling for change to senate rules. will that happen, though? more on that coming up ahead. but we want to start with that major update from the fda on booster shots as covid cases are hitting new heights. alison barber is outside a new york city school as children in the nation's largest school district return to class with new testing protocols. meghan fitzgerald is in chicago with new vaccine requirements there today. also with me dr. hilton, associate professor in critical care medicine at the university of virginia. she's also an msnbc medical contributor. dr. hilton, we'll start with you. the booster shots out this morning. three announcements. first, they are now allowing for pfizer boosters for teenagers age 12 to 15. second, they're now allowing a third vaccine dose for immune compromised children, 5 through 11 years old. and third, shortening that recommended time between full vaccination and booster shots to five months, how big of a deal is this update on booster shots for kids right now, especially as we're starting to see some record pediatric hospitalizations in parts of the country? >> you're right. i think you answered the question. it literally is because of the age of persons we're seeing that has the highest rate of hospital admissions at this point. we know about 15% of all kids 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated. about 53% of those teens 12 to 17, and we know that unfortunately, their counts of who is getting sick enough to land in hospitals are increasing. hospitals are being overburdened. to protect them is paramount, but also, again, i said it's only 15% of kids ages 5 to 11. only 53% of the teens, parents. i understand there was hesitancy in the beginning, but we're two years into the pandemic, and our children are starting to show they're not immune to covid-19. to protect your children, we see those vaccinated versus unvaccinated as far as the kids 12 to 17, ten times more likely to end up in the hospital if you're unvaccinated. and a teen with covid-19 is not worth the risk. >> meghan, you're there in chicago. that city is becoming the latest to require people to be fully vaccinated to go to restaurants and bars, gyms. other indoor entertainment venues. what are you hearing from folks there about this change as omicron spreads? >> well, craig, you know, there's a lot of mixed reaction. we've been speaking with business owners, some say they're frustrated. they believe the mandate puts the burden, the owness on them to enforce this mandate, leading to possibly some more contentious moments with customers. even alienating some. there's other restaurant owners who say look, we remember what it was like a year ago when we couldn't have people inside the restaurant at all. it really hit their business hard. so they are willing to roll with this. i want you to listen to what one restaurant owner had to say. >> we like everything else, we had to pivot. we had to scramble. we had to incur a little extra cost, but we're -- we recognize this is something that needs to be done. getting people vaccinated. and we want to do everything we can to keep our staff and customers safe. so we're ready to go forward. >> keep in mind the city of chicago says they will be enforcing this mandate. they will be checking on these businesses to make sure they are following the rules here. anyone who violates it, they say they will be fined. or even forced to close for a day. >> meghan fitzgerald for us in chicago. alison, let's turn to you for a moment. the big news for booster shots for kids 12 to 15. it comes today as new york city is sending kids back into the classroom. they're using the new tests to stay policy. walk us through the latest here in the city. >> the biggest change as students head back to school post winter break is an increase in testing. previously if a student tested positive for covid-19 in new york city a schools, any of that student's unvaccinated close contacts were required to quarantine for ten days. under this new plan, that is changed. now, if a student tests positive because of covid-19, a positive covid-19 test, the teacher will distribute at-home rapid test kits to all students in that classroom, and students will then take the tests on the first and fifth day, assuming the student does not test positive and they do not exhibit any sort of covid-like symptoms, they'll be allowed to return to class. the only time someone would need to quarantine for ten days is if they test positive. and in addition to that, new york city schools previously had weekly pcr testing available. the city says they have doubled the availability of those pcr tests each week. and that it is available to students and staff regardless of vaccination status. for students, the key is that parents have to opt in in order for them to test their children. and how do new yorkers feel about all of this? you can imagine there are a host of different feelings. a lot of different emotions as people have come to this elementary school to drop their children off. and the emotions range from teachers who feel like maybe things are not quite where they would like it to be. they don't feel entirely comfortable heading back to the classroom. to parents who say that this is the right thing that their kids need to be back in school, and they need to stay in school. we spoke to one woman this morning as she dropped off her children, and she told us she does not feel entirely comfortable sending her children back to school, given the fact that less than half of new york city's eligible children are fully vaccinated. she also said she doesn't have another option. listen. >> i'm a little bit scared. they have the first dose, so we went in tomorrow for the second dose. it's very difficult for us, because i have to work. so i'm not going to leave my daughter at home because i have to work. so it's like kind of tricky. and scared. >> this is the nation's largest school district. 