that is going to do it for us tonight, i have run into the last words real estate, which means i owe them one, i'll see you again tomorrow, but now it is time for the unfortunately abbreviated last word. which i've started to eat. my friend ali is in for lawrence o'donnell, i'm sorry ali. >> my pleasure rachel, you know this conversation we're having about the international guard, in oklahoma, a year ago we were 13 days away from having a vaccine. and it was sometime before i qualified to get one. i remember the day i qualified. i kept hitting the mud and i, had about nine websites open, and i tried to get an appointment, i was hitting refresh, refresh. and i was thinking to myself, while there's this free vaccine,

that could actually save my life from a deadly virus. it did not occurred to me, one year ago, that we would be having discussions like the one you just had. that people are actively working against getting a vaccine for a virus that is still active, and still killing people. to the point where a state's governor is putting on the line, the individual careers of all the guardsmen and women, to who he is giving advice about what is going to happen to them if they don't get the vaccine. which is in split stately discouraging them from doing it. it is just an astonishing thing. it is -- when you think about all the heroism that we've seen from national guard members, from oklahoma, a national have stepped up to distribute vaccines, who have done so much on covid. for them to be road kill for this governor. >> they are the front line. thank you for bringing that story to our attention rachel. have a good moment will see you tomorrow. >> thanks. >> and of course tonight we begin with a new coronavirus,

on the ground. what you need to know, and what you are still figuring out. the world health organization has designated omicron a variant of concern. it was first reported in south africa, where covid infections have increased sharply over the last few weeks. today, president biden has said, quote, sooner or later it will be detected in the united states, it's probably here already, and he provided this perspective. >> this variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic. >> a cause for conch certain, and not a cause for panic. there are three fundamental panics, about the omicron variant, or any variant for that matter, that we have to answer before we let any panic set in. first of all, how transmissible is it? second, does it cause severe illness? and third, our covid current vaccines as effective against the new variant? well so far, it is too early to know the answers to those questions. some people say they know it. but we don't have enough information yet. scientists are conducting

studies, it may take a few weeks before we know the answer. some have suggested that we might know by the end of this week. but we are learning more every single day. there is one thing we do know about this. we've got tools to protect ourselves. here's dr. anthony fauci tonight, with my colleague. >> if ever there was a reason to get the people who are unvaccinated, vaccinated. and those who are fully vaccinated, and whose time comes up to get a booster, it's now. because we know from experience already that when you get a high level of antibodies, neutralizing antibodies. even if it's against one particular variant, when you get a high level, usually due to vaccination and boosters, which gets that level way up. you get such a high level, it cross protects against the other variants. so when you get a brand-new variant and you don't have a really understanding of it, yet the best thing to do is to get your level of neutralizing

antibodies as high as you possibly can. >> another reason not to panic just because this country is in a much much better place than it was a year ago. to find a new variant. >> a year ago, america was founding against the first round of covid. we will fight this with science, knowledgeable actions, speed. not chaos and confusion. we have more tools today to fight the variant than we've ever had before. the vaccines to boosters, from vaccines to children. five years and older. and much more. >> as i do whenever things get this confusing, i bring this person in. leading off our discussion tonight laurie garrett, polar surprise winning covering global pandemics. she's an msnbc science contributor. laurie garrett, are not well acquainted before coronavirus. we got acquainted quite quickly. so you are the one i turn to. because there's a lot of conflicting information.

there are a lot of people who seem to know a lot about this omicron but the smarter the people are that i talked to, they say, we don't have enough information just yet to know whether or not we could know our vaccines are okay, if this is credit miscible. and this year five discussed, two years ago almost, more transmissible and more deadly overlap. >> yes they do. ali, a lot of speculation is going on about this variant omicron. and by people who should know better and keep their mouth shut about things that you just don't know yet. we've only really recognize the existence of this variant for a matter of days. and while lots of great minds, all over the world are racing to understand what the 26 plus mutations on the spike protein and the maybe, 30 other mutations elsewhere on the virus actually do. and how they interact with each

other, and whether or not they make it easier for the virus to latch on to cells, get into cells, reproduce itself. get the virus back out into the bloodstream, into your, nose into your mouth. where you have exhaled it to other people. we don't know the answers to these questions yet. delta, surprises. also it's a things were said about delta when it first appeared. it has subsequently turned out to be inaccurate or, let's just say incorrect guesses. and we now know a great deal about it, we do very well understand that variant well, we have to do ourself time. i am very concerned about ali, and we look at the genetic changes, has been around for a while it's probably been locations.

