Meet the Press – December 19, 2021

CHUCK TODD:

This Sunday: The new Covid surge.

JUSTIN LESSLER:

I think we’re looking at a potential wave of cases that’s so large that we still, you know, overwhelm our hospitals.

CHUCK TODD:

The omicron variant exploding across the globe —

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY:

What we’re seeing in some of these other countries is doubling times of about every two days or so.

CHUCK TODD:

— and across the United States.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

As we know, there will be plenty of breakthrough infections, that’s for sure.

CHUCK TODD:

Cases rising sharply, with a spike in deaths likely to follow.

DR. RACHEL VILE:

We’re tired. The hospitals are stretched. Resilience is low. Please get vaccinated.

CHUCK TODD:

My guests this morning: Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Governor of Colorado, Democrat Jared Polis. Plus, the House votes to charge Mark Meadows with criminal contempt.

REP. BENNY THOMPSON:

We won’t let the facts be buried by a cover-up.

CHUCK TODD:

The former Trump Chief of Staff refusing to comply with the January 6th committee.

MARK MEADOWS:

The executive privilege that Donald Trump has claimed is his to waive. It’s not mine to wave.

CHUCK TODD:

This as January 6th texts from the former president’s allies come to light.

REP. LIZ CHENEY:

One of the President’s sons texted Mr. Meadows, quote: “He’s got to condemn this (bleep) asap.” “He is destroying his legacy,” Laura Ingraham wrote.

CHUCK TODD:

And Build Back, when? If President Biden couldn’t get Build Back Better or voting rights done this year —

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

There’s nothing domestically more important than voting rights. It’s the single biggest thing.

CHUCK TODD:

— why would next year be any different? Joining me for insight and analysis are: PBS NewsHour Chief Correspondent Amna Nawaz, Washington Post Senior Washington Correspondent Phil Rucker, former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards and John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary. Welcome to Sunday. It’s Meet the Press.

ANNOUNCER:

From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.

CHUCK TODD:

Good Sunday morning. Well, it’s beginning to look a lot like a Covid Christmas and beyond. For millions of Americans, this winter could resemble a rerun of the awful previous Covid surges as the omicron variant speeds its way across the country. NFL games are being rescheduled, back-to-work plans are being scrapped and some schools — including Harvard — are even returning to remote learning. Deaths, still almost entirely from delta so far, are also now occurring at a faster rate than at any time other than last winter’s surge. In fact, the seven-day case average is now nearly 130,000. That represents a nearly 35% increase over the case average since Thanksgiving. Omicron appears to be far more contagious than delta, meaning a spike in cases could once again overwhelm hospitals — hospitals that are already a bit overwhelmed in some parts of this country. At the same time, months after President Biden all but declared independence from Covid, Americans are simply fatigued with being fatigued. His administration has felt deflated, begging the unvaccinated to get shots. They’re not even doing daily briefings. Mr. Biden will address the country on Tuesday, in response to this latest coronavirus crisis. We said it a year ago — as Covid goes, so goes Mr. Biden’s presidency. And though the president is not responsible for this latest wave, he may well wind up paying the political price for it.

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

For unvaccinated — we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death.

CHUCK TODD:

With hospitals already at their breaking point — the rise of omicron is fueling worries about another Covid winter.

NEW YORK ANCHOR:

Growing concerns over the spread of the omicron variant.

CALIFORNIA ANCHOR:

Doctors say that omicron could soon be our dominant variant.

FLORIDA ANCHOR:

Eighty percent of Covid cases tested are now the omicron variant.

CHUCK TODD:

The surge forcing a wave of cancellations: the NFL postponing games after a cluster of outbreaks, the Rockettes canceling the rest of their season and there are growing concerns about this week’s holiday travel.

DALLAS RESIDENT:

The flights are full. The lobby is full. All the planes are full.

CHRIS JANSING:

Where does that leave us heading into the holidays?

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS:

Well, not in a good place.

CHUCK TODD:

The CDC predicts Covid cases could spike this week by 55%, up to 1.3 million infections by Christmas Day. During the first week of January, deaths could rise to up to 15,600 over 7 days.

JEFF ZIENTS:

For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.

CHUCK TODD:

Experts say those who have had booster shots are largely protected from severe illness. But hospitalizations are up 20% over the past two weeks — many hospitals nearing capacity.

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL:

Last Friday, I had a doctor that sobbed on the phone to me and said to me, Debbie, people are dying, not because of Covid, because we can no longer take patients.

CHUCK TODD:

In a new study, 40% of nurses and nearly one in four doctors said they are moderately, likely, or definitely planning to quit the profession within two years.