1.1 million students. a lot of the parents we spoke to this morning said that they did feel a little bit nervous about sending their children to school. and in general because the infection rate in the city is so high right now, but they also told us they felt like the school system has done enough for children to stay in school as safely as possible. and in their mind, they say look, we went through a lot when we had children at home at the beginning of this pandemic. and they feel like the benefits of having children inside the classroom outweigh any potential risks at this point in time. >> all right. alison barber in new york city. alison, thank you. dr. hilton, we're seeing a lot of data right now from case numbers to hospitalization rates. death. according to our nbc news tally, hospitalizations in the country are about 35% over the last two weeks. there are the numbers on the screen there. average daily hospitalizations. dr. hilton, what measures should we be using to gauge where we are in this pandemic? is it the number of cases? is it hospitalization rates? is it a combination of these things? what are the numbers we should really be paying attention to? >> right. i think it has to be a combination of all. we have an increase of 35% of hospitalization, but we know deaths have decreased. why have the deaths decreased? because a lot of the proportion of persons who have been infected are children. and, again, our kids, thank god, they don't die at high rates as we see with our older population. but at the same time, we know that there is more consequences to covid than just death of which we have to contend with long covid. what happens when the young developing body we saw that's going into school, what happens when it is stressed out by a virus that has the potential to cause inflammatory response in every single organ of their body? and i need parents to understand that covid does not care how we feel at this moment. it does not care that we're tired in fact it does not care that we have to go to work, and i understand that not only covid kills but also poverty. i ask the government to say how do we step in to give the parents resources they need. we know there's a good proportion and what proportion? according to the government of accountability, about 40% of all school districts, u.s. public schools, have at least 50% of their buildings that have poor ventilation systems. we're placing the children back into school rooms, and they don't have adequate ventilation. what does that do in an airborne pandemic? it increases the risk. that's why one of the reasons why we see black and brown children are three to five times more likely to die from covid-19 than white children. because we know that they are saying the disparity in the resources they're afforded to predom nontly white versus black and brown schools. if we want to look at the numbers, there's a difference of a billion dollars in construction, or structural budgeting that's given to the wealthiest districts versus the poorest districts. about 41% increase per student if you look at the wealthy districts. it's a blanket statement to say we're ready to go back to school when we know there are structural disparities due to systemic racism in the education system. we'll put the black or brown children at risk of dying themselves. so i ask the government, i ask the school system, i ask the health care system to put our heads together to say, it's not adequate when the educational system says all you need is that 50% of your windows open and two air purifiers to be in place for classrooms for that to suffice in the middle of an airborne pandemic. it's not right for the children. >> i want to bring in morgan chesky here. you are at dallas love field airport. thousands of flights have been delayed or cancelled. as people are traveling over the holidays, trying to get home. rises in the omicron variant, and weather nationwide. a perfect storm. more than 17,000 flights cancelled since just christmas eve. walk us through what's the latest on that part of the story today. travel. >> yeah. it's frustrating no matter how you look at it. 17,000 flights cancelled over the last few days. 1700 tsa agents currently out with that omicron variant. or covid-19. that's part of the nasty 1-2 punch that's created the travel nightmare. no matter where you look across the country. travelers could be caught in the trickle-down impact of the brutal winter weather that's been moving in over the last 48 hours. it's caused a lot of issues in chicago. hundreds of flights cancelled at o'hare. about 70 cancelled at midway. and we're really seeing this play out in realtime. airlines are having to move staff around. crew to crew, because we have an unknown number of call-ins due to the omicron variant. and right now here at dallas love, there have been about 50 cancellations. 