somewhere in south africa for a long time. and this should not be surprising if anybody is really paying attention. because -- to other significant variants. the one that cost many of the early vaccine trials to go awry, and then the c top two has just appeared this summer. and they also appear to have been in circulation for a while on a very low level. one, two, three people before surfacing and becoming obvious. why would that be so? can you guess what's the reason might be. why south africa might be a brewing pot? >> why? >> hiv. it's the largest population of hiv positive people in the world. and in this epidemic, we have seen much of the services related to hiv fall apart.

because public health systems are so stressed. now south african has got a strong system compared to its neighbor nations. and suddenly stronger than, say, zambia. and it does its level best. to supply the necessary treatments to all of its hiv positive population. but there are 10 million hiv positive people mostly in the key eight southern states of africa who are without treatment, unaware that they have the virus, and do not know that their immune system is compromised. so, think about it. we have been very concerned, correctly so in this country. about making sure that whatever new treatments and then, vaccines, became available, we put our cancer patients, our transplant patients at the top of the list. do you first. because --

>> exactly, people who are immunocompromised. >> and we are doing that globally. >> well that is part of the issue, the south africans, they have reported this, they do this very fast, and basically the world to shut down on south africa. i was there two months ago, and they actually seem to, as a society, taking this thing very seriously back then. everybody was sanitizing, everybody was signing in everywhere you when. they would show their test frequently. one of the issues though is that africa is the least vaccinated continent. south africa's an exception, but africa doesn't have enough vaccine. the president is making this point. we actually need to get more vaccines to africa. >> well actually, today, the african union its vaccine organization and its international partners, world bank, w.h.o., gabby, all came out jointly and said, hey world we are glad you are finally

starting to send the same vaccine but please don't dump it all on the set once. we don't have enough refrigerators and deep freezers. we don't have enough syringes, we don't have enough skilled personnel to immediately overnight. rev up and distribute 16 million doses. please pace how quickly you launch this in our direction, because we need to have our infrastructure in place. i mean, this would be as if the day the first moderna vaccine was available. we dealt 1 million doses on mississippi and said, go for it folks. you don't have that capacity. on top of it all, there are shortages of everything else involved in vaccinations. in the alcohol swipes, in the syringes, in the deep cold packs, everything. and so, yes, south africa has probably managed to get two doses to about 28 to 32% of its

adult population, that is very good compared to most of the rest of africa. but it is woeful in the face of a variant. and in this case, in the face of three called circulating variance. >> this is the lesson that we've all been talking about right, the virus doesn't of serve national borders. it can get around the world at light speed. the one difference here that when coronavirus started in the u.s., you and i were talking last january, february. we had massive resistance from the federal government around testing. do we have a good enough and strong enough regiment today in the united states, that if this starts circulating and we realized it's highly transmissible and highly dangerous, we can at least test everybody properly? >> our testing capacity has much improved. one of the things that we have done has augmented with home kits that you can get your drugstore to take home and test yourself. the problem with the home kit so far, is that they are very

expensive. they certainly aren't affordable for working class folks with lots of kids and big families. you want to test everybody, it will cost you a couple hundred bucks to test the whole family. that's not going to be a viable option for most americans. secondly, those test results are private. they are yours. we are not keeping track of them. we don't know how many more americans may be testing positive. of course, nobody is seeing what strain you tested positive against. that brings up another point with testing. will this new variant be easy to test with available kits that we have right now? almost all the test kits in use in america, were initially developed to respond to the wuhan strain of this virus. and of course the wuhan strain is no longer in circulation. now it does pick up, most of

them, to pick up the delta strain. but will pick up the omicron? we will see. >> laurie, thanks as always. you help make it a lot clearer. laurie garrett is a pulitzer prize winner. coming up, omicron is colliding with the holiday shopping season. could mean higher prices. we will explain why and how it can be avoided, next. n be avoided, next y this robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? now get powerful relief with robitussin elderberry. why hide your skin if dupixent has your moderate to severe eczema or atopic dermatitis under control? hide my skin? not me. by hitting eczema where it counts, dupixent helps heal your skin from within keeping you one step ahead of eczema. hide my skin? not me. and that means long-lasting clearer skin... and fast itch relief for adults.