DR. RACHEL VILE:

We’re tired. The hospitals are stretched. Resilience is low. Please get vaccinated.

CHUCK TODD:

Just 61% of Americans are fully vaccinated — two doses — trailing more than 50 other countries. Many Republicans have declined to push back against vaccine skeptics in their own party, instead ignoring or catering to a flood of misinformation.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Vitamin D, Zinc, keep yourself healthy, Vitamin C — by the way, standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus. Even if you get it, you may reduce viral replication. There are — why not try all these things?

CHUCK TODD:

And President Biden’s vaccination or testing requirements are under assault by Republicans.

SEN. TED CRUZ:

Democratic politicians are authoritarians.

GOV. RON DESANTIS:

You can’t just have these bureaucracies that are running amok.

SEN. JOHN THUNE:

They really have gone too far.

CHUCK TODD:

On Friday, a federal appeals court reinstated the president’s vaccine or testing mandate for large businesses, setting up a likely showdown at the Supreme Court. But believing that the White House has lost the political fight, even some Democrats are souring on vaccine requirements.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN:

I truly believe there should be a vaccine mandate for federal government. The private sector is a whole different which I do not support

SEN JON TESTER: I would have probably done it different myself, but look, hindsight is always 20/20.

GOV. JARED POLIS:

You can’t, at the end of the day, force people to do something they don’t want to do.

CHUCK TODD:

And a reminder, despite its recent court victory, the Biden administration plans to delay the implementation of the Covid vaccine mandates by a month. Joining me now is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It’s Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci, welcome back to Meet the Press.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with the issue of omicron in this sense: on Friday, there’s been a — on Friday, you suggested that it might be less severe. We’ve seen a lot of — a new study out of the U.K. that seems to be perhaps sending a mixed signal. What can you share with us this morning on, on where omicron is and how much of a threat it is?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Well, the one thing that’s very clear, and there’s no doubt about this, is its extraordinary capability of spreading — its transmissibility capability. It is just, you know, raging through the world, really. And if you look even here in the United States, you have some regions that start off with a few percent of the isolates that are positive, now going up to 30%, 40%, and some places, 50%. So yes, there is this issue of whether or not it is or more or less severe. The information we’re getting from our South African colleagues still suggests that when you look at it totally, the hospitalization to case ratio is less than with Delta. There seems to be less durability of symptomatology, less requirement for oxygen. But you’ve got to be careful. That might be due really to the fact that their population has so much experience with prior infections that it might be underlying immunity that’s making it look like it’s less severe. And as a virus, it inherently may not be less severe. No matter how you look at it, Chuck, when you have so many, many infections, even if it is less severe, that overcomes this slight to moderate diminution in severity because our hospitals – if things look like they’re looking now in the next week or two – are going to be very stressed with people because, again, we have so many people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated, who have not yet been vaccinated. And that’s going to be a real problem for a stress on the hospital system.

CHUCK TODD:

Do we have the right protocols in place? Are we traveling — do you believe we’re, the amount of travel that’s going to take place in the next two weeks is reasonable considering the situation we’re in, or should we be — should folks be making — be rethinking their travel plans?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Well, I think people just need to be prudent. Clearly, when you travel, there is always a risk of increased infection. That just goes with respiratory illnesses. But if people need to travel and want to travel for the obvious family reasons, during this holiday season, if you’re vaccinated and you’re boosted and you take care when you go into congregate settings like airports to make sure you continually wear your mask, you should be okay. But we are going to see breakthrough infections, Chuck. There’s no doubt about that. The difference between a vaccinated and boosted person who has an infection, and someone who has an infection who’s never been vaccinated — a major difference with regard to the risk of severity.

CHUCK TODD:

Well let’s start — I want to go through a few of these scenarios because people are trying to figure out what should they do if something happens in their household. So if you have a Covid positive breakthrough of a vaccinated person, how many times do they need to test negative before they should feel comfortable going back into society?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Well, you know, the general rule is if it’s about seven to 10 days following the onset of symptoms, they’re going to be okay. You want to get tested to show that, that’s fine. But it really is duration from the time you initially get symptoms. That’s one of the things that I think people need to understand. You want to quarantine yourself in the sense of isolating yourself from the rest of the family so you don’t spread it around. But that’s the general rule of thumb.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. What about if you’re vaccinated, you don’t have Covid, but you’ve been exposed to Covid, what is your responsibility? What is your recommendation?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

