bathroom floor. >> even though it's 10 years, it feels like it was yesterday. the pain is still there. >> we also wanted to live jenny's life for her because she doesn't have the opportunity to do that. and we love her so much. we want her to carry on. >> reporter: more than 150 people came to help the family carry on showing love and support. even the sheriff who was commander that night when jenny was killed. >> the officers also live with this and take it tot heart that this has not come to a resolution yet. >> reporter: as the family through the jenny lin foundation try to give hundreds of other children free music programs and other opportunities that they wanted for their own daughter. and still wondering if someone some day will step forward and help them find justice. >> we're still keeping hope. >> reporter: jenny lin would be 34 years old now. there's a memorial concert in her honor. proof that people can live on in the hearts and the lives of the people they touch. work is continuing on interstate 280 where caltrans is replacing a hinge that helps the road with sand. police were out today to help drivers who didn't know about the detour. southbound 280 is a favorite route for giants fans leaving at&t park and there is a game tonight. caltrans has been urging fans to take private transit instead. getting across the bridge was tricky today. >> for some reason the metering lights came on about five minutes to six. normally those meterrering lights are only on during the off rush hour. >> we monitored the to toll plaza and throughout the bridge and the back up was bad throughout the morning and right into the afternoon. if you're going to be heading out for this long holiday weekend you can always get more traffic information. plans are moving forward for a movable traffic barrier. the transit district board of directors awarded installation contracts today for the 30 million project and they changed installation dates. the bridge does have to be shut down for two days for that area to be installed. it'll be the first time the bay area bridge will be closed. a police officer is under investigation following investigations that he is working all while collecting government money. >> reporter: he gets paid to be an fbi agent in boston. mcthat are land retired from the force in 2004 from leg injuries -- mcfarland. >> i was surprised that he would be allowed to continue at the capacity of law enforcement with especially the fbi. >> reporter: miguel gallo says it's not right that mcfarland is double dipping even though he's doing it on a loophole. attorney john burress feels mcfarland's case is a look into the future. >> they should be looking more carefully, and they should track them to see if the disability persists. >> reporter: here in oakland he was the focus of four internal affairs investigation. buress sued him in that situation. the investigation will look into whether he is still doing his job. >> it's a misstatement and misuse of funds. because at the end of the day i'm paying for that pension retirement as a resident. that either needs to be corrected or needs to be stopped. >> reporter: i asked calpers if they could consider adding raj -- language to the rule. they say that's something that lawmakers would have to draft and pass through the legislature. cristina renton. he wasn't near the scene of a deadly head on collision but a danville man has been arrested a year later. police say an intoxicated under aged driver drove the wrong way in lafayette and crashed into another vehicle. now state control operators have arrested dresher. they say he provided the alcohol. he was married with two children. homicide it cans in oakland are calling the death of a -- homicide detectives in oakland are calling the death of a infant suspicious. one man said he didn't know anything about a baby. police told us they think drugs were being used inside the home and a neighbor told us when the mother found the boy he wasn't breathing. >> that's horrible. he woke up. he looked and the baby was gone. >> reporter: neighbors say they're heartbroken that the little boy they would sometimes see playing outside is now gone. an autopsy will now be done to try to determine the cause of his death. new developments tonight in donald sterling's ownership of the clippers. sterlings remarks also got his will be also got him suspended. >> reporter: there had been discussions between shelley sterling and the nba. >> this looks like it'll be the beginning of the end. >> reporter: publicly the nba is holding the áf points. it's going ahead with its own process of terminating sterling's ownership. privately the nba may want to avoid the vote or any possible court proceedings. >> it's going to be very expensive. politically disastrous for the nba if they have to go through a prolonged fight for the sterlings and this is the best solution for everyone. >> reporter: age itselfs say the sterling are also motivated to maximize the value of the clippers and the potential million dollars from the sales. but if they were to drag this out. >> chances are sponsors will continue to leave the team. chances are players would not renew their contract. some players would boycott. what would that mean as well. when the team visited certain arenas, people might not show up. the value of the team would go down. >> reporter: and again that was bryan todd reporting. shelley sterling is reportedly making some demand before a deal goes through. among them she wants to keep a minority ownership of the team. tonight 2 investigates claims the city of pleasanton isn't doing its pard to help conserve during california's drought. and they say this flooded street is proof. after our story last night on mandatory water conservation we heard from viewers that said that they are angry to know that precious water is being wasted in the city. >> reporter: this is west has positas boulevard, a flood of city water here last night angered neighbors. water drinking water flowing more than an hour inches deep on the street. this photo sent to us by monica tong. >> 5:30 they were watering and there was a big flood of water. we were shocked. that angered me because i planted drought ready plants, i conserved. >> reporter: daniel smith did confirm drinking water is used to irrigate city sports fields. that rankles residents who are under mandatory 24% water cuts and could face fines. >> one thing i noticed is the very wealthy people still have green lawns. i would be very surprised if they let this one die, they have sports here. >> reporter: the city says hold on it's con certaining water big time. showing me new figures that compared to last year. the water use is down 70%. the city says concerns still haven't sunk in. and today's water supplies are going down the drain. >> if we cob serve we can make it. if we don't conserve we literally could have times this summer where we have to shut the water off. >> reporter: they want callers to report problems like the one here last evening. they say we are all in this drought together. john fowler, ktvu channel 2 news. he's an east bay boy genius. how this young man managed to finish a college program at 14. your memorial day weekend forecast. looks like a warm one. i will lay out the pattern. and exactly one week ago today. a third grader was shot exactly one week ago tonight an 8-year-old girl was shot while playing in her front yard in east oakland. tonight her mother is talking publicly for the first time to our amber lee. amber is at children's hospital with how this one act of violence has really shattered that family's life forever. amber. >> reporter: frank, mom has been spending long hours here at the hospital. her daughter is in critical condition up on the third floor in the intensive care unit. this is a photo of jack olansunes taking this evening. mom speaks spanish. through a translator she toll us that a shot to her neck paralyzed her from the neck down. >> she paralyzed her throughout the body but her mind is still working. >> they're going to give her therapy so she can use her hands and have some mobility moving forward. but it's going to be a long process. >> reporter: silvia tells me she's devastated that this happened to her daughter but with the help of god she will get through. mom says she was inside her home cleaning while her children was playing outside. she heard gunshots and ran to get them. >> by the time she got to her. her daughter was asking for water and said she couldn't breathe. she said she had a stomach ache and said she kept saying, don't leave me. >> reporter: mom relies on her janitorial job to pay the bills. >> she has a lot of hope and with the police doing their job she's hoping that the perpetrator to be caught. and that her daughter did not deserve this. >> reporter: the third grader turned nine on sunday two days after she was shot. mom describes jaqueline as a happy girl who loves school. her room is adorned with cards and balloons made by her classmates. reporting live in oakland, ktvu channel 2 news. >> thank you amber. the search continues tonight under a statewide amber alert for a missing little boy and his father. the highway patrol says 2-year- old edwin tkpwar -- vargas was kidnapped in los angeles. the boy's mother has a restraining order against the boy's father. she says she was putting her boy in the car when vargas who was hiding near by took off with the little boy. the man owned as the pillow case rapist is being released from prison to live in southern california despite protests against that. christopher hubbard must be released by july 7th and will live in the city of palm dale. authorities say he is linked to as many as 100 rapes in in southern california. new details about a deadly shooting last night many hayward. hayward police are asking for help finding whoever killed a 27-year-old man. a second shooting victim later turned up in the hospital. he is expected to survive. a man who owns a repair shop tells us what he heard. >> i didn't think it was gunfire. i thought it was a car backfiring or something like that. but the people who were on the outside said it was gunfire so i came down. >> reporter: police have not released the name of the man who was killed. a man tells us there were plans for a small memorial tonight. if you're headed to tahoe except a lot of company. the city is bracing for the busiest holiday in years. many people made their reservations months in advance. we have a meteor shower tonight. and it's going to be good. we have good visibility out there right now. you can see the sky out there right now. tomorrow night around 12:30. it looks like it's going to be an interesting meteor event. if you get a chance next couple of nights we're in the perfect spot to see this, the right latitude. everything is perfect except right at the coast where there's fog. if i come in real close you will see the cloud cover right there now. these cloud you can see through but these clouds in the north bay for the next couple of hours will obscure your visible. as you get into one and two in the morning they should scurry out. that fog is going to be there nights and mornings right through the bay area weekend so that's going to keep temperatures down. currently it's 61 in napa. 64 in walnut creek. there's the warmth inland and the cool you can see the sea breezes. the weekend is going to be warmer. overnight lows will be in the 50s. it warmed today about 5 degrees. tomorrow it warms another five degrees. here's the fog right along the coast. this is 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. if you are headed out to the pinch, i -- out to the beach, i think stinson will be fine. late in the day you see the fog clearing here. so when i come back i just told you today was a little warmer. tomorrow is going to be a little warmer still. when i come back i'm going to lay out sunday for you. because that's going to be the hottest day of the bay area week end. i'll give you specific numbers and we'll be back here at 10:45. talk about smart, we're going to introduce you to a 14- year-old boy from the east bay. >> i've always believed that i was born to do science. >> he sure was. coming up after the break you will find out what he's just accomplished. >> broken, bruised and fighting for his life. >> thankfully i didn't keep going that way. >> a 70- a 14-year-old boy from the east bay are celebrating an accomplishment that not many can say. cara liu spoke with the young scholar and his family. >> reporter: at 14 years old she's by far the youngest person to complete this high training program. alongside students two or three times his age, 14-year-old kindred jr. took home two certificates at a merit college graduation tonight. >> he learned about microcoachs and make specimentt. inference contrast. >> reporter: the east bay teen has his heights set at becoming a pediatric surgeon. in his home books, internet and face to face conversations were encouraged. >> there were no video games. the only way you do video games if you can make them. >> my idea was to bring out their talent. the only way you're going to do that with the kids is allow them to create. >> reporter: he hopes to encourage other african american kids. >> that's important to me because not that many people see an african american boy my age, in college, doing all this hard work. >> king is finishing the ninth grade in independent study right now. he hopes to graduate high school by the time he's 16 and maybe even have his associates degree by then as well. live in oakland, cara liu, ktvu news. in and out burger is being sued by a woman who claims workers refused to call 911 after scalding hot coffee spilled on the woman's lap. the woman says she was handed a cup of coffee that was so hot she couldn't hold it causing her to drop it. in and out management says that any worker can call 911 during emergency situations. working for so little money and working so hard forly for -- for little money is stressful, it can feel stagment and under valued. >> they're trying to get an initiative on a november ballot to raise the minimum wage to $12.25 in oakland. right now it's $8 an hour. wall street closed the week with across the board gains and one new record. the dow jones added 63 points the nasdaq added 32. and a fraction over the 1900 mark for the s & p. and the unusual way a young man is trying to find a kidney for his mom. >> what calfire wants you to know about high fire danger too. >> and hugs and tears as new rules for bonfires in ocean beach in san francisco are now in effect. after 9:00 p.m. bonfires are no longer permitted. the previous curfew was at 11:00 p.m. the five existing fire pits will be replaced by 10 larger pits and on spare the air days no fires will be allowed at ocean beach. memorial someday is unofficial start to summer. a lot of people will be heading to lakes or hiking trails. fire danger is also a big part this holiday weekend. debora villalon has the story. >> reporter: frank last year's big yosemite fire an illegal campfire that got away. that's not likely to happen here tonight. not with that big steel ring. but people cause nine out of 10 wildfires and campfires make up most of them. >> time o get reacquainted with the tent and the bug spray and for this rose dale family one of the first things to set up, the propane fire pit. the camp site has a fire ring but with two young boys, they feel safer avoiding open flames and smoke. >> i do, i do in fact. because we can control it. again it's portable we can move it around. versus that over there. >> you set it on high and it's nice and warm >> reporter: not a red flag weekend. but they know it can only take a spark. >> everything is drying out. sooner than normal i believe etch is -- believe everyone is going to be more cautious. >> reporter: this bar-be-que next to tall grass catches the chief's eye. >> that if it happens to tip over it may catch fire. >> reporter: these deep fire pits reduce risk but it's never safe to leave a fire unattend as this mar i said n -- marin couple knows. >> we lived where it was very dangerous. so we're aware. >> reporter: the only drama or near disaster should be getting the tent up. oh the sound of nature. with 30 state parks in northern california there's something for everyone but roasting marsh mellows may become more difficult as fire restrictions kick in. reporting live in napa county, debora villalon, ktvu channel 2 news. >> i can just smell the campfire. and first responders are practicing a drill. police, firefighters and other emergency responders from several agencies practiced how they would react to an active shooter on a school campus. >> we really need to make sure that all the different disciplines are working much more collaborative in responding to these type of events. >> reporter: there was no school today so the drill did not include students. anzelin garcia torrez was in court for the first time since prosecutors announced they plan to seek the death penalty against him. he's charged with kidnapping and killing sierra lamar from morgan hill. we saw supporters who attended the hearing. they say they hope the fear of a death sentence will lead torrez to reveal the location of sierra. >> we would hope that he would would tell us where she is in order to take the death penalty off the table. >> reporter: the hearing an immediate request to unseal certain evidence was postponed. garcia torrez next court date is set for june 27th. breaking news now out of the east bay where there are reports of a deadly crash. it happened at broadmoore and san leandro boulevard. ken pritchett is on the scene now with the very latest, ken. >> reporter: that is the san leandro boulevard you see there. this red building here on the corner. you can see a car that has crashed into the front of that building. now this is about the best vantage point we can get from here because of the crime scene tape. take a look at some video that was shot a little bit earlier that showed that car crashed into the front of that building. i talked to the man who lives in that apartment. he says tonight he just happened to be next door having dinner when about 90 minutes ago he heard a very loud bang. he came outside to see that car crashed into his apartment and he also says that he saw a man and a woman who had been ejected from that car. both of them on the ground. he said the woman was not moving. he said the man was moving and the man who was ejected was taken to the hospital. now there was a police pursuit involved here. more on that in just a moment. but first let's hear from a witness who says she was outside when she saw that car speeding down the street and crashing into this building. >> this guy came around out of nowhere. avoided swerved missed me and slammed into the building. >> now i talked to a san leandro police lieutenant just minutes ago. he said that there -- he couldn't be specific but said there was a crime of some type that happened at washington plaza shopping center in san leandro. there was a pursuit. the san leandro police say that per suit was a high speed chase but that it was called off but that the driver of the car that they were pursuing was showing excessive speed and reckless driving. again that was called off. and then those officers came upon the scene to find this car crashed into this apartment at this point. oakland police are investigating. reporting live in san leandro, ken pritchett, ktvu news. >> there was an extremely emotional meeting today in san francisco for two families linked by a tragedy that resulted in saving a woman's life. >> safe to tell net for the first time the mother and father of a young man who in death donated his organs. >> i thank them for what he's thought me about enjoying every second of life. >> to live a child that was not in vein. -- vain. that something did come out of his life. a family on vacation goes to the beach and snatches a newborn sealed pup and throws her right into an rv and takes off. the rescue operation to get her into the right arms. >> this memorial day weekend will be a hot one. the trend that will heat up your weekend and when temperatures will love them or hate them, the giant metal sculptures at crissy field are going up. opponents claim that the works interfere with the view of the golden gate. an incredible story of survival after an american professor fell 70 feet down in the himeleyans. still he managed to climb out of that crevase. he says it took five hours of agonizing pain to get to the surface then another three hours to reach his tent and radio for help. a helicopter came the next morning. he says he now has a whole new appreciation for life. >> i have looked over the edge into the abyss and i know that's not where i wanted to be. and now i can really, really appreciate living and being with my friends and family. >> john all was in nepal to do climbing. he says once he recovers he plans to go do more climbing but this time in peru. state health officials issued the boil order today after e-coli was found in drinking water samples from a portland reservoir. the water reportedly tested positive for fecal matter. an investigation is now under way to invest tkpwaeu -- investigate how it got there. a boy in vacaville is taking a simple message. his mom needs a kidney. maria detoso was diagnosed with kid -- kidney failure two years ago. she is on a donor list. >> she means the world to me. she's my mom. she's been there for me my whole life. so it's the least thing i can do. >> geoffrey says he will be on street corners and social media hoping someone will be willing to help his mom. >> oh that is so sweet. >> isn't it. >> yeah. it is an unusual case of seal snatching. she is swiming in a pool now but it's a far cry from where this little seal was found. shou she went to the beach -- how she went from hey there. did you select these things on purpose? not a color found nature. there's nothing wrong with tha. i can hear your arteries clogging. ok. no. this is tap water. i can't let you buy this. oh. crystal geyser please. crystal geyser. bottled at the mountain source. surprise!lcome back. crystal geyser alpine spring water. crystal geyser. crystal geyser. news flash, it's bottled at the source. news flash, we sell it in cases. oh. thank you. oh no no no. crystal geyser. bottled right at the mountain source. cute little harbor seal pup is in the care of experts weeks after being taken away from a beach in the caramel area. volunteers acted on a tip and recovered that young seal from a motor home. >> swimming among this pool of seal pups is little beemer cruz and boy does she have quite the tale to tell. >> beamer cruz was a little harbor seal that was on the beach. >> reporter: when suddenly a family physically picked up the seal pup from the beach that's located south of caramel and put the pup into an lv and drove off. >> i have no idea what was in the mind of these individuals. i have to believe they were well intentioned but i have no idea what their plan was. >> reporter: two of the volunteers in the area got wind of the seal pup snatching and tracked down the family. >> we tracked down the family, let them know that the pup would have been better on the beach. >> reporter: even if you're trying to help the animal it is illegal to remove marine wildlife. >> they're so darn cute that people feel compelled to do something to take care of this animal. unbeknownst to them that the animal needs no care from them whatsoever. >> reporter: beamer cruz named after the bmw she was placed in after she was rescued is now double her weight and now closer to being returned to the home she was taken from. astronomers are suggesting that stargazers get in a good spot. experts say they are not for sure but the number of falling stars could be bigger than those in the past. a good night for this bill. >> it's going to be a fine night as we head outside. you can see there's a few clouds out there. those clouds will give you some problems in the north bay. i have to tell you tomorrow night is going to be a good night to see them as well after 12:00. tonight about 11:30, tomorrow at 12:30. we're at the perfect spot to see them. we're at the right latitude so get out there. there's fog right along the coast. these clouds will move out of the area within the next couple of hours so if you're up for a late night. maybe go out about 1:00 or 2:00. it's foggy along the coast. we're getting a little bit of a break along stinson beach. i think the fog is going to be a player the next few days but it's going to be limited right at the coast. it's going to stay right at the coast side so with that in mind we're going to see cooler much cooler temperatures right along the coast then warmer temperatures inland. currently 63 degrees in san jose. nice night out there. mostly clear in san jose so you can look up and see the meteors in the next hour. 81degrees for a daytime high san jose daytime saturday. sunday's temperatures are going to be warmer. sunday will be the warmest day on this holiday weekend with highs on sunday easily reaching into the mid-90s in the warmest spots. it's warmest today by 5 degrees. it's going to be warmer tomorrow by 5 degrees and warmer on sunday. so sunday is your warmest day. we're looking at numbers, for the most part looking at temperatures in the 90s and mid- 90s in the warmest spot. and a little cooler on monday. so not a bad looking weekend at all. just cooling along the coast. this is tomorrow, sunday will be a little bit warmer. 87 in vacaville. maybe a little warmer than you might expect with upper 80s and low 90s out in brentwood and livermore. the fog is going to be there. there will be breaks in stinson. pacifica you'll see some sunshine but there's going to be a will the of fog. in between that fog there will be fog in the morning. fog at night. your weekend always in view and looks good. big holiday weekend and i love dishing it up like this because so often you get a couple of bad days in there, you hate to do that. but this is going to be a really spectacular three day weekend in the bay area. and giants are playing baseball at at&t. a's are in toronto but a great weekend for everything. >> thank you, bill. 49ers quarterback collin kaepernick and seattle seahawks sherman are teaming up but this time it's for a video game. fans can help kaepernick with their support. online voting goes through next friday. we posted a link on our website just look under web links. california chrome apparently has nerves of steel. take a look at what the triple crown hopeful almost ran into today when finishing a work out in new york. the horse didn't even flinch he stayed calm and focused as she ran past a cat sized possum out there on the track. chrome is trying to become the first horse to win the triple crown in 36 years when he races on the belmont stakes. the exercise rider has a really scary look on his face. and the horse is just like, i'm cool. >> and fred is here, both good and bad news with baseball. >> you me what's crazy giants and a's have the exact same record at this point. 30-18. the giants versus the twins doesn't really roll off the tongue does it. these clubs met tonight for just the tenth time ever. fans always dress for success. pablo sandoval has been in fuego. three run shot from kyle gibson. tim lincecum was wilder than a labrador puppy. but strikes out dozier. it was 4-2. brandon hicks matches his solo home run. eight of them are home runs. giants win 6-2. oakland a's are the best road trip in the major leagues but today in toronto they ran into a very hot team who loved the long ball. chip hale was acting manager today because bob melvin attended his daughter's college graduation in new york city. a's starter cashner gets burned by stousen. what we have here is a failure to communicate. scott tries to pick off pollar but no one is coming into second place. scores on an infield out to make it 3-0. a's finally get the blue jay's pitcher brenden. sevenththis month, moss leads the team with 45 rbis. the a's get close but not close enough. jay's hang on 3-1. and harbaugh ge [ man ] they're big. strength we can count on. same with aladdin. the biggest in bail. no one has lower prices, is faster or more professional. aladdin bail bonds. bigger because we're better. today was the first day of the 49ers rookie mini camp in santa clara. the last thing harbaugh wanted to discuss are rookie troubles. the draft picks were joinedded by signed and unsigned players. but harbaugh was asked by tim kawakami about the status of alden smith after he plead no contest to three felony counts. >> what's your standard then? felony count. do you have a standard. >> i know you probably worked very hard asking that question. i stared in the mirror and let's see how you can answer that. >> no i did not. it's wrong. >> you can write your story the way you want the write it. if you want me to answer the question i'll be glad to. it's part of a legal process. i'm not an attorney, i'm not a judge, i'm a football coach. i'm not going to get into speculating what could happen, what could happen. you can take bamboo shoots and stick them under my fingernails and there's nothing i would at to discussion. there's nothing further i could add right now without speculating somewhere he's -- >> here he's a coach not an attorney. >> that's all he's going to say. >> that's all he's going to say. >> thank you for choosing ktvu channel 2 news. >> the ktvu morning team will be here at heat shields are compromised. we have multiple failures. are those thrusters burning? that's a negative. what's that alarm? fuel cell two is down. i'm going to have to guide her in manually. this is very exciting. but i'm at my stop. come again? i'm watching this on the train. it's so hard to leave. good luck with everything. with the u-verse tv app, the u-verse revolves around you the u-verse revolves around you safeway gets that staying on budget can be a real bear. that's why they've got lots of ways to save. real big club card deals, the safeway app and gas rewards. this week, get a taste of summer with fresh sweet corn, 8 for just $2. grill up rancher's reserve ribeye steaks, only $6.99 a pound. and arrowhead water is just $3.33 a case. there's more savings to love... at safeway. ingredients for life. warner bros. domestic television distribution] >> today on "tmz," >> there is one thing we know about tupac shakur, he watched too many tv dramas. >> they're trying to ask who shot and his words [bleep]. >> the most gangster way to go out. according to the metropolis pd. >> metropolis pd. >> i think that's superman. >> according to the daily planet -- >> kim kardashian had her bachelorette party. she went out with all her girls. she has a 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tells us that every year this crowd just keeps getter bigger. tonight they packed the castro valley library with more than 150 people who came and used ribbons they brought out in the color blue. her favorite color, all to remember jenny lynn. the small candle came as the reminder of jenny lynn came as a reminder of her short life. school, friend, and her bright future ahead. they also brought back the terror and lost from may 27, 1994 when her parents came home and found their daughter tied up and stabbed to death on the bathroom floor. >> even though it's 10 years, it feels like it was yesterday. the pain is still there. >> we also wanted to live jenny's life for her because she doesn't have the opportunity to do that. and we love her so much. we want her to carry on. >> reporter: more than 150 people came to help the family carry on showing love and support. even the sheriff who was commander that night when jenny was killed. >> the officers also live with this and take it tot heart that this has not come to a resolution yet. >> reporter: as the family through the jenny lin foundation try to give hundreds of other children free music programs and other opportunities that they wanted for their own daughter. and still wondering if someone some day will step forward and help them find justice. >> we're still keeping hope. >> reporter: jenny lin would be 34 years old now. there's a memorial concert in her honor. proof that people can live on in the hearts and the lives of the people they touch. work is continuing on interstate 280 where caltrans is replacing a hinge that helps the road with sand. police were out today to help drivers who didn't know about the detour. southbound 280 is a favorite route for giants fans leaving at&t park and there is a game tonight. caltrans has been urging fans to take private transit instead. getting across the bridge was tricky today. >> for some reason the metering lights came on about five minutes to six. normally those meterrering lights are only on during the off rush hour. >> we monitored the to toll plaza and throughout the bridge and the back up was bad throughout the morning and right into the afternoon. if you're going to be heading out for this long holiday weekend you can always get more traffic information. plans are moving forward for a movable traffic barrier. the transit district board of directors awarded installation contracts today for the 30 million project and they changed installation dates. the bridge does have to be shut down for two days for that area to be installed. it'll be the first time the bay area bridge will be closed. a police officer is under investigation following investigations that he is working all while collecting government money. >> reporter: he gets paid to be an fbi agent in boston. mcthat are land retired from the force in 2004 from leg injuries -- mcfarland. >> i was surprised that he would be allowed to continue at the capacity of law enforcement with especially the fbi. >> reporter: miguel gallo says it's not right that mcfarland is double dipping even though he's doing it on a loophole. attorney john burress feels mcfarland's case is a look into the future. >> they should be looking more carefully, and they should track them to see if the disability persists. >> reporter: here in oakland he was the focus of four internal affairs investigation. buress sued him in that situation. the investigation will look into whether he is still doing his job. >> it's a misstatement and misuse of funds. because at the end of the day i'm paying for that pension retirement as a resident. that either needs to be corrected or needs to be stopped. >> reporter: i asked calpers if they could consider adding raj -- language to the rule. they say that's something that lawmakers would have to draft and pass through the legislature. cristina renton. he wasn't near the scene of a deadly head on collision but a danville man has been arrested a year later. police say an intoxicated under aged driver drove the wrong way in lafayette and crashed into another vehicle. now state control operators have arrested dresher. they say he provided the alcohol. he was married with two children. homicide it cans in oakland are calling the death of a -- homicide detectives in oakland are calling the death of a infant suspicious. one man said he didn't know anything about a baby. police told us they think drugs were being used inside the home and a neighbor told us when the mother found the boy he wasn't breathing. >> that's horrible. he woke up. he looked and the baby was gone. >> reporter: neighbors say they're heartbroken that the little boy they would sometimes see playing outside is now gone. an autopsy will now be done to try to determine the cause of his death. new developments tonight in donald sterling's ownership of the clippers. sterlings remarks also got his will be also got him suspended. >> reporter: there had been discussions between shelley sterling and the nba. >> this looks like it'll be the beginning of the end. >> reporter: publicly the nba is holding the áf points. it's going ahead with its own process of terminating sterling's ownership. privately the nba may want to avoid the vote or any possible court proceedings. >> it's going to be very expensive. politically disastrous for the nba if they have to go through a prolonged fight for the sterlings and this is the best solution for everyone. >> reporter: age itselfs say the sterling are also motivated to maximize the value of the clippers and the potential million dollars from the sales. but if they were to drag this out. >> chances are sponsors will continue to leave the team. chances are players would not renew their contract. some players would boycott. what would that mean as well. when the team visited certain arenas, people might not show up. the value of the team would go down. >> reporter: and again that was bryan todd reporting. shelley sterling is reportedly making some demand before a deal goes through. among them she wants to keep a minority ownership of the team. tonight 2 investigates claims the city of pleasanton isn't doing its pard to help conserve during california's drought. and they say this flooded street is proof. after our story last night on mandatory water conservation we heard from viewers that said that they are angry to know that precious water is being wasted in the city. >> reporter: this is west has positas boulevard, a flood of city water here last night angered neighbors. water drinking water flowing more than an hour inches deep on the street. this photo sent to us by monica tong. >> 5:30 they were watering and there was a big flood of water. we were shocked. that angered me because i planted drought ready plants, i conserved. >> reporter: daniel smith did confirm drinking water is used to irrigate city sports fields. that rankles residents who are under mandatory 24% water cuts and could face fines. >> one thing i noticed is the very wealthy people still have green lawns. i would be very surprised if they let this one die, they have sports here. >> reporter: the city says hold on it's con certaining water big time. showing me new figures that compared to last year. the water use is down 70%. the city says concerns still haven't sunk in. and today's water supplies are going down the drain. >> if we cob serve we can make it. if we don't conserve we literally could have times this summer where we have to shut the water off. >> reporter: they want callers to report problems like the one here last evening. they say we are all in this drought together. john fowler, ktvu channel 2 news. he's an east bay boy genius. how this young man managed to finish a college program at 14. your memorial day weekend forecast. looks like a warm one. i will lay out the pattern. and exactly one week ago today. a third grader was shot right here in her front yard while she was playing. tonight for the first time her mother speaks out and tells me about her daughter's devastating injury. exactly one week ago tonight an 8-year-old girl was shot while playing in her front yard in east oakland. tonight her mother is talking publicly for the first time to our amber lee. amber is at children's hospital with how this one act of violence has really shattered that family's life forever. amber. >> reporter: frank, mom has been spending long hours here at the hospital. her daughter is in critical condition up on the third floor in the intensive care unit. this is a photo of jack olansunes taking this evening. mom speaks spanish. through a translator she toll us that a shot to her neck paralyzed her from the neck down. >> she paralyzed her throughout the body but her mind is still working. >> they're going to give her therapy so she can use her hands and have some mobility moving forward. but it's going to be a long process. >> reporter: silvia tells me she's devastated that this happened to her daughter but with the help of god she will get through. mom says she was inside her home cleaning while her children was playing outside. she heard gunshots and ran to get them. >> by the time she got to her. her daughter was asking for water and said she couldn't breathe. she said she had a stomach ache and said she kept saying, don't leave me. >> reporter: mom relies on her janitorial job to pay the bills. >> she has a lot of hope and with the police doing their job she's hoping that the perpetrator to be caught. and that her daughter did not deserve this. >> reporter: the third grader turned nine on sunday two days after she was shot. mom describes jaqueline as a happy girl who loves school. her room is adorned with cards and balloons made by her classmates. reporting live in oakland, ktvu channel 2 news. >> thank you amber. the search continues tonight under a statewide amber alert for a missing little boy and his father. the highway patrol says 2-year- old edwin tkpwar -- vargas was kidnapped in los angeles. the boy's mother has a restraining order against the boy's father. she says she was putting her boy in the car when vargas who was hiding near by took off with the little boy. the man owned as the pillow case rapist is being released from prison to live in southern california despite protests against that. christopher hubbard must be released by july 7th and will live in the city of palm dale. authorities say he is linked to as many as 100 rapes in in southern california. new details about a deadly shooting last night many hayward. hayward police are asking for help finding whoever killed a 27-year-old man. a second shooting victim later turned up in the hospital. he is expected to survive. a man who owns a repair shop tells us what he heard. >> i didn't think it was gunfire. i thought it was a car backfiring or something like that. but the people who were on the outside said it was gunfire so i came down. >> reporter: police have not released the name of the man who was killed. a man tells us there were plans for a small memorial tonight. if you're headed to tahoe except a lot of company. the city is bracing for the busiest holiday in years. many people made their reservations months in advance. we have a meteor shower tonight. and it's going to be good. we have good visibility out there right now. you can see the sky out there right now. tomorrow night around 12:30. it looks like it's going to be an interesting meteor event. if you get a chance next couple of nights we're in the perfect spot to see this, the right latitude. everything is perfect except right at the coast where there's fog. if i come in real close you will see the cloud cover right there now. these cloud you can see through but these clouds in the north bay for the next couple of hours will obscure your visible. as you get into one and two in the morning they should scurry out. that fog is going to be there nights and mornings right through the bay area weekend so that's going to keep temperatures down. currently it's 61 in napa. 64 in walnut creek. there's the warmth inland and the cool you can see the sea breezes. the weekend is going to be warmer. overnight lows will be in the 50s. it warmed today about 5 degrees. tomorrow it warms another five degrees. here's the fog right along the coast. this is 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. if you are headed out to the pinch, i -- out to the beach, i think stinson will be fine. late in the day you see the fog clearing here. so when i come back i just told you today was a little warmer. tomorrow is going to be a little warmer still. when i come back i'm going to lay out sunday for you. because that's going to be the hottest day of the bay area week end. i'll give you specific numbers and we'll be back here at 10:45. talk about smart, we're going to introduce you to a 14- year-old boy from the east bay. >> i've always believed that i was born to do science. >> he sure was. coming up after the break you will find out what he's just accomplished. >> broken, bruised and fighting for his life. >> thankfully i didn't keep going that way. >> a 70-foot fall into an icy abyss. he was all alone with a broken arm and broken ribs. how he finally saved himself and taped it all. ithe part