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most bladder leak pads were similar. until always discreet invented a pad that protects differently. with two rapiddry layers. for strong protection, that's always discreet. question your protection. try always discreet. where's mom? she said she would be home in time for the show. don't worry sweetie, she promised she'd be here for it. oh! nice shot! thanks! glad we have xfinity. with wifi speeds faster than a gig. me too. [claps] woah! look! [chuckles] mom is on tv! she's amazing! [screams and laughter] yeah! xfinity brought us together after all. get started with xfinity internet and ask about wifi speed fast than a gig. >> where is my stuff? click, call or visit a store today.

the next 25 days until christmas, it is a question that many people ask. the answer will depend on a number of things. from how fast the omicron variant spreads, to how much trucking companies are willing to pay people to work for them. but whether it is searching for an out of stock toy, or tracking your package delivery date. the where is my stuff anxiety all comes back to the supply chain. something you've probably didn't think much about before this year. let's take a quick trip.

the journey of your stuff. many things we buy are made in overseas factories, where wages are typically lower than they are in the united states. or they are assembled in the u.s. with component parts made overseas. globally, many factory slow down, or shut down during the pandemic. either because of sick workers, or lockdowns. so the first issue is getting global production back to capacity. question number one, is what is the virus situation? from the overseas factories, goods are put on a cargo ship. so question him or to, is there a cargo container available to put the stuff on? and workers to load the container onto the ship? the pandemic caused a lot of shipping to places that don't often have a reason to send those containers back filled with other things. so there are in fact, a lot of container sitting in the wrong places in the world. now assuming there is a container for your stuff, using it may cost more than normal. my question number three, once it gets to the united states, is there space and are their

workers to unload it? then, it gets put on a truck. which leads us to question number four. how bad is the leader shortage of truckers? and are companies willing to do anything about that labor shortage? doing something about it, generally means bidding out the use of the truck, which is sending trucking prices soaring. finally, your stuff is approaching. but question him or five. did the seller order enough? over the last couple of decades, companies have tended to keep lean inventories, just in time inventory is fantastic. in normal times. but it can can create the dreaded out of stock message in times like this. then there are the workers at stop the shelves. and will the price you pay reflect the higher gas prices? the higher wages that those workers are paid? does it just reflect some companies desires to pad their profits, while blaming it all on inflation. today joe biden met with some of the executives of major retail stores to discuss how they are working to get you your stuff. either for christmas, or

whenever. according to the white house read out quote, the media highlighted steps that companies have taken to overcome supply chain bottlenecks. walmart ceo doug mcmillon highlighted a 51% improvement in his companies through put at the ports. due to the work of the biden, harris port envoy. as you can see, there are a number of complicated factors. most of them have nothing to do with the step that u.s. government. although the white house is well aware, that you're getting your stuff at reasonable prices can make or break the president. joining us now is diane swamped, the chief economist with grant dortmund, someone who might turn for explanations on this. diane, this is a tough-y. it's a real tough, the supply chain issue is, real inflation is real. but there is no easy fix for both or either of these. >> now there is, and i think it's really important to understand that we really had a collision, everything from fiscal stimulus, to the experts saving that we generated when we couldn't buy all the

services we usually buy, like going out to dinner, or even traveling in tourism. all that excess saving all it is, is to see a surge in demand and infect our ports have seen a big surge in demand, they couldn't handle the input coming in at the same time as the virus was wreaking havoc around the world. it was much easier to turn the lights out on factories, then to turn them back on again. and of course, underline all that, we also have some pockets of labor shortages which really need to have much higher wages in order to bring workers back into the workforce. and there is a question of those workers who left entirely. we have seen a huge surge in retirements as a result of the pandemic. >> diane, if people are having problem having things shipped, meaning as fast as the week, two or four christmas, is a problem we get with, it's not ideal. at some point do these delays and these extra cost for trucking and the extra cost forgetting containers, and the

extra cost for shipping something from shanghai to long beach, does this even fix itself at some point on its own? or does the u.s. government, governments around the world, do they have to do something active to change this? >> well that is certainly the question that the federal reserve is asking in terms in how it will be reinstated, and re-upped as the chair of the federal reserve has said that the inflation will be one way or the other. either of these problems will be resolved as it hits up, and we see production picked up. and in some of the productions, we've seen out there are regaining to the supply chain promise. we need to uncoil. i think that is very important, we've seen computer chips pick, up and that means that the vehicle plants are operating again. vehicle plants that were idle this recently september are now finally producing of course the dealer lots are still pretty empty. and most people don't think of a vehicle as the first thing they are going to buy for a holiday gift, but it goes with

