expert about that development. we ll hear from a democratic senator in last night s meeting between senator manchin and the democratic colleagues and a progressive house member on what happens next. hello there, welcome to meet the press daily i m chuck todd. the biden administration trying to ramp up the testing capacity and tamp down the fears for vaccinated people as omicron sweeps across the country. long testing lines and in many places not enough testing the country was caught unprepared for this variant. the new strategy the white house rolled out yesterday includes making half a billion at-home tests available for free to any american who wants one. something people have called for since the start of this pandemic, but those tests won t be available until next month after holiday travel and after the worst of this current surge and comes a couple weeks after the white house downplayed the need for at-home testing. here was press secretary jen psaki less than two
gotten tested before traveling or seeing family for the holidays. if that s the case, images like you re seeing now probably look familiar. lines down the street, in the cold, three, four, five hours of waiting. these particular photos are in gotham city, this is from washington, d.c. take a look at this ariel shot. this is what the situation looks like in miami, florida. embarrassing, frankly. two years into a global pandemic that has dominated all of our lives. again, it is very possible you already have personal experience in this arena. behind the surge in testing, omicron, which the cdc now says is the dominant variant of covid in the united states. 73% of new cases in this country and upwards of 90% in certain areas. feels like that in new york city. sadly yesterday officials in texas announced what is thought to be the first omicron related death in the u.s. an unvaccinated man over the age of 50 with underlying health conditions who had contracted covid twice. so all
president himself. quote, we will continue to press him to see if he will reverse his position yet again to honor his prior commitments and be true to his word. we ll see what the white house has to say today when press secretary jen psaki holds her daily briefing in just 30 minutes. meantime, manchin responded to the backlash this morning in a radio interview with a west virginia station. i understand staff. it s not the president, it s the staff. and they drove some things and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable. manchin s reversal leaves his party frustrated and looking for any way to move forward. senate majority leader chuck schumer says the senate will forge ahead with a vote regardless of manchin s decision to force him to say no on the senate floor. manchin s refusal to support build back better has led to new scrutiny on the why. why, in his own words, can he just not get there? new reporting confirmed by nbc news offers one explanation. m
chief of staff mark meadows engulfing more and more republicans. new confirmation that congressman jim jordan was one of them. his office confirming the message you re about to see was authentic. vice president pence should call out all the electoral votes that rebelieves are unconstitutional. jordan basically says, and this may sound familiar, it s not something he was endorendorsing. he was considering this. consider this the retweet defense in this era of coup-by-text, by powerpoint, by communications online. it s going down in the dms. what s going down may have been a crime. it s a bombshell that further ties mark meadows into the problems he has as he was just hit with the contempt vote. that means the justice department now will have to decide whether to indict mr. meadows as they did mr. bannon. liz cheney and adam kinzinger are the only republicans that went along with the majority in the house, being comprised of democrats, to hold meadows in contempt for defying th
name was not yet been released. the age range has gotten even harder. it ranges now from 2 months to 98 years of the kentuckians that we have lost. some didn t get an opportunity to experience this life. twelve of the 74 are children. and there unquestionably more people unaccounted for, but multiple local and federal search i couldn t see continue. utility companies are continuing to repair the outages. three water systems have limited operation work is being done to remove debris and replace the traffic signals. i tell you what, it feels pretty good to not just be pushing this stuff out of the way but to be loading it up and taking it out of town. there s something therapeutic about taking chaos and destruction and death and getting it out of some of those areas. blood donations are still needed. in response to requests from community for blood donation information, the red cross has provided more than 40 blood products to hospitals in kentucky. red cross remains in touch w