Echoing the president s false claims of a stolen information. The president withholding Sensitive Information to president elect biden. I just think its an embarrassment, quite frankly. This morning the incoming chief of staff ron claim and republican governor of arkansas, asa hutchinson. Also, record covid spike. This is kind of like standing on the beach and watching the hurricane slowly roll towards you. This surge is much more intense, widespread and thank results. Were headsing toward a cliff. 49 cases see a rise in cases. Many cities and states finally cracking down. Im a announcing twoweek free for the entire state. Stay at home unless you must go out for essential reasons. I will talk to president elect bidens covid transition head, Michael Osterholm. Joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news correspondent carol lee, republican stratist ard card nis, Maria Teresa Kumar, president of voto latino, and jeffrey golderg, editor and chief of the atlantic. Welcome to sunday, its meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longestrunning show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. And a good sunday morning. Nearly two weeks after a election contest won by joe biden by more than 5. 5 million votes so far and a comfortable electoral vote margin, the country is facing two interconnected crisis. One, the president of the United States refuses to concede the election, claiming falsely it was somewhat stolen. His attorney general is currently investigating voter froud despite of lack of evidence any exists. His secretary of state is suggesting the president will be naug rated for a second term. Perhaps he was kidding. The president fired his defense secretary and filling the Defense Department with loyalists, some of whom traffic in conspiracy theories. If this were happening anywhere else, our state department would be issuing grim reports about the future of that countrys democracy. But that country is this country. Its happening here. Making matters worse, the administration is refusing to allow bidens team access to secure communications and classified briefings including operation warp speed, which covers vaccination distribution for the exploding covid crisis. In fact, this is happening as president obama is all but ignoring the pandemic, reportedly not even met with his own Covid Task Force in at least five months. The pandemic is at its highest peak yet. In just the last week 31 states report records for new cases and the last six states have seen the highest case counts nationwide. In short, President Trump is refusing to acknowledge two realities, his defeat and covid19. But the virus does not care, as it continues its march across the country doing exactly what experts have long predicted it would do. Whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration will be, i guess time will tell, but i can tell you, this administration will not go to a lockdown. President trump acknowledging for a moment on friday he may not have won the election, even as he continues to refuse to concede. Were moving forward here at the white house under the assumption there will be a second trump term. Mr. Trump out of public view the most of the week but tweeting hundreds of times, suffered a string of legal setbacks in pennsylvania, arizona and michigan friday, as Joe Bidens Electoral College win grew to 306 electoral votes, matching mr. Trumps in 2016. We had a massive lapd slide victory as you know in the electoral college. I guess the final numbers are now at 306. We are at the beginning of a transition. Were well under way. President elect joe biden largely out of public view but criticizing the president. I just think its an embarrassment. As republicans, eyeing the senate republicoff in georgia where they believe they need to mobilize mr. Trumps motors largely rallied around him. President trump is 100 within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options. The election is not over, bit way. The future of america is on the line in georgia. But by thursday cracks emerged as republicans began to call for biden to receive Intelligence Briefings. For me, this is just an issue of saying lets learn the lesson of 2000 and lets make sure both sides are prepared. I think its important both continue to get those briefings until the electoral clem makes its final determination. Should we need a transition in the future . This would simplify that transition. The leadership vacuum of the lameduck period comes as the coronavirus pandemic is shattering records, with more than 176,000 new cases on friday. Cases are up over the past two weeks in 49 states in d. C. More than 69,000 people are hospitalized and deaths have risen in 31 states. This surge is much more intense, widespread, and dangerous. It is spreading rapidly everywhere. Were heading towards the cliff. I dont know if the vaccine gets to us before we have horrible things happening here in wisconsin. More states are issuing new restrictions, including a mask mandate in north dakota and on friday wiem ago governor said hes considering one as well. We havent god our head in the game. Were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Lets get serious. As the coronavirus continues to spread. Im announcing a twoweek freeze for the entire state. Total lockdown if we dont start to get more serious and follow the rulings. You know whats really uncomfortable and annoying . When you die. As you can see by this chart, the number of new cases skyrocketed, more than doubling in recent weeks. One person has been predicting this kind of turn in the pandemic since he first appeared on meet the press back on after 26th. Dr. Michael osterholm said then we were in the foot hill of the crisis and had mountains to climb, and if we can see the case count since the