everything from consumers to the games that people want to play and buy for their children, and adults, during this holiday season. so this is hard things to unwind on their own, there will be some of that, but there is also a bit of a wage for a spiral going on, we haven't seen it fully take root yet but that will be the determination that the federal reserve is going to have to make. are we risking inflation to come more entrenched? in response to that, the fed may end up raising interest rate. in fact i think they will end up raising in interest rates even with all the disruptions that we see that are outside of their realm of being able to fix in that supply chain problem. there is also a demand surge going on as well. >> you and i have been talking for years. and we have not really seen any meaningful increase in interest rates in a very very long time. we have seen abnormally long interest rates for a long time. but that's the feds mean to.

if inflation becomes a very big concern. what is the danger of it? what can go wrong? if the feds start saying this inflation thing is real, we're going to start to edge up in interest rates, what's the danger here? >> well there is a lot of danger, the fed hasn't chased on inflation since the 1980 and in fact this is the first time the fed has been pretty empty and nonexistent inflation has a vault in the last several decades so anytime they raised in interest rates they were that quickly in pulling back again. they did that as recently as 2018 and then had to go back at rates in 2019 because inflation was nonexistent. and i think that that is very important to remember in a broader sense, the real issue is that the feds, instead of being patient, and they said they would not hesitate on rate hikes, my concern is that they will panic. they will move too quickly to chase inflation down. unfortunately, what we consider transitory as a condiments

arguer to, it's not transitory to most consumers. that is too long to wait. and the fact is that it can also get worried about inflation becoming more and more entrenched even as it slows down. i do worry about the lingering effects of shelter cost up there, and medical cost. which are not going up. so we have seen more broad based inflation if they overshoot, that could be a boom bust cycle. at the same time, you talked about just in time inventory. we now have a lot of double ordering of inventories. people edging the inventory for just in case inventories. and that could cause a bull whip effect. and an overhang of inventories in 2023. >> the balance between inflation and raising interest rates is something no president wants to deal with, they are both not ideal for politics. >> diane, thank you so much for joining us, diane swonk, it is a chief of -- >> coming up he has been working for decades to get a deal with a death blow to roe

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to abortions for every woman. if you are an american under the age of 50, you have never known that version of america. you may not think such a thing possible. but it could be a reality once again. on wednesday, the supreme court will hear oral arguments in a mississippi case that bans abortion after 15 weeks. roughly two months earlier than the precedent set at the courts in 1973. it is the most serious, direct challenge to roe v. wade that has come before the score in decades. a court that now has a 6 to 3 conservative majority. republicans at the state level have been chipping away at abortion rights for years. implementing harsher bans. with the hopes of reaching the judicial moment at which we now find ourselves. as the associated press reports, if antiabortion advocates succeed in overturning roe v.

wade, it would lead to outright bans or severe restrictions on abortion in 26 states. mississippi is one of the 12 states ready to enact almost immediately if roe is overturned. those have enacted so-called abortion trigger laws. would take effect and ban either all or nearly all abortions. >> joining us now is neil who is the acting solicitor general. he is an msnbc legal contributor. good evening to you. this is a complicated issue, but probably one that is very important for our viewers to understand. this issue centers around fetal viability. i want to read a segment from the new york times and i want you to help us understand what it means. the court could overturn roe entirely, while allowing states to ban abortions at any point. at least some justices may want to find a way to sustain the

mississippi law without overturning roe and so many words, requiring them to discard the viability line and replace it with a another standard that would allow cut off at 15 weeks. it's a well written article, but what does that mean? >> there's a lot of legal in that article. let me just make it very simple. for most of our viewers lifetime, anyone born in 1973 or later. they had a right to guarantee to an abortion under the united states constitution. by 7 to 2 decision by the united states supreme court. called roe v. wade. at a time where seven of the nine justices were appointed by republican presidents. with that right man specifically, was that a state couldn't restrict abortion if it were before the 25th week. the so-called viability line. mississippi now, just in recent years, has come along and said, no we are actually going to ban abortion after 15 weeks. other states like texas have

gone even further and said we are going to ban abortion after six weeks. with this case in the court will be evaluating on wednesday, is whether this mississippi law 15 weeks is constitutional or not. with the new york times article is basically saying is, roe v. wade set a viability line. it's 25 weeks. in order for the mississippi law to be upheld and declared valid by the supreme court, the supreme court is going to have to overrule roe v. wade. >> let's talk about what john roberts wants to do, what he can do. the associated press writing that chief justice john roberts might find the more incremental approach appealing if he can persuade a majority of the court to go along. since roberts became chief justice in 2005, the core has moved and smaller steps on some issues, even when it appeared there was only a binary choice. i think to a lot of my viewers, they may see this as binary.

