welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper. and we begin with our politics lead. a giant step for president biden as he cheers on $3.5 trillion worth of promises made and promises he hopes to keep. hours after passing the bipartisan infrastructure deal, the senate voted very early this morning to move forward on the president s $3.5 trillion budget blueprint. now, this plan includes a long list of pricey biden priorities such as investments to fight against climate change, universal pre-k creating more affordable housing and changes to the tax code just to name a few. the late-night vote was only the first step in a lengthy process, which as cnn s phil mattingly reports, already is turning into a price tag fight within the president s own party. in the past 24 hours we ve seen the senate advance two key pieces of my economic agenda. reporter: president biden taking a victory lap for the second time just hours after this moment. [ applause ] that applause f
covid-19 could orange nate in a chinese lab. are you still confident that it developed naturally. no, i m not convinced. woe should continue to investigate. implications for china nationally and globally would be massive. here it is, biggest moment of the legendary career. phil defeats father time i want to put on my boogie shoes and boogie with you. steve: i think i would take my shoes off if i m going to walk on mirmingts beach. good morning, myrtle beach, 72 trees. going for a high today in south carolina of 88 trees. ainsley: nice. steve: speaking of south carolina, just up the coast where phil mickelson made history yesterday becoming the oldest guy to ever win a pro. ainsley: it was awesome. he was kia island. he won at 50. brian: not like he was on a roll. he was not making cuts week after week. asked a couple weeks ago are you going to play the pga and use the special exemption for having won before? he said i don t know. i don t know if i will do it. i thin
the new zealand celebrating 2022. maybe almost a day to wait before we can celebrate. and look at that fireworks everywhere. that s a party. i like it. you know, i think noon in georgia might look that way in a little bit. i think my neighbors will have some fireworks. good morning, cailee. kayleigh: good morning. it s good to be with you and lawrence jones. of course, you joey jones. happy new year s eve to all. isn t it exciting that we are finally two years out of this pandemic and we are finally starting to see some celebratory activity it will be a scaled back new year s eve, lawrence jones, as you are there in times square but still to have 15,000 gathered it s exciting to have some semblance of normalcy albeit not quite where we were two years prior to today. lawrence: yeah, you are exactly right, kayleigh. i would say that i m optimistic. i think the american people are tired of it all and trying to get to some sort of normalcy. i think they are going to reject a lot
we re going to end t t all human prejudice and replace it with equity. we re going to spread democracys to the untutored nations with guns. they re going to love guns for it. we can do all these things because we re all powerful. we re like gods. gods befor we shall have no godse before us now mostly they re puny people, but when they speak they sound like caesar standing in purple robeses. the forum commanding the known world joe biden very oftenentl sounds like this . so does that squeaky little woman with weird teeth who runs new zealand.ee th they all sound likeey this . they re unbelievably grandioser . it s by design. they d rather talk about redeeming humanity than botherut to fix your kid s school or replace the stop sign at the end of your block. so you ve got to wonder why do they talk this way? se and the answer, off course, is because they re terrified. they claim to be powerful because they know they re not. it s a bluff to calculated pose.ey wea in fact, they
the international energy agency has revealed that lng now makes up 35% of europe s energy supplies, not far off the 40% contribution that russia made before it was sanctioned over ukraine. joining me now is ben mcwilliams, who s an affiliate fellow at bruegel. thank you very much for being with us today. what are your concerns about where gas prices could go if these workers do indeed strike? this is certainly a concern, but to be clear up front, nothing comparable to last year. the position we are in is that, as you mentioned, as russian pipeline supplies have been cut over the last 12 months, the eu and uk have become more dependent on liquefied national gas. natural gas. australia typically supplies asia. if it were cut to asian consumers, we would see asian consumers turning around and looking to qatar and competing with european buyers there, which would in turn have some knock on effect on prices. as it had last week, 40% increase from around 30 to 36 euros just n