Are allowed to get away from this get away with this stuff is unbelievable. This election was rigged. This is the essence of our country. This is the whole ball game and they cheated. Joe biden did not get 80 million votes. You just heard the president suggest that his own attorney general, william barr, and his own fbi director Christopher Wray may be involved in some plot to steal the election from him. What we saw this morning was a Major News Network hand him a platform to pollute anyone willing to believe him with misinformation and flat out lies. As a purported journalist just nodded along, as though his claims of widespread Election Fraud had any shred of legitimacy or even made any sense. Im telling you, 10 00 everybody thought it was over and then the phoney mailins started come in. There areal many mailmen in trouble for selling ballots, getting rid of ballots. This is the craziest thing youve ever seen. It seems to me many ballots with the name trump on were thrown out. I dont have to tell you that thats not true. What were watching here is sad and it hurts me to watch. Im going to go offscript for a second to explain that as journalists, were trained to be impartial, to be objective, to look at policy, the marketplace of ideas and judge from a dispassionate position. This is not about the marketplace of ideas. This is about the marketplace of realities. It appears this president is in a desperate downward spiral because he cant accept and he cannot fathom that he lost and it may have been his own fault. A president who appears to reject the idea that he is responsible for the consequences of his own actions. A president who has also spent a fifth of his days on the golf course. Something he routinely criticized his predecessor for. He will not acknowledge the reality of his loss and he will not acknowledge the reality of a pandemic, even after weve lost a quarter of a million american lives. More than a quarter of a million lost, our Family Members, our friends, our loved ones in just a matter of months. Even as were barrelling towards what volunteers rather, what experts say could be the worst phase yet. I want to, straight with the american people. Its going to get worse over the next several weeks. So this is how the president chooses to spend his remaining time in office, either completely in denial and delusion or peddling nonsense to keep his base engaged and keep those donations flowing into his pockets. Cnn White House CorrespondentJeremy Diamond joins me now. Jeremy, the president had been on an unusually silent streak in terms of his media appearances, so what happened today . What happened today was you heard the president s lying, expressing delusion about the results of the election and, frankly, disbelief at times as well about the idea that he could have possibly lost to president elect joe biden, but disbelief and disillusionment doesnt mean anything. It isnt evidence of voter fraud. As the president was talking, he suggested there was widespread voter fraud, there was some kind of plot to steal this election, claiming repeatedly without any evidence, without offering any evidence that this election was rigged. And what weve seen, boris, is time and again the president s claims have been thrown out. While fox news and maria bart roam didnt do any factchecking, we have. The factchecking is what the judges have said. While the president claimed widespread voter fraud, here is what a judge said just this past friday about the president s case. Quote, calling an election unfair does not make is so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. The campaigns claims have no merit. And that is the reaction when some claims of fraud are presented. When they arent presented, heres what theyre left to the say, is simply the fact that Rudy Giuliani, the president s attorney, he even acknowledge at one point in a federal courtroom in pennsylvania that they are not alleging fraud. The campaign, quote, does not plead fraud. This is not a fraud case. And yet the president continues to make these claims in the court of Public Opinion where the bar is far, far lower. The president also made other baseless allegations. He talked about hundreds of avids which the campaign has been unwilling to provide. Those we have seen as far as affidavits they have been rejected in state and federal court as well. One federal judge talking about these affidavits being hearsay within hearsay, completely inadmissible in a court of law. Then the president also made this claim about voting machine switching or deleting votes that were intended for him. That was something that the Republican National committee chairwoman, she was confronted with a question about just that in georgia this weekend. Listen. Switching the votes and we go there in crazy numbers and they should have won, but then they still yeah, we have to we didnt see that in the audit, so we have to just that evidence i havent seen, so well wait and see on that. Even the r nmplt c chairwoman who has been unwilling to engage and indulge the president s fantasies about this 2020 election, even she wasnt able to back up what the president is saying. One thing is clear is that the president made quite clear he doesnt plan to give up on this, even once this inauguration happens, once joe biden is sworn in as 46th president of the United States. Even six months from now he says his mind wont change that he believes this election was rigged. Of course, his beliefs arent evidence and this election was legitimate based on every judge, every state, every local election official in this country. Youre absolutely right about that. The thing i cannot stress enough is the cost. Not only in terms of our democracy and having a large portion of the population believe this fantasy, but also in the actual lives cost as we waste time talking about this as a quarter million americans have been lost to coronavirus. Jeremy diamond reporting from the white house, thank you. This