what is the incremental approach? >> so the chief justice is now presiding over supreme court that is really very conservative. far more so than any supreme court in our lifetimes. he himself is quite conservative, but he is also institutionalized. kind of a burke ian. believes in the kind of slow incremental change. transformation of the supreme court, because of the trump appointments and most importantly, justice ruth bader ginsburg being replaced by justice amy cohen barrett, has really moved the court to the right. we haven't actually seen a lot of the impact of that yet. they've been really cautious, incremental and slow. led by the chief justice. the question for wednesday is, is that now going to hold? are we going to see that incremental approach? by the way, that incremental approach all the, is not all that incremental. because of the ends laws upheld, it's a pretty radical thing.

it's going to take the right of abortion away in a way that at least men and women have understood since 1973. the 25th week and moving it back 10 to 15 weeks. it would be worst of it moved back to six weeks, which is the texas case. in the next year or so. that's the incremental approach. still, basically overturning roe v. wade. it's just a question of how far do they want to go. >> there's a recent poll taken, nbc and washington post, and it shows opinions on abortions. amongst u.s. adults, 60% oppose hold roe v. wade. 20's fan percent want to overturn. it amongst democrats it's 82 to 11. amongst independents it's almost the same as it is among the united states population. 58 to 28. amongst republicans, a plurality in favor of overturning roe. but it's not that much. does any of that matter to the

court? >> it matters in the sense that i think the republican party has been captured by a bunch of hard-core activists who have made this their mission in life. which judge, judges, are going to be put on the courts of appeal. which ones are going to push to the supreme court and the like. i do think that even those percentages ally a basic truth. which is that the republican party cares about that intensely. at least a segment of the republican party does. i do think it should cause everyone concern if the court is really going to take back roe v. wade. which is one of the few decisions that americans know by name. to just change it because the personnel of the supreme court has changed, is really a tension with angela american law. >> always helpful to have you break this down and analyze it. former acting solicitor general. coming up, the january six committee is not messing around. -- there will be consequences, it

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justice official, who was the star of the senate officials investigation earlier this year into donald trump's quote, relentless efforts to co-opt the department of justice into overturning the 2020 election. the judiciary committee reported that the acting civil division discern attorney general jeffrey clark became trump's big lie lawyer, pressuring his colleagues in the doj to force and overturn of the 2020 election. and quote. the judiciary committee found clark's actions so disturbing, that they filed a complaint with the d.c. bar. so of course, the january six committee wants to hear what clark had to say. here is adam schiff earlier this month on the last word on

the eve of clark's scheduled deposition. >> he was involved in discussions with the former president, with a high ranking justice department officials, about efforts to get the georgia and other states to either withhold the appointment of electors, or to send alternate states of electors. it was also involved in discussions about putting out there that the justice department was investigating him. massive fraud. he is, i think probably in a singular position to speak to those meetings and discussions, both at the white house and within the justice department. so, congress has heard from a variety of other witnesses who refused treaties by mr. clark and the former president. and now we need to go straight to the horse's mouth. >> except that jeffrey clark never gave that deposition. he showed up, but he didn't cooperate. in response the chairman of the committee, bennie thompson,

issued the statement the next day. quote, he has a very short time to reconsider and cooperate fully. we need the information that he is withholding and we are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable, to me his obligation, and quote. well, it appears that jeffrey clark's time is up. on wednesday, the committee plans to vote on wednesday night, whether to recommend a criminal referral for contempt of congress. joining us now is katie benner the justice department reporter for, and an innocent bc contributor. jeffrey clark is the most famous person that nobody had ever heard about, before people like you, wrote about him. to the extent that there was a mastermind of the clown car dumpster fire of an insurrection attempt. he was it. he is important for them to hear. from what happens now? >> so they are going to vote to hold him in contempt. and it will go to the justice department. it is very likely that the justice department will look at the case and much like in the situation with steve bannon, they will choose to charge him