start of the pandemic, it looks like an evergrowing mountain. Dr. Michael osterholm is an Infectious Disease specialist at the university of minnesota and now a member of the president elect bidens covid. Let me just simply ask you this. We are seeing the exponential rise you sadly predicted would happen in covid cases you, you and money others this fall and quinter. Here winter. Are we going to plateau any time soon or is this projectry just going to keep going up and up . Thank you again. Let me say at the outset the future is in our hands. Especially the next three weeks, because these cases are already in the pipeline, meaning people are already infected. The numbers will go way up. Our position is imagine what the world will be like if we make the changes we need to make. We will be heading to a vaccine in the next few months where we can start to imagine having summer baseball back, barbecues, et cetera. But in the meantime we are in a very dangerous period. The most dangerous Public Health period since 1918. If we dont basically take the important steps like some swapping air with our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, were going to see these numbers grow substantially. So what should happen right now . Ive talked to plenty of mayors this week and governors this week, and they all feel like you can tell they want to do more and theyre hes tapt becausita the fatigue, lack of leadership from the federal government, perhaps lack of money from the federal government. This is the situation we are in. Not the utopia wed all like to have and governments working together. What do we do now . What does a local mayor do without the help of the federal government . Well, its critical that we do get the help of the federal government. I cant make that any more straightforward than that. If were going to control this virus out in our communities right now, were going to have to support those who are going to be suffering economically. You have a choice, do you want to have schools open or keep bars and restaurants open . If you shut down bars and restaurants, theyre hanging on by a thread. That single mother waitress that basically doesnt have noir income, weve got to support them and helping to do the right thing. They want to. I dont know anybody who doesnt want to. If were going to help our Health Care System right now try top spod to this crisis and we know that they are the tipping point, weve got it have help right now. So i just urge that the last thing we do is support our governors. Theyre the front lines right now. There is no National Leadership on this issue. Theyre trying. I dont care if theyre democrat or republican, theyre trying and we have to support them in these issues. Now that youre a member of president elect bidens covid Advisory Board, any comments you make are suddenly going to get put through a different prism so i want it give you a chance to clarify what you met by the fourtosix week lockdown. You said even back in august, look, we have to have some pause here and have some sheltering in place if we have any chance of bending this curve. First of all, weve got to refrain this issue. Weve got to understand again that what were trying to do is get to the summer when we have vaccines that can fundamentally change how safe it is to be in everyday life. And what we need to do right now is focus on whats going to make that difference. As i just said, its very important first of all we dont swap air with people. Thats how this is being transmitted and weve got to do whatever it takes to support that. You see the governors struggling right now. They want help. Ive talked to five governors in the last two days, all of them said, wouldnt it be wbl if we could all at least be on the same page . Right now my state is surrounded by our other states and they all have different recommendations. That by he itself is what were talking about, standardizing how were all going to approach this. This virus doesnt care what party you are, doesnt care where you live. We have to understand thats what we have to work on right now. Dr. Osterholm, it certainly looks like the case count is 0e78 going to go up, hospitalizations only going to go up and death count between now and the beginning of passing out this vaccine. How close to the breaking point is our Hospital System, and at what point is that going to be the point where the Hospital System is going to force us to shut down and we all will have no choice . I think you said it very well. My worse fear is what we saw happening in other countries where people are dyeing on the streets. People were literally dyeing in the waiting rooms of Emergency Rooms after spending ten hours just waiting to be seen. That will start happening. The media will start reporting it and we will see the breadth and depth of this tragedy. That i hope will not be the way we finally decide to reduce our risk, this idea of swapping air. Weve got to stop doing that. And so i think it is the Health Care Systems breaking, literally breaking, that will unfortunately bring us to a sense of reality of what we must do in the short term. How close are we to that point . Well, you know, the case numbers as you have seen how quickly theyve been rising, i think that is going to continue and there are plenty Health Care Systems that with a few more weeks of this level of activity, that l happen. Dr. Michael osterholm from the university of minnesota, we have you on here to give us the Straight Talk and you always do appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with us. And joining me now, the Vice President s chief of staff ron klain. Mr. Klain, welcome to meet the press. Thanks for having me, chuck. The models indicate another 100,000 americans may die before january 20th. We may be sitting at case counts