Thanksgiving. Power play, the government marshalling the federal government to hang on and president elect biden brushing it off. I just think its an embarrassment, quite frankly. Just ahead, how long can republicans go without evidence of widespread fraud . Some in the Republican Party raising National Security concerns as the president shakes up the pentagon. On life support . The Supreme Court at last hears arguments on the effort to throw out obamacare. This morning the signals from justices, the most conservative court in a generation may leave the law in place. Breaking overnight, hurricane watch is issued for parts of the gulf coast as eta shifts and turns back towards florida. Millions now bracing for a second landfall. This morning, the timing track of the dangerous storm. All that plus out of this world. From the first steps on the moon to the very first selfie in space. The rare photos from nasas golden age now going up for auction. And best golf shot ever . Jon rahm skipped the ball across the water and on to the green before it eventually dropped in for a hole in one. An incredible start to masters week. Today wednesday, november 11th, 2020. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb live from studio 1a in Rockefeller Plaza. Hi, everybody. Good morning. Welcome to today. It is good to have you with us on a wednesday morning and not just any wednesday morning. Indeed, it is not. It is veterans day with tributes to our Service Members. Being held across the country, and we will do our part to share their stories throughout the morning. We start with the coronavirus case continue to skyrocket. More than 131,000 reported just yesterday. That makes seven Straight Days of the u. S. Has seen daily cases top 100,000. And its led to the cdc now updating its guidance when it comes to Wearing Masks and also what your familys thanksgiving celebration should look like. We got it all covered. Everything you need to know. Lets get started. Nbcs Gabe Gutierrez is in minneapolis this morning. Gabe, good morning. Hoda and savannah, good morning. Here in minnesota, new covid19 cases spiked by more than 127 over the last two weeks. The governor here is now trying to limit thanksgiving gatherings and the cdc issues new recommendations about Wearing Masks. Reporter this morning with covid19 hospitalizations nationwide at a record high, an aaboutface from the cdc on masks. The agency has said all year that they protect others if youre contagious, but now it is saying that masks can reduce wearers exposure to infectious droplets. Its a twoway street. You protect others. Their mask protects you and your mask also protects you. Reporter accused for months of being slow to update the covid19 guidance, the cdc says adopting universal masking policies can avert future lockdowns. The cdc also updating the guidelines for thanksgiving, emphasizing that the safest option for the holiday is celebrating only with people in your household and while hosting a gathering, you should limit the number of guests, open windows, and have one person serve the food. If you do go out attend the gathering, wear a mask when not eating and avoiding areas where food is not prepared and use disposable items the like cups, plates and utensils. Across the midwest where covid19 cases are up 100 in some states, theyre issuing new restrictions. Minnesota is scaling back Indoor Dining and limiting all indoor and outdoor gatherings including over thanksgiving. The ten people or less with no more than three households together. I feel like the guy in footloose, no dancing, no fun, no whatever. That is not my intention. My intention is to keep you safe. Reporter in iowa, a new statewide mask mandate limits social gatherings to eight people unless theyre all from the same household. In north dakota which leads the country in new cases, theyre so short staffed in hospitals, t the hospitals are allowing Asymptomatic Health care employees to work in hospitals. This is something the cdc allowed for a period of time. Reporter in utah, the Positivity Rate is a staggering 21 . This icu in Salt Lake City is almost full. We dont have enough caregivers to manage the increasing amount of patients. Reporter among those patients, 24yearold jesse jenson, days after being diagnosed with covid19, they gave birth to a baby girl. She is now on a ventilator and fighting for her life. Her husband ben is terrified. I was fairly certain she was going to die. Reporter hes now praying for his wifes recovery so she can be reunited with their baby girl. Across the country, more than 61,000 people are hospitalized at facilities like this one. As for the mask guidelines the cdc says that the best ones are the surgical ones or the ones with multiple layers of cloth or higher thread counts. Thank you. Lets bring in the dean of Brown University school of public health. Boy, these numbers are staggering. Were talking about a million new cases in the last ten days. 130,000 plus cases on tuesday alone. So, i mean, look, i know help is on the way with a vaccine. But what is happening . Are people just letting their guard down or whats going on . Good morning, hoda. Thank you for having me on. I think two things are happening. In the last couple of months, you have seen the federal government basically throwing the towel. There is no new guidance very little effort coming from the federal government. That is contributing to a nationwide surge. And then i think people are getting tired and theyre getting mixed messages. And what people need to hear is we are about three to six months away from widespread availability of a vaccine. People need to hold on. This is not the time we want to see surges like this, not when were