story brings us to our next guest, who cowrote an incredible piece entitled 20 days of fantasy and failure inside trumps quest to overturn the election. I want to read you one excerpt about how the president reacted to his defeat. Quote, trump was in the telling of one close adviser like mad king george, muttering, i won, i won, i won. However, cleareyed trumps aides may have been about his loss to joe biden, many indulged their boss and encouraged him to keep fighting with legal appeals. They were happy to scratch his itch, this adviser said. If he thinks he won its like, shh, we wont tell him. Joining me is one of the writers for that piece, josh dossy. Thanks for spending part of your sunday with us. Lets start at the beginning. According to your reporting, very early on on election night, trump and his team believed they were witnessing a repeat of 2016 until fox news called arizona for joe biden. Walk us through what happened. Thats right. They believe a lot of these states were trending in the direction, florida, north carolina, a range of other key battleground states and when fox news called arizona for biden, the president and his advisers and Jared Kushner called rupert murdoch, the owner of the channel, and so many calls to fox anchors, personalities, fox management, trying to get them to reverse course on that decision. That obviously did not happen. Fox stuck with their decision, later other outlets included the Associated Press went with it as well. Josh, were going to ask if you have a few moments to stand by for a second because we have breaking news were following right now. Just into cnn. Were learning that president elect joe biden was taken to the Doctors Office after hurting his ankle. Cnn is in wilmington, delaware. It sounds like this was out of an abandundance of caution. Reporter thats right, boris. We dont have a ton of information but what we just heard from president elect joe bidens office is that out of an ab abundance of cautious he has been taken to see an orthopedist because we were told yesterday, on saturday, he slipped and twisted his ankle while playing with his dog, major. Obviously, you might recall that he had been spending the thanksgiving weekend out in rohoboth beach. He skipped his usual tradition of having a big Family Gathering in nantucket, opting to spend the holiday with just a few members of his family instead, again in rohoboth beach. We followed his movements from rohoboth peabeach back here to wilmington, delaware, where he lives. And we just learned out of an abundance of caution, hes taken to see a doctor because he did twist his ankle while playing with his dog. I should note this could be a reason we didnt get a public glimpse of him over the weekend. Sometimes when hes out at his beach house, its not unusual for reporters to get a sighting of him, maybe going for a bike ride, but it had been a quiet weekend. Now he is back in wilmington. Again, out of an abundance of caution, he is now being examined by a doctor because of this twisted ankle. Two quick questions for you. Have we heard anything directly from president elect biden since the news broke . We have not. We got this news directly from his office so we have not heard directly from him. Obviously the next time that we see him well see what condition his leg is in. He certainly will be asked about it. And, you know, this is obviously a situation that occurred that really didnt have anything to do with his age, according to his office. He slipped and hurt his ankle playing with his dog, but i do think sort of the overall context is important about his age. There have been a lot of discussions in the 2020 campaign whether it is about the president elect, whether it is about the sitting president , president donald trump, because keep in mind, biden is 78 years old. He will be the oldest person to take office when he is sworn in on inauguration day, january 20th. There is, as there should be, a lot of interest about the health of this man who is going to be sworn in as the next president. So, it is always sort of important to follow these developments closely. Interesting that the president elects office just sharing the news today, just a few minutes ago, that this incident had happened, that he had slipped and hurt his ankle. They did say this happened yesterday, so we are just learning about this today. Very quickly, if you could, help put this in context. Right now the president elect is very busy filling out his cabinet. We expect some new names to be put up for nomination potentially this week. Thats right. He does have a busy week ahead. Well see if any part of his schedule is affected by the fact that he has hurt his ankle, but what we do know is that tomorrow is the first day he is going to receive the president ial daily briefing. We also know that he is going to be unfailing some members of his economic team, including potentially his treasury secretary pick of janet yellen. We are also waiting on some other important announcements, like who he will name as his cia director, who he wants to nominate as his defense secretary. The focus for the transition overwhelmingly, too, has been about how to contain the covid19 pandemic. Just yesterday, even though it was a quiet weekend, the Transition Team did announce additional members who are going to be serving on bidens covid19 Advisory Board as well, boris. We know youll be watching it for us. Keep us updated, m. J. Lee, in case we get any news from the president elect. We wish him a speedy recovery as well. Lets get back to our conversation with josh regarding this piece in which he reported out, along with a group of other reporters at the washington post, some of the denials and, frankly, madness ongoing at the white house as the president tries to cope with his election loss. You write in the piece, josh by the way, thank you for hanging in there with us as we got the breaking news. You write in the piece about how everything sort of culminated