No, if you are vaccinated and you’re exposed, you don’t need to isolate yourself. Some people — and I think it would be prudent, to wind up getting tested. Testing now is so much more available, Chuck, than it was in the past. And we’re going to be doing even better looking forward over the next few weeks to a month. So again, you don’t need to isolate yourself or quarantine yourself for sure if you are vaccinated. But you might want to get a test a couple of days later to just make sure that you have not had a breakthrough infection if in fact you’re vaccinated and hopefully, boosted.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, you kind of answered my follow-up, which is, cause look — I’ve — we’ve seen this ourselves: somebody tests — you know, there’s a positive in the house. Somebody tests negative, right – you know, a brother or sister tests negative, and then the next day, they test positive. So how many days from exposure should you feel comfortable that a negative test is truly a negative test?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Yeah. Yeah, you want to wait at least three, and up to five days following it. So you might want to get a couple of tests, test one at three to five days, and maybe one a little bit later. The tests that are now available, the point of care antigen tests, are not as sensitive as the PCR test. But if you do them sequentially, one or two or more, you’re going to get a result that would be an accurate result.

CHUCK TODD:

What should we expect from President Biden on Tuesday? I ask this question: What more can be done that you already haven’t done, in your mind?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Well, what you’re going to hear from the president, and I don’t want to get ahead of the president, but he’s going to stress several of the things and upscaling some of the things that we’ve been talking about. You know, he came out with his winter plan, which is really a good plan — getting people boosted who are vaccinating, getting children vaccinating, making testing more available, having surge teams out because we know we’re going to need them because there will be an increased demand on hospitalization, strengthening the safety of travel and providing vaccines for the rest of the world so that we can look at this as a global problem, not only a problem here in the United States. Because what happens globally certainly impacts us. But you’re going to be hearing a bit more about that. And we’re looking forward to the president’s speech on Tuesday.

CHUCK TODD:

I’m curious on the issue of boosters. You and I have had a conversation multiple times in the last four months, and I’ve asked you multiple questions on boosters: Did we, are we getting ahead of the science? Are we behind the science? Yet, President Biden at one point said, « Hey, we should probably do it after five months » after talking to Israeli officials. There were some thoughts in August that it should be eight months. There were was confusion about six months, and it was – you know, there’s been a lot of ambiguity, if you will. Now, all of a sudden omicron is here and there’s no more ambiguity. But how much did this booster confusion set us back?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

I don’t think it set us back, Chuck. I mean, it became very clear that we said, « Six months or more. After at least six months, go get boosted. If it’s J&J, it’s two months. » I think those recommendations from the CDC were pretty clear. The one thing we want to make sure people understand right now is that when your time comes to get boosted, get boosted. Because when you look at omicron, all the data in omicron indicate that even with the good protection that you get certainly against severe disease from a two-dose mRNA, when you look at what it does against omicron, it’s down considerably to a level where you really need to get boosted. If we’re going to deal with omicron successfully, vaccinated people need to get boosted. And obviously, people who are not vaccinated clearly need to get vaccinated now more than ever.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, let’s talk about what the definition of fully vaccinated is. Number one, should we expect that definition to change? I know that’s not your decision. I assume that’s a CDC decision. But let me ask you this, if you’re advising a private company that does have a vaccine mandate or a vaccine requirement, would you tell them that they should make boosters part of the requirement?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

You know, I would tell them if they want their enterprise, their place of employment optimally protected, that you should get boosted. As you said, there is this technicality of a definition for requirement purposes. But if someone comes to me and says, « What is the best thing that I could do? » I would tell them to get people boosted. No doubt about that, particularly now in the environment of omicron. The data are very clear, Chuck, about omicron. It really needs to get boosted.

CHUCK TODD:

I’m curious, is there a lot to learn from all of the professional sports leagues about two issues: one, the issue of boosters, and two, the issue of the J&J vaccine? Because I know now we’re not really recommending it, and it does seem as if the J&J vaccine was very popular with athletes. And here we are – and I know they get tested more than most of the rest of the population. Is that why it’s been so many breakthrough cases?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

You know, that is possible. There’s no doubt now, as we get more and more data, that when you look at the data in general that the mRNA are preferable to the J&J. The reason the CDC made that recommendation very explicit was not only the degree of efficacy, Chuck, it was the risk of getting thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, that blood clotting issue that generally women who are between a certain age get it. So it isn’t seen very often in men – almost exclusively, not exclusively, but almost exclusively women. So when you put together the two things – the risk of the blood clot and the lesser of an efficacy when you compare them head to head – that’s why the CDC came out clearly that it’s preferable to get an mRNA.