with contempt. they will take it before a grand jury and if the grand jury indites, he will be charged. there's really no reason not to. the justice department has fired former officials who worked with jeff clark already testified before the committee. both the senate and the house. all of the things that they would want to talk to him about, almost all of them have been covered by former officials. could be very hard for him to say that he couldn't speak to these things. because the former president did not stop the former acting attorney general, or the former deputy attorney general of speaking on these issues. it's going to be hard for him to make. >> he's not steve bannon right? steve bannon is a conservative performance artist. he's got something to gain from this whole thing. jeffrey clark showed up to that deposition on november 5th, which is interesting to me. he showed up, clearly thought important enough to at least perform some kind of perfunctory compliance. but then he didn't participate. he's not completely snapping his nose at the system, but he's doing something? >> i think that in our

reporting what we found is that mr. clark is possibly a real true believer that he does believe the former president won the election. that he'd be joe biden. if you impeach a biden, there was enough fraud that he thinks it's important to raise these questions. i don't think that he was insincere in his efforts to help former president emerge from the election. which is one of the reasons why he might show up to the committee and say i essentially plead the fifth, i want to honor my agreements with the former president. >> the committees looking to go after him. strangely, not after mark meadows. who is a former congressman, head of the freedom caucus and former chief of staff of the president. any reason why? >> i'm not really sure why they chose to hold jeff clark in contempt before mark meadows. i don't know what's going on in the heads of the committee. i will say that the clark situation seems very discreet. there is already a lot in the public of what it is he did and how he tried to pressure his

colleagues. which is not known, is who in the white house was asking him to do it. and what was going on in the larger scheme. we saw from different officials that they don't believe clark would act alone. they don't believe that he came up with this on his own. there would be asking him to point very specific things of clark, who at the white house told you to do what and when. meadows is a much bigger set of questions, they are still trying to get his arms around. >> good to see you, thank you so much for your excellent reporter. katie benner of the new york times. coming up, what did you do over the thanksgiving holiday? it some turkey, maybe some pie, probably more than you needed to. maybe watched a little football, maybe you snuck in a little velshi over the weekend? a guy can dream. but here is a serious question, how many times did you think about the president? probably zero. hopefully zero. unless, you are the presidents family. in a normal world, you shouldn't be thinking about him over thanksgiving. you definitely didn't have to look at your phone with dread. for the first time since maybe

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survived its first trump free thanksgiving since 2014. we enjoyed a four-day holiday weekend without checking our phones in fear of what the president tweeted, or what kind of lies he was telling. like these. >> mister president you have any big plans for your last thanksgiving at the white house? >> we don't know what is last, if you look at what is going on, you have to really take a look at what's going on. they are finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes. nobody believes those numbers. those numbers are incorrect numbers. a lot of numbers have already been reported that's incorrect. >> remember when you had to listen to that stuff all the time?

that was donald trump's last thanksgiving at the white house. but that time, more than to learn 61,000 people in the united states had died from coronavirus. former presidents thanksgiving proclamation that year encouraged americans to quote gather in homes and places of warships. just as public health officials were warning against thanksgiving gatherings. and the cdc was recommending against holiday travel. today the white house unveiled its holiday decorations, which honor covid-19 first responders. joining us now molly jong-fast contributing writer at the atlantic and author of the newsletter, wait what's. and eugene robinson columnist for the washington post. but he's an msnbc political analyst. molly good to see. you have written a remarkable piece in the atlantic, in which you argue that joe biden doesn't have an effective foil and that it's not actually enough that we don't have the carnival barker-in-chief. giving us read alerts every day

about things. in other words, but in your opinion, not enough for joe biden to succeed. >> well, it's enough for me. i like it. but we have seen with the polling. a lot of americans, it's just not enough for them. we see these polls. these polls are problematic and it's weird because he would think that the reality of having a normal guy in charge, norma holiday stuff. didn't say anything crazy. we have this variant, we know, we're dealing with it in the most scientific and normal way. remember what trump told us to do about covid? put the light in the body. we have this normal president, but the polling says that that is not enough for people. >> eugene, you know, in the end, i guess we have short memories. but right now the president has real issues he has to contend with.