so close to actually turning the corner on the virus. Yeah, the cdc has come out with some new guidance, brand new guidance. First is it has to do with wearing a mask. I mean, we knew it was to protect other people. Thats what we were told when we wear the mask. But now they kind of upgraded that. Yeah. So there is more and more evidence coming that when you wear a mask, mean, we have known for six months you protect people. Do it for your family and friends. But now there is more and more evidence coming that says it also helps you. Its not perfect. Wearing a mask isnt going to give you 100 protection. But it reduces your chances of getting sick. Im glad to see the cdc update that and gives us more reasons to be wearing a mask. The cdc also updated what are we supposed to do for thanksgiving. I was watching dr. Fauci. He said he had kids all over the country. The kids were not going to come see him for thanksgiving. Thats what hes doing in his house. What is the cdc recommend we should all be doing this thanksgiving . Yeah. This is a bit heartbreaking. This cant be a normal thanksgiving. I have elderly parents. They havent seen their grandkids in a long time. Were not going see them over the holidays. There is so much virus in the community, its very dangerous to try to pull off a normal thanksgiving. It has to be limbed. Limit and small gatherings. If places to do it outdoors is s fine and much easier, but in many parts of the country, that is not possible, so it is going to be an unusual thanksgiving for all of us. You should stick with the core group, the people you live with thats the guidance really that is really unfortunately the guidance number large family gatherings small groups of people you live at home with maybe one other family. But then you have to play a bunch of measures to keep everybody safe. One last quick question a lot of folks who get covid19 are selfisolating. There are college kids getting it and selfisolating. You heard about a College Student who passed away, because they didnt know when was the time to say i have a problem. I need to good to the hospital so just quickly, when is that moment when should people go to the doctor certainly if you start having problems with breathing, thats one issue. Any severe symptoms, chest pain, pain abdominal pain be in contact with your doctor and be in close contact. Any severe symptoms should trigger a visit to the hospital. All right dr. Jha, thank you so much we appreciate you. Coming up in our next half hour, well focus on the covid19 concerns tied to College Students who are returning home for the holidays. We turn now to the election president elect joe biden is not going to let resistance from the Trump Administration stop his transition to the white house. But this morning there are new questions on how everything from the covid19 crisis to Homeland Security could be impacted by the delay. Nbc White House CorrespondentPeter Alexander has the latest peter, good morning. Hey, savannah, good morning. The president elect joe biden is dismissing the president s legal challenges saying this will not impede the transition. It is blocking biden from getting Key Resources hes entitled to as the incoming president. Bidens National Lead overnight by the way, expanding to close to five million votes. Even as the president keeps claiming widespread fraud, state officials from both parties are debunking the claims reporter president elect joe biden delivering a blunt assessment of President Trumps refusal to concede. Its an embarrassment, quite frankly. Reporter biden urging calm as the president repeats unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The Trump Administration has yet to normally recognize biden as president elect, stalling the release of federal money for a president ial transition and critical access to classified intelligence still, biden says his team is moving forward unphased. The fact that theyre not willing to acknowledge we won at this point is not of much consequence in our planning. Reporter so far, biden heard from more World Leaders congratulating him than republican senators, many still towing the president s line despite bidens projected victory. Secretary of state mike pompeo echoing the president s unfounded claim that hell win. There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration reporter the senates Top RepublicanMitch Mcconnell says there is no reason for alarm at some point, well find out finally who was certified in each of the states and the Electoral College will determine the winner and that person will be sworn in on january 20th. No reason for alarm. Reporter democrats argue denying the biden to National Intelligence could damage National Security. It provides an avenue for our adversaries around the world to try to take advantage of this vacuum and of an administration that may not have all the information it needs reporter in 2000, the legal fight over less than 600 votes in a single state, florida, delayed the transition between the clinton and bush administrations by 37 days. The 9 11 commission that examined the 2001 terror attacks found that loss of time slowed the bush team from identifying the recruiting and clearing and obtaining information from key appointees. They recommend that future president s elect be provided as soon as possible with detailed summaries of national detail threats. Biden downplaying concerns about the current delay. Access to classified information is useful. But im not in a position to make any decisions on those issues anyway. President trumps actions are causing alarm at the pentagon where he is flexing muscles now promoting several top loyalists to key position theres after President Trump