CHUCK TODD:

Is it – how likely is it that omicron will replace delta, the way delta replaced alpha? Or are we really going to have two of these variants circulating simultaneously?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

You know, we don’t know yet, Chuck, for sure. You’ll have to see how it rolls out. But if you look at what’s happening, what happened in South Africa, what’s happening in the U.K., and what’s beginning to happen now, I would not be surprised if omicron bumped delta off the table. Because, for example, in certain regions in the country, there’s up to 50% of the isolates are omicron. That’s a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days. And when you have a doubling time that’s that short a period, pretty soon, that isolate is going to take over.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to ask you to react to one thing. The vice president said in an interview on Friday, « We didn’t see delta coming. I think most scientists did not – upon whose advice and direction we have relied – didn’t see delta coming. We didn’t see omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this awful virus has been, which as it turns out has mutations and variants. » Dr. Fauci, perhaps nobody could’ve seen the specific of delta or omicron, but did you not see variants coming, or did you?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Yeah. Yeah, I did. And I think that the vice president’s statement was taken a bit out of context. I believe she was referring to the fact that the extraordinary number of mutations and amino acid substitutions, particularly with omicron, no one had expected it that much. But we were well prepared and expected that we were going to see variants. There’s no doubt about that. But I believe that the vice president was referring to the fact, if you look at the number of mutations in omicron, it’s unprecedented. There are about 50 of them, 30 of them in the spike protein, and about 10 to 12 of them on the receptor-binding domain. We’ve never seen anything like that before. So in that context, she was correct.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. Dr. Anthony Fauci, I’ll admit I have, like, 17,000 other questions, but we don’t have that much time. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you in the days to come. Appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI:

Thank you, Chuck. Good to be with you.

CHUCK TODD:

Up next, how are states going to deal with this new, dangerous Covid wave? Are we about to see more mask mandates? I’m going to ask the governor of Colorado, Democrat Jared Polis, when we come back.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. There is no question we’ve been whipsawed by Covid news. Good news, tens of millions are vaccinated. Bad news, omicron means a third shot is even more essential. Good news, omicron appears to cause less severe disease. Bad news, out of the UK, maybe not. The science is not as clear. That makes the job of promoting public health that much harder for elected officials, particularly on the state and local level. Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, was asked just over a week ago why he opposed a mandatory mask mandate in his state.

[BEGIN TAPE]

GOV. JARED POLIS:

The emergency is over. You know, public health doesn’t get to tell people what to wear. It’s just not their job. You don’t tell people to wear a jacket when they go out in the winter and force them to. If they get frostbite it’s their own darn fault.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

And Governor Polis joins me now. Government, welcome back to Meet the Press, sir.

GOV. JARED POLIS:

Always a pleasure, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, a lot has changed since you made those comments on the issue of omicron, literally in the last 72 hours. And I know you’ve clarified when it means emergency, meaning state action on the emergency. Given everything you’ve heard from Dr. Fauci, everything you’ve seen, are you having any second thoughts about the state intervening here temporarily, whether it’s a mask mandate or something else?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

You know Chuck, we’re two years into this thing. And I think it’s really important that our leaders, whether they’re governors or mayors, local influencers, lead with facts rather than fear. People just don’t react well to this ongoing environment of fear for two years. Let’s lead with the facts. Look, the science-driven information people need to keep themselves safe with the individual freedom and local control that we deserve. That’s where we are at this point. We know how to stop this thing. The – getting three doses of the vaccine is highly effective, and all but negates any risk that you face. So we just need to make sure that people go out and do it.

CHUCK TODD:

Are you going to change the definition of fully vaccinated in your state? I know you have had – there are – there’s some specific entities that you want to see have vaccinated. Based on what you’ve heard, are you going to change those definitions?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

That’s certainly where it’s headed, Chuck. It looks like from everything that we know that to significantly reduce the risk of the omicron variant, three doses of the vaccine are needed. And by the way, Chuck, this is normal with many other vaccines. I have young kids, they have the DTaP vaccine. Every kid gets it: diphtheria, tetanus. It’s three doses of that vaccine to be effective. So I wish they’d stop talking about it as a booster, Chuck. It really is a three-dose vaccine, and every piece of data that we’re seeing shows that that’s the case.