there was the afghanistan stuff, there is inflation, which is real, it's global, but it's real. there is covid, it's global, but it's real. what does joe biden need to do other than be on the job to convince americans to give him a fair shake? >> look, if you are going to have a normal presidency, then you are going to have normal stuff to deal with. people are going to react normally to the way that you deal with it. or they perceive you dealing with it. a lot of that is going to be based on how they are feeling. you know, inflation, i remember when inflation was out of control. the inflation we have now is practically nothing. it does affect people in a way they haven't been affected in a while. they react to it. they react to afghanistan.

they will react especially to covid. and to how, when and how, we get covid under control. and other people can feel like they've gone back to normal lives. that's the stuff that is going to matter to joe biden. so, you are right. it's not enough just to be normal. but it is nice. and i do like it to. >> molly, there are issues that some people in the democratic party are disappointed in. in joe biden in the biden administration. in their opinion at the speed that they should be tackling, including social justice, issues policing, voting rights. and that might be contributing to some of joe biden's problems in governing. it looks like he's spending a lot of time trying to keep democrats happy. what does that look like too? with the success look like, in terms of democrats not doing it? >> well, he passed three major pieces of legislation in a year. so he has done a lot of

legislating. and he's also done a lot for covid. the problem is that there have been variants right. there's been a lot of vaccine hesitancy in this country. that has been really problematic. so i think that for him, he has done a lot. the thing i think is missing from the biden administration is that there is not enough selling going on. you have a huge disinformation ecosystem that is flooding. they are telling listeners that inflation is back, it's caused by biden. by needs to go out there and say that he has a lot of really good communicators and that white house. they can be out there talking and selling and showing this infrastructure. explaining to the american people that they did build these bridges. that they are the reason that these places are having money. i think ultimately, that will help a lot. >> eugene, there is a lot of criticism that it's a messaging

issue. that there are good and important things. but i have republicans who come and talk to me, there weren't a lot of them, but there were some republicans that supported the infrastructure bill, a lot more in the senate because they actually understand that america was short on infrastructure spending. now we are getting it. there are no republicans who are going to support this larger bill, but in fact is, the constituents will benefit from it. it is a traditional democratic problem. successful messaging of their own initiatives. >> it is. and we are seeing it unfold now. as just kind of the way it is. the messaging has not been as good as the anti-messaging coming from republicans. a lot of which is disinformation. disinformation, we know scientifically, is more powerful. the crazy fall stuff is more powerful. because it goes more viral. people react to it more viscerally and in more passionately. that's a bigger problem that we have to face as a society.

if we are going to be a post society. but, you know, it's thanksgiving. let's have a nice thanksgiving. let's have a nice christmas. what is really going to count is the months ahead. and the number one thing is covid, the number two thing is inflation. if covid is seen to be under control and we are back to normal and people are feeling good about that and if inflation, as i think it will, you are going to see those numbers change. you are -- all of these dems in disarray. dems are doomed stories. are going to turn around. that stuff has to happen. it's going to take some time for it to play out. >> molly, we have 30 seconds. what's your best advice for democrats and the president to turn this around? >> get those members of the white house out there. there are so many different messengers in that white house.

i mean so many smart communicators. they are so many people in that white house who should be out there. put mayor pete on fox news. get them out there. explain what they are doing. show the legislating they're doing. >> thanks to both of you, it is a pleasure to have you both on tonight. molly john fast and eugene robinson. thanks to both of you. that's tonight's last word, don't forget to watch my show velshi saturday and sunday from eight to 10 am eastern. the 11th hour, with brian williams starts now. williams starts now. well good evening once again day 314 of the biden administration, as our country braces for yet another new variant in the nearly two year old pandemic. now the stutter for disease control is strengthening its recommendations for boosters, now saying, all adults. they should get a booster shot, period. more on that just ahead. more on --

also this evening, this week that will bring us to december, will bring us on the verge of the next confrontation between the house committee investigating the capitol riot and the insurrection, and a trump loyalist who now refuses to tell what he notes about the effort to keep joe biden out of the white house. the one six committee today says, it intends to vote day after tomorrow about whether to begin contempt of congress proceedings against this man. former trump doj official, jeffrey clark. committee says he refuses to answer questions about the attempts to use the doj to push the big lie. according to a senate judiciary reported, clark was instrumental in that effort. a contemporary referral would make him the second person after steve bannon to potentially face criminal charges for defying congressional investigators. one member of the house leadership says that the committee has no choice but to move against witnesses who themselves refused to cooperate. >> we have to