barbara, what are you learning? well, good evening pamela. we have just received a very rare sunday night statement from the secretary of defense, telling the press core that he tested positive this morning for covid-19 after exhibiting symptoms while he was worked at home on holiday leave. the secretary says his symptoms are mild, and following his physician s directions and that he will quarantine himself at home for the next five days in occurrence with cdc guidelines. he is fully vaccinated, has had the booster. he says he will, to the extent possible, attend meetings virtually from home that he needs to participate in. he will retain all the authorities of the secretary of defense, and the deputy secretary kathleen hicks will represent him in person, and other situations where he cannot be or cannot participate virtually. the secretary details that his
next move? after they come back from the holidays, the president is going to reengage with democrats to figure out a path forward. he struck an optimistic tone this week telling the press he thinks he and joe manchin and other democrat senators can get done, a dramatic departure from the sunday night statement we saw from press secretary jen psaki, that was blistering to manchin for walking away from the deal. so they re going to figure out what they need to cut to ultimately get his vote. when you talk to sources on capitol hill, they remain confident there is a deal there and there s enough they can agree on to move forward. but the halftime report there s painful conversations in the new year about what is left out of the bill. what do those painful conversations sound like among democrats? clearly joe manchin is not on board for the whole thing but he may be willing to work with them on other stuff, is there about