first fired the defense secretary and then several other senior officials were removed or resigned President Trump hasnt spoken publicly in a week is expected to visit Arlington National cemetery today in observance of veterans day, but no remarks are planned savannah all right, peter. Stand by we want to bring in our capitol hill correspondent ill start with you. It seems like this entire transition turns on what republicans in congress particularly Mitch Mcconnell of the senate, the majority leader, and how long they are going to give the president the kind of work out the acceptance of his loss. What do you get either behind the scenes or from what youre hearing from Mitch Mcconnell so republicans, frankly, are afraid of donald trump from a political perspective. And theyre running two runoff races in georgia that are going to determine control of the senate i think there is two deadlines one just heard from Mitch Mcconnell in peters piece talking about when the Electoral College will meet and select the president. Thats an extremely important deadline the elections wont be held until january 5th. I think youll see this dynamic of republicans being very deferential to the President Trump even though he lost until we see that election, savannah. What about joe biden, peter it seems like he had a pretty low key reaction to all of this when he gave remarks to reporters yesterday. Yeah, youre right. Joe bidens message coming in to this was one of unity. He wanted to try to cool, lower the temperature. And thats what biden tried to do yesterday the former vp saying, you know, well be just fine this doesnt change the dynamic at all but in terms of what the president is thinking here, its hard to really know. We havent heard from him directly now in six days but in conversations ive had with senior white house officials, one saying to me last night this is unsustainable. They know that they have lost. They said overwhelmingly that is the understanding inside this white house. So i said when does this finish . How does this end . They said youll never hear the president concede. But it is certain they believe that after certification of the results, which means this could last into december, ultimately the president will move on effectively saying that he does not trust the results, but he is not contesting them, but it is strikingly to say that the president is still in this defiant mood, and even the state officials are saying that he is saying that it is not true. Thats interesting. It did seem like the republicans were saying lets give him a little space to come up with sufficient allegations of fraud that would turn this entire election over on its head which, of course, were talking about several states and tens of thousands of votes but be that as it may, do you perceive there is some cracks in this republican wall of support . I noticed on the National Security piece of this, you know, we just saw in peters report that the 9 11 commission actually said when democrats slowed the transition to george w. Bushs administration back in 2000 that had an effect on what happened in the preparedness for 9 11 now, of course, the situation is totally reversed are republicans worried about the National Security implications of delaying all of this i think thats absolutely the right question, savannah i think that you are starting to see a little bit of movement on that front certainly behind the scenes there is a level of alarm, i think, that people feel calmed by the way joe biden handled it. But theres a lot of concern about the real world National Security implications. And youre starting to see that come out a little bit in public even from republicans. Most notably from the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, marco rubio who told reporters yesterday, hey, we got to get this going this obviously affects all of us and could have pretty significant ramifications. And the reality is there is not a lot that congress can do ive been asking sources, hey, is there a way can you accelerate this . Can you adjust things . The reality is they dont have a lot of options they would have to change the law because they never anticipated when they wrote the transition law that anyone would contest the results of the election this way. Peter and kasie, thank you. We appreciate it 7 17 we have a lot more to get to including one of the wildest golf shots youll ever see it happened on tuesday it was during a practice round for the masters. This is Spains Jon Rahm on the tee. Its been a tradition to intentionally skip the ball across pond. He did that. At par 3 the 16th hole, and take a look at this. The ball skips water, pops on the green, takes a left turn and then rolls all the way into the hole for a hole in one come on i mean it happened to have been his 26th birthday. So party on. That is incredible. Why did it have to be a practice round . You know, it will be the most famous practice round in masters history. Thats incredible. Now were going to a golf pro we know, dylan is in for al this morning. You love that shot were so excited for the masters. And to kick it off that way in a practice round is even more exciting so much fun. We do have still Tropical Storm eta to talk about. Now there have not been a lot of steering currents with this storm. Thats why the models dont have a good handle on where its going. Now it looks like its going to take that turn back towards areas north of tampa we do have Tropical Storm warnings, even hurricane watches in effect from anna maria to yankee town in florida the storm, itself, looks organized with a lot of heavy rain on the east and northeast side of it. And we are going to see the heavy rain from ft. Myers throug