with the Trump Legal Team on november 19th when this elite strikeforce of lawyers, rudy giulia giuliani, Sidney Powell, et cetera, when they gave this press conference at the rnc and they essentially floated a ton of conspiracy theories that even President Trump was sort of embarrassed by, and he was also embarrassed by the image of Rudy Giuliani up there sweating the way he did. Right. The lead up to that was the president decided to change his legal strategy and go with giuliani and ellis and powell, after getting frustrated his campaign lawyers, who were seen as more traditional lawyers, who were not on television after defending him and things did not seem to be going well. They went to the rnc and held this press conference where for about two hours they espoused a lot of theories they have not been able to provide evidence for. During that, some theories really frustrated the president. The president saw Sidney Powell up there, saw Rudy Giuliani and got entirely negative reviews. You looked at Tucker Carlsons comments about Sidney Powell. Those were particularly disturbing to President Trump. There were lots of concerns that it didnt necessarily go well. He stuck with that team because that team was still willing to go out and propagate the theories he wants to push and still willing to fight. I want to read another part of your piece that entails some folks that have been speaking for the president. Its about the trump teams legal strategy and you write, quote thats not the right graphic. Well get the right one. Heres the quote. The strategy, according to a second Senior Administration official was, anyone who is willing to go out and say, they stole it, the democrats stole it, roll them out. Just roll everybody who is willing to do it into a clown car. When its time for a press conference, roll them out. How did everyone feel about the strategy behind the scenes, this clown car . If you will notice, boris, a lot of the president s traditional allies and surrogates have not been pushing these things. Bill steppen, the president s Campaign Manager has not been on television, kelley a television, Kellyanne Conway has not been out. Some are skeptical thinking its too far, its too much and they havent been supporting them. You havent heard from Jared Kushner and ivanka trump about the fraud that his team is alleging without evidence. Youre mainly seeing a few of his lawyers and a few kind of the more fringe advisers willing to push this repeatedly. A lot of the folks that defended him during impeach. Pam bondi, jay ceqa were behind the president allowing the even if he did not concede he lost to allow joe biden and the team to have the transition materials and get the daily briefing. Some lawyers that have been fighting for him in the past are conspicuously absent here. Josh with a great piece in the washington post. Thank you for joining us this sunday. Thank you for having me. Coming up, the United States has already added 4 million new coronavirus cases this month alone. On average, an american is dying about every 60 seconds and at a time when it feels like it cannot get any worse, the u. S. Surgeon general is offering a sobering warning. That is next. Stay with us. Fish roe. Risotto. Buffalo. Gelato. Cheesecake. Grilled steak. Clam bake. Milkshake. Brussels sprout. Sauerkraut. Freshcaught trout. Alfalfa sprout. Curry. Fried turkey. Mcflurry. Cacciatori. Chimichurri. inhale spiral ham. Blackberry jam. Rack of lamb. Candied yams. Pokes. Smokeys. Gnocchis. And them banging raviolis. We are americas kitchen. Doordash. Every flavor welcome. Now roomba vacuums exactly where you need it. Hey google, tell roomba to vacuum the kitchen counter. And offers personalized cleaning suggestions for a clean unique to you and your home. Roomba and the irobot home app. Only from irobot. Millions of americans are returning home after spending time with family or friends this thanksgiving. There are very real fears that traveling and gatherings could fuel even more covid infections as coronavirus numbers continue to skyrocket. In november alone the u. S. Adding more than 4 million new covid19 cases. So far just today, a sunday when theres often a lag in reported cases, theres been more than 46,000 new infections confirmed and more than 300 reported deaths from the virus. The nations top Infectious Disease expert dr. Fauci warns another potential surge may soon be yet to come. What to expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into december, we might see a surge super imposed upon the surge were already in. You know, and when i give that message, i dont want to frighten people except to say, it is not too late at all for us to do something about this. I want to bring in cnns Miguel Marquez in new york and natasha chen at hartsfield jacksonville airport. Of course, this is one of the busiest travel days of the year. What are you hearing from travelers out there today. Boris travelers coming into atlanta tell me its been a relatively easy process. Thats because there are not as many people as you would typically see on the sunday after thanksgiving. The Atlanta Airport officials tell us they were expecting a third of their typical travelers during thanksgiving week and just behind me i know there is a group here trying to figure out which way theyre going to go. Typically people all day have been going straight through security. In jeerz past youd have people lined up where were standing right now. Its a stark difference. We did ask a couple of the people arriving home in atlanta about their tough choices that they made to actually travel to see family for thanksgiving and what they were going to do now to make sure they didnt bring the coronavirus home. Heres what they said. Coming from vegas, were going to quarantine for 14 days and then go out to the city, see what atlanta has to offer. My parents were super nervous but it turned out to be okay. We got tested before, during and after. It was okay, yeah. We plan on