30 delays. and that really is one of the better situations we've heard of some of the other major airports we've been looking at across the country. i had a chance to speak to one traveler earlier today on kind of the reality facing everyone. and here's what they had to say. >> we barely made it out of lake tahoe because of the weather on the front end of the trip. >> we're thinking it's about an hour delay, but we're going to check the monitors and make sure it's only an hour. >> now, i did speak to aaa. they say different rules apply considering the weather combined with omicron. typically they don't recommend to check the travel insurance box, but because it's a fluid insurance, they're encouraging people to do so. we've heard worse case scenarios. interviewed a family in orlando for the holidays. their flight was delayed and cancelled. was not give an chance to rebook after it was cancelled. the family in an effort to get back home to iowa rented a car, right now as we speak, they're somewhere between orlando and iowa trying to get back home on time to keep their small business going. >> yikes. wow. all right. certainly holiday trip they'll never forget. morgan chesky for us at dallas love. dr. ebony hilton there between classes and patients. always a pleasure. i want you to look at images here. these are surreal images from colorado. houses, cars, first destroyed by that massive fire. now buried under a layer of snow. we'll take you to colorado for the latest on the recovery. and then republican congresswoman liz cheney says the january 6th committee has gotten, quote, firsthand testimony about what former president trump was doing in the middle of the attack on the capitol. what they've uncovered. and check out this picture. a a line of cars. all these people waiting to get a covid test. i'll talk to a massachusetts doctor about the testing delays at his clinic and why it's delaying other appointments as well. next. s as well next new year, new start. and now comcast business is making it easy to get going with the ready. set. save. sale. get started with fast and reliable internet and voice for $64.99 a month with a 2-year price guarantee. it's easy... with flexible installation and backing from an expert team, 24/7. and for even more value, ask how to get up to a $500 prepaid card. get a great deal for your business with the ready. set. save. sale today. comcast business. powering possibilities. this morning two people are still missing after the devastated wildfires ripped through nearly ten square miles in colorado. over the weekend the scenes of devastation took on a surreal note when several inches of snow blanketed buildings that were still smolders. since thursday the flames have torched nearly 1,000 homes and the suburbs between denver and boulder. gaudy schwartz is live in lewisville, colorado. this is southeast of boulder. it was strange to see those burned out buildings and then all that snow on the ground. what's next for officials there? what more can you tell us about the missing people? >> at this point the search is continuing for the missing people. we know for certain one is from superior. the other is from marshall. at this point, we know cadaver dogs have been brought in to go through some of the debris. in both of the missing people cases, it appears as though their homes were totally lost. but so far no word on whether anything has turned up. you were describing the surreal condition out here. this is what it looks like when the sun comes up. you see this area blanketed with snow. craig, this was a subdivision of 118 or so homes, and if you would have been here a week ago, you would have seen two-story homes and towering trees. instead, today you've got the charred remains of christmas lights and basically homes that have collapsed in on basements. everything a total loss. the only good news out here in this neighborhood is this is a neighborhood that appears to be one in which everybody was able to get out alive. 118 homes. over 10 0 or so homes destroyed here. to put this in perspective, that is only one tenth of the homes that were lost during this fire. but we do know this fire started about four miles away. so as most people conceptualize this idea of wildfires, they usually think somewhere in the wilderness. no, it started about four miles away. came into this urban area, torching neighborhood after neighborhood. fanned by those hurricane force winds. over 10 0 miles an hour. people barely had time to get out. and four miles away, just at the foothills of the mountains, we know there's been a search warrant executed at a piece of property. that property we understand was the area in which this fire started. we also know there's video out there showing a shed burning. yesterday the sheriff was asked about that shed burning, and whether or not that may be a point of origin. here's what he had to say. >> something ignited the fire in that wind on a red flag day, and our job and responsibility and quest is to determine what ignited that fire. i don't have a definitive or final answer for you yet. and i don't want to go down rabbit holes. >> so right now all we know for certain is that it was not ignited by a downed power line which was a rumor that was spreading around the time when the fire started. they have ruled that out. they're looking into whether negligence involved. or if it was intentional. to understand why it's taken so long to investigate. we're looking at snow on top of debris. this has been day four, day five of sub freezing temperatures. and yet, we still have the fire smoldering over there. it goes to show this very surreal scene of snow on top of soot on top of fire that is still in some places burning. >> all right. gaudy schwartz there. thank you. and keep us posted, especially on the two missing folks there in colorado. meanwhile, the new year got off to a frightening start for nearly two dozen people trapped on a tram on a new mexico mountain. check this out. 21 people had to be rescued after two cars stalled on the popular tramway near albuquerque. they were stuck for about 12 hours. 