well over 200,000 by the time you take over in this administration. So what do you do now in anticipation for what looks like is going to be exponentially worse of 60 days . Yeah, chuck, its a very grave situation. Back in september thencandidate joe biden warned america was headed to a very dark winter if the administration didnt step up its action. The very First Business day of his transition on monday of this week, the president elect met with his Covid Task Force and made a Public Statement afterwards where he called on all americans to mask up. He urged governments to impose masking mandates now and reiterated the fact when he becomes president , he will impose one on a nationwide basis. Hes not the president now. Theres not that much joe biden can do right now to change things other than to reiterate the message you heard from dr. Osterholm, which is all americans and our state and local governments need to step up right now. If the president and administrations not going to lead, thats where the leadership has to come from. That will change on january 20th. Right now we have a crisis thats getting worse. We have never had a day with 100,000 cases in a single day until last week. By next week, we may see 200,000 cases in a single day. This is getting much worse, chuck. What do you im curious with your coronavirus Advisory Board, is there any informal contact between the task force and your Advisory Board . Has there been informal contact, for instance, between the president elect and dr. Fauci . Unfortunately, chuck, we cant. We cant until we get that gsa ascertainment that authorizes us to contact government officials. So we cant have any of those kinds of contacts until we get to that stage of ascertainment. Obviously theres information that passes scientific circles. And people like Michael Osterholm are leading scientists. But i think you hit a key point. Joe biden will become president of the United States in the midst of an ongoing crisis. That has to be a seamless transition. We now have the possibility, we need to see if it gets approved, of a vaccine starting in december, january. There are people at hhs making plans to implement that vaccine. Our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible so Nothing Drops in this change of power were going to have on january 20th. Have your folks been able to have any contact with pfizer at all . Do you have a better understanding of just how soon the vaccine could get distributed . Were going to have meetings between our top scientific advisers and the officials of these drug companies, not just pfizer but there are other promising vaccines as well. Were going to start those consultations this week but, again, i think there are two issues here, chuck. One is the scientific issue around the vaccine. But in some ways the bigger issue, i have been saying this since april, the bigger issue will be mechanics of manufacture and distribution, getting this vaccine out. That really lies with folks at the health and Human Services department. We need to be talking to them as quickly as possible. You know, its great to have a vaccine,ing but vaccines dont save lives. Vaccinations save lives. And that means you have to get that vaccine into peoples arms, all over this country. Its a giant logistical project. You have said in convincing the American Public in a previous interview, convincing the take of the vaccine might be the biggest challenge we face as a country. But i want to stick with one more issue on the current covid crisis, which is you heard dr. Osterholm, every expert has said, we might have to have a temporary shutdown but were not going to do it if you dont pay these people not to open their businesses. Cant agree without congress doing something. How urgently do you think house democrats, Senate Republicans are at loggerheads. Do you take what you can get now or do you support Speaker Pelosi holding out . The president elect had a conversation with Speaker Pelosi and leader schumer on friday. And they talked about the need to get urgent action. I mean, we need action during lameduck. There are a lot of thing thats will have to wait until joe biden is president but this is not one of them. Getting help to people, getting help to state and local governments, its not obviously we need urgent layoff of individuals but we need firefighters, police, teachers in the next month in a lot of state and localities unless local governments get the aid they need. I know Speaker Pelosi is committed to that, mr. Schumer is committed to that. And these layers are coming not just in blue states burt red states. This is a National Crisis that needs bipartisan National Action now. Has the president elect spoken with Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell yet about this issue or any issue . Hes not spoken with senator mcconnell about anything yet. Were hoping senator mcconnell will accept the reality that its just reality. Joe biden won this election. Kamala harris won this election. I think its time for leaders in both parties to get to business of this transition, to get to business of working together to start to plan out a legislative agenda for next year. You said its urgent for congress to act in the lame duck. And to are you are we to read in between the lines that youre telling Speaker Pelosi, look, dont stick to your guns completely, compromise where you have to, is that the message that you wanted her to hear . Speaker pelosis done a magnificent juror of handling this. What i want her to hear, we have her backs in handling this. Speaker pelosi, by the way, was in long negotiations with secretary mnuchin to try to find that compromise. It is not she hasnt been at the table. Shes been at the table. We see the Current Administration has walked away from the table. Our message to