CHUCK TODD:

How about your testing capacity? All over the East Coast, particularly in the Northeast over the last 48 hours there’s been a run on the at-home tests, can’t find enough of them. By the way, they’re a little pricey. Considering if this is something that essential, should they be priced as high as they are? And we’ve seen fewer public places to get tested. Do you need more resources on that? What’s the situation in Colorado?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

We’ve made free at-home testing available to every Coloradan for months now. So we’ve sent out over 1.2 million, just right to your doorstep. You get the free test, the same kind that in other states people have to buy. It’s a popular program. We’re certainly planning on continuing it for the time being. It’s also important to note that while the Northeast is going up now in cases, our region in the Rocky Mountain West has actually been going down for several weeks. We peaked in October, early November. We have a lot less hospitalizations than we did a few weeks ago. Now, that could change on a dime we know with the omicron variant. But we’re in a better place now than we were a month ago, and absolutely the free at-home tests have been part of that. They’ve been very popular with the people of Colorado.

CHUCK TODD:

If President Biden calls you up tomorrow and says, « What do you want to hear from me on Tuesday night? What’s important? What helps you do your job in help – in getting things better in Colorado? » What would you tell the president?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

I would say, « Stop talking about the vaccine as a booster; talk about it as three doses that are needed for effective prevention. » People who’ve gotten those three doses in our Colorado data, which is similar to the national data, are 47 times less likely to die than people that are unvaccinated. It essentially negates the risk. Nothing is risk-free in life, Chuck, but if you’re go about, if you get boosted you can feel very confident that if you get Covid, it’ll be a minor case. I’d also say we need to focus on prices, increases in prices and cost that people across the country are facing. People are frustrated their Thanksgiving turkey cost 50% more, gas is $3.80 a gallon. Let’s show some relief. In Colorado it’s cutting vehicle registration fees, it’s making it free to start a business. We’re trying to – we’ve cut taxes twice. So these kinds of things that show that we’re doing what we can to make sure that families can get by and thrive.

CHUCK TODD:

It’s interesting you bring up the inflation issue. It feels like the rise of omicron is only going to set us back on that, since this has been – since the supply chain seems to be the biggest impediment when it comes to the inflation issue. You’ve talked about some things you’ve done. Is there anything outside what the Federal Reserve does that can impact inflation in your mind?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

You know what public policymakers can do, governments, legislators, presidents, Congress? We can save people money, right? So if you save people money on child care that makes a real difference in people being able to work, which we need now, and also in the development of the child. If you can save people money on vehicle registration fees, on taxes, wherever you can save people money. The child tax credit is another excellent example for folks. So yes, we can do something. I mean, I’m not an expert in the Fed and macroeconomic policy, and most people aren’t. But we can do very concrete things that actually reduce the costs for Americans.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me go back to the issue of the unvaccinated. And I know you had said, « Hey, you can’t make somebody wear a coat. » But frostbite isn’t contagious, right? This virus is. Do you have any other new ideas in your head of how you deal with the unvaccinated here? Should there be a penalty? I mean, it does seem as if there is more attention being paid to protect the unvaccinated than there is to reward those who have played by the rules.

GOV. JARED POLIS:

Well, I think we want to address the unvaccinated with facts first and foremost, also with compassion and love. They are often victims of misinformation and we need to do our best to get the very best information in front of them that they need to protect themselves and their family. We’ve also made monoclonal antibody treatment available widely in Colorado for free. Anybody who needs it, we have 10 mobile buses that do it. The one thing we always point out, though, while it can reduce your hospitalization risk by 70%, that’s from the delta variant, by the way. The monoclonal antibody treatment is not as effective –

CHUCK TODD:

Right –

GOV. JARED POLIS:

– against the Omicron variant. The data is still pending. It’s still not nearly as effective as getting the three-dose vaccine, which all but zeroes out your risk of dying or getting severely ill from the virus. Again, a few people get severely ill from anything. It’s certainly still possible. But essentially you have a very, very low risk if you get fully vaccinated.

CHUCK TODD:

One quick political question. Senator Joe Manchin had indicated this morning that he is not going to support Build Back Better. Done. He’s done with it. What is your advice to Senate Democrats? Is there anything you think they have to get done next year before the November 2022 elections, of which you’ll be running for reelection?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

Yeah, really deliver on saving people money and reducing costs. And that might mean preschool and child care. It might mean the child tax credit, other tax reductions or payroll tax reductions. It might mean saving people money on a variety of things that affect their everyday lives. Of course, as somebody who also looks at the data and science on climate change, I’d love to see the Senate go big and tackle climate change. That would really help states like Colorado and others that are taking this seriously, because we have several climate dependent industries. Agriculture, the ski industry. And yes, our ski season is open, Chuck, but we don’t have the normal snow that we have. And that’s really the situation across the West in a statewide drought. So we’d love to see Congress step up and take action on those issues.