20 people jammed in one car. one person was all alone in a separate car. a passenger talked to "morning joe" today about the freezing cold they endured. >> it was freezing. it was literally freezing. the wind was going bad. i thought we were going to hit the tower for a minute. i just didn't know we were going to make it off the tram alive sometimes. i did have a moment where you internally panic. and you just want to know what's happening, how am i getting off here? >> well, that was amber santos. they eventually had to repel down the car and hike to a clearing to be picked up by helicopter. yikes. meanwhile, the prices of just about everything have gone up lately. but it might be most noticeable when you're buying meat. the white house says it's got a plan to help get the cost of dinner under control. president biden is going to be talking about it this afternoon. the president just got back to a very snowy washington d.c. in the last hour. you can see air force one there, at the air base andrews. it looks like they had to get the stairs up to the plane. that was quite the feat. lots of things in d.c. shut down or delayed today because of the storm. everyone stay safe out there. st. everyone stay safe out there (soft music) hey dad, i'm about to leave. don't forget your hat . good morning. how can i help? i need help connecting with my students. behind every last minute save, ok, that works. and holiday surprise, thank you! a customer service rep is working unseen, making it happen. and at genesys, we're proud to help them help you everyday. earn about covid-19, and at genesys, the more questions we have. the biggest question now, what's next? what will covid bring in six months, a year? if you're feeling anxious about the future, you're not alone. calhope offers free covid-19 emotional support. call 833-317-4673, or live chat at calhope.org today. it may be a new year, but if you've made a trip to the negotiate recently, you're probably seeing a lot of the same jaw dropping prices you hoped to leave behind in 2021. let's not forget inflation is up 6.8% between november 2020 and november 2021. that was the largest increase since 1982. the index for meats, poultry, fish, eggs, increased nearly 13%. beef was up nearly 21%. nbc's kelly o'donnell joins me now from a snowy 1600 pennsylvania avenue as the biden administration gets set to unveil a new plan to try and reign in the cost of meat. kelly, what are they going to do? >> it's interesting today. the federal government is closed due to this winter storm. but the president is going to continue with a meeting he has scheduled that will be mostly virtual which farmers and ranchers. he'll also be joined by the attorney general and the ag secretary. part of what they want to lay out is a way to try to make the meat business more competitive with the hope of reducing prices. so when it gets to the grocery store and your family dinner table that we'll see some relief from those higher meat prices. the administration says that four meat packing companies have the dominant hold on the middleman position in bridging the gap between those who produce the meat products and all of the grocery stores and suppliers where we might buy the products. they want to try to incentivize new ways to have more independent meat processing. so that's investments, and it is trying to stimulate different ways of bringing about more competition. and it's an important part of trying to reduce this recession-type feeling of seeing that those prices that have really had a painful impact on american families, and how can they do that? it's part supply chain. it's part the kind of climate we're in right now. and how can they build that with some particular steps. there are billions of dollars invested in this, and efforts to try to address this through bringing about more competition. so the president will be talking virtually this afternoon. we will be able to attend that. we'll try to ask questions about that too. how quickly this will have an impact remains to be seen. it's a step they're trying to do to answer the issue of higher prices. they know how that's affecting people in real everyday life and the political impact of it as well. >> yeah. kelly o'donnell, how many inches do you think has fallen so far there? >> i think at least six, and it's the wet, heavy snow your kids would love. i've been here since early morning. i've been sloshing around in it. it's kind of fun. >> we'd have a great snowman there. kelly, thank you. congress back today. stakes could not be higher to pass president biden's agenda ahead of this year's midterms. we expect to see senate democrats try and push ahead with some version of build back better. and voting rights as well in the coming weeks. just this morning, senator chuck schumer released a letter outlining the path forward on voting rights specifically. in