of us that a littwants to play,on. wants to be mischievous, wants to run free, all you have to do is let it out. find your inner minion only at the despicable me minion mayhem ride at universal studios hollywood. a 14-year-old boy from the east bay are celebrating an accomplishment that not many can say. cara liu spoke with the young scholar and his family. >> reporter: at 14 years old she's by far the youngest person to complete this high training program. alongside students two or three times his age, 14-year-old kindred jr. took home two certificates at a merit college graduation tonight. >> he learned about microcoachs and make specimentt. inference contrast. >> reporter: the east bay teen has his heights set at becoming a pediatric surgeon. in his home books, internet and face to face conversations were encouraged. >> there were no video games. the only way you do video games if you can make them. >> my idea was to bring out their talent. the only way you're going to do that with the kids is allow them to create. >> reporter: he hopes to encourage other african american kids. >> that's important to me because not that many people see an african american boy my age, in college, doing all this hard work. >> king is finishing the ninth grade in independent study right now. he hopes to graduate high school by the time he's 16 and maybe even have his associates degree by then as well. live in oakland, cara liu, ktvu news. in and out burger is being sued by a woman who claims workers refused to call 911 after scalding hot coffee spilled on the woman's lap. the woman says she was handed a cup of coffee that was so hot she couldn't hold it causing her to drop it. in and out management says that any worker can call 911 during emergency situations. working for so little money and working so hard forly for -- for little money is stressful, it can feel stagment and under valued. >> they're trying to get an initiative on a november ballot to raise the minimum wage to $12.25 in oakland. right now it's $8 an hour. wall street closed the week with across the board gains and one new record. the dow jones added 63 points the nasdaq added 32. and a fraction over the 1900 mark for the s & p. and the unusual way a young man is trying to find a kidney for his mom. >> what calfire wants you to know about high fire danger too. >> and hugs and tears as two women see each other for the first time. how the death of one of their sons has tied these two together forever. ♪ [ male announcer ] now get more of what you deserve. visit your local benjamin moore dealer today and get $50 off every $250 purchase. visit your local benjamin moore dealer today safeway gets that staying on budget can be a real bear. that's 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[ male announcer ] to celebrate, visit your local benjamin moore dealer today and get $50 off every $250 purchase. new rules for bonfires in ocean beach in san francisco are now in effect. after 9:00 p.m. bonfires are no longer permitted. the previous curfew was at 11:00 p.m. the five existing fire pits will be replaced by 10 larger pits and on spare the air days no fires will be allowed at ocean beach. memorial someday is unofficial start to summer. a lot of people will be heading to lakes or hiking trails. fire danger is also a big part this holiday weekend. debora villalon has the story. >> reporter: frank last year's big yosemite fire an illegal campfire that got away. that's not likely to happen here tonight. not with that big steel ring. but people cause nine out of 10 wildfires and campfires make up most of them. >> time o get reacquainted with the tent and the bug spray and for this rose dale family one of the first things to set up, the propane fire pit. the camp site has a fire ring but with two young boys, they feel safer avoiding open flames and smoke. >> i do, i do in fact. because we can control it. again it's portable we can move it around. versus that over there. >> you set it on high and it's nice and warm >> reporter: not a red flag weekend. but they know it can only take a spark. >> everything is drying out. sooner than normal i believe etch is -- believe everyone is going to be more cautious. >> reporter: this bar-be-que next to tall grass catches the chief's eye. >> that if it happens to tip over it may catch fire. >> reporter: these deep fire pits reduce risk but it's never safe to leave a fire unattend as this mar i said n -- marin couple knows. >> we lived where it was very dangerous. so we're aware. >> reporter: the only drama or near disaster should be getting the tent up. oh the sound of nature. with 30 state parks in northern california there's something for everyone but roasting marsh mellows may become more difficult as fire restrictions kick in. reporting live in napa county, debora villalon, ktvu channel 2 news. >> i can just smell the campfire. and first responders are practicing a drill. police, firefighters and other emergency responders from several agencies practiced how they would react to an active shooter on a school campus. >> we really need to make sure that all the different disciplines are working much more collaborative in responding to these type of events. >> reporter: there was no school today so the drill did not include students. anzelin garcia torrez was in court for the first time since prosecutors announced they plan to seek the death penalty against him. he's charged with kidnapping and killing sierra lamar from morgan hill. we saw supporters who attended the hearing. they say they hope the fear of a death sentence will lead torrez to reveal the location of sierra. >> we would hope that he would would tell us where she is in order to take the death penalty off the table. >> reporter: the hearing an immediate request to unseal certain evidence was postponed. garcia torrez next court date is set for june 27th. breaking news now out of the east bay where there are reports of a deadly crash. it happened at broadmoore and san leandro boulevard. ken pritchett is on the scene now with the very latest, ken. >> reporter: that is the san leandro boulevard you see there. this red building here on the corner. you can see a car that has crashed into the front of that building. now this is about the best vantage point we can get from here because of the crime scene tape. take a look at some video that was shot a little bit earlier that showed that car crashed into the front of that building. i talked to the man who lives in that apartment. he says tonight he just happened to be next door having dinner when about 90 minutes ago he heard a very loud bang. he came outside to see that car crashed into his apartment and he also says that he saw a man and a woman who had been ejected from that car. both of them on the ground. he said the woman was not moving. he said the man was moving and the man who was ejected was taken to the hospital. now there was a police pursuit involved here. more on that in just a moment. but first let's hear from a witness who says she was outside when she saw that car speeding down the street and crashing into this building. >> this guy came around out of nowhere. avoided swerved missed me and slammed into the building. >> now i talked to a san leandro police lieutenant just minutes ago. he said that there -- he couldn't be specific but said there was a crime of some type that happened at washington plaza shopping center in san leandro. there was a pursuit. the san leandro police say that per suit was a high speed chase but that it was called off but that the driver of the car that they were pursuing was showing excessive speed and reckless driving. again that was called off. and then those officers came upon the scene to find this car crashed into this apartment at this point. oakland police are investigating. reporting live in san leandro, ken pritchett, ktvu news. >> there was an extremely emotional meeting today in san francisco for two families linked by a tragedy that resulted in saving a woman's life. >> safe to tell net for the first time the mother and father of a young man who in death donated his organs. >> i thank them for what he's thought me about enjoying every second of life. >> to live a child that was not in vein. -- vain. that something did come out of his life. a family on vacation goes to the beach and snatches a newborn sealed pup and throws her right into an rv and takes off. the rescue operation to get her into the right arms. >> this memorial day weekend will be a hot one. the trend that will heat up your weekend and when temperatures will peak. after the break a 70-foot fall into an icy abyss. >> this man's agonizing struggle to reach help. love them or hate them, the giant metal sculptures at crissy field are going up. opponents claim that the works interfere with the view of the golden gate. an incredible story of survival after an american professor fell 70 feet down in the himeleyans. still he managed to climb out of that crevase. he says it took five hours of agonizing pain to get to the surface then another three hours to reach his tent and radio for help. a helicopter came the next morning. he says he now has a whole new appreciation for life. >> i have looked over the edge into the abyss and i know that's not where i wanted to be. and now i can really, really appreciate living and being with my friends and family. >> john all was in nepal to do climbing. he says once he recovers he plans to go do more climbing but this time in peru. state health officials issued the boil order today after e-coli was found in drinking water samples from a portland reservoir. the water reportedly tested positive for fecal matter. an investigation is now under way to invest tkpwaeu -- investigate how it got there. a boy in vacaville is taking a simple message. his mom needs a kidney. maria detoso was diagnosed with kid -- kidney failure two years ago. she is on a donor list. >> she means the world to me. she's my mom. she's been there for me my whole life. so it's the least thing i can do. >> geoffrey says he will be on street corners and social media hoping someone will be willing to help his mom. >> oh that is so sweet. >> isn't it. >> yeah. it is an unusual case of seal snatching. she is swiming in a pool now but it's a far cry from where this little seal was found. shou she went to the beach -- how she went from the beach to the back of a -- this battle is off the field. how you can help decide who wins. my dad worked as a short order cook. right here. my parents were immigrants. and they taught me that with hard work, anything is possible. i earned a scholarship to mit. and worked across party lines to get things done. i'm alex padilla. i'll protect voting rights for everyone. and make it easier to start a business. so we create jobs and opportunity for all californians. what should we order? (announcer) alex padilla. secretary of state. cute little harbor seal pup is in the care of experts weeks after being taken away from a beach in the caramel area. volunteers acted on a tip and recovered that young seal from a motor home. >> swimming among this pool of seal pups is little beemer cruz and boy does she have quite the tale to tell. >> beamer cruz was a little harbor seal that was on the beach. >> reporter: when suddenly a family physically picked up the seal pup from the beach that's located south of caramel and put the pup into an lv and drove off. >> i have no idea what was in the mind of these individuals. i have to believe they were well intentioned but i have no idea what their plan was. >> reporter: two of the volunteers in the area got wind of the seal pup snatching and tracked down the family. >> we tracked down the family, let them know that the pup would have been better on the beach. >> reporter: even if you're trying to help the animal it is illegal to remove marine wildlife. >> they're so darn cute that people feel compelled to do something to take care of this animal. unbeknownst to them that the animal needs no care from them whatsoever. >> reporter: beamer cruz named after the bmw she was placed in after she was rescued is now double her weight and now closer to being returned to the home she was taken from. astronomers are suggesting that stargazers get in a good spot. experts say they are not for sure but the number of falling stars could be bigger than those in the past. a good night for this bill. >> it's going to be a fine night as we head outside. you can see there's a few clouds out there. those clouds will give you some problems in the north bay. i have to tell you tomorrow night is going to be a good night to see them as well after 12:00. tonight about 11:30, tomorrow at 12:30. we're at the perfect spot to see them. we're at the right latitude so get out there. there's fog right along the coast. these clouds will move out of the area within the next couple of hours so if you're up for a late night. maybe go out about 1:00 or 2:00. it's foggy along the coast. we're getting a little bit of a break along stinson beach. i think the fog is going to be a player the next few days but it's going to be limited right at the coast. it's going to stay right at the coast side so with that in mind we're going to see cooler much cooler temperatures right along the coast then warmer temperatures inland. currently 63 degrees in san jose. nice night out there. mostly clear in san jose so you can look up and see the meteors in the next hour. 81degrees for a daytime high san jose daytime saturday. sunday's temperatures are going to be warmer. sunday will be the warmest day on this holiday weekend with highs on sunday easily reaching into the mid-90s in the warmest spots. it's warmest today by 5 degrees. it's going to be warmer tomorrow by 5 degrees and warmer on sunday. so sunday is your warmest day. we're looking at numbers, for the most part looking at temperatures in the 90s and mid- 90s in the warmest spot. and a little cooler on monday. so not a bad looking weekend at all. just cooling along the coast. this is tomorrow, sunday will be a little bit warmer. 87 in vacaville. maybe a little warmer than you might expect with upper 80s and low 90s out in brentwood and livermore. the fog is going to be there. there will be breaks in stinson. pacifica you'll see some sunshine but there's going to be a will the of fog. in between that fog there will be fog in the morning. fog at night. your weekend always in view and looks good. big holiday weekend and i love dishing it up like this because so often you get a couple of bad days in there, you hate to do that. but this is going to be a really spectacular three day weekend in the bay area. and giants are playing baseball at at&t. a's are in toronto but a great weekend for everything. >> thank you, bill. 49ers quarterback collin kaepernick and seattle seahawks sherman are teaming up but this time it's for a video game. fans can help kaepernick with their support. online voting goes through next friday. we posted a link on our website just look under web links. california chrome apparently has nerves of steel. take a look at what the triple crown hopeful almost ran into today when finishing a work out in new york. the horse didn't even flinch he stayed calm and focused as she ran past a cat sized possum out there on the track. chrome is trying to become the first horse to win the triple crown in 36 years when he races on the belmont stakes. the exercise rider has a really scary look on his face. and the horse is just like, i'm cool. >> and fred is here, both good and bad news with baseball. >> you me what's crazy giants and a's have the exact same record at this point. 30-18. the giants versus the twins doesn't really roll off the tongue does it. these clubs met tonight for just the tenth time ever. fans always dress for success. pablo sandoval has been in fuego. three run shot from kyle gibson. tim lincecum was wilder than a labrador puppy. but strikes out dozier. it was 4-2. brandon hicks matches his solo home run. eight of them are home runs. giants win 6-2. oakland a's are the best road trip in the major leagues but today in toronto they ran into a very hot team who loved the long ball. chip hale was acting manager today because bob melvin attended his daughter's college graduation in new york city. a's starter cashner gets burned by stousen. what we have here is a failure to communicate. scott tries to pick off pollar but no one is coming into second place. scores on an infield out to make it 3-0. a's finally get the blue jay's pitcher brenden. sevenththis month, moss leads the team with 45 rbis. the a's get close but not close enough. jay's hang on 3-1. and harbaugh gets heated. >> big bamboo shoot and stick them under my foot and still not what be enough. >> we'll hear the question that bothered harbaugh next. today was the first day of the 49ers rookie mini camp in santa clara. the last thing harbaugh wanted to discuss are rookie troubles. the draft picks were joinedded by signed and unsigned players. but harbaugh was asked by tim kawakami about the status of alden smith after he plead no contest to three felony counts. >> what's your standard then? felony count. do you have a standard. >> i know you probably worked very hard asking that question. i stared in the mirror and let's see how you can answer that. >> no i did not. it's wrong. >> you can write your story the way you want the write it. if you want me to answer the question i'll be glad to. it's part of a legal process. i'm not an attorney, i'm not a judge, i'm a football coach. i'm not going to get into speculating what could happen, what could happen. you can take bamboo shoots and stick them under my fingernails and there's nothing i would at to discussion. there's nothing further i could add right now without speculating somewhere he's -- >> here he's a coach not an attorney. >> that's all he's going to say. >> that's all he's going to say. >> thank you for choosing ktvu channel 2 news. >> the ktvu morning team will be here at 40:00 40:00 -- 7:00 a.m. you can follow us on ktvu.com. have a great holiday weekend. good night. >> good night. [ both laughing ] right? yeah. hey, mom... listen to this card dad got for grandpa jay. "hip-hip-hip-hooray!" [ chuckles ] "save the extra hip. you'll need it someday." [ both laugh ] 'cause he's old! mm. you're not giving him that. even if he drinks his other gift first? nope. ladies... do you remember exactly one year ago today when you did not have a gift for your grandfather and it killed him just a little, so i suggested you start interviewing all the members of the family for a video tribute? well, check it and burn -- we totally did that. alex: almost. we just need to finish the editing. and you should talk. you haven't even started on your gift yet. [ doorbell rings ] that's because i changed mine. i thought of a better idea yesterday. i think i came up with a better idea. okay. my dad has a picture
just fine as he campaigned in north carolina where daily cases just peaked. mr. trump ignoring the evidence and downplaying fatalities as the cdc projects another 23,000 americans may die by the end of election week. the president watching all of this unfold right now. let's go to the white house n s first. we're watching this very closely over there. cnn's kaitlan collins is joining us with the very latest. what are you learning, kaitlan? >> reporter: you're seeing the president rap up his rally in florida. he's going to georgia next. he's pushing on this message that he's doubling down on now, insisting we're rounding the corner when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, even though as you noted, we're seeing surges at record highs in many states. that's something the white house has been telling us the last several months, that the president is being tested every single day, is not true. president trump and joe biden battling in battleground states today one night after going head to head but not face to face in town halls. >> i didn't watch sleepy joe last night. i just wanted to see what he looked like. >> reporter: president trump making his pitch to seniors as polls show biden is leading nationwide with voters 65 and older. >> seniors will be the first in line for the vaccine. we are rounding the turn. i say that all the time. some of the media doesn't like hearing it, but i say it all the time, we're rounding that turn. >> reporter: president trump also holding a campaign rally in georgia after spreading misinformation about mask wearing during last night's town hall in miami. >> dr. fauci said don't wear a maf mask, right? >> reporter: at first but everybody agreed. >> reporter: then he changed his mind. then you had a report that 85% of people wearing masks catch it? >> reporter: the cdc report trump is referring to did not find that 85% of people who wore a mask got coronavirus. it wasn't even about masks, skpand instead found that people who got covid-19 were twice as likely reporting eating at a restaurant than those who did not. the president is so in doubt about wearing a mask, even his former new jersey governor krils christie who was recently released from intensive care after his coronavirus diagnosis admitted he was wrong not to wear a mask at the white house. >> it was a mistake. i was led to believe that all the people that i was interacting with at the white house had been tested, and it gave you a false sense of security. >> reporter: trump told nbc news he's not tested on a daily basis like staff claimed and that he can't remember if he was tested before his debate with joe biden. >> i don't know, i don't even remember. i test all the time. again, the doctors do it. i don't ask them. i test all the time. >> reporter: last night trump quickly denounced white supremacy but stepped on his own message when he danced around condemning the conspiracy group qanon. >> i know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard. but i know nothing about it. >> reporter: they believe it is a satanic cult run by the dnc. >> reporter: trump was also pressed about why he retweeted a conspiracy theory that bin laden's death was a hoax and joe biden had s.e.a.l. team six killed, a theory debunked by a navy s.e.a.l. whofls the was th. >> that was a retweet. that was an opinion of somebody and that was a retweet. >> reporter: i don't get that. you're the president. you're not some crazy uncle who can tweet whatever. >> reporter: he debunked his own town hall as he criticized the president in expanding the supreme court. >> don't voters have a right to know where they stand? >> they do have a right to know where they stand and they have a right to know where at the stand before the vote. >> reporter: more people watched biden than the ratings-obsessed president who went after nbc's savannah guthrie for her tough questioning. >> talking about somebody going totally crazy. i told you, i told you that. another evening in paradise i call it. >> reporter: and, wolf, the president going after savannah guthrie there, we're learning something his former chief of staff said privately about him. that's john kelly, of course, who was here before the president's last chief of staff, mick mulvaney, but cnn is reporting that kelly privately told them this about the president, and it's not flaerting. the depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. the dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship the most flawed i've ever seen in my life. that's what john kelly, who works for two years as the president's top aide, is telling people what he thought privately. wolf? >> thank you, kaitlan collins at the white house. brian is also working this story for us. brian, today it was confirmed that more than 8 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the united states over the past several months. that's more than any other country in the world. >> reporter: right, wolf, it's really just not going well anywhere in the country right now. just a short time ago, the president's own surgeon general, dr. jerome adams, warned about the outbreaks in wisconsin, saying wisconsin has positivity rates over 10% and that the state is going, quote, the wrong direction. this comes just one day before president trump plans to hold a large rally in jamesville, wisconsin. this is a state setting terrible records every day. hospital beds on the move in new mexico, pushing capacity. many coronavirus patients there need to be transferred from one hospital to another throughout the state. tonight they're worried about having enough people to take care of them. >> our hospital leader's greatest concern today is staffing up those beds. they point out that the health care work force that's been fighting valiantly against covid in new mexico, they're getting tired, there's some people who have stepped back. >> reporter: cases have spiked to such an extent in new mexico that the governor is telling people flat out, don't leave your home if you don't have to. the virus, she says, is winning. >> reporte >> this is the most serious emergency that mexico has ever faced. >> reporter: wisconsin is also seeing horrific spikes, and officials say many new cases are tied to viral spreads in prisons and veterans' homes, like the king facility in wapaca county. >> reporter: there are 52 members currently in quarantine, and there are 25 staff members currently out of the work unit with positive covid tests. >> reporter: wisconsin and new mexico are two of ten states that just reported their single highest day of new cases ever. the numbers are daunting all the way around. the u.s. topped 60,000 new cases in a single day for the first time since august 14th. 32 states today trending up in new cases. the u.s. just passed 8 million total cases of this virus. and america's top experts are very worried about the months ahead. >> as we move towards the winter, and the weather is getting colder, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to be outdoors and to be able to just naturally social distance, we're going to be creating opportunities, more opportunities for this virus to spread. it is a dangerous moment in history. >> reporter: experts say this year, even with so many americans desperate for some kind of celebration, holidays will have to be scaled back to combat the virus. the cdc has just issued new guidelines for how americans can stay safe at thanksgiving. among them, assess the infection rates in your community. consider postponing or cancelling activities. think about having outdoor dinners, weather permitting, or hosting virtual dinners. and limit the number of people at any gathering. mask wearing and distancing are more important than ever, america's leading voice on infectious disease says, and he's becoming impatient with people who aren't doing those things. >> so if you think by getting infected and saying -- poo-pooing the prevention modalities, you're living in a vacuum. you're becoming part of the problem. >> reporter: but dr. fauci emphasized that it is still not too late to turn the tide for what will happen with the virus this fall and winter if americans act responsibly, if state and local officials take the right public health measures, and he says you can do this without shutting the country down. we should also note we found out a short time ago dr. fauci is going to be among the first people that will see the critical data that will tell the country whether one of those coronavirus vaccines is safe. he is going to be among the first top experts to look at that critical data in the weeks ahead. >> certainly we trust dr. fauci and his team very, very seriously. bryan todd reporting for us, thank you very much. i want to bring in chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta for medical analysis. sanj sanjay, as you heard, the country has patssed 8 million confirmed cases with 218,000 just yesterday. francis collins says he expects the daily cases to start rising as well. just how dangerous, sanjay, are these high numbers we're seeing explode right now? >> well, you know, it's very concerning, wolf. obviously, if you're starting off this sort of wave going into the colder weather at this high a level of viral transmission, it's just a lot that you all of a sudden can build on. if you're starting at a lower level, it takes a while to get into that sort of exponential growth, starting at 50,000, 60,000 newly infected people a day. if they're each potentially spreading it to two or three, you can see how quickly it can reach that number. a big part of the problem is hospitals. hospital bed capacity is something that hospital cities are looking at all over the country right now, and typically around this time of year it's around 60% or so full. looking at the map here, in many states around the country, occupancy rate is already quite high. if you're already high and going into flu season, going into coronavirus season or worsening coronavirus season, i should say, that's a concern, wolf. i mean, that's why a lot of planning is going on in these communities now to say what happens if we are starting to run out of space? wisconsin is building these tents, these field hospitals. it's dangerous, wolf, and a lot of planning going into the place trying to avert some of the more tragic problems here. >> as you know, the u.s. surgeon general today warned that wisconsin clearly going in the wrong direction. the state's positivity rate nearly 23%. what would you say to anyone thinking of attending one of the president's rallies, and he's going to be in wisconsin tomorrow? >> you know, let me just remind you why positivity rate is such an important thing to look at. positivity rate of 23%. out of 100 people that were tested, 23 dame bacame back pos. what does that mean? why is it so concerning? that means if you're getting that many coming back positive, that means you're missing a lot more people who aren't getting tested. it's kind of like if you go fishing with a net. put the net down, you grab a bunch of fish. you think, oh, i grabbed a bunch of fish, there must be a lot more fish down there. it's the same thing with a positivity rate. why is it more dangerous in an area with a high positivity rate? if you go out, what is the likelihood you're going to come into contact with someone who is carrying the virus? it's much higher if you have a positivity rate of over 20% like we're seeing in wisconsin. you go to a rally, you're next to people closely clustered longer than 15 minutes. if people aren't masked, they're putting that virus into the air. outside is safer than inside, but any kind of gathering like that is the big concern. even aside from anything else that's going on in, in the middle of a pandemic, bringing large groups of people together is a bad idea, wolf. it's been a bad idea for months now. we know this, and the numbers are even worse than they were before. >> even if you're outside, you should engage in social distancing and certainly wear a mask to protect yourself and protect everyone else. pfizer now says, sanjay, that it will request an emergency use authorization for its potential coronavirus vaccine by the third week in november if it gets positive data. no guarantee, but potentially the third week in november. what hurdles does this vaccine need to pass? >> you know, it's basically two hurdles, and i'll preface by saying nobody knows what the data is yet except for this independent entity known as the data monitoring safety board. that's aesthetists, statisticians, nobody sees the data quite yet. what they're looking for is to say this is effective, at least 50% effective, this vaccine, and if two months of safety data don't show significant adverse effects. if it crosses those two hurdles, and pfizer hasn't seen the data, but they anticipate by middle of november that the data will be there, and if it's positive, they're going to go ahead and apply for this emergency use authorization. that's sort of been the plan all along. but i want to emphasize, again, as promising as it's been, we still haven't seen the data. we have to see that this vaccine actually works and isn't having adverse effects. >> we have to make sure it's effective, but also we have to make sure it's safe and that the side effects are really, really minimal. dr. sanjay gupta, thank you very much. always joining us with his expertise. joe biden says president trump is living in a dream world after repeatedly claiming the coronavirus is about to disappear. later we'll have more on the president's refusal to condemn a dangerous conspiracy theory labeled a domestic terror threat by the fbi. ooo that's sweet! freshly made footlong coming in hot! now only in the subway app, get a free footlong when you buy two. subway. eat fresh. want a hamburger, some fries, a drink, nuggets? 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really center to his closing argument here in michigan. he and his campaign believing that has a through line to so many issues, including amy coney barrett's nomination to the supreme court, republicans' efforts to dismantle the aca, and, of course, the coronavirus, and trump's response to the coronavirus. take a listen. >> he's still living in a dream world. he keeps telling us that this virus is going to disappear like america. he said, i think last night in his town hall -- i didn't have the pleasure of hearing it. i was doing one myself -- he said, we have turned the corner. my grandfather finnegan might say, he's gone around the bend. turned the corner? my lord, it's not disappearing. in fact, it's on the rise again. it's getting worse as predicted. we all know the terrible price this nation has paid. >> reporter: in the meantime, at his town hall last night in philadelphia, joe biden talked about a question he's dodged for weeks now, and that's whether he supports packing the supreme court. he has said that he doesn't want to give that answer because it's a distraction. he said last night he promised to give his answer on that before election day. meantime we move ever closer to election day. i'm here at a drive-in event. it's all about voter engagement, making sure people turn out for the polls. we learned today, wolf, that vice president biden's perhaps, biggest surrogate out there, former president barack obama, will hit the campaign trail in philadelphia next week. >> 13 days to go before election day. millions of americans have already voted. jessica, thank you very much. let's bring in our political correspondent abby phillip and political commentator vicari selle sellers. his ex chief of staff told friends that trump was the most flawed person i've ever met in my life. he came out suddenly seemingly so concerned about his former boss' character. >> it's not clear why john kelly, who didn't have a good relationship with this president, and hasn't for a very long, long time, won't say publicly what he's saying privately. the only thing i can gather about john kelly, from what i understand from people that know him, he's quite a circumstanpec person publicly, he doesn't want to get caught up in the drama. if he felt so strongly about it in private, he ought to let the public know publicly because he's one of the few people who has been so close to this president, worked for him for many years, and i think his opinion is important for voters to know as they go to the polls. >> so many of the president's former advisers are saying similar things. vikari, we just learned that president obama will make his first campaign stop for joe biden on wednesday in philadelphia, pennsylvania being a key state. this should do well for the vice president, doesn't it? >> it does, and he should feel glad that his former boss is on the campaign trail. he's the big dog. when you roll him out, it's going to be energy abound for this campaign. it's going to be new wind beneath its sails. barack obama is someone who is going to pitch a message much like joe biden of unifying this country, of bringing this country together whether or not you're in north carolina or whether or not you're in ohio or pennsylvania. he's someone, a lot like john kelly knows donald trump, barack obama knows joe biden and he will be able to speak to his character, he'll be able to speak to his fortitude and who he is and he'll also be able to talk about moving this country forward. the republican party doesn't have anything like it. larry hogan voted for ronald reagan today. >> yeah, making a huge statement there. abby, only 18 days to go. we're seeing the president very much on the defensive right now. what are the locations of president trump's campaign stops reveal to you about how his team is viewing this race with only a few days left? >> i think probably the only thing that you need to know about how the president's team is viewing this race is where he is tonight, where he's heading right as we speak, macon, georgia. he's going to georgia to try to defend that state that he won the last time around. that should be a state that he should be able to win this time around if he were in a strong position. he was also campaigning in north carolina, another state. he should be able to, if he were in a strong position as a republican, he ought to be able to win that state pretty easily without investing resources in the last 20 days. this is a president who is defending a map and a very narrow path to victory, and that narrow path may very well require that he wins north carolina. it will also require that he wins florida, which is a state that he's been campaigning in recently as well. so the trump campaign, despite what the president is saying, knows that this is a map that is not trending in their direction. they're not in a position to expand the map, they're only trying to defend what they did last time around, and i think that defensive territory is actually. broader territo -- much broader territory than they would like it to be at this point. >> thank you very much. tune in this weekend for an inside look at the trump presidency from those who worked for the president. jake tapper's special cnn report "the insiders: a warning from former trump officials." that will air at 9:00 p.m. eastern on this edition of the situation room. we have president trump's dangerous referral to qanon which they say is a terror threat. representative adam schiff will join me in the situation room. we'll discuss a russian disinformation campaign targeting the biden family. we'll be right back. helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud... or the city government going digital to keep critical services running. you are creating the future-- on the fly. and we are helping you do it. vmware. realize what's possible. and a majority of americans. say the vote for the next supreme court justice should wait till after the election. but instead of letting our voices be heard, trump and mcconnell are rushing it through and taking a short cut to the highest court in the land. there's a pandemic devastating every corner of the country, but they're just rushing to play politics with the court. it's a lifetime appointment, tell senators to do it right. demand justice is responsible for the content of this advertising. anti-extremist organizations are sounding the alarm after president trump refused to condemn qanon, a conspiracy group that's been labeled a domestic terror threat by the fbi. let's continue the discussion with the ceo of the anti-defamation league, jonathan greenblatt. jonathan, thanks so much for joining us. let me remind you and our viewers what the president said about this dangerous group last night. watch this. >> i know nothing about qanon. i know very little. >> i just told you. >> you told me, but what you told me doesn't necessarily make it fact, i hate to say that. i know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against pedophilia. they fight it very hard. but i know nothing about it. >> they believe it is a satanic cult run by the dnc. >> he's clearly not condemning this conspiracy theory. the president of the united states actually encouraging a totally insane movement out there as pouring fuel on the fire, jonathan. >> yes. you know, woflf, as i said last night, as soon as i saw that, it is shockingly irresponsible that president trump refused to disavow qanon, which you say is a dangerous and unhinged hateful conspiracy theory that proposed anti-semitism, proposed acts of violence. what i can here is claiming ignorance is absolutely unacceptable. when you're the president of the united states, you just can't credibly say i don't know who david duke is, i don't know who the proud boys are or i don't know who qanon is. particularly when the president is on record saying he watches cable evening news all the time. obviously he knows exactly who these people are, wolf, and if you're not willing to call out a domestic terror threat, a group that wants to cause violationen the home land, that's a dereliction of duty at its best. >> he said, i don't know much about the movement other than i understand they like me very much, which i appreciate. he knows at least that much, and it's pretty shocking he simply can't condemn this organization. tell us why they're so dangerous. >> look, qanon started in about 2017 on a service call to f fortran. i believe their follow rerz erse tens of thousands. they believe it is a conspiracy run by cabals. we track extremists, and i can tell on you qanon boards today, we watch them. and these extremists believe last night was a huge win. they believe it's a win because simply being discussed on a platform of a broadcast news program for them feels like a victory. when president trump claims he doesn't know what they are but actually states what he believes is their core purpose, fighting semantic pedophiles, he is showing them code. he is approving of them. that's why they feel emboldened today. as i said a moment ago, whether it was a qanon enthusiast trying to attack a pizza parlor in d.c. or other acts of violence, these people are dangerous and they don't deserve to be dignified by the president of the united states or anyone in public life. >> have you or other leaders in the adl actually kplukcommunicao the white house to express this concern? >> again and again. we've spoken to people at the highest levels of government publicly and privately to explain that in order to eliminate this kind of threat, you've got to denounce it clearly and cogently. i've never had a moment like this before that i've seen in public life. there are plenty of responsible politicians on both sides of the aisle, but when the president himself signals that this is somehow normal, that it's just simply a group he's not aware of, i got to say it sends them a signal. they feel emboldened by this. they already think, wolf, that the president is retweeting their memes. suggesting it's somehow normal, it's giving them the entry they need into public life. >> jonathan greenblatt, thank you very much. we're going to stay on top of this story for our viewers. just ahead, i'll speak live to adam schiff about a russian disinformation campaign targeting joe biden and his son hunter. plus, multiple states are now reporting a huge surge in early voting. will 2020 set a record for turnout? we'll be right back. and whu get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. been there, done that. twice your cousin. from boston. karen, i'm just gonna say what everyone here is thinking. you look smokin. total smokeshow. and they never did find his finger. they had to close the pool for like an hour. ♪ i brought a date. name's sam. dig in. love is like boston lager. rich, complex and it's over too soon. right, chrissy? oh my god. ♪ federal authorities, including the fbi, are investigating whether recently published e-mails that purport to detail the business dealings of joe biden's son hunter are connected to an ongoing russian disinformation effort targeting the biden campaign in the days leading up to the election. let's discuss with the chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. congressman, thank you so much for joining us. does it surprise you at all that this information rudy giuliani is peddling very well could be connected to some sort of russian government disinformation campaign? >> well, we know that this whole smear on joe biden comes from the kremlin. that's been clear for well over a year now, that they've been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son. and, you know, the idea that the preside president, that the white house counsel and others were made aware that giuliani was being used by russian intelligence and using russian intelligence in the sense of meeting with an agent of the kremlin and pushing out this kremlin false narrative, the idea that they were knowing and still on the floor of the senate during the impeachment trial, pushing this kremlin narrative is pretty breathtaking, but i guess at this point we can't be shocked by anything this administration does, no matter how craven. clearly the origins of this whole smear are from the kremlin, and the president is only too happy to have kremlin help and try to amplify it. >> it's not like rudy giuliani is peddling this information in a vacuum, congressman. take a look at this president in the oval office holding up a copy of the new york post, touting this conspiracy theory. it's made its way all the way to the commander in chief with a big smile on his face. >> yes. well, look, i think we know who the driving force behind this smear has been all along and it's been the president and the kremlin. the kremlin has an obvious interest in denigrating joe biden. they want donald trump to win. they recognize he's a weak president. he's been utterly unwilling to stand up to putin and other autocrats. he's diminished nato, he's weakened our alliance with our trans-atlantic partners. he's been the gift that doesn't top giving. clearly they want to re-elect him. they've made that abundantly clear. this particular smear, though, has come from the kremlin, and there it is from the oval office, another propaganda coup from vladimir putin, showing the president of the united states holding up a newspaper crediting kremlin propaganda. it's really incredible. >> when the president was actually warned about concerns from giuliani, where he was getting all this information, warned by u.s. intelligence, law enforcement authorities, the president simply shrugged his shoulders and responded, that's rudy. how much is that a part of the problem here that the president, at least according to this reporting in the "washington post," doesn't seem to care? >> well, it's a big part of the problem, and we know for a long time, look, rudy giuliani doesn't, you know, run the president, the president runs rudy giuliani. giuliani is doing the president's bidding. he was doing the president's bidding late last year and earlier this year in ukraine, he was doing the president's bidding when he was meeting with an agent of the kremlin. he was doing his president's bidding when he was pushing out this smear and trying to get the ukranians to push out this smear of his opponent because he was deathly afraid of being exactly where we are right now, which is less than three weeks before the election, losing badly to joe biden. but the fact that he would continue to do it, i guess at this point shouldn't surprise us, but this is the story of donald trump. utter unwillingness to stand up to the kremlin, unwillingness to use their help no matter how dishonest or disreputable, unwillingness to undermine our own elections by getting kremlin help and amplifying it. there's only one thing left and that's to vote him out. >> have you, as a member of the gang of eight in the top leadership in the congress, the senate, the house and the intelligence committee, have you been formally briefed on what the russians are up to right now in trying to peddle this kind of information? >> well, i was in the intelligence committee today to see what the latest was, and frankly, we haven't gotten much from the intelligence community very recently, which concerns me. at times some of the leadership, like director radcliffe, not been very forthcoming in terms of the intelligence on the russian threat and have been promoting this false equivalence throughout the countries. i wish i could tell you more, wo wolf. i wish the intelligence community was able to tell the public more. but we do know this. the russians are once again actively involved in trying to denigrate the vice president, donald trump is helping them, and we know that they are amplifying the president's misinformation about absentee ballots. this is another gift the president is giving the russians. unlike 2016 when the russians had to make up this stuff, they now can simply use the president's own false statements and amplify them. it is extraordinary, wolf, that a president of the united states is telling his own citizens and the rest of the world that america can't hold a free and fair election. the kremlin just has to push out that false narrative by the president of the united states. >> congressman adam schiff, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. just ahead, more than 20 million general election ballots have already been cast here in the united states as more states report record increases in early voting. we'll be right back. try my favorite, turkey. order on the app. anything for my fans. try the new subway buffalo chicken or bbq chicken. ...this one's for you. you inspired us to make 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[motorcycle beeps] in the tubbs fire. the flames, the ash, it was terrifying. thousands of family homes are destroyed in wildfires. families are forced to move and higher property taxes are a huge problem. prop 19 limits taxes on wildfire victims so families can move without a tax penalty. nineteen will help rebuild lives. vote 'yes' on 19. with just 18 days to go until the election here in the united states, states across the country are seeing huge turnout for early voting. and we're learning more about how many americans have already cast their ballots. cnn's senior white house correspondent pamela brown is tracking all of this for us. >> i see it as probably being one of the most important elections in my lifetime going forward. >> reporter: and it seems she's not alone. not by a long shot. more than 20 million americans have already voted according to data from 45 states and washington, d.c. analyzed by cnn, edison, and catalyst. in north carolina, these long lines on the first day of early voting thursday were the first indicator of huge turnout in the tarheel state. the state board of elections is tweeting that more than 330,000 voters cast ballots on day one. that is believed to be a new record, beating the 304,000 ballots cast on the first day in 2016. in georgia, they've seen a 62% increase in early, in-person voters compared to the same time four years ago. a similar story in tennessee, where early voting in person or by mail started yesterday. and they've already seen a 91% increase compared to 2016. >> i think more of the millennial and younger are a little bit more aware and maybe are more wanting to get out there and more aware of the issues. >> reporter: in pennsylvania, the secretary of state says she expects that full results from mail-in ballots won't be available until the friday after election day. >> sometimes you might have an omission or an illegible post park, but they can be counted. >> reporter: and in michigan today, the secretary of state there announcing that people can't carry guns on election day at polling places. saying in a statement she's "committed to ensuring all eligible michigan citizens can freely exercise their fundamental right to vote without fear of threats, intimidation, or harassment." >> i don't feel he's been treated fairly by the democrats at all. >> reporter: in florida, the edge democrats have in voter registration is narrowing. about 134,000 more democrats are registered to vote than republicans, which is down from 2016. when they led by about 327,000. and in california -- >> you know what? it's not -- you can't just trust anybody right now. >> reporter: that frustration, part of a week-long drop box drama. the secretary of state announcing this afternoon the california republican party agreed to no longer deploy these unofficial ballot drop boxes, which were found in at least four counties. a move the former republican governor arnold schwarzenegger called -- >> it's a stupid thing they're doing right now with the ballot boxes. >> reporter: and wolf, in florida, election officials are taking steps to remove ex-felons who owe court debts from the voter roles. this comes after a democratic led effort to raise millions of dollars to pay off those -- that debt that the court debt to those ex-felons can vote after a ruling earlier this year. but election officials are taking steps to remove those ex-felons from the voter roles. >> pamela brown, thank you very much. more news right after this. u ca. i got this great shampoo you should try. yeah you look good. of course i do neal, i'm kevin hart. now earn 3% at drugstores and so much more. chase. make more of what's yours. but a resilient business you cacan be ready for it.re. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hundreds of apps quickly to the cloud... or the city government going digital to keep critical services running. you are creating the future-- on the fly. and we are helping you do it. vmware. realize what's possible. some things are good to know. like where to find the cheapest gas in town and which supermarket gives you the most bang for your buck. something else that's good to know. if you have medicare you may be able to get more benefits without paying more through a medicare advantage plan. call now to request this free guide. learn about plans that could give you more benefits from humana. a company with nearly 60 years of experience in the healthcare industry. humana offers a wide range of all in one medicare advantage plans that include medical and prescription drug coverage. plus valuable extras that may include the silver sneakers fitness program and mail order prescription coverage. with humana you'll have lots of doctors and specialist to choose from and peace of mind, knowing you're covered for doctor's visits and hospital stays. plus routine physicals and preventative care all for an affordable plan premium and in many areas no plan premium. you'll also get zero dollar co-pays on telehealth visits, unlimited inpatient hospital stays, plus an annual out of pocket limit for added peace of mind. humana even rewards you for making healthy choices like staying on top of preventative care. many plans also include, dental, vision and hearing coverage. and when it comes to prescriptions, in 2019 human's medicare advantage prescription drug plan members saved an estimated 7,800 dollars on average on their prescription costs. so if you want more from medicare, call now to learn about humana medicare options that are good for your health and your wallet. a licensed humana sales agent will walk you through your options, answer any questions you have and help you enroll over the phone. plans with a zero dollar monthly plan premium are available in many areas. call now and we'll also send this free guide. humana, a more human way to healthcare. i'll be back for a special edition of "the situation room" tomorrow, 6:00 p.m. eastern. until then, thanks for watching. erin burnett "outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, the director of the national institutes of health with a dire warning tonight, as president trump claims the u.s. is rounding the corner on the pandemic. and, again, the same day the number of cases in the united states crosses 8 million. biden promising voters what trump has failed to do over the last four years, unite the country. and tonight he's beating the president where it hurts the president the most. and president trump promoting a baseless qanon conspeary theory that osama bin laden was not skilled. a member of s.e.a.l. team six
8.3 million cases. stark sign of the worsening pandemic in the united states. not a single state is trending in the right direction right now. if it was, we would be showing that in green on this map. you don't see any green. breaking this hour. moments from now, we will hear directly from the former president of the united states barack obama in his first campaign stump speech since the democratic convention and he'll be making the case for joe biden. when it happens we will bring it to you live. this comes with just 13 days left until the election and more than 40 million votes already cast. we are tracking it all, including the path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the white house. we begin our coverage with our cheer white house correspondent jim acosta. less than two weeks and 13 days to go until election day, president trump appears to be growing more erratic. >> reporter: that's right. president trump is back to his old tricks of manufacturing bright shiny objects when he is in big political trouble. the president is on the attack against a slew of targets from the media to dr. anthony fauci before you president is defending his record on the coronavirus saying, quote not much would change in how he handled the pandemic. the coronavirus surge blanketings the u.s. president trump says he has no regretings when it comes to his handle, the pandemic and saying this week he wouldn't change much on sinclair television. >> with covid, is there anything you think you could have done differently if you had a do-over on one aspect what would it be? >> not much. all over the world a lot of great leaders and a lot of smart people and it's all over the world. >> reporter: trying to switch subjects the president is tweet out photos of his recent interview with leslie stahl who grilled president trump. the president is warning over twitter i'm pleased to stel you i'm posting my interview with leslie stahl prior to air time so everybody can get a glimpse of what a fake and biased interview is all about. >> i've looked at every single minute of the interview and we have tape of every single minute. when you have a "60 minutes" reporter they should be an reporter and not an opinion journalist and she came more like an opinion journalist than a real reporter. journalism should have standards and we need to get to the bottom of it so i think the american people will be able to see it. >> reporter: for the president the last two weeks of the campaign have become a journey into mr. trump's grievance-filled psyche as he is talking about kristen welker a well-respected nbc news journ journali journalist. >> the fact that kristen welker is a die in the world left democrat or whatever she is. the only thing i say is a little bit sometimes not a team player. but he is a democrat. and i think that he is just fine. >> reporter: and calling democrat joe biden all sorts of things without any proof. >> joe biden is a criminal and he has been a criminal a long time. >> reporter: down in the polls the president sounds like he is laying the groundwork for blaming the virus if he loses. >> before the plague came in, i had it made. i wasn't coming here to erie. i have to be honest. no way i was coming. we had this thing won. we were so far up and we had the greatest economy ever and greatest jobs, everything and then hit by the plague. >> reporter: "the new york times" reported mr. trump has had a bank account in china where he has paid taxes in recent years. >> most of the time those accounts, whether they exist or not, i don't know. i have not' talked to the president. that. normally those are more operational for the region. >> reporter: biden remains in debate prep allowing former president barack obama to get out the vote. >> this is really a tipping point and that momentum only continues if we win this election. in times of these, your vote doesn't just matter. it matters more than ever before. >> reporter: i'm told by administration officials before mr. trump started trackering dr. anthony fauci as a disaster the two men did speak during president's recovery from covid-19 and following that discussion between mr. trump and dr. anthony fauci the white house was in contact with the doctor about the president's condition prior to last week's town hall. >> thank you, jim acosta. president obama's speech in philadelphia is coming up soon. bryan todd is joining us. major news from the centers for disease control and prevention some. >> reporter: that is right. the cdc is out with what it is to have close contact with someone with covid-19. the previous definition if you're six feet within someone 15 minutes or more and now they say it could be smorthorter spu and would be 15 minutes of time if it adds up to 25 minutes within 24 hours. local and state officials are left to be the ones making crucial decisions in fighting local outbreaks. 24-hour diner in chicago prepares to shut down dining for at least a couple of weeks indoors. >> i never felt like something this could happen, you know. >> reporter: illinois is experiencing rising cases and hospitalizations and imposing new restrictions on gatherings in bars, restaurants, and other businesses. >> there is no easy fix for the effect of this virus on our economy and on our public health but we can and we will manage through this. we are midwestern tough in illino illinois. >> reporter: comes as they scramble to contain spikes across the country. washington's state governor says college students in his state are contributing to what he calls a raging spread of the virus. and he is rhytimposing rase ini requirements and two students per dorm break. >> today more than 800 cases at college and universities directly attributable to these social gatherings associated with campuses. >> reporter: at the university of michigan, a stay in place order imposed due to heavy cases. tonight more than half the states in the u.s. report a rise in new coronavirus cases. no states are trending downward. more than 60,000 new cases were reported in america yesterday alone with hospitalizations at around 40,000, the highest in two months. >> it's going to be up to local states to different jurisdictions trying to create a patch work of capacity to stop the virus because right now, we simply don't have national leadership leaning in and helping us get past this. >> reporter: also new tonight, the cdc updating its definition of close contact with someone who has covid. instead of just staying 15 minutes within six feet, they are warning of cumulative exposure so several short contacts could be considered exposure if it adds up to 15 minutes over 24 hours. >> been determined that individual who had a series of shorter contacts but, over time, added up to more than 15 minutes, became infected. >> reporter: there is new push back to the idea of so-called herd immunity, letting the virus run unchecked through communities so more people would contract covid-19. the thought being some could later develop resistance to the virus. it's been promoted by some people in the trump administration. but, today, the president's own surgeon general dr. jerome adams tweeted that herd immunity to lead to large numbers of demgs. and sa deaths. as people push for a safe covid-19 van, a person in brazil that was taking a part in a trial of the vaccine has died. the international committee viewing the vaccines recommend that the trial continues. >> it's not clear initial when you hear those sorts of reports of death exactly what happened or even if the person received the vaccine or received the placebo. when you're dealing with tens of thousands of people in these trials, i think the point they are making is sometimes these deaths can occur even in placebo groups for even reasons unrelated. >> reporter: he should note that ast ast no reason to believe that illness and death of a volunteer in brazil are in any way connect connected. let's get more. the dean of the brown university school of public health is with us. doctor, thank you for joining us. i want your reaction to the breaking news you just heard that the cdc now redefining what they consider to be a close contact with someone who has the coronavirus. explain this new guidance for us. >> absolutely, wolf. thank you for having me on. you know, what it says is that we used to think about close contact and exposure as a single 15-minute you spent time with somebody. what we are learning it can be cumulative over time so five minutes at the water cooler, five minutes later on in the morning or later on in the afternoon. that over time if you're exposed to somebody and they are not wearing a mask and they are infected, you can get infected. it re row iterates the importance of wearing a mask and second you have to maintain social distance more than six feet if you're in a situation where somebody could being infected. >> makes so much sense and easy to do. thousands of people would have survived if they would have been doing that with their friends, associates, their colleagues. does the fact that we are now considering cumulative exposure rather than just continuous exposure mean that additional people whop might have thought they weren't at risk, based on the old cdc guidance, should actually now quarantine? >> yeah. i think so. we have not seen the updating from quarantining but based on the new definition it stands to reason that the definition of who needs to quarantine is also -- also needs to change, wolf. i think that is going to be important. the key point for people to remember is that there is no safe period of time to be with somebody who is not part of your bubble if both of you are not wearing masks. it's really critical that people wear masks if you're going to be with somebody for any extended period of time even if it's less than 15 minutes. >> look at the nationwide trend map of new coronavirus cases, doctor. not a single state is reporting a decline. very different situation than the outbreak in the early spring which was mostly concentrated in just a handful of states. now the virus, look at it. it seems to be everywhere across the country. could these coming next few months be the worst of the entire pandemic? >> yeah. we have certainly heard from other experts like dr. ost osterholm. we know so much more than than three, six months ago we can stave off that put a lot of pandemic fatigue setting in and no national leadership and we needs governors to step up and have individuals be much more careful if we don't want large-scale outbreaks across the nation. >> 933 americans died yesterday from the virus yesterday. our deepest condolences from their family. we are standing by take hear from former president barack obama as he makes a stump beach for joe biden since the convention and he is talking to voters out there so we will talk about it with his senior former adviser valerie jarrett who is standing by live. with 13 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[makes playful sound] i take care of my skin. not this skin. that skin. and when you've got incontinence, you sure need to. tena intimates pads lock liquid in, and are now 100% breathable to care for your intimate skin. are you still here? kind to skin. protects like tena. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ here is barack obama on the campaign trail. >> no question time is running out in this race. president obama is hitting the campaign trail and focusing on states that are already doing early voting and that is pennsylvania. this is a critical state. the 20 electoral votes here are so important. president trump in the state last night but he is making his case here and, wolf, we saw something a few minutes ago and not seen in a long time. barack obama on a street corner in philadelphia with a bull horn. you can see they are making his case to voters and he is handing out some paraphernalia from the biden and harris campaign and we will hear him deliver a speech at a drive-in rally. you can hear the honking behind me as other democratic speakers warm up this crowd. we heard from president obama a few moments ago talking about the importance of this race and particularly coronavirus. take a listen. >> the degree of incompetence and misinformation, the number of people who might not have died had we just done the basics, the degree to which it has impacted low income communities so disproportiona disproportionate disproportionately, that is something that i'm not just -- i'm not just confident it can be fixed. there is proof. >> reporter: that message there from the former president talking directly about the trump administration handling of coronavirus. i'm told mr. obama has three objectives in mind here and african-american voters, latino voters, and younger voters in particular. they are trying to drive home the importance of this election and trying to boost the enthusiasm for the biden campaign somewhat. a bit of enthusiasm gap among those three segments of the electorate. he is starting tonight campaigning in philadelphia. >> he wants to make sure the turnout is huge for biden. thanks very much for that. we will have live coverage of the former president's speech. we stand by to hear from president obama. we are joined by his former senior adviser valerie jarrett with a new book called "finding my voice when the perfect land crumbles the adventure begins." there you see it. valerie, what are you hoping president obama can do for joe biden's campaign at today's event in this the final stretch? >> well, he is the closer. he is delighted to be back in a state that he and vice president biden won not once but twice. you saw him out there with a bull horn. you know how much he loves retail politics and this gives him a chance to speak directly to the people of pennsylvania but the people around the country about why he thinks that vice president biden is uniquely qualified to lead our country right now. you heard him talking about the total mishandling of the covid epidemic and what is particularly painful i think about this is it didn't have to be this way. we hand it over to the trump administration really basically a rule book from what we had learned from h1n1 and ebola and the steps they could take to divert this type of disaster and we did a tabletop demonstration to them during the transition and, obviously, they weren't paying attention to that. i think drilling home how the disproportionate impact this has had on people of color and low income communities and what is at stake in this election and a further message about the biden/hair it's presidency and given the fact he served with vice president biden for all eight years. there wasn't a decision he made without seeking vice president's council. the president looked at the decision making from the perspective how is this going to help the american people and no one better suited to deliver that closing message than president obama. >> president obama picked joe biden to be his vice presidential running mate. president obama has shied away from directly criticism from president trump the fast four years. do you expect him in the speech coming up very soon, we will have coverage here in "the situation room," to address president trump specifically? >> i think he will provide a sharp contrast between the vision, the competency, the ability, the empathy of vice president biden and senator harris in sharp contrast to what he has seen. yes, i think initially as he said before he left office, he would reserve his comments judicialio heard his voice in the equation and semple other occasions. you heard in the convention speech sharp and pointed contrast by him and his wife both. i think tonight as we enter into the final stretch of this election it's important for him to raise the stakes dramatically and show the american people he is so firmly behind joe biden and in contrast the track record of president trump would is now running on that record. this is not an aspirational candidacy. he has a record he will have to justify and i think president obama will be very clear about how far short he has fallen in delivering for the american people. >> you heard jeff zeleny's report. part of president obama's goal is reach out specifically to black men, latinos and younger americans. is this about making the case for biden over trump or more persuading a lot of folks who stayed home and didn't vote in 2016 to come out and vote this year? >> i don't think it's either/or. i think it's both. we know 100 million americans did not turn out to vote in 2016. that is a travesty. i think he wants to call to the attention of everyone what is at stake, encourage people to vote safely during early vote. we have seen a record number of folks turn out for early vote as you know, wolf, and that is terrific. he will encourage that to continue to happen so we don't see excessively long lines on election day. we are already seeing lines that are far too long in parts of the country so he will encourage people to get out and participate and exercise that most important fundamental responsibility of citizenship. he is all in for senator biden and senator harris. >> i hear that the former democratic president is campaigning for the current democratic presidential candidate, the former republican president george h.w. bush is silent. he is not out there campaigning for the republican incumbent president of the united states right now. a major difference right there. valerie jarrett, thank you for joining us. >> you're welcome, wolf. good night. coming up, update on where the candidates stand in the all-important race to winning that margin that is necessary to become president. 270 electoral votes. we will update on you that next. nellie young lost her devoted husband. without him, things were tough. her last option was to sell her home, but... her home meant everything to her. her husband had been a high school football coach and it turned out, one of his former players came up with an answer. a loan, created just for older homeowners. and pretty soon, nellie young had one of the first reverse mortgages. discover if a reverse mortgage loan is right for you. use it to eliminate monthly mortgage payments and increase cashflow, create an emergency fund, preserve retirement savings and more. call now for your free information kit. that first reverse mortgage loan meant nellie could stay in the home she loved so much, with memories that meant even more. a reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. it's a loan... and it's tax-free cash just when you need it. it's about making your retirement better. call today and find out more in aag's free, no-obligation reverse mortgage loan guide. access tax-free cash and stay in the home you love. of course, you can use it to pay some bills, cover medical costs, update or repair your home. but best of all, it eliminates those monthly mortgage payments so you get more cash in your pocket, every month. learn how you can use a reverse mortgage loan to cover your expenses, pay for healthcare, preserve retirement savings, and so much more. a lots changed since 1961... since then over a million older americans have used a reverse mortgage loan to finance their retirements. it meant so much to nellie, maybe it could mean as much to you... call now and get your free infokit breaking news we are awaiting former president barack obama first campaign stump speech for joe biden. the former president is in pennsylvania right now and president trump will be campaigning in north carolina. let's go to our political director. david, both campaigns focusing on getting the winning total of 270 electoral votes. what is the latest on the state-by-state races? we have two brand-new exclusive cnn polls. florida and pennsylvania. two critical states. in pennsylvania you see a ten-point lead here for joe biden and 53% for biden and 43% for trump along likely voters in pennsylvania. you see why we have it as lean democratic on our map. how about florida? no clear leader. 50% for biden and 46% for trump. florida remains a real tossup battleground state the way that we have it on the map. let's go to the map. knowing that state of play. let me show you donald trump's trend here which is that in the sun belt states, he's in margin of error races with joe biden. it's in the upper midwest region, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, joe biden is showing strength beyond the margin of error and having the lead and that complications donald trump's path to re-election. if we give him the sun belt region, florida, georgia, north carolina, let's say we give him arizona which right now we have leading biden but let's give it fo for the purposes of exercise to donald trump. we give him ohio and iowa okay? give joe biden this congressional district up here in maine for the purpose of this exercise. donald trump is still not at 270. he has to dig into a upper midwest state if that is the way the puzzle pieces fall here. one other point here let me show you. sorry. let me get back here. let's say our poll has 50% to 46% in florida biden/trump. what if florida actually goes blue? what if joe biden wins that race? i want you to see how that really blocks ohio, i'm giving everything to trump now. i'll give him arizona again and i'm even going to give him the congressional district in maine he won in 2016. if florida goes, jo joe biden at 308 electoral votes. even if trump wins pennsylvania and michigan he still wouldn't be there without florida. he would have to win all three of those midwest states. remember where our map currently stands in those midwestern rust belt states are biden strength right now. >> that is key, of course. david, thank you so much. let's get more on this. joining me now, is glori ieia br and abby phillip. the former president barack obama in pennsylvania is delivering a speech. first stop on the campaign trail for joe biden. what is the significance of this appearance in this location? >> the biden campaign is on offense. they would, of course, love to win pennsylvania as david pointed out. they have a lot of roads to get to 270. president of the united states really needs to win pennsylvania. our poll shows that he's really far behind right now. so obama going there is really about getting out those voters, those younger voters, those african-american voters particularly young black men and it is about voter enthusiasm. in our poll that david was just talking about on pennsylvania, there is a concerning number for the biden campaign which is when you ask voters whether they are in pennsylvania, whether they are extremely enthusiastic about their presidential vote, 61% of trump voters say they are. and 56% of biden voters say they are. that is not a huge gap. but it is a gap and i think what barack obama is trying to do is narrow that gap. try to explain to these young voters to whom joe biden is a foreign creature and say he can do what you want a president to do. obama becomes a big and important character witness. >> certainly does. abby, the biden campaign knows it needs that kind of support from younger voters and people of color that they need to show up and vote. president obama happens to resonate, obviously, particularly well with those voters. is that who is primary speaking to in a little while in philadelphia? >> i think that is a big part of the audience in philadelphia. four years ago one of the last campaign rallies that hillary clinton had was also in philadelphia and also featuring president obama. this has been a long running project for him to prove that his residence with young voter and black and hispanic voters and particularly black men is not a personality politician. he has struggled to convey that on other people and now he is trying to convey it to his former vice president. look. the problems that the biden campaign is having with younger minority voters are not necessarily specific to biden himself. it is about a broader problem with the democratic party proving to these voters that the party is working for them. so what obama is trying to do is temporarily overcome that in this election by saying you cannot sit this one out and unlike four years ago, they have now had four years of president donald trump so in some ways i think that argument is a little bit easier for the former president to make. >> turn out, turn out, as they say. thank you both very much. we will have more breaking news into "the situation room." we are learning now about the democrats' strategy for a crucial senate committee vote on putting judge amy coney barrett on the u.s. supreme court. we are standing by to hear directly from former president barack obama, his in-person campaign appearance for joe biden who is getting ready to start. we are going live to philadelphia as soon as it begins. after nearly four years of rejecting climate science, gutting protections for our air and water, and putting us at risk, isn't it time to wipe things clean? 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[makes playful sound] i take care of my skin. not this skin. that skin. and when you've got incontinence, you sure need to. tena intimates pads lock liquid in, and are now 100% breathable to care for your intimate skin. are you still here? kind to skin. protects like tena. remember standing by to hear directly from former president barack obama. he's in philadelphia and delivering his first stump speech for joe biden and stand by for that. in the meantime, cnn investigation. new information coming into a conspiracy theory about the origins of coronavirus promoted by allies of president trump. our senior investigative correspondent drew griffin is joining us now. you found steve bannon, trump's strategy i-? >> reporter: that's right. all linked to a chinese scientist who is hiding and every on dr. lee, a chins scientist in hiding but appearing everywhere on right wing media and claiming her two research papers prove the virus that caused covid-19 was created in a chinese lab and is a chinese bioweapon. >> it is bioweapon in unrestricted way. >> reporter: a cnn investigation has found shoddy citations and so many scientists who say it's bunk. her paper is not a credible scientific work but it is directly linked to one of donald trump's former top strategist steve bannon. >> do you believe that a superspreader was actually sent and somehow focused on the white house or focused on president trump? >> what? what is that? >> reporter: that 100% comes from chinese billionaire and compile miles qo who is using his money and ban owen's expertise to try to discredit the chinese government. the two appear together on bannon and podcast and began two nonprofits together. the rule of law society and rule of law foundation. these are the groups who say they support dr. lee yang and appear on the top of her research reports. columbia university angela rasmussen says it's scientific junk. >> anybody with a background in biology who reads this paper will realize much of it is actually nonsense. >> reporter: cnn as for to a half dozen scientists who say yang's had half-truths and one said the first stay wasn't plausible. one says the paper lacked a basic obligation to scientific practices. >> also really disturbed to see such a shoddy piece of work. >> reporter: and cnn could find no trace of yang's three coauthors in the u.s. or china. yan didn't respond to tell us why but a source says the three co-authors are sued nims for chinese-basted scientists who refuse to use their own names but the source offered no proof. steve bannon offered no response. yet there is more about yan's work. some of the sources of her research appear not to be credible. a lady getting a ph.d. in chemical biology first alerted cnn to citations at the end of yan's. >> these are not coming from credible sources and i think that is concerning. >> reporter: a paper only appeared as a post on a linkedin a report written by a person that cnn cannot locate running a company that does not seem to exist. three of the citations that link to genetically modify food and citation 23 that links to a post published in march. part of yan's paper are pulled from these anonymous blogs. >> it has the same esffect. >> they took things that were the same and put that into yan's paper and that does not happen in science. >> reporter: guess where one of those blogs first appeared months before yan's paper? g-news, the disinformation news site linked to steve bannon and miles gow. >> as much as i hate to think of them using their work for political propaganda to me what it seems to be. >> reporter: there is just no information this is anything more than just made-up disinformation. what is frightening is millions of americans may be being fed this disinformation and actually believing it. >> you're absolutely right. excellent reporting, drew. thank you so much for that. to our viewers, stay with us. we are about to go live to philadelphia when the former president of the united states barack obama begins his remarks at a drive-in rally for joe biden. we will be right back. ♪ alexa, tell roomba to vacuum in front of the couch. experience clean in a whole new way. now roomba offers you personalized cleaning suggestions and vacuums exactly where you need it. by getting to know you and your home, roomba makes cleaning easier than ever before. so say goodbye to cleaning and hello to clean. hey google, tell roomba to vacuum the dining room table. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. to stir that fire, university of phoenix is awarding up to one million dollars in scholarships through this month. see what scholarship you qualify for at phoenix.edu. live pictures coming in from philadelphia. getting ready to hear from the former president of the united states, barack obama. it's a drive-in rally that is going on over there. folks driving their cars in, socially distanced, of course. we'll have live coverage of the former president once he starts speaking. in the meantime there's some breaking news coming in from capitol hill on the fight over confirmation of judge amy coney barrett to the u.s. supreme court. let's quickly go to cnn's manu raju. manu, tell us what you're hearing. >> reporter: yeah, pretty extraordinary move by senate democrats, who sit on that committee. they announced that they plan to boycott tomorrow's key committee vote that would advance the nomination of amy coney barrett to the senate floor. there are ten democrats on the committee. the ten democrats do not plan to attend. instead they plan to put pictures of people affected by the affordable care act in their seats instead. of course this all comes as the democrats' message has been -- >> manu, i'm going to interrupt you. we're going to get back to you. but we're told -- here he comes, the former president of the united states. he's got a mask that says "vote." there he is, barack obama. this is his first stump speech for the biden campaign since the democratic convention. got a nice crowd over there in philadelphia. but they've driven their cars there. you'll see a wide shot fairly soon. the former president, let's listen in. >> hello, philadelphia! [ cheers and honking ] man, it is good to be back in pennsylvania. what beautiful weather we've got here, a little indian summer. you know, i know the president spent some time in erie last night. and apparently he complained about having to travel here. then he cut the event short. poor guy. i don't feel that way. i love coming to pennsylvania. you guys delivered for me twice, and i am back here tonight to ask you to deliver the white house for joe biden and kamala harr harris. i want to thank mr. philadelphia, charlie mack. his daughter, india marie. what an outstanding young lady she was. those of you who are fathers and have daughters, you know how that feels when you see your daughters just shining. i know a little bit about that. and it was great to see representatives brendan boyle, mary gay scanlon, governor tom wolfe, attorney general josh shapiro, mayor jim kenney. philadelphia. we've got 13 days. that's our lucky number. 13 days until the most important election of our lifetimes. and you don't have to wait for november 3rd to cast your ballot. you've got two ways to vote right now. number one, you can vote early in person through next tuesday. how many people -- anybody here voted early already? [ cheers and honking ] if you haven't just go to iwillvote.com/pa and find out where you can vote early. number two, you can vote from home with a mail-in ballot. just go to iwillvote.com/pa to request your ballot right away. and before you send it back, pennsylvania's got this thing where you've got to use both envelopes. so you've got to read the directions carefully to make sure your vote counts. and if you've already voted, then you've got to help your friends and family make a plan to vote. take them with you if you vote early or if you vote in person on election day. because this election requires every single one of us to do our part. and what we do these next 13 days will matter for decades to come. now, last time i was in philadelphia i was at the constitution center. and i was delivering a speech for the democratic national convention this year. and i said during that speech, i've sat in the oval office with both of the men who are running for president. and they are very different people. i explained that i never thought donald trump would embrace my vision or continue my policies. but i did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously. but it hasn't happened. he hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends or treating the presidency like a reality show he can use to get attention. and by the way, even then his tv ratings are down. so you know that upsets him. but the thing is this is not a reality show. this is reality. and the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously. at least 220,000 americans have died. more than 100,000 small businesses have closed. millions of jobs are gone. our proud reputation around the world is in tatters. presidents up for re-election usually ask if the country is better off than it was four years ago. i'll tell you one thing, four years ago you'd be tailgating here at the linc instead of watching a speech from your cars. [ cheers and honking ] the only people truly better off than they were four years ago are the billionaires who got his tax cuts. right now as we speak trump won't even extend relief to the millions of families who are having trouble paying the rent or putting food on the table because of this pandemic. but he's been doing all right by himself. as it turns out, this was just reported in the last 48 hours, we know that he continues to do business with china because he's got a secret chinese bank account. how is that possible? how is that possible? a secret chinese bank account. listen, can you imagine if i had had a secret chinese bank account when i was running for re-election? you think my -- you think fox news might have been a little concerned about that? they would have called me beijing barry. it is not a great idea to have a president who owes a bunch of money to people overseas. that's not a good idea. i mean, of the taxes donald trump pays he may be sending more to foreign governments than he pays in the united states. his first year in the white house he only paid $750 in federal income tax. listen, my first job was at a baskin-robbins when i was 15 ye
