Democrats say it’s time for the President Joe Biden to lay out his second-term plans. Violent threats for the judges that kicked Trump off the Colorado ballot. And we’re nowhere near winter’s peak of flu and Covid cases, the CDC director warns.

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Biden has yet to lay out a second-term agenda. Why that could be a problem

Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said he wants to see Joe Biden call for a “bold climate agenda; an agenda focused on working class people; canceling student debt.” Frost’s ideas for the president as he runs for re-election might be worth considering, senior political reporter Sahil Kapur points out, because he is the embodiment of the Democratic-leaning constituencies currently souring on Biden. Frost is young, he’s progressive and he’s Black and Latino. 

That Biden has yet to lay out a second-term agenda isn’t helping his campaign, Frost said. “That’s the key to the re-election,” Frost said. And it’s “not enough” for Biden to tout his achievements from the last two years or trash talk Donald Trump.

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Biden is entering the election year with poor ratings among key Democratic-friendly groups who were critical to his 2020 victory. In interviews, young voters who aren’t sold on voting for Biden in 2024 said their lives haven’t improved much under his presidency. 

While a White House official pointed to agenda items like lowering prescription drug costs and $35 insulin, the specifics of Biden’s second-term agenda are hazy. Democrats say that needs to change.

 The aftermath of the Trump ballot ruling in Colorado

In the 24 hours since the Colorado Supreme Court decided to kick former President Donald Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot, “significant violent rhetoric,” including death threats, against the justices and Democrats has shown up on social media sites and forums, according to Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit. The threats fit into a predictable and familiar pattern, seen time and time again after legal developments against Trump.

While the ruling fueled online anger, political insiders in both the Republican and Democratic parties say the decision could actually be a boon for Trump. GOP elected officials have rallied around Trump over the ruling, even those not backing him for president. As for the Biden camp’s response: “They’re pissed,” said a source familiar with discussions involving senior White House and Biden campaign officials.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Republican Party is already considering a workaround — albeit a complicated one — that would allow Trump to remain on the ballot.

Tense diplomacy ahead of U.N. Gaza aid vote 

The United States is engaged in high-level diplomacy ahead of a long delayed vote on a new U.N. resolution calling for desperately needed aid to be allowed in Gaza. Tense negotiations are taking place over the wording of the text to avoid another American veto after the vote was postponed for the last three days. Defending the U.S. position, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he heard “virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas, that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender.”

An estimated 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas media office in the enclave. The vast majority of the enclave’s 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half face starvation, according to human rights advocates and aid groups. Follow live updates here. 

How the U.S. failed to stop window cords from strangling hundreds of children to death

Hundreds of young children have accidentally strangled on cords from window blinds, shades and curtains in the past 50 years. Manufacturers and federal authorities have known about the hazard for decades. But kids continue to die.

NBC News found that at least 440 children ages 8 and under have been strangled to death on window covering cords since 1973, based on Consumer Product Safety Commission statistics and internal federal data.

This is the story of how safety requirements for a common household item have faced delay after delay — and how window coverings with deadly cords continued to be sold long after their lethality became known. Read the full story here.

Americans released in Venezuela prisoner exchange arrive in the U.S.

Six Americans who the U.S. government said were wrongfully detained in Venezuela touched down in Texas yesterday evening, hours after a deal between the Biden administration and the Venezuelan government was announced. In the exchange, the U.S. agreed to release Alex Saab, a Colombian ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused in a money laundering scheme, for the release of 10 people. 

The deal notably included the return of Leonard Francis, the man behind one of the worst bribery scandals in U.S. Navy history. Last year, weeks before his sentencing, “Fat Leonard” fled to Venezuela after he escaped house arrest by cutting off his ankle monitoring bracelet. Francis, along with three other Americans not deemed wrongfully detained, are to arrive in the U.S. at an undisclosed location.

At HCA hospitals, the person monitoring your heart may monitor 79 other patients too

In most hospitals today, the people monitoring patients’ heart rhythms, blood pressure or respiratory functions are not nurses who interact with them. They are “telemetry” technicians who are supposed to alert those nurses to meaningful changes in the vital signs transmitted by electronic devices hooked up to the patients. At some of HCA Healthcare’s facilities, some technicians handle up to 80 patients at a time, putting patients at risk for not receiving the care they need when they need it. 

That’s what Cindy Downs believes happened to her husband, Terry, when nurses at a HCA hospital in Kansas weren’t alerted to Terry’s change in heart rhythm. “Had the telemetry people been on the job, they would have seen he had no pulse,” Downs said. Instead, she lost her husband of almost 50 years.

Over the past year, NBC News has interviewed scores of doctors, nurses, administrators and other HCA employees who say the company puts profits ahead of patients. The company’s staffing of telemetry units is an example, some of those people say.

Today’s Talker: Flu and Covid cases this season…

…are still on the rise and have yet to reach their peaks, CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in an interview yesterday. The country is seeing a “sharp increase” in flu cases, especially in the South, Cohen said. Here’s how to stay protected amid the holiday travel rush and gatherings with loved ones. 

Politics in Brief

Abortion rights backlash: Conservatives in states like Ohio, Kansas and Michigan, where abortion rights advocates won major election victories after Roe v. Wade was overturned, are trying to block implementation of the initiatives.  

Presidential immunity fight: Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to avoid deciding, for now, whether the former president had broad immunity for actions he took challenging the 2020 presidential elections result.

Giuliani defamation case: A federal judge ordered former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to start paying two former Georgia election workers the $146 million awarded to them.

Jan. 6 riot: A woman in Washington D.C. used the Bumble dating app to elicit confessions from Trump supporters who participated in the Capitol riot. Yesterday, one of the men she turned in pleaded guilty to assaulting officers.

Staff Pick: A fear and loathing of credit cards

The explosion of “Buy Now, Pay Later” services like Afterpay and Affirm have set off alarms that consumers are struggling and getting reckless, rushing into the largely unregulated installment loans after burning through mainstream credit products. While that’s true for plenty of BNPL users, industry experts tell Christine Romans that many others have strong credit but are looking to dodge soaring interest rates and card fees. — Rich Bellis, senior business editor

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