the letter he ties it to january 6th. and the deadly insurrection. he calls for a rule change to pass legislation. and with the new year always comes more considerations about the future. according to "the washington post," for house democrats, that means preparing for the post pelosi era. nbc's leigh ann caldwell is on the hill with more, and i also want to bring in my former colleague, sotomayor, apparently not working at "the washington post". she's behind this solid new reporting. leigh ann, congress returning with a busy agenda. not a lot of time to get it done. take us through the democrats' priorities and some of the hurdles they're facing to try to get something, anything across the finish line. >> craig, of course they still want to pass this build back betteragenda, this 1 $.7 trillion bill. and they're continuing to negotiate with the president and with senator joe manchin on his concerns with the legislation. but the most immediate priority for senate democrats is passing voting rights legislation in that new letter by senator schumer that you reference, he says january 6th is directly linked to the voing rollbacks taking place across the country, in republican state legislatures. he goes onto they on the anniversary of january 6th, the senate must take up voting rights legislation and must pass it. he says that it is time to change the rules in the most direct way he has stated so far. he says that he will give republicans one more chance to sign onto voting rights legislation which has the support of all 50 democrats. and if those republicans continue to block it, then on or before martin luther king day, mid january, january 17th, the senate will proceed to a debate and perhaps consider changing the senate rules to, in fact, pass this voting rights legislation. so this is the farthest we have seen from chuck shumer in saying voting rights needs to be done. >> yeah. how is the build back better debate framing what you're learning about this jockeying among house democrats preparing for a future without speaker pelosi at the helm? >> it's influencing a lot. members have been paying attention to leadership and how they've handled the negotiations, handled members during the build back better process. we remember in the house it took a long time and a number of setbacks. some of the bigger take aways from that moment is members really felt that if they can work together, so more member, member input to leadership, they actually may be able to get something done. if you remember, that one day where at the end of the day, the infrastructure bill passed and they moved the build back better legislation forward a little bit before final passage, members really had to work together both progressives and moderates, sitting in a room, hashing out statements to try and make sure they could save bide en's agenda. they say that as potentially the future for the party rather than what we've seen over the years where pelosi and her top lieutenants amass a lot of power at the top, essentially arm twisting and negotiating with members to make sure they can take at times difficult votes for them. members see they may be able to have a bit more leeway here and a lot of people saying that they as much as they don't want pelosi to leave because they very much acknowledge she's the only one who can keep that caucus together, they are ready for a new generation of leadership. they want younger members. and they're not too far away from that top rung we're hearing names like the democratic caucus chairman hakeem jeffries of new york followed by kathleen clark, as well as pete agular. a number of other names want to jump in there like congresswoman pra mill la jie pald. we've seen her coalesce a number of her progressives during the build back better process. >> so much has been made of the democratic party loim, whether it's not just speaker pelosi who is in her 80s but steny hoyer, jim clyburn, president biden, the baby of the bunch, 79. you wrote something that caught my attention. quote, whoever replaces pelosi is going to face the daunting task of presiding over the increasingly tense debate about whether democrats will be the party of the activist left or of a center left coalition that can appeal to a broader segment of america in the struggle with an ever-more populist and nationalistic republican party. at the end of the day, where does the caucus see the power center right now? >> you know, it's interesting. that's something else that they have been trying to determine during this process. you have seen the progressives really staying together being able to recognize their power in numbers to influence the process, but moderates at the same time say listen, progressives can do what they want on capitol hill. but you need to listen to us. we have the pulse on those more independent, more flip voters because they represent those districts. some of whom, of course, the voting block voted for biden, helped them get elected. if they're not there this time around in midterm or '24 kwlrks the members are warning you need to listen to us more. it's something that we'll continue to see as the year goes on. >> thank you both. both working today in the capitol despite the snow storm there. the latest hurdle for doctors and nurses in our fight against covid. getting enough tests for their patients. up next, i'll talk to a massachusetts doctor whose clinic has a two-week wait for people to even get testing appointments. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition with 27 vitamins and minerals. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. ♪ ♪ ♪ limu emu... & doug ♪ ♪ superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance so they only pay for what they need. 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world. ♪ ♪ plus, 90-day refills and same day delivery. larry? that's even less to medicare about. fill your medicare prescriptions with walgreens and save. ♪ ♪ right now the rapidly spreading omicron variant is stretching hospital and medical workers to their limit. again. just look at the lines this morning at a testing site in brockton, massachusetts. in just the last wo two weeks massachusetts has seen a more than 94 % surge in new covid cases. i want to bring in dr. charles anderson, president and create of the center in boston. dr. anderson, thank you for your time. i know you're busy. you're able to see every day what so many americans are not. that is what this pandemic looks like from within a hospital. so right now with this omicron raging around the country, and in your state specifically, what are you seeing day in and day out? >> what we're seeing is pretty clear. your picture of the car is really emphasizing that. we're seeing increased demand for testing which is really important. at the same time we're seeing longer waits, and we're seeing lines. you know, the reality is that this virus is out here. and it's infecting many people. one of our main defenses against this is understanding who is positive and to be able to do the appropriate quarantining and isolation. and people are appropriately responding and saying look, we understand that. so we want to be tested. >> you know, we showed those long lines that you just referenced there in brockton. you told local media that demand is skyrocketing. your clinic has a two-week wait for people to get an appointment to get tested. and you know, it wasn't that long ago tests were available in a day or two. and you got the results back pretty quickly. how do you get those wait times down again? i mean, is it more staff? is it more test kits? what do you need? >> well, you know, a lot of it is about three main things. right? these come down to people, process and infrastructure. and you identify where the bottle necks are. right now one of our bottle necks are people. it's a combination of things. at community centers where we serve over 20,000 people, we have a responsibility that goes beyond testing. so we pulled many of those resources back into trying to manage people's diabetes and hypertension and other chronic illnesses that have impacted our community. one of the things we're struggling with is how to do this sort of repositioning of people and not compromise other parts of the system even further. but people is a big part of it. we are looking at processes. and i think a big opportunity here in terms of process is how do we get these over-the-counter kits into more homes. getting the 25 million of these into fairly qualified health centers is a big step in that direction. i think one of the things to emphasize is the process bit. we had ten of us together for christmas eve. ten individuals ranging age 11 to 80. one of those individuals was coughing. my wife being the ultimate doctor, both being physicians, she's always prepared. she had a test kit. she tested that individual who turned out to be positive. would you know that through this period because of having that information, only one of the ten of us who were exposed at that time ended up being positive. unfortunately, it was her, the doctor, but that is how -- that is why this is important. >> yeah. you know, here's the thing. there have been some who have suggested one of the reasons we're seeing a surge in numbers in terms of positive cases is because we are testing so much more now. especially over the last few weeks with folks wanting to travel for the holidays, wanting to do what you did with your family, wanting to do what i did with my family. a lot of folks test. what do you make of the argument that one of the reasons we're seeing the numbers skyrocket is because we are testing so much more than we were just a month ago? >> well, it's got a true and unrelated, and some regards not terribly important. the reality is that we know we need to understand who is infected. and we need to especially understand that from an ep deem logic standpoint, because that person can infect someone else. this is basic epidemiology, and yes, we're testing more. that's exactly part of how we battle this. we can do this. but we've got to take the right steps. >> there has been some suggestion over the last few days, especially with the surge in cases, when you look at the number of people who have been fully vaccinated and boosted in this country, that we may be over the next month or two approaching what some have dubbed herd immunity. it depends on the doctor that you talk to, but we may be getting to a tipping point in this country where we've either got folks who have been infected with the virus or inoculated against it. what do you say to that? do you think that's something that's right around the corner? >> i'm very optimistic about the fact that that is around the corner. the reality we have to remember, and this is what we're seeing and this is of what we're trying to make clear. just because one is vaccinated and boosted does