thanks for being with us. you're live in the cnn news room. it's been exactly one week since cnn projected joe biden will become the nec president of the united states. president trump is still refusing to concede. many of his supporters are following suit buying into the physical's fal president's false claims of rigged election. they are protesting the results that election experts say was fair and the most secure in u.s. history. listen to cheers as the president's motorcade drove by. the president's refusal to accept reality and concede has resulted in a dangerous development. last of customary transition of power. president-elect biden is working with his own coronavirus task force with no help from the white house as the country continues to break tragic records in the pandemic. the u.s. has passed 100,000 new cases. it's the 12th straight day and yesterday, the u.s. reported more than 184,000 new cases. the highest single day number of new infections since the pandemic began. what with relearning about the president's mind set this weekend? >> reporter: it's been week now since joe biden was projected the winner of the presidential election and over this past week we have seen the president's on twitter and in public make very clear he is going to continue to fight to contest this election. privately he's been kind of waivering between wanting to pursue the lawsuits and continue to keep up the fight while also beginning to acknowledge the reality of the situation. that reality being that joe biden will be the next president of the united states. you saw part of that realization peek its head as the president was making remarks in the rose garden. listen to what he said. >> this administration will not be going to a lockdown. hopefully the -- whatever happens in the future. who knows which administration it will be. i guess time will tell. this administration will not go to a lockdown. >> reporter: what you could see there is the president at least acknowledging the possibility of a different administration succeeding him. that being the administration of president-elect joe biden but today we saw the president make go through the crowd that's gathered in washington, d.c. in support of the president arguing that this election, parroting the same false claims of the president that the election is rigged and stolen. the president driving through a crowd of supporters there. in the wake, the president seemed to be especiallier apologized by the prospect of keeping up the fight. taking to twitter in the last couple of hours as we returned from his golf course to parrot the same claims. claiming this is a rigged and corruption election saying we will win. what is very clear is the president is not winning. he is not winning in lawsuits he's filed in several of the key battleground states. yesterday, nine lawsuits brought frd by the president and his allies either dropped or dismissed by courts. >> pennsylvania, michigan and arizona. thank you. president-elect biden is spending his day in delaware continuing to plan his transition even though the trump administration refusing to sign off on it. cnn correspondent is with us now. what has he been up to? any closer to cabinet election? >> reporter: the president-elect spending today meeting with transition advisers and getting outside for a little fresh air. we saw him going on a bike ride with his wife jill earlier today near his home. one of the pool reporters traveling with him asked are you any closer to cabinet decisions. he said yes. we know that joe biden likes to take his time when it comes to personnel decisions. he will deliberate over this, think about it and remember he gave this timeline when choosing his vice president that kind of kept sliding a little bit. he's said he hopes to have a handful of cabinet nominees anou announced by thanksgiving. that's the target date we're loosely following. remember the senate remains in the balance. they are having the take that into consideration as they consider potential nominees. in the meantime his transition team is pushing ahead with whatever work they can get done even though the general services administration has refused to validate joe biden as the president-elect and really trigger that formal transition process. that means they are not getting formal access to these agencies. they are having to do some work arounds. we know some of the biden transition team members have been reaching out to former pentagon officials who worked under former secretary defense james mattis. they figure former officials will work well. they are looking for information. trying to get lay of the land in these agencieagencies. >> exactly. thank you. ryan, the president supporters poured into the streets of washington to try to give life to these unfounded and base let claims. we literally have far right groups like the proud boys particular chi i marching down pennsylvania avenue. this election is over. how did this become normal? >> because the president has decided to delegitimatize the crystal clear results of the election. just frankly as he did in 2016 when he lost the iowa caucuses and when he lost the popular vote. it wasn't as urgent situation in both those instances. he kind of let it go didn't continue to talk about it. he commands an incredible control over the information system of his supporters. i don't think it's too strong to put it that way. he was laying the ground work for this before that. let people believe that minor irregularities that happen in every election and that democrats could surely find if they wanted to. i'm quite sure this year. those somehow amounted to massive fraud. a poll watcher perhaps not being allowed in saa single polling place or minor instances where ballots get discarded. you know what i'm talking about. >> all these things that have prove on the be bogus that are inaccurate or don't actually matter in terms of the vote count. judges have dismissed them. >> all the lawsuits are -- they had a terrible time in court because they can't defend these things. they are doing these legal actions for performance and they get thrown out of court. he knows it's going nowhere. he wants to damage the incoming biden administration and as we have seen a lot of reporting in last few days, set himself up when he leaves the white house for another run. a lot of smart republicans who know better and this is the important part because we knew trump would do this. he said he was going to do it before the election. a lot of republicans are standing on the sidelines not speaking out about this. >> right. even if they know the truth. presumably they do because they are smart. jim acota spoke with a trump adviser who said the president may exit the white house where they walked off the court, refusing the shake hands with the winner. if he takes that approach, it won't affect the administration although it could but would it leave a sustain on the republican party at large? >> i think he's right to note the iowa example, 2016 because he alleged voter fraud because he lost. it wasn't -- his theories were inresponsible and inaccurate as now. he added ben carson who alleged was part of this voter fraud to his cabinet and got chummy with ted cruz at various times throughout his administration. i think we're coming to an end game here on him being able to string this out. i'm in the business of pleasing nobody. i'm in favor of recounts. we voted in new ways in huge numbers. i'm happy to have them look at that in georgia and wisconsin. math is not in his favor. he cannot overcome the mountain of votes for joe biden in many of these states that he would have to do to do this. the right thing to do is say, i think this is not going to happen and to graciously concede. it doesn't seem like biden's transition is suffering because of this. i think if he has a strategy, the strategy might be sort of parroting a contemporaneous example in stacy abrams because he's sees there's attention and appetite for somebody who does not concede an election in georgia as she did not for two years. he is looking around and saying, maybe that's the path for me. it's a bad path. we should say it's bad. i also am not a huge fan of the game where we selectively shame one side or the other for exercising their political rights to free assembly and to come together in the capital. we have seen it on the left and right all year. it's a tendency and a bad ten i tendency to tell one side they are bad and they will spread the virus while the other one gets a pass. the virus doesn't discriminate based on political viewpoint and neither do i with a giant caveat be careful out there. >> i should note on the stacy abrams comparison she was effective post her race is she started non-profit to get out the vote to really juice up the voter turn out to make sure people have the right to exercise. >> do we think of trump did not concede, which would be we can all agree is wrong that if she started an effective non-profit we would give him magazine covers and good coverage. i don't think it would be right. it happens on the other side. i think he sees that very clearly. >> i don't think there's total comparison there. let's move on because i don't want to make this president trump versus stacy abrams. >> i take that point. i've covered the trump white house for nofour years. i interviewed stacy abrams the other day. i don't want to be too cute about this but donald trump is no stacy abrams. what happened in georgia was a more defensible post-election non-concession in terms of -- >> the margin was larger. >> i think it's fair the o point it out but i do want to call a little false equivalence on what trump is doing in trying to delegitimatize the incoming president and not honoring him with a smooth transition during a crisis. we saw this in 2000. the 9/11 commission argued the mess up transition that year because of the recount gave the bush team -- did not allow the bush team enough time to organize themselves and departments tadidn't take the tlehreat of terrorism. it's the scale of completely not honoring a presidential election result and cripple iing, as day turn into weeks the incoming president's transition in the middle of multiple crisis. >> it's not just one state. biden flipped georgia. biden flipped arizona. he won the rust belt and ultimately cnn projects he won 306 electoral votes. the president's electoral loss mirrors his victory. >> we had a land slide. a victory like people haven't seen in a long time. not only did we win the election. we had an electoral college land slide. it was a land slide. then it got bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder. then we won by a lot. don't forget, it was 306 to 223. that's a lot. >> we had a massive land slide victory in the electoral college. this was an excuse for the democrats who lost an election who got kicked. 306 to 223. that's pretty good. >> mary kathryn, should america stop looking for this president to be gracious loser here or is it important for the country to hear him concede. >> i think it's important to hear it. do i expect it to be gracious? i'm not anticipating that in the very near future. he's doing the same thing that many people do. it happens with both political tribes and it's really discourage and bad for the the country which is change your viewpoint based on which team is doing the thing. hard disagree on stay dicy abra. i think it's what's happening there. it's the same, dudes. it's the same thing. you don't like the outcome on one side. >> i got the leave it there. thank you very much for being with us. the president's former chief of staff. hear why he is slamming the trump administration refusal to start the transition process. if you're on medicare, remember, the annual enrollment period is here. the time to choose your coverage... ends december 7th. so talk to unitedhealthcare and take advantage of a wide choice of plans... including an aarp medicare advantage plan from unitedhealthcare. it can combine your hospital and doctor coverage with prescription drug coverage, and more, all for a low monthly premium or in some areas, no plan premium at all. take advantage of $0 copays on all primary care doctor visits, all virtual visits, and preventive dental care. plus $0 copays on hundreds of prescriptions. and with renew active, enjoy a free gym membership. so call unitedhealthcare and take advantage of the range of plans we offer, including ppo plans that let you see any doctor who accepts medicare, without a referral. enrollment ends december 7th. call unitedhealthcare or go online today. [sfx: mnemonic] so are we. prudential helps 1 in 7 americans with their financial needs. that's over 25 million people. with over 90 years of investment experience, our thousands of financial professionals can help with secure video chat or on the phone. we make it easy for you with online tools, e-signatures, and no-medical-exam life insurance. plan for better days. go to prudential.com or talk to an advisor. president trump's former white house chief of staff, retired general john kelly is slamming his former boss for refusing to help with president-elect joe biden transition. kelly warning this. delay in transbasitioning is increasing national security and health crisis. it starts the administration nothing to brief mr. biden and ms. harris. that said, the downside to not doing so could be catastrophic to our people regardless of who they voted for. i want to bring in david priest. he's a former cia intelligence officer and the author of the book "how to get rid of a president, history's guide to removing unpopular, unable or unfit executives." what are the national security implications of president trump delayi delaying president-elect biden's access to the presidential briefs? >> there's a few. one is the time it takes as a president-elect to get up to speed on a variety of issues in 190 plus countries around the world as well as transnational issues like terrorism and the pandemic from a classified point of view. the transition is pretty short as it is. having the transition cut shorter by not providing that intelligence makes it harder for the new commander in chief on january 20th to be immediately take action with all the information he needs. that's one. the other danger of delaying this is that it creates this narrative that there should be some opposition to the incoming president when normally this is a time of healing and the semblance of unity. to the extent you don't offer these briefings to the president-elect, it does signal to the president supporters out there that somehow his election is ill legitimate and that the have larger national security consequences. >> no one is hitting the panic button just yet. he's only been president-elect for seven days but say trump keeps blocking the intelligence briefings for another month or until january. will a biden administration be able to hit the ground running on day one without any national security blind spots? >> it will make it harder. there's no doubt about that. that's true regardless of who the president-elect is and who is senior advisers are around him or her are. there's so many things going on in so many places around the world that classified intelligence gives insight into but we happen to be in a better situation than the average transition because of the fact that it is joe biden and the people around him. listen, joe biden was the vice president for eight years and he was seeing the president's daily brief every day during the eight years and by all accounts was a serious consumer of the intelligence reporting. he's not going to need to learn what intelligence is and what it isn't. what it can do and what it can't do. he's intimately familiar with that. also the preponderence will be people who served in the last administration. sometimes the party has been out of power for 8 or 12 years and bringing in officials who have not served. look at the trump administration. they did not have any senior national security officials on the national security council itself who had worked in a functioning national security process. biden and his team will have a steep learning curve the longer this transition is delayed but they probably will make up time on that curve because they have the experience to do so. >> there's a lot of reporting about the fate of cia director. she's on thin ice with president trump. she was iced out of an intel meeting at the white house yesterday. what's your assessment of the job she's done and the potential impact if she were to be fired during this transition time. >> it seems a bit odd to me because here the cia director actually did some things that some of her pred seecessors hav criticized her for. show went to the state of the union and stood up and plaapplad during political lines. they criticized. if anything, she went a step forward to please the president and now presumely br continuing to tell the truth and call the intelligence the way she sees it, she's been seen as somehow worthy of being fired. i don't see the logic behind it and i don't see a reason for it other than petulence. the danger is mixed with a whole lot of other firings. is there something going on snp is there some attempt to actually quell intelligence or in the opposite direction, to try goat some intelligence out there that shouldn't be released because it exposes sources and methods that would be use to collect future threat nchgs. we don't know that full story. seems to me the most likely explanation is the president is just acting out of a fit of peak and firing these officials and perhaps -- >> thanks for joining us. thousands of secret service agents have been side lined due to the coronavirus pandemic. don't go anywhere. good morning,. 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(camera clicks) ♪ watch what i do ♪ i see you looking ♪ watch what i ... do! covid is everywhere. several dozen secret service agent vs been sidelined because of the pandemic either testing positive or coming in close contact with someone who has. all employees who worked on the campaign trail are being tested because of all those rallies the president held in covid hot spots with large maskless crowds panged together for hours. bryan todd has more. >> reporter: in those final weeks of the campaign, president trump aggressively canvassed several states including coronavirus caldrons like wisconsin. >> hello, wisconsin. big day tomorrow. >> reporter: now cnn has learned several dozen secret service officers have tested positive for coronavirus or self-isolating. that's according to a source familiar with the matter. >> what i think it signifies is the white house became a hot zone. that the protective actions they put in place there, the measures with testing and whatever limited yusz use of mask was no enough to protect the people charged with protecting the president. >> reporter: a source with knowledge of the situation tells cnn many of the officers sick or in quarantine were at trump's out of town rallies. this isn't the first time that multiple secret service personnel have been exposed to the virus. in july, several agents had to hole up in a hotel in phoenix after coming down with the virus while preparing for a visit from vice president pence. in june donzs of agents had to quarantine as a precaution. >> i understand why he's doing them politically but as the leerd of the the executive branch of government, he's doing wa what we have been told as citizens not to do. i don't understand the rallies. i don't get it. >> reporter: then tlp was the incident in october at walter reed military center. the president being treated there for coronavirus took a short ride in the government vehicle to wave to supporters. the president wore a mask and the white house insisted all safety precautions have been taken but many feared he was taking unnecessary risks. >> not only did he risk his own health because he might not have been completely recovered, he risked the health of those individuals driving him. >> reporter: secret service officers are in uniform and separate from the plain clothed agents who provide close security for the president. the officers still perform crucial protective duties around the white house and on the president's trips. they often touch the same surfaces or whether the same rooms as top white house personnel. >> they have to do the kind of things we're not supposed to and that lead to ifection and that's going to places where you're with working partners. this is a job that you can't do remotely. >> reporter: an official with knowledge of the matter tells cnn the secret service is taking all necessary safety precautions and these cases have had zero impact on the agency's security mission. the white house is not commenting on the matter. >> i want to bring in dr. jonathan reiner. doctor, a source tells cnn even the secret service officers don't know how many of their colleagues are infected or exposed because their superiors won't tell them. we know it's several dozen. the post says it's more than 130 officers. how concerning is that in. >> it's really troubling. over the years i've gotten to know quite a few members of the secret service and to a person, they are some of the greatest men and women you'll ever meet. they sign up to put their lives in harm's way to protect the president and vice president and their families. what they didn't sign up for is to place their lives in needless risk during a pandemic for trips that didn't need to be made. we know 18 rallies of the now outgoing president probably yielded about 30,000 new cases of the coronavirus and perhaps several hundred deaths. those are just putting the supporters at risk, pst also putting all the support staff and all the president's security, including the secret service at risk. these are tangible outcomes. now we're seeing it. over 100 secret service agents sick or in quarantine. >> it seems like so many americans are in denial or don't want to accept the truth or buying the lies that they are hearing from their leaders. republican senator rand paul had coronavirus offered this statement. >> we have 11 million people in our country that have already had covid. we should tell them to celebrate. we should tell them to throw away mare mask, go to restaurants and live again because these people are immune but dr. fauci doesn't want to admit to any of that. he's like woe is me. sdplp wh sdp >> what is he not getting? >> he's not getting everything. i'll remind everybody that rand paul is the same medical genius who while waiting for his covid results to return decided it was a good idea to go for a swim in the senate pool. i put no credence in anything he said about anything to do with this virus. ask the long haulers who have survived covid but are still suffering. ask them if they should celebrate. that's really disturbing. >> at least 35 states have set record highs this month already. south dakota had a seven-day positivity rate at 58%. 19 states reported record high hospitalizations just yesterday. hospital icus are full. idaho governors talk about rationing care. we know hospitalization trends follow by deaths lag a few weeks behind the cases. it was a couple of weeks ago the cases first crossed 100,000 and now we're at 184,000 new infections reported yesterday. where are we headed? >> we're headed to more and more cases and intolerable number of deaths. on election day we had about 80,000 cases. a little less than 80,000 cases. in the span of ten days we have doubled the number of daily cases. as you say, there's a bit of a lag but those cases will translate to deaths two to three weeks from now. wo we'll see hospital icus fill. you can make more beds but you can't make more icu nurses. we will run out of the capacity to care for the critically ill. what's going to happen is state governors will start to institute restrictions and shutdowns. they'll do it when the hospitals are saturated. they will do it whether they want to or not. they will do it whether the out going president wants them to do it or not. what they should be doing to derail this out of control train is to institute universal mask orders through the their states. that's what they can do now. otherwise the shutdowns are coming at great cost. >> thank you as always. take a look at these images from dodger stadium in l.a. these are people waiting to get coronavirus tests. we'll take you there next. we'll talk to los angeles mayor live in the cnn news room. this holiday season, it's all about the bedroom. and with caspers black friday sale, you can save up to 30% and make yours a winter slumberland. the fluffiest down duvet you'll ever feel, soft and light percale sheets, a cool, supportive 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december to remember sales event. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. if you've been watching the result ts of the 2020 election slowly play out, you probably heard the words, stop the steal by now. that's the refrain used by president trump and many of his supporters to claim president-elect biden robbed him of the white house. it isn't a new movement at all. it's just never had this do i understand of following. drew griffin investigates. >> reporter: it's an internet battle cry. stop the steal has skrept across indo inboxes, facebook and twitter. the claim that democrats stole the election from donald trump are all false but the truth means little to people inundated with lies. >> i believe that they tried to steal the election. >> reporter: stop the steal may appear as a grass roots uprising but it started more than four years ago. the brain child of a political dirty trick artist and convicted liar who pushed disinformation schemes for years. roger stone. >> stop the steal is posting much of this material. there's insur mountable, compelling, overcoming evidence of fraud. >> stop the steal is a coordinated effort that's been revived twice by roger stone and allied political operatives in an attempt to gaslight the entire integrity of our voting process. >> reporter: far from a grass roots campaign. stop the steal is a business. in 2016, roger stone's pac launched it which was asking for 10,000 dollar donations to help uncover evidence of vote fraud against donald trump. stone told cnn the group was a non-profit created to ensure the integrity of the vote. stop the steal e emerged briefly in the 2018 midterms. then in the run especially to 2020 the stop the steal campaign rebooted by a group of people orbiting roger stone. amy cross-clakramer, a tea part activist. she was behind a stop the steal facebook group along with two people who worked on steve bann bannon's discredited we build the wall fun. he was taken by facebook. also shut down, a cluster of pages affiliated with bannon that coordinated posts using inauthentic behavior tactics to boost how many people saw their content. in all, the pages had 2.5 million followers before they were shuddered. >> stop the steal is a highly coordinated partisan, political operation. >> reporter: this week stone took his message to the most notorious conspiracy theoryist. alex jones. researchers saw the hashtag stop the steal mentioned in nearly two million tweets. tweets, the facebook posts filled with unsubstantiated and false evidence of widespread voter fraud caught the attention of disinformation researchers. >> took day and a half before facebook took the group down but by then it was already too late. >> reporter: copy cat sites now number in the dozens and the false information spread by a few is only multiplying. just ahead, it's the super bowl of golf. the masters and the third round is under way. we'll hear from tiger woods. next. want to brain better? unlike ordinary memory 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augusta, georgia and true to 2020 it looks a lot different. while you're probably used to seeing crowds like this when fans erupted after tiger wood's iconic win. this year it's much quieter on the greens. no spectators allowed but it's a beautiful day for golf and the competition is fierce. how is it going out there today? >> reporter: it's really a shame that fans weren't allowed because it was a beautiful day here in augusta. 75 and sunny. we saw some amazing golf. there were nine players tied. that's something you really never see. that's when dustin johnson took control of this tournament. the world number one player. he eagle hold number two to take the lead and from there, he went onto have a dominate round number three. an eagle and five birdies so far. he's on 18,000. he's your leader at 16 under. dj looking for that first evergreen jacket after finishing tied for second last year. no world number one has won the plasters since tiger did it in 2002. we'll wait and see if dj can hold and break that drought. the big question is how would tiger woods fair. would he be able to vault himself to top of that leader board. tiger just not able to get anything going today. had some opportunities. finished his round for five under. he's not going to be repeating at the master's champ. after playing 26 holes, he said he was pretty beat. >> part of deal, i'm going to get sore when i have long days. i can walk all day. hard part is bending and twisting. i think that's part of the game toe. that is always been the challenge with my back issues. i guess will always continue to be. >> reporter: i walked around the course quite a bit this afternoon. i can't tell you how different this masters is because when you're out there, you don't hear the roars from the crowd. when a player hit a great shot, you don't really know because you don't know where the ball landed if you're not by the hole. it's very different. very quiet. it's going to be another beautiful day. >> i have to wonder as a competitive person myself if it's easier for those athletes to powe kus because they sdroents any distractions from crowd around them or if it takes away a little bit of the excitement that might give them that performance edge when you have to perform before a crowd. nonetheless, it sounds like an exciting tournament so far. i'm curious about the coronavirus precautions that they have taken. do players have to wear masks in certain spots or just expected to keep their distance? >> well, since we're outside, the players and the caddies are not wearing their masks out there on the course but anyone who does step foot throughout is required to wear mask. the only people other than the players and the caddies are friends and family of the players. people working the tournament and members from the course. every one of those people are wearing masks. in terms of the players and caddies when they are out there, they are not wearing masks. >> thank you. up next, the president is continuing to deny the results of the election and his supporters protested today in washington, d.c. here is a look from earlier. many of them were parroting those base less claims of widespread voter fraud. there's no evidence. you're live in the cnn news room. it's open! hey. think you're managing your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease? -are you ok? -i did. but even when i was there. i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so, i talked to my doctor and learned... humira is for people who still have uc or crohn's symptoms after trying other medications. and humira helps people achieve remission that can last. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if 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and the supreme court. at one point the president's mot motorcade passed by this rally slowing down to the cheer of this crowd. among the group marching today, members of the far right group that called themselves the proud boys. remember, they were the group that president trump told to quote stand back and standby at the first presidential debate back in september. also today, a common theme of the trump presidency exaggerating the size of a crowd. the white house press secretary tweeting that her words, more than a millionarer
in the nation's capital in support of the president. observers and news organizations on the ground agree the crowd was large. many thousands of people but nowhere even close to the number the white house is claiming. one million or more people. that's just not true. let's go straight to the white house right now. we understand president trump is back there after his morning on the golf course. are you hearing anything today that might indicate the president is coming around to this notion that he lost this election or that he's maybe -- is he given this rally some more momentum. if you look at the president's twitter feed this afternoon after he returned from his golf course and that quick run through that rally happening in washington, d.c., certainly seems like that rally has energized the president and encouraged him to dig in more on the false claims hooe making about the fact the 2020 election in his view was stolen from him. l election officials in all 50 states said there's no evidence of wide sfred voter fraud and this was one of most secure elections in history. our sources have told us the president has been vacillating between a more combative stance where he encourages allies to push through with the lawsuits while at the same time acknowledging the reality of the situation that joe biden will be nec president of the united states. publicly we have seen that combative stance. yesterday we did get a sliver of the president starting to come to grips with reality. >> this administration will not be going to a lockdown. hopefully the -- whatever happens in the future, who knows what administration it will be. i guess time will tell. this administration will not go to a lockdown. >> reporter: you can see the president acknowledging, at least, the prospect of a potential biden administration even as he continues to make those false equivalencies about lockdown versus no lockdown. as for coronavirus, the president doing nothing to address the surge, the explosion of coronavirus cases that we have seen in the last week. testifies talki in he have talking about the vaccine. that is months away in terms of why distribution in the united states and the president insisting the surge in cases is merely connected to an increase in testing. that's not true and the president showing an absence of leerdship as country is dealing with a worsening pandemic. >> it's really important that america understands it isn't just testing. they have responsibility to keep the spread from happening when we're looking at these record breaking numbers and more and more people hospitalized right now. >> reporter: thousands of people showed up here in washington, d.c. to march from freedom plaza to supreme court. this was a conglomeration of three different marches put out on social media last week. the million maga march and stop steal march. we heard a lot of people, including congress people. all of that has been proven to be untrue. all of the folks that are in high level election official positions have said this is indeed not a fraudulent election. the folks here feel differently. we have been hearing that over and over again from those who have been speaking to the crowd and from the people in the crowd themselves. at this point in time, there are some folks who say they are not going to accept joe biden and kamala harris as the president and vice president in january when the vote would actually have been certified. there are others that say yes. we will accept it. we just won't like it. >> thank you. each day that president trump denies the reality of his loss is another day president-elect biden has his hands tied. president trump administration is blocking biden from accessing critical covid-19 data, intelligence briefings and correspondence with foreign governments. my next guest is someone who knows first hand the serious cost of a delayed transition. when the anything else commission finished the record it found that bush's delayed transition because of the historic florida recount it come at a price. hampering the administration's ability to recruit clear and obtain senate confirmation for key appointees. andy joins us now. so good to have you. as someone who livered through that time, i have to ask you, what is your reaction that a week after this race was called for biden, we have a president who won't concede and a president-elect who can't get intelligence briefings. >> it's good to be with you. thank you for having me on. yes, president trump should allow, i think, president-elect biden and maybe he's not the president-elect. i believe he is. should allow him to access to intelligence briefings and briefings on the most challenging situation that we have in this country right now which is the pandemic. most of the response to the pandemic that has been planned by president trump will end up being the responsibility of president biden when he takes the oath of office. president trump, i think, he did lose the election. now he is losing credibility. he's losing trust and he's losing respect. i don't think that's what we want to see happening. right now our democracy is in transition. it's likely to transition from donald trump to joe biden. i think that's credible expectation. i don't see any path to victory for president trump in terms of winning a second term. i think he should demonstrate to the world we're a remarkably good democracy and we can transfer power without being hostile and we should be cooperative. living through the challenges that president george w. bush had when he came into the presidency and that race wasn't decided until the middle of december when the supreme court made its decision. we did not have the benefit of a lengthy transition. we had a short transition and the 9/11 commission did say if there had been better information shared with the bush administration before we took office, we might have been able to mitigate the challenges of 9/11. i don't know that would have been the case but it clearly was something that the 9/11 commission recognized as being important. i feel it's more important today because the world is got a lot of boiling points right now. iran, iraq. china is doing terrible things in hong kong and threatening taiwan. there's a lot to be worried about. i think a president-elect biden should be able to have his team be ready to understand those challenges and meet them when he becomes the president. >> what do you tell somebody who uses what happened in 2000 and how long it took to call that race and says this is what's happening now and trying to compare the two? >> they're really not comparable. first of all, there was no pandemic. we did not have a crisis in our country going on at the time. i have to give president bush credit for being quiet and let them do their thing. showing respect for the legitimate practice of our democracy and then conceding. he did concede once. that was it. it made all the the difference in the world. we demonstrated we could be great democracy in transition power from one person to another person without being hostile. >> here is what the president's former chief of staff john kelly wrote. the delay in transitioning is an increasing national security and health crisis. it costs the current administration nothing to start to brief mr. biden and miss harris, the new chief of staff and all identified cabinet members and senior staff. the downside to not doing so could be catastrophic to our people regardless of who they voted for. what's your biggest fear about this delay transition? >> my biggest fear is bad players around the world could try to take advantage of america. it's happened before or at least the threat of it has happened before. we don't want that to happen. a president trump should have chance to have a team around him in process of getting a security clearance so they can have information and make a difference. they are not being allowed to begin the process of getting the fbi to give clearances to people to do the job that will be necessary on day one. we want the baton to be passed to someone who understands what it will be like to feel that baton and know what the responsibilities are. literally the first minute of being president of the united states. in the transition