CHUCK TODD:

I hear you, but it sounds like if they have to pick a priority, you would prioritize the economy over the climate provisions, if that’s the only political feasible route to go?

GOV. JARED POLIS:

You know, those are not mutually exclusive. I think our climate destiny is our economic destiny. But certainly showing relief for families on costs: preschool, child care does that, other things that can reduce costs, save money. That’s certainly a big part of our focus here in Colorado. And we welcome any help from the United States Congress.

CHUCK TODD:

Government Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado. Appreciate you coming on and sharing your views. I hope you get to enjoy the holiday season. We’re all hoping that Covid doesn’t become as disruptive as it was last year. Thank you, sir. When we come back, Build Back Better is not just in real trouble, it may now be dead. Voting rights hasn’t passed. Next year isn’t going to be any easier for the president’s priorities. Panel is next.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. We’re glad to see our panelists, although we’re back in our remote locations. I’m in a remote location because I’ve come into close contact with someone who’s tested positive in the last 48 hours in my household. Also with us, PBS NewsHour chief correspondent Amna Nawaz; Phil Rucker is the senior Washington correspondent for The Washington Post; former Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards; and John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary.

Boy, we’ve got a lot to get into here. And Amna, I’m going to just begin with you. You know, it already was arguably a deflating political end for the Biden administration, and an exclamation point apparently this morning with Joe Manchin saying he’s done with Build Back Better. And now, we have omicron. And when you think about the first six weeks of 2022, I don’t know how the Biden administration focuses on anything else.

AMNA NAWAZ:

You’re absolutely right, Chuck. I mean, this latest news from Senator Manchin, his latest statement, is a massive blow. I mean, we know, you know, the president wanted Build Back Better done as quickly as possible. We know Senate Democrats have been saying, « We want it to get done by Christmas. » But, look, even if you just look in the last few days, none of those sort of self-imposed deadlines really made any kind of a difference to Senator Manchin, not the holiday deadline, not the imminent expiration of the child tax credit, even though experts say it could push some 10 million children, disproportionately Black and Latino and native children, back into poverty. And Senator Manchin’s concerns, to be clear about this, have been consistent over time.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah.

AMNA NAWAZ:

It’s the size of the package. It’s inflation, which has only gotten worse. And the president has been clear. They wanted negotiations to continue. Even as recently as last night, White House officials were saying, « This is a president who knows how to get big, historic pieces of legislation through, even with two of the narrowest majorities in the House and Senate. » But this latest from Senator Manchin is a massive blow. It’s really hard to see a path forward for this now.

CHUCK TODD:

Hey, Donna Edwards, how big of a blow is this to the Democratic base?

DONNA EDWARDS:

Well, I think it’s a big blow, frankly. I mean, there’s no other way to put it. This was a major, a central piece of the president’s agenda. It is something that he campaigned on, all of the elements of Build Back Better. And it was his priority. And now, we know that Senator Manchin, one senator, is going to deny the president of the United States his major policy priority. And so I don’t know where it goes from here. I know that there are probably House progressives right now who are saying to themselves, « That’s why we wanted to tie the bipartisan infrastructure plan to Build Back Better, because we were afraid all along that Senator Manchin would back away from this. » And so there’s probably a lot of regret going on. And there are promises that will not be kept to the American people.

CHUCK TODD:

John Podhoretz?

JOHN PODHORETZ:

I don’t know how Joe Manchin could have made it any clearer beginning in March of this year that he was not going to support this bill. He said, « $1.5 trillion. That’s what I’m in for. » Then the bill comes out. It’s $6 trillion. It’s $3.5 trillion. Now it’s either $2 trillion, $2.2 trillion, $1.75 trillion.

He told Chuck Schumer, « My number is $1.5 trillion. » He wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal saying, « My number is $1.5 trillion. » That is Joe Manchin. That has been Joe Manchin all year. It is malpractice – political malpractice on the part of the Biden administration that they did not take him at his word. They do not have a big majority. They have a 50/50 Senate. He said, « If you go this way, I’m a no. » And they kept saying, « Don’t say you’re a no. Let’s negotiate. Let’s negotiate. Let’s negotiate. » They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They had victory on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And they held it until way later than they could’ve had it, and then touted it. And here they are right now with a huge loss at the end of the year. This is very bad politics. And the idea – you know, the idea that what this demonstrates is that Biden has some kind of political talent for getting big bills through, that has now been exposed as a sham and a delusion. Like, this is a terrible political outcome one of the worst I think we’ve seen for a first year president ever.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Phil Rucker, I have to say the head-scratcher for me is this idea that they chose to basically negotiate with everybody else first, and hope the pressure campaign would work. I never understood it at the time. And now, obviously, it looks like a total strategic miscalculation.