not create this barrier around you so that you're not eligible as a potential host for that virus. what the vaccination boost allows is for you to have a much lower likelihood of ending up in the hospital or icu. the reality is this virus will continue to be out there and what herd immunity allows is hopefully to decrease the burden on our icu beds and our hospital system. that's what we're hoping to see. and i'm optimistic that is what we'll get to. >> dr. charles anderson, i'm happy for your optimism. love the bow tie. tell your wife hello. happy new year. >> right now congressional leaders are getting ready to mark the one-year anniversary of the january 6th attack on the capitol. what they have planned, and new details about what exactly the former president was doing while those people attacked their capitol. ression zone. ♪ music ♪ >> vo: so when my windshield broke... i found the experts at safelite autoglass. they have exclusive technology and service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ ("this little light of mine") - [narrator] in the world's poorest places, children with cleft conditions live in darkness and shame. they're shunned, outcast, living in pain. you can reach out and change the life of a suffering child right now. a surgery that takes as little as 45 minutes and your act of love can change a child's life forever. please call or visit operationsmile.org now. thousands of children are waiting. this morning we're learning even more details about what happened inside the white house on january 6th as we close in on the anniversary of the deadly insurrection. and the latest insight comes from congresswoman liz cheney and what she calls firsthand testimony about ivanka trump's efforts to try and convince her father to do something. nbc's garrett haake joins me from the hill with more on all of this. give us a progress report here. what are we learning about the committee's investigation as we approach the one-year mark. >> reporter: that nugget is emblematic of an investigation that seems to be getting closer and closer to the white house and the former president himself, what he did in the roughly three hours while the attack was ongoing and he was saying nothing publicly. the committee's work and the criminal investigations that are still going on into the rioters themselves both making a lot of progress over the last year, but there's still a lot of work for both to do. this morning the insurrection investigation focusing ever tighter on what former president trump did and did not do as the deadly january 6th attack unfolded. >> the committee has firsthand testimony that president trump was sitting in the dining room next to the oval office watching on television as the capital was assaulted. that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty. >> reporter: republican congresswoman liz cheney also revealing multiple advisers asked trump to intervene, including republican leader kevin mccarthy and the former president's daughter. >> we have firsthand testimony that his daughter ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. >> reporter: the bipartisan committee probing the actions of mr. trump and his allies in and out of government now seeking testimony from some congressional republicans, along with white house aides and stop the steal activists. since its creation last summer, the committee says it has interviewed more than 300 people and collected more than 35,000 pages of documents including emails and text messages. while still battling the former president in court for more white house records. a spokesman for the former president telling nbc news the committee is, quote, obsessed with waging a political war against president donald j. trump. in the past year, 725 people have been charged with crimes related to the attack. the fbi says they're still looking for 350 more people they believe committed violence on that day. on capitol hill, a new police chief says reforms to how the capitol police collect and share intelligence and train officers have made the complex safer, but challenges remain. >> what keeps you up at night now? >> right now probably 200 officers below what we had pre-january 6th, and we're 400 below what we really need today. >> reporter: craig, the staffing and the changes at the capitol police department is going to be another big story we're going to continue to follow over this next year. i interviewed another officer this morning for an upcoming story who talked to me about how he's still angry about what happened that day. he says the attitudes here have changed, but they still need more manpower to truly secure this complex in this new political era we appear to be living in. >> yeah, sounds like at least a few hundred more. thank you, garrett haake from the hill for us, our senior capitol hill correspondent. we're on verdict watch in the case of former silicon valley star elizabeth holmes. in just the last 25 minutes, day seven of jury deliberations picked back up after a holiday break. holmes is facing 11 criminal charges. she's accused of defrauding investors and patients through her blood testing startup theranos. she took the stand for seven days as the star witness in her own defense. holmes has pled not guilty, but she does face 20 years in prison if she is convicted. that's going to do it for me this hour. "andrea mitchell reports" starts next. 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