will be from donald trump to donald trump for a second term then he will be prepared. i think the path to that solution for donald trump is not viable. i don't see how it can happen. i think donald trump has lost the election. he did a remarkable job of getting people to turn out. he should celebrate that. boy did he participate in a remarkable exercise of democracy in getting record number of people to the polls and a record number of people voted for him. i do think joe biden got more votes than donald trump and i think that joe biden will end up being the next president of the united states. he already has 306 electoral college votes. i think it's time to recognize reality. president trump should not lose more credibility. he should not lose more trust. he should not lose more respect. he should recognize the reality today and help the next president be able to do the job on day one. >> bottom line is joe biden has received more than five and a half million votes than president trump in this election as well as the electoral college victory. let me ask you about something that is not related to this race, specifically. president obama talked very glowingly about president bush and how he handled the transition. president bush would end up doing all he could to make the 11 weeks between my election and his departure go smoothly. i promised myself when the time came i would treat my successor the same way. was it all those lessons, the bad memories from his father and him being a decent guy? >> it was all of those things. he had a wonderful chief of staff, josh bolton who helped make sure the transition was very smooth. they were great team. president bush set the tone. he did it early in his presidency. he was elected to a second term in 2004 but he was already talking to those of us around him and he was chief of staff if he were not to win, ehe would b cooperative in a transition. he understood the importance of having that baton. >> i really preeshlt yoapprecia insights. thank you very much. pfizer announcing this week its vaccine is 90% effective. how long until you can receive it? we'll have a doctor that question and more, next. wow, i wish i could get a deal on a smartphone, but i'm not a new customer. well, actually now, new and existing customers can get our best smartphone deal. it's historic. that is historic. which means... i'm making history, right? yea, i don't know if i'd exactly sa- wow. me, dave brown. existing customer who got the greatest deal in history. just like every other customer gets... oh that's cool too. it's not complicated. at&t is making history. everyone gets our best smartphone deals. with priceline, you can get up to 60% off amazing hotels. and when you get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better. in the race for coronavirus vaccine, it's pfizer that's in the lead and officials say americans may have access to that vaccine as early as next month. the distribution will be anything but easy. cnn sarah murray explains the challenges ahead. >> reporter: with the u.s. on the cusp of a coronavirus vaccine, states are still in the dark about how many doses they may get yet another hurdle to nail down distribution plans. >> states have heard different reports about how many doses they will get. fiedser is saying they will have several million ready to go. we're not quite sure how many it will be. >> reporter: with pfizer's vaccine showing promise results in clinical trials and moderna on the edge of annoyanuncing it data, some could have a vaccine in december. the alphabet soup of government agencies overseeing the vaccine effort has states struggling to plan for what's to come. adding to the unease, memories of severe shortages in personal protective gear early in the pandemic which left states clamoring for more supplies and undermine confidence. states tell cnn they are looking for more clarity and transparency. in missouri the general one of the lead rs of operation warp speed told a top health official he knew how many doses the state would get but wasn't willing to share the number yet. in california, officials say they are planning for multiple scenarios and in minnesota officials say they need more federal funds to carry out a vaccination program. the government hasn't publicly revealed the allocation formula but hhs official says they will take into account priority groups in each state when dolling out doses. >> we know how many folks are residents in nursing homes. we can get through the bureau and information on front line workers. we can get the number of folks who the department of agriculture and others, the number of folks working in meat packing plants. >> reporter: once states learn how many doses they will get, they will decide where to direct them. it must be kept around minus 100 degrees fahrenheit which would limit where it will be made available. >> fiethe pfizer vaccine will require extra cold storage. lit be best attuned to mass vaccination pramss of health care workers and hospitals or skilled nursing facilities. let's take a deeper diver about vaccines right now. how challenging do you think it will be to distribute the vaccine to the masses given the cold storage of negative 70 degrees celsius? >> i think we have some challenges ahead. we have the cold chain we have to work through. there are many hospitals that have access to minus 70 freezers but you need to be a hospital in order to receive them in that space. we have cold change challenges. we have challenges of documentation and medical records. that will be fine as we're trying to vaccinate health care workers but as you start thinking about public and people who may not have a primary care doctor or a medical record, we need to vaccination people twice. we need to not only vaccinate them the first time, we need to keep record of the vaccine they got, the lot they brought and we need to bring them back around 21 days for the pfizer vaccine p, 28 days for the moderna vaccine. we need to get them the first time and the second time and keep a record to give them the same vaccine the second time. there's been an extraordinary amount of money that's been invested in getting us to a vaccine. i think we really need money invested into the implementation of vaccination. vaccines will not save lives. vaccinations will. >> pfizer says the efficacy rate of its vaccine is 90 plus percent. is that considered like really good for vaccine? is that typical? how does it compare to the flu vaccine or the chickenpox? >> this was good news. we have vaccines that are for efficacious than that. the chickenpox vaccine is around 90%. our now is different every year depending on circulating strains. it ranges between 40 and 60%. this would be way better than most flu vaccines. >> moderna says it should be able to determine the vaccine's efficacy by the end of this month. both of these companies are using this messenger rna technology. can you explain how this works? >> it's sort of the coding for the protein that buys to receptor of the immune cell in the human. what we are trying to do is have a little piece of protein that our own immune system can recognize so we will make antibody genagainst this littleo teen in absence of seeing the virus so we have the antibody ready to go if we were to see virus we have antibody already. that's the process of the mrna vaccine. we never had an mrna vaccine so both would be first of its kind. >> does it prevent somebody from getting infected or just prevent somebody from getting super will from the infection? >> the data with that are yet to emerge. we foe in natural immunity of sars that the immunity can last for several years. for other coronaviruss it can last for several months and many people can get infected within a year. how well it's going to do not just in decreasing the amount of infection out there but also decreasing the severity will be come of the data that we're anxiously awaiting. >> what do we know about the vaccine's effect on children? any concerns there? >> we know very little. most of the vaccine trials have not enrolled children. pfizer announced it would start enrolling age 12 to 18 in the middle of october. all of the ta ta we're going to see in weeks ahead do not vovr children. >> good to know. still more to learn. really appreciate it. thank you. a sign of the troubling times we're in. dodger stadium turn tailgating site to testing site. los angeles mayor joins us next. ♪ ♪ anywhere convenience. everyday security. bankers here to help. for wherever you want to go. chase. make more of what's yours. 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(upbeat music) all closer together. ♪ and been our gateways to the world. ♪ for over 30 years, lexus has been celebrating driveway moments. in a year filled with memorable ones, here's to one more. the lexus december to remember sales event. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more. and you'll get 5g at no extra cost. all on the most reliable network. so choose a data option that's right for you. get 5g included and save up to $400 dollars a year on the network rated #1 in customer satisfaction. it's your wireless. your rules. only with xfinity mobile. state of california repo reporting 10,000 new coronavirus cases. this comes as we see a massive covid testing operation in full force at la's dodger stadium now. paul is there for us. you just spoke to l.a. mayor. what is he saying? >> this is an extraordinary measure we took. why? >> we hear is tsunami coming. we saw this as the biggest testing center in america. it's been successful to help people know when they have the symptoms and when they don't have them whether or not dha are positive. right now this is right outside of dodger stadium. if this was a baseball game, we're in the bottom of the 6th and the game will be decided in next couple of innings. >> reporter: the hospitalizations are going back up in los angeles county. almost up to 1,000 again. your concerns there? >> our cases went from about 1,000 a day to today nearly 4,000. that's in the peer riod of thre weeks. we're seeing this akrosds the world and the country. we send a wireless alert to everybody, we said get tested now to find out where the disease is, where the virus is living. >> you were a coach here on the biden campaign. you're close to joe biden. what is he relaying to you and what are your concerns now that president trump is not conceding and what sort of roadblocks that could cause for you? >> this election is over. nothing will change that. i think it's not just about the information given to an incoming administration but to the american people. no more hide the ball. we need that information to be public and anything that needs to be given to nec administration so they can prepare and continue a seamless transition, i think about george washington, our greatest president and one of the greatest things he did is how he exited power. how he exited and to me that laid down the foundation for our democracy. right now we need to see those angels come out from trump and the administration. >> we're talking about exiting a position. in 2022, you will no longer be mayor here. even right now the rumors are swirling, would you entertain an offer to join a joe biden cabinet? >> first, i was savoring the minute of him winning and this moment of experiencing the change of four years of war against american cities and our vals. i'm too busy with this to entertain that now. i never turn down joe's calls. we only talked about the election. my focus is making sure we save lives. >> when your term is over in 2022, how tempting would be a transportation secretary job? >> whatever joe needs, i've been there whether it's helping with vice president, working together to raise minimum wage here. here is somebody who i know and trust. i do think this next decade will be a defining decade for us. the next two years because of covid and our economy. the next decade because of climate change. i'll talk to him at right time. >> also here in california, governor newsom had to apologize for that dinner at a very expensive french restaurant with 12 other people. they did not live in the same household. have you spoken to him about that? are you concerned about the optics of that? >> i haven't spoken to him about that. this is a tough, tough moment. we miss each other. waen we want o spend time with folks. there are a lot of moments we are human. we got to let people be human but we can't slip. 10% of the spread is people going in stores and watching the lakers win, watch the dodgers win. we can't let down our guard. doesn't matter who we are. that is what causes the spread and that's why we're seeing the numbers spike. >> given what's happened here in louisiana, therea los angeles, f people concerned about how they will make ends meet. can you assure them we're not headed for some complete lockdown in los angeles if the numbers continue to get worse? >> the good thing about where we are now is we're smarter than we were in march. we had the best numbers while these things have been closed and the worst numbers approaching them while the same level of things are closed. it's not about whether a store is open or not. it's about your an my behavior. three other people tomorrow and three other people the next niepgt and three're people the next night in my backyard or maybe we go indoors and open a window. those things are causing spread. it's really getting people to realize cancel those vacation plans now. do not sneak in other households for thanksgiving. get a chicken instead of a turkey. don't share your air and don't do stupid things. we all now are smart. there will be people who die bau because of our behavior with that disciplined behavior in march, april and may we're able to bend in curve down. >> reporter: back here live here at dodger stadium, they are open testing from 8:00 in morning to 8:00 at night. they are setting record numbers. 7800 people tested yesterday and another 8,000 earlier this week. they have really ramped things up in terms of testing. back to you. >> thank you so much. testing is like the key in order to get a handle on where this virus is. thank you. what does trump's -- the powers that trump has as a lame duck president. can he prevent joe biden from getting a full transition or his electors? we'll answer your legal questions up next in our weekly cross examine. your experience matters. at university of phoenix, students with relevant life experience and eligible transfer credits save on average $11k and 1 year off their undergrad degree. see how much you can save. unlike ordinary memory thwant supplements-ter? neuriva has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. or psoriatic arthritis, little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. ♪ ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever. it's all about the bedroom. and with caspers black friday sale, you can save up to 30% and make yours a winter slumberland. the fluffiest down duvet you'll ever feel, soft and light percale sheets, a cool, supportive mattress and plush pillows, even our glow light for better sleep. president trump's baseless and claimless attacks on this election undermines democracy but raises a lot of question about the transition of power and what president trump can and cannot do in next couple of mo s mons befo -- months before he leaves office. it's our weekly cross examine segment. a viewer is wonder now that president trump is in the lame duck period, does he lose any part of his pardon power? >> he does not. get ready because this will be pardon baa nonanza. he holds on his his power until 11:59 on january 20th inauguration. that includes powers that are broad. who might he pardon. people like michael flynn, paul manafort, george papadopoulos, rudy giuliani. he's running this effort to challenge the election results. you might have to think about whether he will try to pardon family members. the trump organization is under investigation. it only covers federal charges. it cannot stop a state level prosecution. the big question then, will president trump try to pardon himself on the way out. we simply do not know if this is lawful because it falls under the header of things that's never happened before. on the one hand, there's no specific limitation on the pardon power in the constitution. on the other hand, the framers deplored self-dealing. if trump does pardon himself, it will be first and a historical stain on his record. >> this is an unlikely scenario but a viewer wants to know could republicans have their own electors even if their state voted for president-elect biden? >> this theory is out there. i'm hearing it a lot. i want to make it clear. this is not going to happen. the constitution does give state legislatures to the manner to which they choose to state's presidential electors. every one has had a law saying we do that based on be popular vote within the state. while state legislatures could change that, they would have to do it by one, passing a new law and doing it before the election. it's common sense and it's the law. you can't just say, we'll choose based on the popular vote and change it after the fact. it would be undemocratic. it would be politically self-destructi self-destructive. i know there's a lot of concern about this but don't lose sleep over this. >> can trump administration legally prevent the incoming biden administration from conducting a full transition? >> they are trying. i don't stand in challenged in court. the gsa, the general service administration is the agency that controls certain funding. that money gets released only when the gsa does what's called ascertains there's been an apparent winner of the election. the law doesn't tell us when we have an apparent winner of the election but let's use some common sense here. we are well beyond apparent. we are into done deal territory. the biden transition team is considering legal action. they have said that. it seems they want to avied escalating the if he thinks at this moment. if push comes to shove they may need to force this into court. i'm competent it's likely they will win. gsa is really pushing the legal limit here and they are impeding a safe and smooth transition. that is potentially dangerous to our national security and it is terrible for our democracy. >> it's always great to have you with us. thank you for doing this with us. i want to remind our viewers to submit their questions and keep them coming. see you next week. cnn has obtained copy of barack obama's upcoming memoir. we have excerpts we'll share with you including the night the bush family gave the obama daughters a tour of their new home. priceline works with top hotels, to save you up to 60%. these are all great. and when you get a big deal... ♪ ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. that selling carsarvana, 100% online wouldn't work. ♪ but we went to work. building an experience that lets you shop over 17,000 cars from home. creating a coast to coast network to deliver your car as soon as tomorrow. recruiting an army of customer advocates to make your experience incredible. and putting you in control of the whole thing with powerful technology. that's why we've become the nation's fastest growing retailer. because our customers love it. see for yourself, at carvana.com. it's made for him a veteran who honorably served and it's made for her she's serving now we also made usaa for military spouses and their kids become a member. get an insurance quote today. the annual enrollment period is here. the time to choose your coverage... ends december 7th. so talk to unitedhealthcare and take advantage of a wide choice of plans... including an aarp medicare advantage plan from unitedhealthcare. it can combine your hospital and doctor coverage with prescription drug coverage, and more, all for a low monthly premium or in some areas, no plan premium at all. take advantage of $0 copays on all primary care doctor visits, all virtual visits, and preventive dental care. plus $0 copays on hundreds of prescriptions. and with renew active, enjoy a free gym membership. so call unitedhealthcare and take advantage of the range of plans we offer, including ppo plans that let you see any doctor who accepts medicare, without a referral. enrollment ends december 7th. call unitedhealthcare or go online today. [sfx: mnemonic] the world will get an up close and personal look at former president barack obama's time in the white house in a new memoir that comes out on tuesday. obama opens up about his family and relationship with his former vice president and now president-elect joe biden. in a rare glimpse, obama even con fronts the racist politics of president trump and how his own presidency played a role in trump's rise. bryan todd has more. >> reporter: in the home stretch of joe biden's campaign, former president barack obama was front and center. energizing crowds and building support. >> it felt like the old days. for eight years he was the last one in the room when ever i faced a big decision. >> reporter: the former president delves into his complete confidence in joe biden in his new memoir, "a promised land" obtained by cnn and quote, my gut told me that joe was decent, honest and loyal. i believed he cared about ordinary people and when things got tour, i could trust him. i'd never be disappointed. >> you never thought of biden going out undermining the president or attack him or there being whispers in the media about disagreements between joe biden and president obama. >> reporter: some of his pages in his book deal with the racial tensions in america during his time in office. donald trump's race baiting and conspiracy theory, the false claim that obama were not born in the u.s. were particularly frustrating. they saw birther-ism as a joke. but trump per sisd. obama, against the advice of his aides, released his birth certificate and then told young staffers, quote, we are better than this, remember that. still, it seemed an unsettling tone had been set. >> especially in the second half of president obama's time in office, he spent the time battling the very forces that brought trump into power as the first black president. the angst of the changing demographic in the country. >> reporter: obama writes his predecessor, george w. bush, could not have been more gracious during their transition that bush's daughters, jenna and barbara, gave obama's daughters sasha and malia their own tour of the white house. quote, president bush would do all he could to make the departure go smoothly. april ryan who covered that transition and others lament what we are going through now with trump refusing to accept biden's victory. >> it is the ugliest we have ever seen in our found fathers are possibly turning over watching this from wherever they are. >> reporter: obama gets intensely personal, especially about the toll his presidency took on his wife michelle. quote, all previous source of frustration became more concentrated. more 50, whether it was about round the clock absorption or politics exposed our family and scrutiny to attacks. >> they put their lives on the line. they put their hearts on the line to be attacked, to be chastised, to be made fun of. >> one of the white house reporters we interviewed says he will be interested to hear how former president obama sees the former obama-biden administration, whether it will return to normal or if that is possible? . we will i may learn that in the next memoir. >> coming up tonight, cnn brings you joe biden and the presidential nomination to becoming president-elect. see his ambition, tragedy in his dramatic fight in the race of his lifetime, don't miss fight for the white house, joe biden's long journey starting tonight at 10:00 eastern here on cnn. cnn heroes and all star tribute will be a special celebration of the heroic efforts of the many women and men and children from all around the globe who when faced with two simultaneous crises of covid and racial injustice stood up against others. it's been a challenging year. there have been moments of hope, joy, inspiration, that keep our spirits lifted and moving forward together. we want to share those with you. and for to you tell us which ones inspire you the most. here's one of this year's most inspiring moments. >> before we met the shift change, we didn't see the hospitals and doctor nurses at home and didn't notice the first responders leaving after a long day. now we do. at 7:00 p.m. in new york at 8:00 p.m. in los angeles and france and italy and all around the world, the deafening applause and humble salutes, we stop to say thank you. the sidewalks, windows and bal coins, people joined together to give thanks to those incredible chaos and families say good-bye, holding back their own pain to keep saving countless lives. >> words offered to everybody, thank you. >> you can go to cnnheroes.com right now to vote for this moment or any inspiring moments. you can upload your own videos telling us why these moments moved you. an all star tribute sunday december 18 at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on c nnn people were afraid i was contagious. i felt gross. . ♪ you can go your own way it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more. and you'll get 5g at no extra cost. all on the most reliable network. so choose a data option that's right for you. get 5g included and save up to $400 dollars a year on the network rated #1 in customer satisfaction. it's your wireless. your rules. only with xfinity mobile. . you are live in the cnn "newsroom". washington, d.c. today where thousands of disenchanted, disbelieving and plain angry supporters of president trump came out to march, to argue and to protest the election that president trump lost to joe biden. an election that homeland security agencies confirm was quote the most secure in american history. it was a crowd that grew from a gathering near the white house to a march that filled the streets to the supreme court. not only main stream supporters of the president, conservative voters, also right wing and even far right wing groups were there, groups like the so-called proud boys, a group president trump after the first presidential debate in september told to stand back and stand by. the president making good on his promise to stop by the rally this morning, passed by slowly in his official motorcade to the cheers of his supporters. he was on his way to his golf
undermining that greatness by refusing to concede the election and by continuing his brutal attacks on the vote. we are also following breaking pandemic news. the u.s. has now passed 12.5 million cases and more than 258,000 americans have died from covid. in an especially troubling sign, hospitalizations here in the united states right now are at the highest level since the pandemic began back in january. let's begin with all of the breaking transition news right now. our senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny is joining us. we are learning president-elect joe biden will have access to critically important highly classified information. >> reporter: it's called the presidential daily brief. there is one president at a time. a short period of time over the next two months, two men will be receiving this. we just heard a few moments ago from president-elect joe biden saying he has not yet received a briefing but he will be receiving one soon. this comes after the white house signs off on him being able to see this classified daily briefing. this is coming three weeks after election day when joe biden clearly sent a message today it's time to turn the page, as he said, america is back. >> a team that reflects the fact that america is back. >> reporter: a changing of the guard tonight. yet familiar faces of the washington establishment as president-elect biden introduces the first wave of nominees to his capability. >> ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. once again, sit at the head of the table. ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies. ready to stands up for our values. >> reporter: three weeks after election day and 17 days after declaring victory, a road block finally lifted for biden's peaceful transition of power. he made no mention of president trump but in the buyiographies made the message the chief goal of his administration is return the country to a pre-trump era. >> america at its best has a great ability than any other country on earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time. >> reporter: for secretary of state biden nominated long time adviser tony blinken who told an emotional story of his stepfather's holocaust survival. >> he ran to the tank. the hatch opened. and an african-american g.i. looked down at him. he got down on his knees and said the only three words that he knew in english that his mother taught him before the war -- "god bless america." that's who we are. that's what america represents to the world. >> reporter: for homeland security, alejandro mayorkas. >> the department of homeland security has a noble mission to help keep us safe and to advantage our proud history as a country of welcome. >> reporter: as director of senate intelligence, avril haines, the first woman to lead the intelligence community. >> you've selected us not to serve you but to serve on behalf of the american people, to help advance our security, our prosperity, our values. >> reporter: a special climate envoy john kerry in a new cabinet level post. >> to end this crisis, the whole world must come together. >> reporter: as u.s. ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas-greenfield. >> in my experience i put a cajun spin on it and i called it gumbo diplomacy. >> reporter: and as national security adviser, long time aide jake sullivan. >> you have also tasked us with reimagining our national security, for the unprecedented combination of crises we face at home and abroad. >> reporter: tonight, across the government, so-called landing teams from the biden transition are getting their first look inside agencies. they are signs of relief particularly with the looming fight against a deadly pandemic. one cdc official telling cnn, quote. now as this transition is taking place across the government, we are learning new details. a few moments ago president-elect biden spoke to reporters as he was leaving his transition headquarters and he said he has not spoken yet with dr. anthony fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases doctor but he said he would. he said he has not received the presidential daily brief but once he does he'll receive it regularly. he was asked if he would speak with president trump. his name was not mentioned at all today here in wilmington and this is what he said. of course, i would if he asked. >> a lot going on. jeff, stands by. get back to you in a moment. our chief white house correspondent jim acosta is joining us. i understand you're getting new information from your sources? what are you learning? >> reporter: we are learning the general services administration gave the white house an erarly heads-up that they were going to ascertain that joe biden won the election and begin the transition process. my colleagues say that heads-up happened on friday and a white house official confirmed that gsa heads-up to me as well. we are reporting there were multiple advisers speaker wading the president to come to grips with the reality it's over and president trump emerged today as he tried to take credit for the rally on wall street we saw early in the afternoon in a bizarre appearance in the white house briefing room. >> i hereby grant you a full pardon. >> reporter: pardoning the thanksgiving turkey at the white house, president trump sounded like he would rather be back on the campaign trail fighting to win an election he has already lost. as he described covid-19 as the china virus. >> during this thanksgiving, we extend our eternal gratitude to the doctors, nurses, health care workers, and scientists who have waged the battle against the china virus. >> reporter: the president also turned his carving knife on mattis who is recommending the incoming biden administration abandon president trump's america first foreign policy approach. >> america first shouldn't go away from that, america first. >> reporter: as he has since his defeat three weeks ago the president didn't dah any questions. earlier in the day he made a surprise appearance in the white house briefing room that lasted 64 seconds! take credit for the dow crossing the 30,000 milestone. >> thank you so much. i want to congratulate everybody. the stock market dow jones industrials average just hit 30,000 which is the highest in history. that is a sacred number, 30,000. nobody thought they would ever see it. >> reporter: he declined to take questions. >> thank you very much, everybody. >> reporter: hold on. wall street analysts say the market news is due to in part to the federal government's move to begin the transition process and biden's pick for janet yellen to run the treasury department. >> they i stock market will booth if i'm elected. if he is elected, the stock market will crash. you will have a depression. who has 401(k)s in this group? anybody? if he got in, wave bye-bye to your 401(k) because it's going down the tubes! >> reporter: cnn learned a group of top trump attorneys and advisers spent hours on monday persuading the president to yield to the transition process a source close to twhite house one factor is the president's personal attorney rudy giuliani disastrous news conference last week and they described it as quote. after the president tweeted his approval to the general services administration's move to free up transition resources, another white house adviser said there you go. it's over! another sign of progress, a letter from white house steve of staff mark meadows to staffers stating, quote. meadows cautioned the following. health and human services secretary said he'll be working to help the biden team. >> we are immediately getting them all of the preprepared transition briefing materials. >> reporter: we did see signs that the official transition process has now begun. we are told officials from the departments of defense, state, homeland security all met with members of the biden transition team today. that is how things are supposed to work here in washington but there are some elements of this transfer of power still amiss as the president still has yet to say the words he has conceded the election. a close adviser tells me the president plans to keep these election plans going even though not successful but other advisers are whispering in the president's ear he can win the 2024 election. as strange as that may sound. >> it does. david chalain is joining us now and analyst carrie e ka codero jeff zeleny is joining us also. what stands out to you who the president-elect selected is in the message these nominees conveyed during this initial appearance? >> reporter: on the who initially, wolf, it's the expertise i think stood out and was, you know, a contrast to what president trump had put in his cabinet initially. not that he didn't have people from business or other areas but these are folks that joe biden put forth who have been working in these departments, in these areas of expertise across the government for their life's work and now have risen to the level of being named by a president-elect to sit atop these agencies. there ask real expertise that he put fronts and center but then tonally from a message point of view, you heard these nominees say time and time again that they were going to deal with facts and truth and science, and they knew the president-elect would ask the tough questions. even president-elect, himself, said i don't want to be told what i want to hear. i want to be told what i need to hear when it comes to intelligence. all of those words, all of those cowords were to signal that larger frame that you mentioned at the top from joe biden that america is back and that they wanted to draw real contrast with what they say the way in which the trump presidency has handled truth and facts, which is not all that well, obviously. finally, just the sheer diversity i think was part of the message today as well and president-elect biden spoke to that. you saw some real barrier breaking history making appointments, whether it is the first latino and immigrant heading up the department of homeland security. you have an african-american woman. you have the first woman heading up dni, the director of national intelligence. all of that was clearly put together as well to show as vice president-elect harris saying joe biden putting together a team that looks like america. >> we will see what happens down the road. carrie, you've devoted a significant part of your legal career to key issues of national security. what do you make of this team that president-elect biden has now assembled? >> the word that kept coming to my mind and seeing the teams and speak today was experience, experience, experience. the amateur hour is really over. and i think that is so much of what the biden transition team is conveying with these particular selections. as david said, individuals who have served at the deputy levels, in the agencies or the -- in avril haines case, the sebastien communi intelligence community which now she will lead. mayorkas is now leading the homeland security. these are people that bring substantial meaningful experience to the role that they are now going to be in and they will bring their own leadership style and the new priorities that the biden administration will have. but they will come into these departments and agencies with all of that years of experience and substantive knowledge about the homeland security and intelligence issues that they are going to be working on and they are going to be leading. the other thing i took away from their remarks today was the concept of service. these are individuals who have served and really understand and i think sqaed sconveyed in thei remarks to be a public servants and they are there to protect america and do the best job they can to serve these departments well and serve the american people well as opposed to any other objectives particularly things that we have heard out of the trump administration and donald trump's approach to things which have been more about me or the individuals involved. these are people who are dedicated to the roles and the service that they are going to pry to the country. >> important point as well. jeff, the tone of today's event was a stark contrast what we have grown accustomed to the past four years, namely, because the president-elect stepped back, allowed his nominees to have the spotlight. is this what we should expect from the biden/harris administration? >> i think it absolutely it. i was sitting in that room and watching president-elect joe biden. at times he crossed his arms and watching some of these men and women who are, in fact, proteges of his. he watched them grow up. i do think this is not a president who is going to be front and center on every announcement, on every moment to sending out conflicting messages. this is a team with a plan. we should point out that most of these or all of the nominees have faced confirmation what is now a republican-controlled senate but many of them have been confirmed in other positions before, at least some of them have. this is something that, you know, even talking to a few republicans on capitol hill that i reached out to today, they believe this is a serious bunch. so no one in this group, at least initially, raised any concerns. it shows that joe biden has turned a page. this is the government he has been creating and waiting for. the trump era soon to be over. >> indeed. we did see, david, as we reported, the president twice today once he took part in the annual thanksgiving tradition of pardoning a turkey but before that, he held this very bizarre 64-second so-called briefing, the statement he made not taking any questions, of course. he touted the success of the stock market today. what was that all about? >> amazing to see president trump over these four years not learn the lesson, no to the ride the highs and lows the market with business comments but he always wanted to attach himself to the highs and distance himself from the lows. doesn't work that way. you sort of live and die politically if you attached yourself to the market with the highs and lows. today he wanted to celebrate a high. if the market goes down again he has to own that as well as as much as he'll try not to. >> the market was doing real well and three weeks since election day and investors, wall street clearly reassured the transition is going forward. they are reassured that janet yellen is the treasury secretary and positive things unfolding as opposed to what the president was predicting that your 401(k)s were going to disintegrate if biden was elected. he was elected. your 401(k)s are not disintegrating fortunately on that point. thank you all for joining me. ahead the white house testing czar, the admiral will join us live. we will talk about the potential changes to the recommended coronavirus quarantine time. up next we will talk about the stark contrast between the trump administration and president-elect biden cabinet picks with the former senior adviser to president obama, valley jarrett. she is standing by live. it's an important time to save. with priceline, you can get up to 60% off amazing hotels. and when you get a big deal... ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. the coronavirus isn't waiting. the economy isn't waiting. america shouldn't have to wait, either. the american people have spoken. the result is clear. it's time to move forward. and get to work. try optum perks. it's a new way to save up to 80%. and everyone can do it. it's from optum, a health care company that's trusted by millions of people. you don't have to sign up for anything. just go to optumperks.com. and get a coupon to use at your pharmacy. that's it. i opted in. i opted in. you can, too. opt in and save big today. you power through chronic migraine - 15 or more headache days a month, ...each lasting 4 hours or more. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. so, if you haven't tried botox® for your chronic migraine, ...check with your doctor if botox® is right for you, and if samples are available. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection ...causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, ...speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness... ...can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions... ...neck and injection site pain... ...fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions... ...and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. 