PHILIP RUCKER:

Yeah, Chuck. And we should keep in mind the backdrop here. The pressure campaign doesn’t work if the American people are not behind the president. And the polling for the last several months has indicated a declining popularity for President Biden You know, Gallup had numbers recently showing he is nearly as polarizing as President Trump was during his presidency, with a huge gap in approval between registered Republicans and registered Democrats. And that’s the data that somebody like Senator Manchin is looking at when he’s thinking about whether he’s going to put his neck on the line, you know, representing a conservative state like West Virginia, to get behind this president’s agenda. And so Biden was unable to really sell these policy proposals out with the American people.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, I want to bring up something. President Biden spoke at South Carolina State, gave the commencement, and he talked voting rights. Take a listen to it.

[BEGIN TAPE]

PRES. JOE BIDEN:

Maybe most important of all, we have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake. And folks, you know, as John Lewis said, without the right to vote, there is no democracy.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Amna, in hindsight now, he was pretty strong on voting rights on Friday. He gave a strong speech in July. And in between, he focused on Build Back Better. You know, he was elected arguably for two reasons: to deal with Covid, and to deal with Donald Trump. Not prioritizing voting rights versus the way they did Build Back Better obviously looks like a strategic mistake here. Can they revive this at all in ’22 before the elections?

AMNA NAWAZ:

Well, I think you’re starting to see some early signs of that already, right? You see the president there talking strongly about voting rights, which White House officials will say he has said from the very beginning is a priority. We know the vice president has been leading those efforts. But you’ve seen what happens with the bills when they come to lawmakers. They have now twice – Democrats have twice tried to move forward and have been stopped by Republicans when it comes to expanding voting rights, or codifying them at the federal level. You have to look back over the last year. The White House has done what they can from an executive position. Right, they’ve directed federal agencies to do what they can to expand access. The Department of Justice has ramped up, I think doubling the staffing of their voting enforcement agencies and are already fighting some of those states where they believe those rights are being challenged. Democrats agree there’s a fundamental, existential sort of issue here when it comes to voting access in the face of a spate of Republican state legislatures passing restrictions and making it harder for people to vote. And now we know that Senate Democrats are starting to prioritize it again. We’ve learned about this meeting that they held on Friday –

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

AMNA NAWAZ:

– trying to talk about what sort of amendments, carve-outs, changes could they make to a filibuster rule to try to get 50 votes. I’m told by a source in the meeting all options are on the table, that Schumer’s been working on this for months, and that they do see it as a priority going into the new year.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, between now —

JOHN PODHORETZ:

There is something —

CHUCK TODD:

– and the State of the Union. Well, hang on, John. I’ve got to get going here. Sorry, buddy.

JOHN PODHORETZ:

Sorry. I’m sorry —

CHUCK TODD:

Between now and the State of the Union, it’s going to be interesting to see what do they prioritize in the wake of what is going to be an Omicron surge. How much is it voting rights? How much is it the child tax credit? What is it they’re going to try to accomplish before the election season starts? That’s an unknown. When we come back, our annual tribute to those we lost in the past year.

[BEGIN TAPE]

LARRY KING:

Thank you. And instead of goodbye, how about so long?

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. As we do every year, we want to take a moment to look back at some of the iconic people in politics, culture and media whom we lost in the past 12 months.

[BEGIN TAPE]

COLIN POWELL:

Don’t anyone ever tell you you are limited because you came from the inner city, because you’re black, because you didn’t go to the right schools. The only thing that should ever be a limitation is your own dream.

DONALD RUMSFELD:

As you know, you go to war with the army you have. Not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

CARRIE MEEK:

My grandfather was a slave. My father was a sharecropper. My mother, a maid. Because this is America, I am now a congresswoman.

WALTER MONDALE:

I thought history would judge the campaign as an honorable campaign, and I believe I will be judged that way.

ROGER MUDD:

Good day from Washington. I’m Roger Mudd.

CICELY TYSON:

Mom, I know you didn’t want me to do this. But I did, and here it is.

LARRY KING:

I don’t know what to say except to you, my audience. Thank you. And instead of goodbye, how about so long?

BOB DOLE:

So I leave y’all tonight with a full heart and a fervent prayer that we’ll meet again and we will meet often.