95% of patients may pay as little as zero dollars for botox®. so, text to see how you can save. botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for 10 years. so, ask your doctor about botox® today. breaking news. president-elect joe biden formally introducing key cabinet picks calling it a team that shows, i'm quoting him now, america is back. let's talk about that with valerie jarrett. here is a look at her new book. "finding my voice when the perfect plan crumbles the adventure begins." you've worked with biden eight years. what does his new cabinet signal to you about his priorities as he is getting ready in 57 days to take office? >> he will selected people that reflect the best of the american story who believe in hard work and service. not only does he have the most talented people surrounding him but he also has the best team, wolf. they have worked together in the past and they trust one another and they will be singularly focused on the prior of keeping america saving ensuring we return to the rest of the world who has been anxiously missing us the last four years. so to have both diplomatic and intelligence leadership out there in full force today, i think, i breathe a sigh of relief and i think america and the world should be heartened by the caliber of folks leading our country in this important space. >> i want you to listen to the messages we heard from these nominees earlier today including some rather not so subtle, perhaps ways it seemed they sought to distinguish themselves from the outing trump administration. >> we can't solve all of the world's problems alone. we need to be working with other countries. >> america is back. multilateralism is back diplomacy is back. >> to advance our proud history as a country of welcome. >> you value the perspective of the intelligence community. and that you will do so even when what i have to say may be inconvenient or difficult. >> reimagining our national security for the unprecedented combination of crises we face at home and abroad. threats to democracy, racial injustice. >> president joe biden will trust in god and he will also trust in science. >> who will ask tough questions, demand that we be guided by facts and expect our team to speak the truth. >> valerie, what is your reaction when you listen to that? >> well, it is a sharp contrast, most definitely, to the current administration. tone starts at the top. i think president-elect biden made it clear in the course of the campaign that he will do that each and every day in office, that he is committed to us, all of us in representing our country ably and to surround himself with people who share his priorities and his values. yes, they did deliver a sharp contrast to the trump administration but i think also enrich their leadership skills by telling their stories, where they come from, what their backgrounds are and their approach to the jobs they have and their approach and appreciation for service. and, yes, the importance of telling the president-elect, the truth even if something he doesn't want to hear. all that have is a sharp contrast but i think it sends a signal to our country and to the world that not only is america back but we are back stronger than ever and we will build back better than we ever have done before. we have so fortunate to have their service. >> they did send a strong signal as you point out. valerie jarrett, thank you very much. we are learning that the trump administration is considering shortening the remedy quarantine time for people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus. we are going to talk about that and more with the administration's coronavirus testing czar admiral brett giroir who is standing by live. at dell technologies, we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪ the coronavirus isn't waiting. the economy isn't waiting. america shouldn't have to wait, either. the american people have spoken. the result is clear. it's time to move forward. and get to work. to stir that fire, university of phoenix is awarding up to one million dollars in scholarships through this month. see what scholarship you qualify for at phoenix.edu. on all the food that makes you boogie. - [narrator] grubhub perks give you deals (upbeat music) get the food you love with perks from- - [crowd] grubhub. - grub what you love. tturning downhe temperature, dad. ow. thunk, lock the doors. locking doors. thunk, dim the lights. dimming lights. 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[ laughs ] that's my leg. aw! pft, pft. evolve your home security. get the peace of mind, safety and convenience of xfinity home. and don't forget to catch the croods, a new age in theaters tomorrow. rated pg. breaking pandemic news tonight. the u.s. coronavirus death toll surpassed 259,000 people and the country has confirmed more than 12.5 million coronavirus cases. athena jones has more from new york. >> i can't prevent anyone from getting covid. all i can do is try to keep covid from killing you. >> reporter: as coronavirus infections explode across the country with no signs of slowing down, health care providers are pleading with americans to do their part to stop the spread. >> so what we need is for people to step up and to wear masks and to distance from people and just try to keep themselves safe and everybody else safe. >> reporter: new covid-19 cases topped 100,000 for the third week straight with hospitalizations setting a record nationwide for the 14th day in a row monday. 14 states reporting their highest number of hospitalizations yet. officials warning if the virus continues to spread out of control. >> you may not be able to go in and get your heart attack treated. i've heard hospitals not being able to provide care for pregnant women because they are filled with covid beds so that is the reality. >> reporter: in fact, ohio's governor said hospitals in his state are approaching capacity and health officials in pennsylvania warn they could run out of icu beds in a week. in california, where icu admissions have risen 55% the past two weeks, the los angeles board of supervisors is considering more closures. . new mexico is seeing uncontrolled spread of the virus with infections more than doubling week over week. the state setting new records for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. in kentucky. >> we are being overwhelmed with a record number of cases with hospitalizations going up, with numbers of individuals in the icu increasing every day. >> reporter: this as one new model predicts covid-19 cases in the u.s. could nearly double by inauguration date to 20 million cases. at another well-known model projects 140,000 more people could die over the next two months. more children are becoming infected with more than 225,000 new cases of covid cases in in children indianaing november 19 according to a report from the american academy of pediatrics and children's hospital association. a new poll found more than half of americans now say they would take a first generation covid vaccine, an increase of 14 points since september. fda committee is set to meet december 10th to consider an emergency use authorization for pfizer's vaccine and if all goes well the u.s. could distribute doses soon after. >> we believe we can distribute vaccine to all 64 jurisdictions within 24 hours of fda authorization. then we hope administration could begin as soon as the product arrives. >> reporter: now the white house coronavirus task force is taking another look at how long people have to quarantine to be safe from covid-19. assistant secretary of health says evidence suggests a shorter quaranti quarantine complimented by a test. 14 days may not be necessary and they are working on issuing more guidance. >> thank you. more on the breaking news. joining me now, is the coronavirus testing czar admiral brett giroir. a lot to discuss with you. let's begin with the currently reality. cases are surging around the country as we head into thanksgiving the next few days. what advice do you have for americans who are trying to figure out how to celebrate on thursday? >> thanks for having me on. you are absolutely correct. we are at a critical and dangerous point in this pandemic where cases are rising in nearly every jurisdiction and our hospital capacity is really getting challenged by this. what i would say is what we have said many, many times is that it does not have to be this way, that we know for many regions, many cities in our country, we know from the united kingdom and in france that reasonable protections like wearing a mask universally when you cannot physically distance, avoiding those indoor crowded places and especially bars and restaurants. using good hand hygiene and using appropriate testing. you don't need to close down the economy. you don't need to close down hospitals. you can keep schools open but if you don't do these simple things, all of those grim statistics you talked about are going to be a reality and we are very concerned about that. >> admiral, explain why you're now telling americans if they must travel and cdc is recommending against traveling on thanksgiving, they shouldn't necessarily, folks who have to travel they shouldn't necessarily even bother getting a coronavirus test first. why not? isn't one test better than no test at all? >> you do make a good point, wolf. and there is probably some benefit. obviously, if you're tested and you know you're positive, then you shouldn't travel at all. that is a good thing. what i think i want people to understand more importantly is a test that is negative today doesn't mean you're going to be negative tomorrow or the next day or the following day. what we really want people to do is follow those cdc precautions like limiting your gatherings if you can, distancing even in the household, wearing a mask when you can. i'm a cajun. we would have ten people in the kitchen cooking for 12 hours. you got to stop doing those kind of behaviors and have smarter choices whether your test is negative or not. the negative test is not a free pass to do risky behaviors. >> you're not saying we shouldn't get a test if you're traveling. you're saying get a test but doesn't necessarily mean the next day you might wiped nd up positive? >> in most areas of the country a asymptomatic person who has is not been exposed has a small percent chance of having a positive test you so have to weigh that, right? in fact, getting on the geeky side, if you're completely asymptomatic, you have not been exposed and have you no risk factors that test being positive is more likely a false positive than a true positive. so a lot of complications. let me get to the bottom line. i know you like the bottom line. it is certainly not wrong to get a test before you travel because if you are positive, you need to stay home, no questions asked. but if you do get a negative test it doesn't give you a free pass. all of the things the cdc says, all of the things we talk about is still in force and this is a dangerous situation we are in right now. it is a dangerous situation but reversible. i will say we are starting to see just the glimpses of the mitigation effects in certain midwestern states and other states starting to take an effect. believe me, i'm not saying we turned this around because we have not. we know mitigation works and we are starting to see those glimpses of success just starting. if we keep this we can turn the curve the next two or three weeks. we would have a vaccine as early as middle of december that tens of millions can get and we have to be diligent. >> even if you get a test and its it's negative you shouldn't travel either? >> the cdc advises us not to travel. many americans want to travel and you need to make a better choice. safest thing to do this thanksgiving is not travel. millions of people in airports and et cetera. if you do travel, please look at that cdc website and know how to be safe, wash your hands, wear a mask, distance. all of the things we told you about and especially in your household gathering particularly if they are vulnerable individuals. >> you make news today. i want you to elaborate for our viewers. you announced that the trump administration is actually considering shortening the recommend quarantine time for covid-19. right now 14 days of quarantine if you've been exposed to someone. how long would the new recommendation be for quarantining? >> yied announi was asked a que news conference whether the administration is considering it. the answer is yes. the cdc is reviewing data. as you know, it's quarantine 14 days. half people become symptomatic by day five. that is when the virus is present. there is a long tale of very low probability afterwards. cdc is looking at it and driven by data, if you get a test at day seven or day ten, particularly can that shorten your quarantine from 14 to ten days perhaps? not an announcement that it's safe but we are looking at that. we know a lot more about the virus now than beforehand. people are much more likely to listen to a ten day quarantine than they are a 14 day quarantine. if we can shorten it safely with most risk because we have a quarantine plus a test, we have a lot of tests available now, that might improve our public health responses. it's not an announcement that is happening but we are reviewing it and the cdc team is modeling it and looking at data every day. and it may change or it may not. just depends on where the data and the evidence wind up. >> quickly. when are you starting to brief the incoming trump -- the incoming biden team i should say? >> i really look forward to doing that. you know, public health is not a matter of politics. many of the people on his team, we work with on a regular basis already because they are in the public health community. we are putting together materials and putting everything together. you know, we are not as far apart in our approaches as the reports are. we are investing in point of care testing and want rapid testing and using the dpa. i'm anxious to do this in a professional way. these are colleagues in the public health community and i look forward to working together. >> you think the next few days? >> i hope so. i really expect that. they were waiting for the signals. i don't control the signals. lots of informal signals that everybody is ready to talk and my team is ready. we put together materials and, you know, we want to transition this as effectively as possible. i think we built a good foundation for the biden administration to continue to build on for the rest of the time that the pandemic is here. we look forward to working with them. >> 57 days to go as i keep pointing out. admiral, thank you for everything you're doing and good luck and have a safe and happy thanksgiving. appreciate it. >> thank you, wolf. despite urgent warnings against holiday travel, some americans are planning to fly over thanksgiving. we will take a closer look at the safest way to do that during this pandemic. experience clean in a whole new way. now roomba offers you personalized cleaning suggestions and vacuums exactly where you need it. by getting to know you and your home, roomba makes cleaning easier than ever before. so say goodbye to cleaning and hello to clean. hey google, tell roomba to vacuum the dining room table. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. narrator: upgrade your protectin this holiday season... awhen panhe doesn't justsals,n nanocvs smmake a pizza.m.or you. he uses fresh, clean ingredients to make a masterpiece. taste our delicious new flatbread pizzas today. panera. we now have our first look at the team president-elect joe biden is assembling for his administration a team he says shows that, i'm quoting him now, america is back. joining me now, to discuss is a member of the foreign affairs member. congressman, you're a u.s. air force veterans also and you continue to serve in the air national guard. i wonder what you make of the foreign policy national security team the president-elect is now putting together? >> it's definitely some big names. i think it's going to show kind of traditional democratic foreign policy, you know, when we talk about things like alliances, that is going to be important. you know, nato, et cetera. how do you hold those alliances accountable? and then when you look at the middle east, one of my big concerns is just, you know, re-entering the iran deal when we really have iran retreating out of a lot of areas in the middle east. but that said, i think, you know, the president-elect, obviously, has a right to put his team together and i'll give them all a fair shot. in my mind, everybody deserves a fresh start and i will professional oppose them when i need to and support them when i can. >> encouraging to hear that. the formal transition process is now under way. you know, congressman. the trump administration can't decide how much it will work with the president-elect's incoming team. in terms of national security, how critical is it that this transition is as cooperative as fullsome as possible? >> i think it's critical. look. we have so much out there we are dealing with. we find out, you know, about a potential conflict between russia and the united states right now. we talk about the importance to push back on china. this is going to be a long-term fight that goes beyond even the next president and something we have to rally around. of course, we have in our very near term this virus and how do we get out the vaccines when those are available? what is the best way to do that? i think the sooner that we can go to a full transition, the better, you know? president trump is still president for the next couple of months. but the more that president-elect biden can, when he is inaugurated get off running, that is always better. i think we have to sometimes as a country, because we get so kind of focused on our internal battles between republicans and democrats, sometimes it's important to remember we are all americans and literally about 90% of stuff around the world we all agree on and i certainly want the next president to be able to get a good leg going when he gets started on that. >> i mentioned your military service to our nation, congressman. as you know, president trump has announced plans to withdraw troops from both iraq and afghanistan and to complete that withdrawal five days before president-elect biden takes office. you and i spoke with democratic congressman seth moulton the other day who served in iraq and afghanistan and you both disagree with president trump's decision. how would you like to see the biden administration respond to this move? >> i think it's important for the president-elect to come out and talk about what he is going to do. i think 2500 troops is almost untenable. at that point you're in a posture of protecting yourself. i think a message that sends to our enemies we are eager to retreat could be a good recruiting tool for them. i think soon the president-elect said would he go back to where we are out not or keep it at 2,500 or fully withdraw? either way he decides he is making a definitive decision. i really think that decision should be left to the next administration. i still don't understand why the president has gone to 2500. reduction of these numbers of troops is only going to serve as a recruiting tool for isis as they can do to disaffected people and say that we ran the united states out. >> i don't know you and congressman disagree with president trump very strongly on this critically important issue. congressman, once again thanks for your service. i hope you have a happy and a safe thanksgiving. appreciate it very much. sdp you too. see you. the cdc is warning americans not to travel for thanksgiving as the coronavirus pandemic is surging all across the united states. guess what, millions of americans are traveling any way and experts are urging people to try to protect themselves from the virus while flying. cnn bryan todd is joining us right now. what steps can people take to make air travel safer? >> not getting on an airplane at all is one of tips that experts are offering but if you feel like you have to fly, there are some specific measures that you can take to reduce your risk. the cdc has recommended that americans don't do this. cautioning them not to travel for the thanksgiving holiday. on friday, and again on sunday, more than a million people each day passed through security at america's airports breaking an air travel record in the u.s. during the pandemic. the busiest travel days haven't come yet. >> this is not the time to be flying when there's coronavirus hot spots in every part of the country when there is explosive spread. >> reporter: many passengers seem to know the risk and are still flying. >> pretty scared of going back home because of coronavirus. i'm trying to take a lot of precautions but it's till really terrifying. >> at some point it's too hard to stay away from family especially for the holidays. >> reporter: if you feel you have to fly, experts are offering some important advice. >> if i had to travel, i would be wearing g ining gloves, face shield and i would do my best not to go to the lavatory. >> reporter: other advice, keep your mask and face shield on the entire flight. try to find a seat by a window so you're not close to people walking the aisles. don't sit in rows that have the middle seats filled. don't touch your face during the flight. bring your own hand sanitizers and wipes. wipe down the tray table, armrests, your seating area. one expert has advice about dangerous period of your flight that many may not have thought of. >> one of the most dangerous times is during the boarding proses when every one is crowded together and when there isn't fresh air being pumped in. try to minimize that time standing in the jetway, standing while boarding as much as you can. >> reporter: again, the cdc is saying not to travel and experts are worried about americans behavior over thanksgiving and what comes next. >> almost certainly people are now going to be seeing loved ones, they are going to be staying in someone's home. they might be having dinner together. remember people are coming from all over the country where there are coronavirus hot spots everywhere. >> i'm afraid that two or three weeks after thanksgiving and then again after christmas, we're going to be seeing spike upon spike. this is a very difficult time for all of us. >> the experts we spoke to say that airplanes and airports are not the only places where you may run some high risk. they say be careful when you use ground transportation, shuttles, trains, taxis and ubers. if you have to take a taxi or an uber make sure you open the windows on route. wolf. >> it's a really critically important information you provided to ou vir viewers. thank you have much in is so scary what's going on. more than 1700 americans, so far today, and the day is by no means over. so far 1700 americans just today have already died from coronavirus. thank you very, very much. more break news we're following. president-elect biden introduces key members and signals a break with trump's isolationists policies. see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone because this. come on jessie one more. is the reflection of an unstoppable community in the mirror. priceline works with top hotels, to save you up to 60%. these are all great. and when you get a big deal... ♪ ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." we're following breaking news. president-elect joe biden declaring and i'm quoting him now, america is back as he rolls out his first cabinet selections in a sharp turn from president trump's america first mantra. biden says his team reflects to lead the world, rather than retreat from it. an official says the white house just approved presidential daily briefings for biden. major step in this formal transition process that's under way. president trump, himself, is still refusing to concede that he lost the election while ramping up his baseless attacks on the election even as he claimed to celebrate american greatness during the traditional white house turkey pardon earlier this afternoon. the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has surpassed 259,000 people here in the united states with more than 12 and a half million confirmed cases. hospitalizations in the u.s. are at an all time high right now. let's go to cnn jessica for more on the biden transition. the president-elect is setting an sbieentirely new tone on the world stage. what's the latest? >> reporter: we heard from his newest picks earlier today. we also learned later this afternoon that the white house has signed off on president-elect biden getting what's known as the presidential daily brief. that's classified
moderna's covid-19 vaccine the second vaccine to join the fight against the virus. this as top government officials including vice president mike pence, speaker nancy pelosi, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell all received their first dose of the pfizer vaccine. the overwhelming majority of americans are still vulnerable to this deadly virus is killing at an precedent rate right now. hospitalizations are shattering records. deep concern on capitol hill tonight that stalled negotiations over desperately needed relief package could lead to a government shutdown at midnight tonight. let's begin our coverage with cnn sara murray covering the pandemic for us. we could seal another vaccine join the rollout at any moment now. >> reporter: we saw the fda's advisory committee recommend to the fda it authorize this vaccine and we are waiting on the final word from the fda at a time when more supplies of these vaccines are badly needed across the country. the u.s. awaiting a green light from the food and drug administration for moderna's coronavirus vaccine. >> we look forward to working with the fda to take the necessary steps to be in a position to hopefully, receive the emergency use authorization. >> reporter: this is as more americans at long-term care facilities get access to life saving vaccines. >> i feel fine. i feel good. the shot was no problem and i think everyone can and should get a shot definitely no matter what age. i'm 95. >> reporter: both cvs and walgreens are beginning to inoculate long-term care facilities in iowa and kentucky today. >> our staff have felt the strain and stress but these vials of hope have arrived. today is a historic day. >> reporter: some nursing home residents and staff begin to get some protection, for others, it will still be a wait. states across the country are complaining that the federal government has informed them they will get smaller shipments of the pfizer vaccine next week than previously expected. still, vice president mike pence applauded the vaccine rollout today. >> we expect, later today, we will be in a position to ship 5.9 million doses of vaccines all across the country next week. in fact, under operation warp speed, we are poised to have vaccine for 20 million americans before the end of december. >> reporter: pence rolling up his sleeve for his own first dose today. >> great job. >> reporter: joined by surgeon general dr. jerome adams who is aiming to set an example for minority communities that may still be skeptical. >> also lining up for a shot today cnn's own dr. sanjay gupta who is also a practicing neurosurgeon. >> you're not wincing at all. >> is it in? >> it's done. >> it's done? you are really good! >> reporter: the relief for some comes as the pandemic continues to take its toll in the u.s. the nation added more coronavirus cases in the past seven days than any single week since the pandemic began. one in every 216 americans became infected this week alone. >> the hospital system is still able to provide high quality care, but it won't be able to do that forever. >> reporter: california among the states in crisis after an unprecedented post-thanksgiving surgery. >> one hospital administrator conveyed to me in a zoom call if we see a similar spike after christmas and these were his words, we will go under. >> the state shattered its record high for daily coronavirus thursday as the availability of icu beds in southern california falls to 0%. as these coronavirus vaccines go out we are learning of a third health care worker in alaska who had an laeallergic reaction to vaccine. it's still relatively rare. i want to read to you one of the things the employees says, she wants to remain anonymous but said it's treatable and it does not have long-term health implications like covid-19. she said i would get the vaccine and i would recommend it to anyone. >> very good. sara, thank you so much. i want to get update what is happening at the white house. jeanne moos acosta is joining us. the president is spreading misinformation on multiple fronts including on the election. what are you hearing from your sources? >> that's right. president trump is back to playing games with the election and the coronavirus pandemic. at the same time, the president is sending more signals he support an government effort to keep trump in power. one source close to the white house telling me this effort is an exercise. ethe white house is not offering any new guidance. president is throwing his weight. incoming alabama tuberville. he ask hinting he may join a republican effort in the house to block congressional radification of the election results on january 6th. he is push other senators to dive in and falsely tweeting republican senators have to get tougher or he won't have a republican party any more. we won the presidential election by a lot fight for it don't let them take it away but even a source close to the white house said it's an exercise in futile ited ity to trump. >> it's time for us to accept that defeat and accept the many victories that we had that night. we had a great night except that the top of the ticket 4r069 and we need to accept that and move on. >> reporter: others want to keep fighting including michael flynn who was recently pardoned by the president and said mr. trump should declare martial law and a new election. flynn was careful to add he is not specifically calling for that to happen. >> he could order the -- within the swing states if he wanted to take military capabilities and place them in those states. out there talking about marshti l law. martial law has been instituted 64 times. >> reporter: the president is playing games with the pandemic. just as vice president mike pence was receiving his vaccine. >> i didn't feel a thing. well done. and we appreciate your service to the country. >> reporter: the president was retweeting conservatives who questioned the effectiveness of wearing masks and contrast with nancy pelosi and mcconnell who both got the vaccine themselves. the white house isn't saying much about when mr. trump will be vaccinated. earlier this year the president said he was ready to do his part. >> if there is a coronavirus vaccine, will you get it? will you take it? >> will i take it? i would absolutely, jim. if there is a vaccine and they want me to be first if line or last in line or not take it at all. whatever is best for the country. >> reporter: the president is laying low on the russian cyberattack on the u.s. government that lawmakers are still trying to understand. >> what if this attack was on the gas pipeline system or on the electrical grid or on the air traffic control system? this just underlines how critically important the issue of cyber is and how we really aren't there yet in terms of preparation. >> reporter: white house officials insisted mr. trump is working hard on the issue. >> at this point, administration continues to work very hard behind the scenes and to the extent we have to speak publicly we do that but the work is being done whether or not he is coming in front of cameras. >> reporter: sources tell cnn mr. trump is on the verge of granting new pardons one potential long time personal attorney rudy giuliani paid a visit to the white house. they are aimed at reaching a deal on the coronavirus stimulus package. a sorely needed one. white house officials say they are hopeful that congress can make that happen by the end of the weekend but this is another area where the president's leadership is sorely needed at this point and it is just missing in action tonight. >> he certainly is. stay with us. i want to bring in our senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny and former ohio governor john kasich a cnn senior commentator. governor kasich, the country is facing multiple crisis. where is the president of the united states? >> i don't understand what he is doing tweeting these things out. on the aid package which is sgraelt ne desperately needed in this country. those unemployed and facing evictions what most presidents would do is call the leaders in the office and get this hammered out and it's vital. that is where he should be. secondly, this cyberattack is very serious. this was, obviously, launched by the russians, that they have been able to enter into some of the places in our country many government agencies, including many of the private sector operations, some of the biggest companies, they are in there and we don't quite know if they still have a presence in there or trying to get them out, what is the response? how do you pull cyber together you have one place we can operate this? this is critical. as was mentioned in your report, this could affect everything that affects americans if the cyber continues. he ought to be out in front on this. this should be something he should be in front of the cameras and warning russians there will be penalties for this because they entered illegally. we think they may have been driven out but werned sure and they may still have tools inside our government agencies and inside of companies, private sector companies we haven't been able to determine yet. they are just gathering information that could be devastating to us. maybe in some respects, maybe, wolf, that this is a wake-up call because when you think about the air traffic control system, when you think about the atm system we have in this country. when we think about the grid that we have in this country, i mean, this is a really, really serious thing. we saw cyber coming. there needs to be a warning right now and the president should be out in front of that. at the same time, he is negotiating this aid package and getting it outline the door and getting it signed. what is he doing? i don't know. he is tweeting some stuff out about fraud in the election. hard to believe. >> it is hard to believe. jim, what are the people around the president, you're working your sources, saying about his work ethic right now during this lame duck period when he has got 33 days to go until biden becomes president? >> wolf, what i'm hearing from my sources the president is doing meore wining than working. not like we are playing where is waldo game. he is in the white house and not working on these issues. he is choosing to air grievances and going beyond that and still, you know, maintaining this idea that he could scam his way into another term in office when that is just not going to happen as one source told me this is an exercise in few iutilfutility. i think president is missing an opportunity to rewrite what would have been the history of the end of his presidency. he could have been leading the charge on people getting the coronavirus vaccine. he could have been leading the ch charge and warning russians about cyber security and leading the char and getting a relief bill passed through congress. if he has any hopes of running again in 2024, he could have used this period to set the table for that. instead, he is just chasing ghosts and these ideas that he can win another term, another consecutive term in office. >> he could have left gracefully but clearly he is not. jeff, the president-elect is trying to reassure the country but this is a real balancing act right now during this transition, isn't it? >> reporter: wolf, there is one president at a time. of course, president-elect joe biden doesn't dispute that. he is the president in waiting and one of the most visible leaders that america has. he will be getting the coronavirus vaccine on monday, he and his wife dr. jill biden will be. he has put out a statement on the cybersecurity attack and not mentioning russia by name which was by design because this government has not so he does not want to get ahead of that but clearly engaged in all of these things. his national economic adviser weighed in today on the relief bill on capitol hill. he is forming his cabinet. he is, you know, certainly getting up-to-speed on all of these issues but there are limitations what he can do. the balancing act actually is not as complicated as if president trump was engaged. president-elect biden hatfield basically to himself here and he is using it to the limits in which he can. one interesting thing that is happening. all this is going on in the white house and president trump is not saying much at all there is more obstruction happening we are hearing across government agencies at the pentagon specifically. the acting defense director stopped these transition discussions that were happening with the biden transition and said they were going to take a two-week break for the holiday. initially today said it was agreed upon with the biden campaign and the biden transition said this was not agreed upon at all. there are serious matters that need to be worked out here, serious business that the biden transition team needs to be read in on. even as the president is doing very little, others in his government, his political appointees are trying to stro obstruct the biden team. >> governor kasich, how worried are you that as time goes on, president trump appears to be ramping up his campaign to try to actually overturn the results of the election which were formally officially approved by the electoral college? >> it's a joke. it isn't going to happen. ze zero chance that is going to happen. i can't understand who is he playing to now? the fact we have a rollout which is good news and he wants to take credit for the operation warp speed and quick discovery and execution and hopefully deliver of this vaccine, he should take credit for that. he deserves some credit for that. to be in the middle of the a package, negotiations and say let's just wrap this up, folks, this is crazy and let's get help out to people. that is a good thing. i don't know where the downside on that is politically and to pound his chest and talk about the cyber attack, something that can be potentially devastating today and even worse tomorrow, this is another area where he can show leadership. i don't know who he is trying to appeal to. it doesn't make any sense to me. it doesn't add up. maybe he is just disgusted and doesn't want to participate but, you know, who knows. but these are things that are winners for him that he should be doing because they are right for the country. >> he can't stomach the fact that he lost the election that he is a loser and he is also using this moment, this opportunity these days to raise a ton of money that he is going to be able to use in the weeks and months and years ahead. he has already raised more than 200 million dollars and maybe raise another 100 million and have that to use for various purposes the next few years. >> one other thing. this continued drama makes us look bad in the eyes of the world. they have always wanted to be like a america and today they say we don't want all of that chaos. we need to clean this up because the world is watching america and we are the leader and we are falling behind right now. it's got to stop. >> the world is having a tough time saying to themselves, understanding what is going on in the united states right now? a lot of folks can't believe what is going on. everybody stand by. up next we will have more on the looming government shutdown as negotiations over a desperately needed coronavirus relief floundered in congress. later, i'll speak with the top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee about the unprecedented cyber attack on u.s. government agencies. humira experience even better... with humira citrate-free. it has the same effectiveness you know and trust, but we removed the citrate buffers, there's less liquid, and a thinner needle... with less pain immediately following injection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. and you can use your co-pay card to pay as little as $5 a month. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections,... ...including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened,... ...as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems,... ...serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common... and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections,... or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. the same humira you trust with less pain immediately following injection. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. and with free curbside pickup at walmart... you can get the perfect gift up until the last minute. let's end the year nailing it. ♪ a unitedhealthcare dual complete plan can give you extra benefits at no cost to you. like 25 dollars for healthy foods each month. with dual complete from unitedhealthcare... there's more for you. with dual complete from unitedhealthcare... d'shea: i live in south jamaica, born and raised. i'm a doordasher, i'm a momma with a special needs child, she is the love of my life. doordash provides so much flexibility. if something happens with her, where i need to be home, i can just log out and just say "okay, my family needs me." i don't have to answer to nobody. i don't want to be nobody's employee. i do what i want, i'm independent. independent lady. that's what i like about it. we are following multiple breaks stories right now. the u.s. government may run out of money tonight and completely shutdown. negotiators still haven't worked out a deal on a desperately coronavirus relief package. the house of representatives is voted on a two-day stopgap spending bill to try keep the government running past midnight tonight. senate majority leader is checking to see if any republican senator would object to that. let's get an update where things stand from democratic senator from new jersey on the finance committee and the top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee. how real is the risk right now that the federal government shuts down without a deal to help the millions of americans who are on the brink of losing their benefits? >> well, there is no reason for that crisis to happen and we are more than willing to pass the house's two-day measure to finalize the negotiations. the only individuals that we hear may object to the two-day continuing resolution to keep the government open for the next two days are some republican colleagues. i hope they will come to their senses. it's never good under any set of circumstances to have a government shut down. >> you're absolutely right. congress had months and months, as you well know, senator, to do this. why does it always seems to be coming down to the very last second? why is there this? >> well, it's always a difficult negotiation. you know? we could have agreed a long time ago but we would not have had direct payments to individuals as presently negotiated, which we think is incredibly important to help families be able to get to the rest of the pandemic challenges. we would not have the money for unemployment insurance which we think is critical as well. so we have had to hold out in order to try to ensure that the real essence of helping people is realized. i'm going to support the package that i thought was already finally negotiated even though it doesn't have aid to state and local governments which i think is critical. we are looking at maybe 6 million public sector employees will be laid off. that is going to have a real pain to middle class families and to the economies of state. but for the moment i'm willing to vote for the package that did all of these other things but at the 11th hour our republican colleagues are bringing in new items that are crippling in terms of the government's ability to continue to help families in the days ahead. there is no reason to do that in exchange for the essential elements of what our families need right now. >> the senate minority leader chuck schumer supporting a 1200 stimulus checks to a lot of americans out there. should a bill pass that does include 1,200 this one time stimulus to a lot of americans. would you still support it? >> my hope we will have the 1,200 payment and families need that. that kept a lot of families out of going into the poverty levels. we have seen a great number of americans now go into poverty. we see a great number of americans including in my home state of new jersey people standing in line for the first time in their lives at a food pantry and never did this before in their lives. that is the reality for many americans. so my hope is that we will reach that number. but at the end of the day, what we cannot have is the republican insistence of closing down the very levers of government that are necessary to help the very people who need the help now and will need it next year as well. i have no doubt that there will still be a continuing need to some degree. and we need to have every door open available to us to make sure the economy can respond and that people can be held whole. >> millions of americans have now gone into poverty and only last week, what, nearly 900 to you thousand americans lost their jobs and applied for first-time unemployment benefits. it's a horrendous situation right now. hopefully you guys on the hill will get this done. let me ask you this about this truly unprecedented cyber attack on various u.s. government agencies. the white house says president trump is, quote, working very hard on this but doesn't want to tip off adversaries. that is what they say. how do you respond to that? >> well, there is no substitute but a firm and rapid and public response. once you're clear about who the enemy was and every indication from all of the sophistication and the elements of what was done would suggest russia but once you have the clear ability to attribute you must do it publicly, you must name, then there must be consequences. i'm really appreciative that president-elect biden has said that he will not tolerate such a attacks and there will be consequences, because unless, if it is russia, which i believe it is, if it is russia, unless there are consequences, they will continue to do this, undermining our national security, undermine our private sector, undermine our ability to restore our economy. all of these things are affected with the type of attacks that are going on now. nine months of not knowing it is really an intelligence failure. >> yeah. so far, i haven't seen any severe consequences as far as the russians are concerned. senator menendez, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you, wolf. coming up, cnn's dr. sanjay gupta joins us live and we will discuss his decision to get that first coronavirus shot today. we will also check with the experts on how to celebrate christmas safely. information you need to know. start with everyone who hides presents under the bed. narrow to those whose dogs... also fit under the bed. no, not that one. ok, that one. meaning, you. you're the one we made mywalgreens for. with pickup in as little as 30 minutes. to make saving, shopping, and holiday chaos...easier. introducing mywalgreens. join for 30 minute pickup at walgreens.com we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪ do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. our friends sold their policy to help pay for their medical bills and that got me thinking. maybe selling our policy could help with our retirement. i'm skeptical, so i did some research and called coventry direct. they explained life insurance is a valuable asset that can be sold. we learned that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew? we sold our policy. now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. right now we are awaiting official word from the fda which is expected to grand final emergency use authorization for the moderna coronavirus vaccine. cnn's dr. sanjay gupta was inoculated with the pfizer vaccine earlier today. we saw it live here on cnn. he is joining us right now. sanjay, i want to show our viewers some video from this morning when you were on "new day" and you got the coronavirus vaccine. tell us about your experience, how you're feeling now. >> you know, wolf, i feel fine now. in some ways, it was sort of a collision of my worlds, first of all. i'm practicing neurosurgeon at the hospital there, so they are inoculating health workers as you know. so it was my turn so i went ahead and got the vaccine. it was really interesting, wolf, just as a reporter who has, you know, been reporting on covid for the last year, and saw the initial vaccine development, talked to vaccine makers, interviewed, you know, officials at the fda, looked at the science. i felt like i had a really informed sort of point of view on this. you know, a lot of people have a good sense that something is safe and effective, but i've had such a granular look at the whole process through this year, that it was interesting knowing all of the science that went into that little vial and then in the end, it was a pretty mun day sort of thing, just a shot we have all gone through before. it didn't really hurt at all. my arm -- i feel fine. i wouldn't know right now that i had anything done. in some ways it was a very remarkable back story for a pretty, you know, trivial act in the end just getting that shot. >> when you get the flu shot which i get every year, your arm might be sore a little bit for a few hours, maybe a day. do you have any soreness in your arm? >> no. i would say, you know, i was trying to compare it to the flu shot. i think this is less. maybe just a little bit of soreness. i think it's pretty much gone now. i have heard the second shot which i'm going to get in three weeks on january 8th, they give you a card to remind you and all this, sometimes the side effects there may be a little bit more significant, more soreness of the arm, a little bit of fatigue, i've heard. i've talked to lots of people who went through the trial and have had both shots. that's what you often here, it's that boost shot that may be slightly more. but for me, right now, wolf, it really, honestly, i wouldn't even know at this point that i've had a shot, except that, you know,, obviousl i went thros morning. i have no symptoms at all. >> that is what we are hearing from the last majority of people and a lot of people have received this vaccine. you have as well heard and we just heard about a third person in alaska who experienced what appeared to be anaphylactic reaction after receiving the pfizer vaccine. is that simply a coincidence? are these reactions causing any serious concern? >> no, i don't think they are causing serious concern but i think they are certainly something that need to be investigated and people are keeping tabs on. three now reactions, as you point out, in alaska. i'm curious that they have all been in alaska and may be one that people who are looking at these adverse events will focus on. you'll remember same sort of thing happened in the uk. two people from same institution developed allergic reaction there. i don't know that there is anything to that. what we do know is that if you look at vaccines in general, there is a certain rate of allergic reaction that people have in the background, about 1 in 1 million. if you start thinking about this vaccine and ultimately hundreds of millions of people in the united states, you know, being immunized, you probably would see hundreds of these allergic reactions. in all of these cases, i think we can show you some of the symptoms that people have had but in all of these cases, the symptoms did resolve and they were people were given epinephrine to make that happen. but it was a short-term thing. >> that is good to know. sanjay, thank you so much. you'll be coming back later so don't go too far away. important note to our viewers. later tonight on cnn, dr. anthony fauci and surgeon general dr. jerome adams joined don lemon and sanjay gupta for a new town hall. "the color of covid the vaccines." tune in tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern. tomorrow morning the "sesame street" crew is back about staying safe this holiday season and the abcs of covid-19. we await final word on the fda giving emergency use authorization to the moderna coronavirus vaccine, we will talk with the new jersey governor phil murphy about the plan to get the vaccine into people's arms. sure, anything. we searched you online and maybe you can explain this? i can't believe that garbage is still coming in. that is so false! frustrated with your online search results? call reputation defender today to join tens of thousands who've improved their online reputation. get your free reputation report card at reputationdefender.com or call 1-877-866-8555. if you have postmenopausal and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself, 'are my bones strong?' life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure, trouble breathing, throat tightness, face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have happened. tell your doctor about dental problems, as severe jaw bone problems may happen. or new or unusual pain in your hip, groin, or thigh, as unusual thigh bone fractures have occurred. speak to your doctor before stopping, skipping or delaying prolia®, as spine and other bone fractures have occurred. prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium, serious infections, which could need hospitalization, skin problems, and severe bone, joint, or muscle pain. don't wait for a break, call your doctor today, and ask about prolia®. if you have type 2 diabetes and risks for heart disease, you could land in the hospital with heart failure. for people like you, farxiga does more than lower a1c. farxiga also helps prevent hospitalization for heart failure. do not take if allergic to farxiga. symptoms of a serious allergic reaction include rash, swelling, difficulty breathing or swallowing. stop taking and seek medical help right away. tell your doctor right away if you have red color in urine, or pain while you urinate, or a genital area infection, since a rare but serious genital infection may be lifethreatening. do not take farxiga if you have severe kidney problems or are on dialysis. other serious side effects include dehydration, genital yeast and bacterial infections in women and men, urinary tract infections, low blood sugar, and sudden kidney problems. stop taking farxiga and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of ketoacidosis, which is serious and may lead to death. answer the alert. ask your doctor if farxiga could do more for you. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. new jersey health officials just announced the state will set up six vaccine megasites next month but the state's health commissioner is warning demand for the vaccine will outpace the supply. let's discuss with the governor of new jersey, democrat phil murphy. governor, thank you so much for joining us. you take these steps to distribute vaccines more widely, we are seeing some very troubling coronavirus trends nationwide. how concerned are you about what lies ahead? >> good to be with you, wolf. by the way, a big week. we started vaccinating people tuesday in the morning and there is a real glimmer of hope. however, to your question, i'm very concerned. i think the near term is going to get worse before it gets better. we have seen our numbers go up in cases, hospitalizations. we are not yet threatening to overrun our hospitals which we cannot allow to happen but i think we are in the combination of cold weather, holidays, fatigue, private setting, transmission, lack of a national strategy, that is all conspiring and coming together right now. >> so sad. we reported, governor, many states are getting fewer and fewer doses of the vaccine than originally anticipated. is that true in your state of new jersey? >> it is true. and we have not yet got a satisfactory answer. so we will continue to turn over every single stone to get the doses we need but that is right. i believe it's happening to every american state and, again, we have not been given an answer that is satisfactory. >> let's hope once the moderna vaccine is approved and we expect that to be approved within a few hours, maybe as early as tonight, together with the pfizer vaccine, there will be more available. these are desperately needed as you correctly point out. give us an update on vaccine distribution in new jersey. i know it's an incredibly complex process but how is it going? given the vaccines that you currently have. >> yeah. it's going really well, wolf, i have to say. i visited three of our big hospitals monday morning, assuming moderna gets their eua tonight i will witness their first vaccinations on the capitol hill city of trenton. the numbers are lower and we want to get to 70% of our adults which you suggested we are setting up to early to mid january, megasites and then adding several hundred other sites. so far, so good. the supply/demand balance is real. and we have to address that as a nation sooner than later. >> yeah. it's a critically important issue. when you and i spoke earlier in the month, governor, i scud if you have enough funding to carry out your vaccine distribution plans. your answer was an emphatic no. i wonder if you're confident the federal government is going to provide enough support to a vaccine description when congress finally passes what is so desperately needed, a relief bill. >> yeah, i mean, i sure hope so. this is incredibly frustrating. i feel like we need moe howard and the three stooges to bank some heads together and get something out of there. it's frustrating at two levels as well. it's not big enough remotely. i'll take it but it's a fraction of what we need. i think this is a 3 to 4 trillion dollar moment and it has to include state and local aid. there are too many front line workers' lives and livelihoods at risk in the services they deliver at our hour of need. i don't think history is going to be unkind to us if we overshoot. if i'm wrong and it's not as big a moment as we think, although i don't think i am wrong, i think we will be okay. but we will not be okay if we undershoot this moment and that is what i fear right now. >> it's not 3 or 4 trillion and not 1 but it won't include any state or local aid which you guys i know desperately, desperately need. good luck, governor murphy. we will stay in touch. >> thanks, wolf. good to see you. >> thank you. coming up, the safest way to celebrate christmas this year is at home. we have details when we come back. but with walmart's low prices, you still know how to do it up. and keep costs down. let's end the year enjoying more. ♪ you are all i need baby baby to get by ♪ unfortunately, we are still limiting in-person appointments due to the pandemic and we'll need to move your father's visit to a later date. we're sorry. hola, papa. american cancer society helpline. how can i help you? it turns out i have tardive dyskinesia, a condition that may be related to important medications i take for my bipolar disorder. tardive dyskinesia can affect different parts of the body. it may also affect people who take medication for depression and schizophrenia. - [narrator] in today's trying times, we're here to help you manage td. visit talkabouttd.com for a doctor discussion guide to prep for your next appointment in person, over the phone, or online. - it's a relief to know there are treatments for td. latonight, silence it with newd byzzzquil night pain. because pain should never get in the way of a restful night's sleep. new zzzquil night pain. silence pain, sleep soundly. welcour new virtual classes were designed for you andving? millions of seniors like you. you can now choose from thousands of live virtual classes every week. get moving wherever you have an internet connection. and when you're ready, enjoy access to thousands of locations nationwide. with silversneakers, you're free to move. enroll today at no additional cost by visiting the website on your screen. as the united states suffers through the worst wave of the pandemic yet, health officials like dr. anthony fauci are urging americans to celebrate christmas at home this year. bryan todd is on the story for us. bryan, if you do decide to travel, experts say there are steps you should take to make your holiday gathering a little bit safer. tell our viewers what you're learning. >> reporter: wolf, we have new information tonight, important advice from experts on how to travel, how to hold indoor gatherings, and how to navigate shopping malls. america's top voice on the pandemic warns christmas this year could cause an even more catastrophic spread of coronavirus than thanksgiving did. >> with christmas it starts several days before. it goes through christmas, the week after christmas, into new year's and the new year's holiday. >> reporter: as america is in the midst of an especially dangerous period of hospitalizations and deaths, dr. anthony fauci says this year it will be just him and his wife together for christmas. >> and for the first time in more than 30 years, i'm not spending the christmas holidays with my daughters. >> reporter: tonight dr. fauci, the cdc and other experts have warnings and safety tips as the holiday season peaks. they warn americans not to travel, but if you have to travel, try to get tested and quarantined before you leave. then quarantine again when you get there. try to drive to your destination. >> if you have fly, the shorter the flight the better. make sure you wear a mask, make sure you wash your hands, and try to avoid eating or drinking while traveling. >> reporter: any gatherings with people outside your immediate family are discouraged. but dr. leana wen suggests if you do host a gathering, try to make it outdoors wherever possible. >> outdoors those infectious particles are more likely to be dispersed before others can breathe them in. >> reporter: but dr. wen also has advice for those who don't live in warm weather areas. >> i suggest a fire pit. a heat lamp could also help. >> reporter: she suggests sitting 6 feet apart and the host set out food and drink. for indoors, spread people out as much as possible. >> reporter: open as many windows as you can, provide as much circulation as you possibly can. >> reporter: if people are eating in a gathering in a home, epidemiologist ann moyan says, have them eat in different parts of the residence. and -- >> don't have music on. have it turned way down so people don't have to speak loudly. >> reporter: if you can't order gifts online, what do you do? >> try to pre-order, or pick up at the curbside. pick up the gift and leave again. try not to linger in the mall for any period of time, and if you can go at off hours, that, too, will decrease your risk of getting infected. >> reporter: dr. megan ranney and other experts are also concerned about the mental and emotional health of people at this holiday season, acknowledging that it could be lo lonelier and more isolated than ever before. they urge people to get on the phone and call family. >> very important information you just presented, bryan. thank you very much. capitol hill is in negotiations to keep the federal government open and they're desperately running out of time. stay with us. you're in "the situation room." , , i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have uc or crohn's symptoms after trying other medications. and humira helps people achieve remission that can last, so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. or psoriatic arthritis, little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." a new milestone in the coronavirus pandemic could happen any time. we're standing by for the fda to officially authorize a second vaccine in the united states, this one from moderna. also tonight, multiple officials have received their first vaccinations of the already approved pfizer vaccine, including the vice president, the surgeon general, the house speaker and the senate majority leader. the race to vaccinate couldn't be more urgent right now as the pandemic explodes, taking a staggering toll on this country and shattering records for new deaths, cases and hospitalizations. the u.s. economy also in
senator mitt romney says he's quote, very likely to support calling witnesses though he stressed he will wait until the conclusion of opening arguments before making a final decision. what romney and the rest of the senate saw today was a defense that accused democrats of om omitting facts, slammed them for wanting to call witnesses and even claimed they were trying to interfere in the next u.s. presidential election. >> let me be clear, disagreeing with the president's decision on foreign policy matters or whose advice he's going to take is in no way an impeachable offense. >> they established what we have known since the beginning. the president did absolutely nothing wrong. >> they're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in american history, and we can't allow that to happen. >> the gop source tells cnn some of the president's allies were disappointed with the presentation today because they had hoped for a more fiery defense. let's get straight to capitol hill right now. lauren fox is on the scene for us. lauren, let's talk about the republican senator mitt romney. he now says it's very likely he will be in favor of calling witnesses in this trial. what's the likelihood that three other republican senators might be leaning the same way? >> wolf, four is the magic number when it comes to whether or not democrats can win over enough republicans to actually get the witnesses that they want to see. you know that the president's defense team was speaking directly to some of those moderate republicans today as they made their opening arguments. >> the president did nothing wrong. >> reporter: that was the refrain of the president's legal team trying to shoot holes in the democrat's nearly 24 hours long arguments. >> we don't believe that they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden for what they are asking you to do. >> reporter: over two hours the president's team emphasized the high stakes of the impeachment trial. >> they're asking you not only to over turn the results of the last election but as i've said before, they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months. >> reporter: claiming that democrats were not forts cohcom ignoring some of the testimony from the impeachment inquirely like that of tim morrison. >> do you believe, in your opinion, that the president of the united states demanded president zelensky undertake these investigations. >> the fact they came here for 24 hours and hid evidence from you is further evidence that they don't really believe in the facts of their case. impeachment shouldn't be a shell game. they should give you facts. >> reporter: the president's team repeated the republican argument that the transcript with ukrainian president zelensky kpon raexonerated pres trump. >> the president did not link security to the july 25th call. there was no discussion of the paused security assistance. >> reporter: the president's team played a clip of lead manager adam schiff parafraphrag the call in september. blasting him for mischaracterizing that call. >> this is the essence of what the president communicates. >> that's fake. that's not the real call. >> reporter: president's team elected not to get into as much detail as the house managers did when they opened their case. >> you heard the house managers speak for nearly 24 hours over three days. we don't anticipate using that much time. >> reporter: they said the best evidence that there was no quid pro quo with ukraine were the words of the ukrainian president himself. >> i think and you read it that nobody pushed it. >> they think you can read minds. i think you look at the words. >> reporter: the president's outside legal counsel jay sekulow brought up the debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine may have meddled in the election. >> mr. schiff and his colleagues told you that russia was acting alone, responsible for the election interference. imply thanksgiving ing this deb might be interference from other countries including ukraine. this is what we call a straw man argument. >> reporter: the impeachment managers pushing back they didn't present all of the facts. renewing their call to allow witnesses despite it now seeming unlikely that enough senate republicans would vote with democrats to allow them. >> they know exactly what the president did. the president's men know exactly what the president did. we proved what the president did and the latst thing they want i more of the truth to come out. >> reporter: the defense team will continue to make their case when the trial resumes on monday. >> 1:00 on monday. thank you. we also know now how president trump feels about what he sauz today. we're hearing the president, he's happy? >> reporter: he watched it this morning and he said he's pleased with how his defense team acted. we know there were key points the president had worked closely with his team and he made clear he wanted them making those points. one was criticizing adam schiff and that was the first video out of the gate. that's something he wanted them to focus on but what you saw, the argument his attorneys were making was the one he's been making about reading the transcripts. that was their bay disof the defense. they wonts their defense at 1:00 in the afternoon. that's going to look different that's today. you saw jay sekulow, pat cipollone cipollopresenting on floor. a lot different of the time span for what you saw when it was the democrats and the house managers. also on monday you're going to see new faces. ken starr and alan dershowitz are expected to present on the floor. the big question will be ha they will say about the bidens. they made clear hay are going to invoke the bidens as they are making this defense of the president even though they did not do so today. we are told you can expect them to do so on monday. >> we'll be watching very closely. thank you. joining us now cnn white house correspondent john harwood. mitt romney said he is likely to vote for witnesses. could that pave the way for three other senators? >> democrats hope so. it's not clear they are hopeful. who are we talking about? these are household names at this point. we have been talking about it. susan collins said she is likely to back witnesses when they comes before this impeachment court. the other person, lisa murkowski seems she's been open even though recently she's been critical of the impeachment manager on the democratic side. the other person is lamar alexander. he's retiring and people are saying maybe that frees him up to buck his party and mitch mcconnell and the president. the problem is he's really good friends with mitch mcconnell. the president liked what he heard. you imagine that most of the folks in that body today, certainly the republicans, feel like they have enough evidence going in and enough of an argument where they feel like that can back the president and not necessarily back them. >> it was interesting to hear the way the president's team framed the argument. i think it was aimed at those four senators and other republican senator who is are looking at this situation who may not be comfortable with what the president did as it's been lads out laid out by the house managers thoroughlily but looking for reasons to akwits him. what you heard them do is try to offer some alternative rationals for why he might have done what he did. it was interesting that pat cipollone led off about how president trump cared so much about burden sharing. this is an argument you hear a lot. he wasn't trying to shake anyone down. he wanted to share the burden of military assistance to ukraine. there's nothing in the record that really points to that in the case of ukraine but that will be something we continue to hear going forward. they talk about his concern with corruption. they are trying to give those republicans something to hang on onto. >> you heard the democratic leader chuck schumer said what they heard from the two hours from the white house lawyers actually helped the case that they need more witnesses and more documents. >> i agree with him. it's rather ironic because jay sekulow who said it was the democrats who opened the door to the biden idea. first of all, they didn't mention it but they were swinging that door wide open constantly inviting the need for new witnesses. from the advocacy point of view i thought that hands down win for the house democrats, for the house managers but they're not really playing to a true jury. they are really playing to a jury of one. their organization, a little bit lacking, reflects the fact you have a client, the president, who is very micromanaging what talking points they have to use and their presentation reflects that. >> a lot of us thought, including me, they would come out in first presentation, the white house lawyers, and really go after the former vice president joe biden and his son. the president makes a huge issue out of this. we didn't hear anything about that, at least not yet. >> their either going to skip that or saving it. i think there's some risk in that for them. the for you go after joe biden, the more you turn the impeachment trial into the instrument that you are hoping to get from ukraine in the first place. in other words, they prove the point that their goal is to muddy up joe biden as opposed to defend trump. i was surprised that cipollone went to ukraine and election interference. that was identified by fiona hill in the house intelligence committee as russian propaganda. he offered that as part of the defense. i agree that the tone, the low key demeanor that the white house lawyers did was a smart decision by them. it was aimed precisely at those waivering republican senators to the extent that any are waivering. the kind of jim jordan presentation that we saw in the house would not have served that purpose. we have to see whether trump will be satisfied with low key. when we get to next week how aggressively is he going to go after his democratic rival. >> i think the white house lawyers thought less is more. let's see if that continues on monday. everybody stand by. we have a lot more news we're following. a newly revealed audio tape capture the president in his own words. president trump can be heard in the 2018 tape speaking with lev parnas and demanding the firing of the then u.s. ambassador marie oyovanovitch. that's next. ♪queens on the team in real life not just on the internet♪ ♪all strength, we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait, we're taking everything we wanted we can do it♪ ♪all strength, no sweat ♪all strength, no sweat when we see you enter through our doors. we don't see who you're against, or for. whether tomorrow will be light or dark. all we see in you, is a spark. we see your kindness and humanity. the strength of each community. the more we look the more we find the sparks that make america shine. ♪ my age-related macular degenso today i made a plan with my doctor, which includes preservision... because he said a multi- vitamin alone may not be enough. and it's my vision, my morning walk, my sunday drive, my grandson's beautiful face. only preservision areds2 contains the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced amd progression. it's how i see my life. because it's my vision... preservision. ♪ ♪ ♪ new fixodent ultra dual power provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. fixodent. and forget it. now to our rather bizarre story involving mike pompeo. he's accused of screaming obscenities at an npr reporter and demanding she prove she could find ukraine on an unmarked map. the reporter asked pompeo whether he owed marie yovanovitch an apology. listen to this. >> i have defended every state department official. we've built a team. >> sir, where have you defended marie yovanovitch? can you point me toward your remarks? >> i've said all i'm going to do. thank you for repeated opportunity to do that. >> kelly described what happened when secretary pompeo called her back into his private living room over at the state department following the interview. >> i was taken to the secretary's private living room where he was waiting and she shouted at me for about the same amount of time the interview itself lasted. he was not happy to have been questioned about ukraine. he asked do you think americans care about ukraine. he used the f word in that sentence and many others. he asked if i could find ukraine on a map. i said yes. he called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marks. i pointed to ukraine. he put the map away. he said people will hear about this and then he turned and said he had things to do and i thanked him again for his time and left. >> people will hear about this. they have been hearing about it. what's your reaction to this? he's a highly respected. the question she asked were reasonable. >> completely reasonable. listen, he still doesn't have a good answer. t there is no evidence he's defended marie yovanovitch who was targeted and lost her job. this is shocking but not surprising from this white house given what we know in this administration. given what we know about the kind of culture this president has created in terms of the treatment of the media. the idea there's fake news. the idea that the news is the enemy of the state. this is all the language of the president has used in talking about the press and in some ways it's not surprising that the secretary of state feels like he can get away with this. his statement. >> let me read it. it's pretty extraordinary. this is on u.s. department of state letterhead. office of the spokesperson. a statement by secretary michael r. pompeo. npr reporter lied to me twice. first last month in setting up our interview and then again yesterday in agreeing to have our post interview conversation off the record. it's shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. this is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt president trump and this administration. it's no wonder that the american people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their absence of integrity. it is worth noting that bangladesh is not ukraine. have you ever seen a statement like this on department of state letterhead from a secretary of state blasting a real journalist like this in this way? >> first of all, mary kelly is a complete professional. she would not lie about this situation. she just wouldn't. the administration doesn't just have a problem with the media. the reason they have a problem with media is they have a problem with the truth that the media is telling. that's the core point. secondly, mike pompeo himself has a track record of this. apart from the rest of the administration. we remember in unsuccessful attempts to intimidate our colleague judy woodriff. he derided her of dnc talking points. he did the same to another woman trying to intimidate here. here he takes it to another level because he doesn't respond well to pressure. >> very quickly, one of the criticisms of pompeo has been he's sort of singles out women journalists for this kind of criticism. i don't know if you agree. >> it does seem to be pattern. john mentioned a view. he has had some tussles with andrea mitchell. the department of state has been a position to defend press freedom around the world and to see a statement like that lets you know the position of the secretary of state and as much as this is a personal issue seems to be a personal issue with the secretary of state, that statement is very much targeted to president trump. that was for his consumption. that was to show him that i'm fighting for you and i'm not going to let this story get in the way of your political agenda. i think that's the reason that it's worded the way it is. >> i would challenge him to pull out an unmarked map and lay it in front of president trump and ask him to identify a handful of countries there. >> let's point out also mary louise kelly has an advanced degree in european studies from cambridge university. she knows where ukraine is. that's not a tough one. all right, everybody stand by. we're following breaking news. also out of china, the u.s. government is preparing a charter flight to evacuate american citizens from the chinese center at the city of the coronavirus outbreak. the number continues to grow around the world. we have details. hpaste, but not seeing results? try crest 3d whitestrips. its enamel-safe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100% noticeably whiter teeth or your money back. try crest 3d whitestrips. rowithout the commission fees and account minimums. so, you can start 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every day for two weeks. available at your local retailer. oh no, here comes gthe neighbor probably to brag about how amazing his xfinity customer service is. i'm mike, i'm so busy. good thing xfinity has two-hour appointment windows. they have night and weekend appointments too. he's here. bill? karolyn? nope! no, just a couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. new tonight, the state department is now leading an effort to evacuate american diplomats and tens frcitizens f chinese city that's become ground zero for the deadly virus. hundre hundreds of cases are being reported and dozens of deaths. long lines of people buy face masks and bleach. at least 60 million people are affected. our chief medical correspondent is joining us now. sanjay, 42 deaths have been reported in china. we know of two confirmed cases already here in the united states. one in seattle. one in chicago. what more do we know about this virus? >> we obviously are seeing the numbers out of china. we're hearing about the containment strategy and we're keeping an eye to see how kick quickly this virus is spreading. two patients here in the united states. they are being followed. you can see what their travel history was like. this woman in chicago arrived on january 13th. didn't have much contact with people. several days later she started to develop symptoms. there's an incubation period between the time someone is infected and the time they develop symptoms. what they are also doing is looking at the context of both that patient in seattle. this person in chicago. seeing if anybody else develops symptoms. so far they haven't. that's really good. as much as this spreading in china right now, we haven't started to see that same level of spread in the united states. if we don't, i think that will tamp down the level of concern. >> china says it's learned its lessons with the sars epidemic back in 2003. we're hearing reports that some doctors are going all day without eating, wearing diapers because they can't take off their hazmat suit, is that necessary in. >> you're dealing with a novel virus. that means a virus the world has not yet seen. this is not even a month into this outbreak. i think it's the fear of the unknown. right away the public health community, people in these positions think is this the next one, so to speak. the next big pandemonstratic. we had one in '68, '69. the idea is could this spiral into the worst case scenario. it doesn't look it is. you want to know how many people are affected and how many people have died. you want to look at that ray ti. i suspect there's a lot more people out there infected in china who don't have much in the way of symptoms. who may not have any symptoms and aren't getting tested the ratio drops down to a much less concerning level. >> let's hope they can find way to contain this. while i have you, you know the department of defense said friday that 34 american service members now have traumatic drain injuries from iran strikes on that air base in iraq. they now want an apology from trump from down playing those injuries this way. listen to this. >> i heard that they had headaches and a couple other things but i would say, i can report it is not very serious. >> you don't think potential traumatic brain injury serious. >> they told me about it numerous days later. no, i don't consider them serious relative to other injuries. >> what do you make of that? >> this is tough. this is my area of expertise. these quote unquote invisible wounds of war. the military has been dealing with this for some time because they're not easily measurable. because they are not easily visible, they get minimized and neglected. terms like bell rung and shell shock. it's concerning. those 10 to 125% of people, the symptoms will last a long time. we tend not to give them the same attention that other things are easily measurable. i think maybe that's what the president was referring to. this being more of an invisible wound but no less serious. i think that's an important point. >> it's a very important point. i have a good friend who has suffered from a traumatic brain injuries and sometimes, correct me if i'm wrong, it takes a while for the real damage to be felt, to be seen, to understand what's going on. >> no question. the symptoms can develop days, week, especially when you're in the more chaotic situation within a war. when you look at the impact of those missiles, the way it was explained to me, it was sort of mini blast waves. it was like multiple concussive blast hits. imagine within a small, just a microsecond multiple blast waves strikes the body. what does that do the the body? how long does it last? when do the symptoms develop? it can differ person to person but it can be serious. >> sometimes it can be bleeding in the brain? >> that's right. my guess is when they took the patients to germany and kuwait city, it was probably to get scanned. did it cause some sort of bleed on top of the brain that needed to be addressed. >> this is really serious issue. i'm glad that folks are dealing with it as well. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks. from impeachment to iowa. democratic senators go from washington back to the campaign trial. we'll take you there, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ wherever we want to go, we just have to start. autosave your way there with chase. chase. make more of what's yours. ♪ new fixodent ultra dual power provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. fixodent. and forget it. your amy what work?zing! you need a website! very soon you're gonna be very famous! lady that is the last thing i would ever... huh? stop! put those away! most people think as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. 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(woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. i had no idea that my grandfatherfe changing moment for me. was a federal judge in guatemala. he was an advocate for the people... a voice for the voiceless. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com breathe freely fast, with vicks sinex. my congestion's gone. i can breathe again! ahhhh i can breathe again! ughh.. vicks sinex, breathe on it's disappointing to me not to be in iowa talking to the people there. i'm accepting my constitutional responsibility. what i'm saying at a disadvantage. >> do you think it places biden in a advantage over you? >> i think it does. >> the iowa kau issucaucuses ar nine days away. he says his campaign schedule is in the garbage. a new poll finds sanders surging in that state. he's now at 25% followed by pete buttigieg at 18%. joe biden at 17%. elizabeth warren at 15%. amy klobuchar is at 8%. elizabeth warren is about to hold a campaign event. what has the past week been like for these 2020 senators? >> wolf, we do expect senator warren to take the stage behind me here in iowa and shee has not been back in iowa since monday of last week and that just tells you so much about the affect this impeechlmeachment trial ha on the 2020 race. there are several u.s. senators who have had to sit in on these impeachment trials that have gone late into the evening. that has made it impossible for them to even fly out in the evening to hold iowa rallies. we have seen these senators come up with the creative solutions to make up for the fact they have not been able to physically be here on the ground. whether it's sending out surrogates to campaign on their behalf or call into town halls. we saw bernie sanders call sboog calling into a rally last night. the iowa voters we have spoken to say that understand that the senators are just doing their jobs but they also say that here in iowa, especially, that face time is so important. take a listen to what they said. >> i know they have a job to do and i'm glad that's the most important thing. in iowa we want them to do what they need to do in washington. i hope it doesn't. i hope they know that the candidates are busy doing their jobs. >> it may hurt them a bit in iowa but here in iowa we like to meet them and talk to them. it may hurt a bit. a lot of them have such good momentum going now. >> reporter: these 2020 senators have certainly clarified they are just fulfilling their constitutional obligations. i don't think this is what they had in mind for the final stretch head sboog ting into th caucuses. >> warren's team put out a memo down playing the importance of the early voting states. what did it say? >> reporter: it's really interesting. the warren campaign doesn't put out these kinds of strategy memos into the public. the timing of this memo that came this week was interesting. there's no yes of warren came pa -- campaign has seen a dip in the polls. it stresses doing well but saying they have a long term strategy to take them past the super tuesday contest and beyond. they also say they have more than 1,000 full-time staffers 30 plus states. the message the campaign is trying to spread at this moment in time is they see this campaign as a marathon rather than a sprints. >> thanks very much. it's hard to believe, a week from monday the iowa caucuses. let's see what happens this week. >> and what it means for joe biden. we have been talking about this before. it's likely some scrutiny will fall on joe biden. some fell on him in some ways with the democrats trying to prebutt what we might hear from trump's team. we'll see what that means. we has been able to consolidate or come out with much more of a lead. biden is splitting the moderate lane with pete buttigieg. sanders has been stuck in iowa. you wouldn't know that looking at polls. be you're sanders, you feel good. biden has never really been someone who performed well in iowa. he dropped out in his prooefevi races before he got to iowa. it's got to be worrisome for his team given he's behind in iowa and lagging in new hampshire. that's also a state sanders will do well in as he did before. >> bernie sanders, it wasn't that long ago he had a heart attack and now he seems to be taking votes away from senator warren. >> i remember writing a story that was about how bernie sanders lost the magic that he had. he was struggling in polls bit. he had the heart attack. he seems to be much more energized and is consolidated the supports of your warren and mj got into this. you still have nine days. her path doesn't look as bright as it did before. >> nia will stick around. when lawmakers become rule breakers. senators have had a hard time following the strict rules in the impeachment trial. what happens to those who are breaking the rules? 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try olay skin care. just one jar of micro-sculpting cream has the hydrating power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. while new olay retinol24... provides visibly smoother, brighter skin. for dramatic skincare results, try olay. and now receive 25% off your purchase at olay.com brand power. helping you buy better. no stand, no cell phones and no talking. senators must abide by these rules and others opinion here is cnn bryan todd with more. >> reporter: there's been some tough rules in play since the trial started. rules that the senators have had a hard time adhering to. imagine if you're a u.s. senator and you're used to be able to schmooze with anyone at any time. now you have rules saying you can't stand, you do you solemnly swear. >> after hours and hours of testimony, the trial has been a test of the senators' ability to sit down and be quiet. >> hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. >> among the restrictions for senators inside the trial, keeping your mouth shut, even refraining from whispering to the person next to you. no use of cell phones or other electronic devices in the chamber. no reading materials are allowed unless related to the impeachment trial and no standing. senators have to sit in their seats when the trial is in session except to vote. >> you cannot even move during the course of the trial. now what that will do for middle-aged and older men who may need to bring in catheters is another story. >> and it turns out senators aren't great at following the rules. senators have been seen leaning into their neighbor, hans cupped over their mouths whispering to each other. some have left the chamber. others have been seen standing, leaving empty chairs. >> you're not missing a thing if you're standing instead of sitting. >> senators have been seen dipping into personal stashes of candy and other snacks, playing with fidget toys and drinking milk. james zigler doesn't believe it is too much to ask of a senator to sit still, be quiet and refrain from reading and texting on their phone in the proceeding of the gravitas of a president's impeachment. >> jurors in a normal criminal from seeding in our court system are required to sit still and listen to what's going on, and i think it's part of that general culture that they're trying to make it clear to the senate you're expected to be there, you're expected to listen to this. you're not expected to be doing other work. >> to be fair, most senators have been attentive throughout the proceedings, but analysts say among a group of people not known for wide attention spans or discipline, it's not surprising that some rules have been broken. >> senators are not used to being reined in. this is putting them into chairs with strps, and that will not sit well with an awful lot of senators. >> what happens to senators who break these rules and who get caught talking out of turn or looking at a cell phone. >> technically they could be kicked out of the chamber and could even be arrested, in reality none of the senators we know have been punished so far. we'll see what happens in the coming sessions. wolf? >> brian, thank you. brian todd reporting. just ahead, gop senator mitt romney now says it is very likely he'll number favor of calling witnesses in the impeachment trial. could three other republican senators follow suit? we'll discuss. sleep this amazing? that's a zzzquil pure zzzs sleep. our liquid has a unique botanical blend, while an optimal melatonin level helps you nod off naturally with no next-day grogginess. zzzquil pure zzzs. naturally superior sleep. and try vicks pure zzzs kidz, a low dose melatonin gummy that helps your child fall asleep naturally. we have different needs.y. but one thing we share is wanting to make our lives the best they can be. if you have medicare and medicaid, a dual complete plan from unitedhealthcare can help. giving you more benefits. at no extra cost. and a promise to be there for you. whatever your story may be. to learn more, call or go online. dual complete from unitedhealthcare. wthat's why xfinity hasu made taking your internetself. and tv with you a breeze. really? yup. you can transfer your service online in about a minute. you can do that? yeah. and with two-hour service appointment windows, it's all on your schedule. awesome. so while moving may still come with its share of headaches... no kidding. we're doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. 75 years after the last prisoner was liberated, the name auschwitz still haunts all of us. scenes of unspeakable horror and also stories of incredible heroism and courage. tomorrow night i hope you will join me for a one-hour special report voices of auschwitz featuring steven spielberg, director of "schindler's list" among others. together we will look back at the places and people the world must never forget. here is a preview. >> walking these grounds changed steven spielberg's life forever, as it did mine. >> walked under that sign. >> be free. >> when i saw the crematorium and the gas chambers. it was a powerful, powerful moment. >> the second time i went to auschwitz with my wife a rabbi took us and we said a prayer and he asked me to come near where the crematorium, and you could put your hand in this mud hole and i did. it was very soggy and it had been raining and i put my hand in there and i pulled my hand out and there was white sort of bone meal all over my hands, because the remains of everyone over those years of mass murder rained back down on to the earth. -- excuse me, and they're still there. and that's something i'll take to my grave. ♪ ♪ >> we hear from four auschwitz survivors. anita was a cellist as a girl. martin was a tailor. renee was also a designer in the ♪ ♪ >> eva, she was a 10-year-old little girl when she was brought to auschwitz. why did they survive whereas others died? >> just to say luck, that's not enough. >> not luck. >> it's more than that. >> these survivors somehow hung on tenaciously to life. whatever didn't cause their death, disease, hypothermia, murder, somehow this group of kids made it out, and were able to lead very, very productive and almost inspired lives. this is the last significant commemoration of the worst atrocity in, i believe, human history. >> the cnn special report, voices of auschwitz airs tomorrow night 11:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. ♪ ♪ i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room" with cnn's special coverage of the impeachment trial of president donald j. trump. tonight, word that the president is extremely pleased with today's opening statements from his legal team, but some of his closest allies are actually a bit disappointed. a gop source tells cnn they'd hoped for a more fiery defense. for one hour and 55 minutes, president trump accused the democrats of hiding evidence and attacked the impeachment manager, congressman adam schiff and repeated over and over that the president of the united states was completely innocent. >> are we here because of a phone call or are we here before this great body because since the president was sworn into office there was
he denies trump has asked him to intervene in a criminal case and says he won't be bullied or influenced by congress or by the president. we'll talk about the breaking news and more with congressman john gert men day and our analysts are standing by. first, let's go to senior justice correspondent evan perez. this is a significant development. the president, i assume, once he sees the coverage of this is going to react very negatively to his attorney general. >> wolf, it's very rare for this attorney general to not be in line with what the president is saying. so today is definitely one of those days where the attorney general is saying that the president and his tweets are not helpful for the work the recommendation made by those career attorneys. nose a couple days ago. he's saying what they did was absolutely beyond the pale. he's standing by his d reverse the sentencing recommendation for roger stone. here's the attorney general talking about this. >> to have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we're doing our work with integrity. >> mr. barr, the president does not like to be told what to do. he may not like what you're saying. are you prepared for those ramifications? >> of course, as i said during my confirmation, i came in to serve as attorney general. i am responsible for everything that had happens in the department. but the thing i have most responsibility for are issues that are prougt to me for decision. i will make those decisions based on what i think is the right thing to do and i'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody and i said whether it's congress, newspaper, editorial boards or the president. i'm going to do what i think is right. and the i cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercut mess. >> and it is definitely rare for the attorney general to say anything that seems to be critical of the president, but again, a lot of what he said today in this interview with abc news is really about defending what he did this week and saying that the president ha h nothing to do with it. that's a very important thing for him to do to stay in the good graces of the president. >> he's basically saying he's not going to be bullied by the president or by congress. he's not going to be bullied. he's effectively suggesting to the president you better shut up. >>. >> he certainly said stop tweeting. but i think again, one of the things that the attorney general was doing here is a little bit of a magic trick. the headline is that he is not happy about these tweets. the tweets are not helpful. but what the attorney general is doing, the work he's done this week on the roger stone case, it's definitely things that the president likes. and that's one of the messages he's sending to the president. i'm still on the reservation. i'm doing the work you want me to do. just stop tweeting. >> it's not just the tweeting that has irritated so many fu l officials. it's what the president says on camera. he does that routinely. he's spoken not only of the prosecutors, but the federal judge. he's gone after the jury who reached the guilty verdict. he's gone after all of the prosecutors who brought this case. he says it was a ridiculous case. they should have never brought any charges against roger stone. it's not just the tweets, it's the statements he's made. >> absolutely. those statements have caused other attorneys in the department. they are attorneys here in the washington office. repairing to resign. tstz the ret are risk from the president. bill barr has used himself in a lot of interviews and a lot of comments. he has criticized the past work of career people at the department of justice. and so barr and trump have been sim pat coon some of the rhetoric. you're say seething him step back buzz of the criticism and the misgivings of his own employees was beginning to bubble up to the headquarters of the justice department. >> he reported they are bracing for more resignations in the u.s. attorneys office here in d.c. u.s. attorneys and southern district of new york, elsewhere they are deeply worried about what the president may say and do and as a result there could be more resignations. is the attorney general worried about the backlash and reaction he might get. >> he has to be mindful that the president will not like some of the coverage. sometimes it's not the comments, it might be the korchl that will bother the president. then we'll see his reaction. i think one of the things that happens in the department they know he has to reassure the troops that he is going to do the job without sbit plolitical interference, but also reassure that he's still on his team. >> we'll see what the fallout is. thank you very much. very significant development. let's go to the white house. very strong words from the attorney general. very surprising words from the attorney general. first of all, any reaction so far from the white house? any reaction at all? >> press secretary has responded to multiple requests for comment to bill barr's remarks. she may put out a statement. no indication the president has seen this yet on twitter. these are really jaw tropping remarks considering how defensive and how vociferous bill barr has been in defending the president in the past. he walked president trump through the entire ending of 9 russia investigation. remember that summary of bob muell mueller's findings that didn't reflect the findings. the use of executive privilege in denying congress specific documents when it comes to the ukraine investigation. all of that in mind barr is speaking out against the commen comments. congratulations to bill barr for taking charge of a case that was out of control and perhaps not even been brought. evidence now clearly shows that the mueller scam was brought and tainted, even bob mueller lied to congress. we could spend time fact checking that claim. there's much in that tweet that's incorrect. the president has a lot of confidence in william barr. he said in an interrue that his life would have been a lot easier had he hired barr before hiring jeff sessions to be his attorney general. >> i suspect the president is not happy with what the attorney general said. i'm sure he's going to be even more unhaep when he sees all the coverage that this has generated. we know he does follow all this stuff very closely. boris sanchez, we'll get back to you as soon as you get a statement from the president or press secretary. let's get some more on all of the breaking news. thank you for coming in. >> good to be with you. >> what do you think of the what the attorney general just said. >> i'm delighted he push ed bac at the very beginning. first of all, the mueller report as he did and then carried on. finally, he seems to have found his backbone. stand up to the president and tell the truth. >> if nice a situation like this where even bill barr is saying, stop tweeting, you're hurting all of this. that's a very significant development. >> it's extremely important. we have seen school grounds where bullies push around. clearly the president pushed barr too far. unfortunately i think for this nation, it's been late in the process for br to stand up to the president and say, you can't do this. this is wrong. >> he did point out the attorney general that even on his own without any influence on the president, he thought that seven to nine-year sentence for roger stone was too high and should be lower. that's his position. >> i would love to have him come to congress to the judiciary committee and the house or senate. >> he is coming. at end of march. >> that's a long way from now. he ought to come tomorrow and explain his position. explain whatever the president may have said to him or not said to him. this needs to be fully vetted because we cannot have a banana republic in which the president is going and taking control of the judiciary and the judges. >> why do you think bill barr is now come out and said what he said, which is obviously going to deeply irritate the president? >> there's my conspiracy theory that would say this is a way to protect the president. but i think it's more than that. i think it really is the president pushed him just too far. and there may have been some words said in private. we don't know that. it would be good to have that information. but finally, the president seems to have gone too far with the attorney general. i think many tenders were terribly concerned that the president seemed to have gained control of the justice system in the united states. that would be a terrible problem for this democracy. >> there have been report, including here on cnn, that in addition to the four federal prosecutor who is quit and walked away from the case in the aftermath of the rebuke they received, others here in washington and in new york may be doing the same thing begining of this mass protest. >> i'm all for mass protests. but at the same time, i wonder who is going to replace these people. will they be trump's troops n which case we'll see even further erosion of justice in the united states? i want them to stand tall and speak out as they have done. but i don't want them to leave because they are good people. these are career folks we need in those offices to properly administer justice. >> these are career prosecutors. but as you know, the president doesn't necessarily like all the career officials whether justice or the fbi or cia or the state department. he's been very critical of that element he describes as the deep state. >> if i recall correctly, we have another hour and a half on this show. and i'll bet you'll get a tweet you can talk about in your last hour. >> you think ? >> it won't be kind to justice department and quite possibly to mr. barr? >> you think this is the beginning of the end of the attorney general? >> who knows. trump does not take well to criticism of people that work for him. he's back to his i apprentice mentality thinking this government is some sort of a show where he can control every piece of it. he said very carelearly. i'm the president and i can do whatever i want. glad the senate followed thepre. >> we'll speak thabout that. but we have to move on. thank you, congressman. >> always good to be with you. >> stay with us for more on the breaking news. the attorney general of the united states william barr using an interview with abc news to assert his independence and actually publicly criticize president trump's tweets about the roger stone case. more after this. when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org (woman) no matter what business you are in, digital transformation never stops. verizon keeps business ready for what's next. 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(woman) when it comes to digital transformation, verizon keeps business ready. ♪ breaking news we're following. the attorney general of the the united states is asserting his independence and publicly criticizing president trump's tweets in the roger stone case. listen to what barr is telling abc news. nz. >> to have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department or men ask women here, about cases pending in the department and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we are doing our work with integrity. >> very strong words from the attorney general of the united states. jim baker, let's discuss it. surprised he's been very loyal to the president and for him now to say the president of the united states is making it, quote, impossible for me to do my job, he say he's not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody include iing the presid of the the united states. and then he adds i cannot do my job here the at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me. he's blasting the president and effectively, as i said, telling the president to shut up. >> yes, i guess i have three reactions to this. so number one is this is the bill barr i'm familiar with. this is sort of the strong, independent leader, person of integrity and intelligence and speaking out loudly for his troops. which i think he had to do it because there was a rebellion within the department of just e justice. that's sort of the first thing. seconds thing, it sounds like it's a resignation letter. it sounds forceful. these are the kinds of things i can no longer do my job. that's what you're you say when you decide to walk out the door. did he precoordinate this with the white house and explain to the president, i have to do this. i'm facing rebellion inside of doj. we're going to go in this hearing and it's going to be disastrous. so those are my first three reactions. >> it does sound a little precooked to me. so there's a little bit of skepticism that's warranted here, particularly since lindsey graham puts out a statement. >> he said that yesterday. >> but today right away, i support bill barr. i do think, however, he was facing and is facing a mutiny inside the justice department. and he also felt the need, i think, to defend himself and to say, look, i made the decision. i thought the sentence for roger stone was way too much. and i had decided that we ought to roll it back. and then the president tweeted and his quote was dorks you go forward with what you think is the right decision or do you pull back because of the tweet? that illustrates how disruptive these tweets can be. now he wasn't born yesterday. he's just discovered that the president tweets. but i think he felt the need to set the record straight for his own reputation on this. but i wouldn't be surprised the white house got a heads up saying you know what, i'm going to say this because i need to do this to keep my troops okay. >> he was facing potentially more resignations in the u.s. attorneys office here in washington, d.c. and new york city. there could have been a whole bunch of federal prosecutors who say they are walking. >> while all of this is going on the president is weigh iing in. his allies are waging a war against the jury itself who convicted roger stone. there was a sense in which this whole thing was starting to snowball. it was not just the issue of the length of roger stone's sentencing, but also the people around the president, the president himself questioning the process that would have been really too much for a lot of people within the department of justice. at some point, barr had to say something. he had to say something not just to maintain control of the department that he runs. but also because clearly a lot of republicans are uncomfort wbl this on capitol hill. they are being forced to answer questions about it. but none of them are willing to say so publicly it was left to barr to say something. i agree that i would be surprised if he did this without give iing the white house a lit bit of a heads up because the consequence of doing something like this without letting them know is the president gets angry and cuts the legs right from under you. >> i was pretty stunned when i heard the interview, the comments that bill barr made in the interview. but what about you? >> look, i thought they were remarkable quotes. i understand the skepticism, but i have to say from my reporting, white house officials did not have a heads up whether bill barr gave the president a heads up is a different question. we don't know the answer to that. even if he did give him a heads up, us find it unlikely that the president fully processed exactly what barr was going to say and the president has you noted a couple times tends to be very reactive to how these things are covered in the news media. he's going to see coverage of a remarkable rebuke of the president by bill barr, stunning commentary, no other cabinet member while sitting has said something like this. i don't know how he's going to react to that. i do think bill barr felt like he had to say something. i think it's remarkable he also said this was my decision. i don't think we understand yet in terms of the stone case exactly what happened. and how it was that it went from seven to nine and what barr knew to this recommendation for sentencing being changed. that will play out in the coming days, but he was facing enormous pressure within the justice department. he was facing threats of people either leaving or losing confidence in him. he had to say it, but there's no way that the president is going to hear those comments from anything that any of us know of him over the last several years. i really can't see him hearing bill barr criticizing how he uses twitter, which he is so important and his form of independence in this job. i ka can't see him hearing that and saying, yes, i get it. that's cool. >> the the question is what does he do? what does the president do about it? barr is his last friend and ally. he's had another attorney general he fired. so what does he do facing this kind of criticism? >> he fired sessions after almost two full years of simmering. so we might get eight months of reelection vote of the the president sim isering. we might get barr leaving on his own. we might get nothing. i think the president recognizes it would be traumatic for them to lose the torn general. be us that doesn't mean he's not going to be unhappy and he's in this phase of feeling unfeddered. this is not what he wants to hear. >> i suspect is you're right. he's going to be very angry with the coverage. and the words that we all heard from bill barr when he said it make it is impossible, what you're doing, your tweets make it impossible for me to do my job. i'm not going to -- >> and undermine me was the other language he used. >> when the president -- he said i'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody. i cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me. that's what the attorney general said of the president. i'm bracing for a pretty angry reaction from the president, probably privately. much more on the breaking news right after this. emember, you have the hilton app. will the hilton app help us pick the starters? 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who had the discussions? why wasn't barr told about it? it would seem to me with somebody as high profile as roger stone, you would know more about this than i would, they would be having these discussions and debriefed a about it. >> let me get abbi into this. can you remember a time when you covered the white house for us and also help us. do you remember a time in the the past three years a sitting member of the cabinet has publicly rebuked the president along the lines of what bill barr has just done? >> there's been nothing like it from anybody in office. we heard thing trs people on background who left. we heard things as we saud from john kel hi this a paid speech last night in new jersey. but we haven't seen anything like this from anybody while they were in realtime. even when they disagreed. think about rex tillerson who had a famously bad relationship with the president. he chose to leave without being public about it. i do think gloria makes an important point. there's still a lot of questions about why barr decided to intervene here in a case involving one of the president's close allies and his long e longest-serving on and off adviser over clearly the objections of the career prosecutors who with us on the case. i don't think that question is going to go away because of what barr said today. >> i can't remember a time when a sitting member of the cabinet has publicly, privately, background, deep background, you heard criticism. but publicly make a statement along these lines. i don't remember a time since donald trump became president. >> no, and the president frankly doesn't tolerate that. everybody who fworks him knows that. i think maggie makes an important point. barr has been willing to do things that the president wants in private. what strikes me about his comments is that once it becomes public and the president says publicly for the whole world to see, i don't like how this is being done. and they pulled the nomination of jesse lou, who seems to be retribution for the president believes her involvement in the case. this puts all this private stuff out in public for the world to see in a way that really did force barr's hand. but there's some questions about privately what has been going on. what is really the relationship between bill barr and the president and what the president wants. there was a time when republicans were up in arms when bill clinton walked on to attorney general loretta lynch's airplane and thought that was a massive conspiracy. this would be a massive conspiracy of frankly i think a greater degree if we knew the truth of everything going on. >> it's a major story. everybody stick around. there's also news. dramatic testimony raising questions about one of the president's most high profile supporters. jim jordan of ohio, stick around. 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(burke) not exactly a skinny dipper, but we covered it. bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ at farmers, we know a thing or two bum-pa-dum, othroughout the country for the past twelve years, mr. michael bloomberg is here. vo: leadership in action. mayor bloomberg and president obama worked together in the fight for gun safety laws, to improve education, and to develop innovative ways to help teens gain the skills needed to find good jobs. obama: at a time when washington is divided in old ideological battles he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. bloomberg: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. for the past few weeks because, fun fact, a recent study suggests crime goes down when people tune in.. and football is awesome. - win, win. to thank you for watching, we're kicking off adt's pass the protection contest. - it's your chance to win a $250,000 home makeover from adt, designed by us. - and a new adt smart home security system. - visit adt.com/passtheprotection and tell us what you want to protect. ♪ there's increasing attention on mayor michael bloomberg's role in the presidential race and not just from his fellow democrats. president trump suddenly is ramping up his criticism of bloomberg as well as launching new personal attacks on the mayor. mj, do the attacks make it clear that the president views plumeberg potentially as a major threat? >> sure does, wolf. it's clear that michael bloomberg appears to be getting in president trump's head. these are two men who have quite a bit in common. both billionaire businessmen from new york city, and now michael bloomberg is trying to mount a white house campaign to become the nominee so he can be the one to take on president trump come november. now the feud you're referring to between the two men broke out on twitter earlier today. take a look a at this. president trump tweeting at bloomberg. he's a loser who has zero presence. and bloomberg tweeting, we know many of the same people in new york behind your back they laugh at you and call you a carnival barking clown. now bloomberg also addressed this exchange out on the c campaign trail today. take a listen. >> he calls me little mike. the answer is, donald, where i come from we measure your height from your neck up. i am not afraid of donald trump. donald trump is a frad of us. that's why he keeps tweeting all the time. i think it's fair to say he's scared because he knows i have the record and the resources to defeat him. >> now that debate that president trump referenced in that tweet, that's taking place next week in las vegas. michael bloomberg is still waiting to find out if he will qualify to be on that debate stage. >> how unconventional is blo bloomberg's strategy in the presidential race? >> it's quite an unconventional strategy to try to become president. we are all just getting back from iowa and new hampshire where all of the other democratic contenders for the white house were campaigning to try to get this important early boost in these important states like iowa and new hampshire. but bloomberg is skipping all those states. instead he's putting all husband his resources and time in the contest that take place in march. super tuesday and on ward. and just as an example, today one of the states he was campaigning in was north carolina. where early voting is now underway. and we should note he is also spending enormous resources and his own funds to try to get his white house campaign off the ground. his campaign says he now has some 2r,400 staffers across the country. we know they have spent some $380 million on tv ads. so as we get closer to march, there are no signs that michael bloomberg is going to slow down his spending. >> he has a lot of money to spend. thank you very much. other news we're following. there are tonight new questions emerging a about republican congressman jim jordan of ohio. one of the president's most high profile supporters. jordan repeatedly has denied allegations that when he was an assistant wrestle iing coach ba in the late 1980s and early '90s he was aware of sexual abuse by a doctor who worked at the university. let's go it brynn gingras. >> the latest accusations are coming who essentially in front of lawmakers in the state of ohio talked about his brother. to give you context, his brother was the whistleblower back in 2018 who exposed all of the alleged abuse that allegedly occurred at the hands of the medical doctor at ohio state university. and mentioning during that time that jim jordan, who was an assistant wrestling coach, knew about abuse among others and did nothing about it. turned a blind eye. so in front of these state lawmakers this week, his brother said that jordan not only knew, echoing his brother, but he took it a step further and the congressman called him and asked him to contradict his brother's accounts. take a listen. >> jim jordan called me crying, graveling on the fourth of july, beg iging me to go against my brother. begging me, crying for a half hour. that's the kind of cover-ups that's going on there. >> again, just explosive remarks coming from adam. and jim jordan has denied this all along knowing about abuse and say figure he did, heavy he would have done something about it. lat ittest claims for the congressman said these claims are just lies and that he would have done something about it. but surgeonly another black eye for the congressman when it comes to the ohio state university story. >> thank you very much, brynn gingras reporting for us. plolitical rivals, but ther hasn't always been bad blood between donald trump and mike the bloomberg. th td ameritrade you've got courses, tools, and help from pros. it's almost like you're training me to become an even smarter, stronger investor. exactly. ♪(rocky theme music) fifty-six straight, come on! that's it, left trade right trade. come on another trade, i want to see it! more! ♪ 80s-style training montage? yeah. happens all the time. ♪ about medicare and 65, ysupplemental insurance. medicare is great, but it doesn't cover everything - only about 80% of your part b medicare costs, which means you may have to pay for the rest. that's where medicare supplement insurance comes in: to help pay for some of what medicare doesn't. learn how an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by united healthcare insurance company might be the right choice for you. a free decision guide is a great place to start. call today to request yours. so what makes an aarp medicare supplement plan unique? well, these are the only medicare supplement plans endorsed by aarp and that's because they meet aarp's high standards of quality and service. you're also getting the great features that any medicare supplement plan provides. for example, with any medicare supplement plan you may choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. you can even visit a specialist. with this type of plan, there are no networks or referrals needed. also, a medicare supplement plan goes with you when you travel anywhere in the u.s. a free decision guide will provide a breakdown of aarp medicare supplement plans, and help you determine the plan that works best for your needs and budget. call today to request yours. let's recap. there are 3 key things you should keep in mind. one: if you're turning 65, you may be eligible for medicare - but it only covers about 80% of your medicare part b costs. a medicare supplement plan may help pay for some of the rest. two: this type of plan allows you to keep your doctor - as long as he or she accepts medicare patients. and three: these are the only medicare supplement plans endorsed by aarp. learn more about why you should choose an aarp medicare supplement plan. call today for a free guide. as president trump attacks the democrats, battling to take them on in november, he's increasingly targeting former new york mayor michael bloomberg. the former mayor is fighting right back. bryan todd is here with more. trump and bloomberg share a very long history. >> they do as titanic power players in new york. donald trump and michael bloomberg partnered on different projects. they engaged socially and praised each other for what each had done with the city. they split politically when trump declared for president. it's clear trump sees michael bloomberg as a threat. >> he's a lightweight. >> reporter: the wap thy they t about each other now, you'd think they have been enemies for life. >> i'm not afraid of donald trump. >> reporter: back in the day in new york a different die flamyn. >> you've been great mayor. >> reporter: mayor and donald trump lavished praise on each other after trump helped bloomberg convert a trash dump into a high end golf course. >> if there's anybody that changed the city it's donald trump. he's done an amazing thing. thank you for your confidence. >> reporter: that partnership could have been the genesis of their falling out. in a 2016 interview, trump took all the credit for the project. >> i took it over and got it knocked out in one year and now it's a tremendous success. >> bloomberg thought that was an exaggeration. his former aides thought-an exaggeration and it split between them. >> reporter: before there, they pyred to g appeared to get along or found each other useful. bloomberg appeared on trump's nbc show the apprentice and their daughters appeared in an hbo documentary called born rich. analysts say in the real world of new york business. >> in that world it was bloomberg who was the star and it was trump who was the one whose always looking for acceptance and rarely getting it. during all of his life, donald trump has longed for the approval of the new york establishment. mike bloomberg was the new york establishment. >> reporter: now the two are being compared and contrasted under a microscope. both switched political parties repeatedly and were unexpected win ners theners in their bigge elections. both became billionaires. on the forbes list michael bloomberg ranked 8th while trump ranked 275th. >> they both name their businesses after themselves. they are very wealthy people but bloomberg came from a more working class background and in money. >> reporter: how nasty and personal will their battle become? >> i think mike bloomberg and donald trump will be nastier than anything we have seen in politics perhaps in 100 years. these are two people who are not afraid of fight and not afraid to fight in a very personal way. >> reporter: analysts say the reason donald trump appears to fear michael bloomberg is he realizes bloomberg has the resource, millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars and he can spend on ads. highly produced ads to keep attacking trump in the most personal of ways. wolf. >> thank you very much. we're going to get back to the breaking news. bill barr, the attorney general blasts president trump over his tweets and statements and says they make it impossible for him to do his job as the attorney general. will he face backlash from the president? uhh, excuse me, is there a problem here? you're in a no parking zone. oh, i... i didn't know. you didn't see the sign? that... that wasn't there when i was here earlier. 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(glass shattering) (frustrated yell) (car horn blast) (yelp) ithat car is one of mine. and soon, it's going to be one of theirs. but they would have never even known it existed. if it weren't for the power of targeted tv advertising. it's smart. it grabs people's attention. it works. it's why comcast spotlight is changing its name to effectv. because being effective means getting results. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." we're following breaking news. the attorney general of the united states, william barr, is offering surprising criticism of president trump tonight in response to the roger stone sentencing controversy. in a bombshell interview barr complains the president's tweets and statements about the justice department make it impossible for him to do his job. barr telling abc news he won't be bullied as he tries to defend his credibility. the attorney general denies he was influence bid the preside p sentence for roger stone. i'll get reaction from congressman, a democrat on the house judiciary committee and our correspondents and analysts are standing by. first, let's go to our crime and justice correspondent. he's here in "the situation room" for us. the president clearly has seen the attorney general as an ally. this was pretty surprising now to hear that ally in the president, the attorney general, publicly rebuking the president. >> that's exactly it. it's the fact that he's doing this publicly and the way he's doing it. on the record before cameras to abc news. saying all this and you can view