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. The panel is with us again. One of the things we learned this past week was how involved President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was in the events of January 6th. And it turns out the January 6th Committee is now looking even more closely into all the planning that led to the January 6th Capitol riot. And Mark Meadows looks like, at a minimum, he was almost, like, the concierge for everybody that had either an idea or an event they wanted to do. And Donna Edwards though, it brings to me, it’s sort of, like, « Where is Congress heading? » I want to quote Lisa Murkowski who just simply said, let me get this right, « It’s been a horrible here, hasn’t it? Began with insurrection and it ended with a 4:00 a.m. adjournment and a lot of not so good stuff in between. »

DONNA EDWARDS:

Well, it’s been a really tough year. And I think it also began with us still fighting Covid. And we’re ending the year in this, you know, in the same place. The reality is that, whether we’re talking about the economy or, you know, politics, what will help get us back to normal is getting people vaccinated, getting the economy going. And on January 6th, we’re approaching the anniversary. And the really important thing here is for this January 6th committee to continue to plug away, doing its work, so that we can create the record that we need for the accountability of everyone from Mark Meadows to maybe even the former president and on down the line.

CHUCK TODD:

John Podhoretz, I found Mitch McConnell’s support of what he’s learning from the January 6th Committee intriguing for this reason: he stopped a chance to make this fully bipartisan and bicameral. Is that a sense that he basically miscalculated, that he thought on January 7th that a year later, Donald Trump would be less of an issue in the Republican Party, and it turns out he was wrong?

JOHN PODHORETZ:

I think pretty much that’s it. I think he thought that Trump would be in the rear-view mirror. And he isn’t. And one of the hopes for the future of the Republican Party with the independents that it needs to bring it back into power is for Trump not to be the future, as he was the past. And we know that because he was a one-term president. And the support that he needed from people who were not, you know, hard-line, hard and fast, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans wasn’t there in 2018 in the midterms or in 2020 at the end of his presidency. And this commission, particularly if it finds actual hard facts that don’t have to be massaged or, like, overly hysterically characterized by partisan Democrats, but simply lays out very calmly and rationally what happened in a way that just seems as as as inexplicably horrible as we can see, will have the net effect of poisoning a Trump future with the independents who could put him over the top.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, it’s interesting. I guess, Phil, though, does it do enough to change the Republican Party? I mean, it does look like a — what looked like a bunch of rogue individuals that may have had one or two people in the White House winking and nodding, turns out this felt a little more organized. Is that at all going to chasten more Republicans other than Mitch McConnell?

PHILIP RUCKER:

More than a little more organized, Chuck. We see that Mark Meadows was the chief enabler of a lot of these conspiracy theories and and the plot to subvert the vote in the weeks and days leading up to January 6th, and aided, by the way, by a large number of House Republicans, elected members of Congress. And the work of this committee will reveal more of those facts, I think. But I’m not sure it’s going to chasten any votes, because the polling shows us that a majority of Republican voters believe the lie from former President Trump that this election was rigged. And as long as that lie is believed as if it were fact by the Republican base, then you are going to continue to see Republican leaders in, in lockstep with the former president.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, and Amna, this gets us back to: what the heck is next year going to look like? And you sit there and you know, we don’t have — we won’t have full agreement on what the narrative of January 6th is. We’ve got Covid, that’s just punching us in the face. And there’s a Congress that doesn’t seem very functional. What’s this election year going to look like?

AMNA NAWAZ:

It’s going to be one to watch, Chuck. I mean, look, I think any of us are lying if we say we know what the next year will look like. Even an hour ago, we thought we might have a very different scenario ahead. The most striking thing I think coming from the January 6th committee going into the new year is not only the depths of sort of the organized planning from inside, but also the fact that people saw and could believe what they saw with their own eyes. I mean, the the messages that we’ve seen now revealed from the documents that Mark Meadows shared about the president’s own son and Fox Primetime hosts expressing concern about the level of violence, about the threats to the Capitol building, and then publicly going out and saying the exact opposite. These are all things that are going to carry over into the new year. But Phil’s right. If you believe the election was stolen, nothing about this committee is going to change your mind. If you believe that Covid is a hoax, nothing about the new year is going to change your mind. And that’s a tough, tough set of circumstances for the President.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, it’s been a tough year. It’s been a tough December. And it’s going to be perhaps a tough start of 2022. Let’s hope we all take the omicron precautions seriously. Before we go, I’ve got a quick note about a special holiday series over the next couple of weeks on The Chuck Toddcast feed: Meet the Alternative History. Each episode looks at how things might have changed if one single event had been different. For instance, our first episode, what if Bill Clinton had resigned in 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal? Or how the 2016 election might’ve been different had Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia not died. Meet the Alternative History launches this Wednesday. That’s all for today. We’ll see you next week because if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.