Breaking news tonight. President elect joe biden, Vice President elect Kamala Harris are set to receive a National Security briefing tomorrow. An historic warning from biden who says more americans may die from covid19 as President Trump refuses to accept the outcome of the election and work with bidens transition team. Biden saying trump is hampering the incoming administrations ability to rapidly get a vaccine out to millions of americans. Also tonight, more than 73,000 americans are hospitalized with covid. That is a record number. Lets skdiscuss now. Political reporter for the New York Times joins us as well. Good evening one and all. Good to see you. Hey, don. Kirsten, im going to start with you. The president elect biden very pointed today warning more people may die from the pandemic if the Trump Administration keeps blocking his transition. The president seems more focused on fighting the election outcome than this deadly virus. Where does that leave us . Right. He hasnt taken it seriously at any given point, so he continues to do the same thing. You know, what future President Biden, president elect biden was saying today i think is exactly right. Peoples lives are at stake. You said earlier in the last hour there are people that are watching right now that may not be alive because of the behavior of this president by the end of this year. We just cannot stress enough how harmful this is and how unprecedented it is that you would have an administration absolutely refusing to allow the future president of the United States to have access to the information that he needs so that there can be a really good roll out of the new vaccines. Listen, i dont think it gets any clearer and specifically pointed as biden calling out trumps adviser, dr. Scott atlas for telling people to rise up against michigan governor whitmers her new covid restrictions. Listen and then well discuss. In addition to the folks who have already been leading like the governor of michigan, i mean, you know, the idea that the president s now existing remaining adviser on covid is saying that they should resist. What the hell is the matter with these guys . What is the matter with them . Resist . So this is for you. Dr. Atlas says that he wasnt trying to incite violence but his comments are incredibly dangerous. To bidens point, what is the matter with these guys . If i had the answer for that i wouldnt be sitting here. This perplexing to know why dr. Atlas and those who the president has surrounded himself with will not acknowledge the reality of the virus. They are invested in massaging the president s ego, in trying to tell a story that is untrue about the reality of this Public Health situation and of the election last week. I think these things are intertwined. For this administration to admit the reality and severity of the virus would also be to admit their own flaws in handling it throughout the last year. That is something they are unwilling to do both from the president on down and the advisers and folks around him are unwilling to cross him. So i think that leaves us in the place where americans are hurt. Where people in the Public Health response is devastated by that reality. That is what president elect biden is trying to say. The task before him is huge. He is not only coming in with a mandate to get control of this but has to do so with an Outgoing Administration that is not only unwilling to help him do that but is unwilling to acknowledge the reality of the Public Health situation were in. John avlon, so the president elect, Vice President elect harris, theyre going to get a National Security briefing tomorrow but he hasnt been getting the classified security briefing and they arent being fully briefed on covid measures either. So it is not a full on no. The big briefing they should be getting. How long can this go on, john . It go con until Inauguration Day i suppose. Look, the Trump Administration made it very clear they are going to drag their feet on confronting reality. The reality is at some point when the electors meet on the 14th this will be a process in place that cannot be denied by the president. The gsa is going to have to start opening doors. He is going to have to start getting briefings. This is precious time lost. The niefrn commission made it clear there are National Security implications to delayed transitions. This is happening in the middle of a pandemic when president elect biden is likely to take the oath of office in the middle of a winter in which by some estimates we could see another 200,000 americans die between now and march. This is Mission Critical and it is just another sign of how hyperpartisanship not only makes us stupid but can really hurt people. It is hurting people right now. Kirsten, im going to read this. He summed up President Trumps inaction in the washington post. Max says, trump could not be doing more damage if he were consciously attempting to sabotage the u. S. Government. For the record, i dont believe that he is deliberately burning everything down on his way out the door to punish americans for rejecting him. He is merely salving his ego and is heedless of the causes as always. But it wouldnt look much different if he were. Why is he fighting to keep a job that he shows no interest in performing is the question from max. The question from me is what is the end game, kirsten . Well, you know, i was actually about to say, so i guess i disagree with max a little bit. I do think part of this is him trying to sabotage. I think its partly him and his ego and needing to be the center of the attention. You think he is trying to burn the house down on his way out . Thats what it looks like. Yeah, i think he is trying to harm biden. I think he is trying to make things more duff for him. He doesnt want, obviously doesnt care about the country. Thats been well established. Anybody who cares about the country would not be doing what he is doing right now. At some point most people even people who crave power do ultimately put the country ahead of their own needs in a situation like this when youve lost an election. He doesnt care. He wants to continue to create division. He wants to continue to burn down the house which is what hes been doing this entire time. But i do think part of it is he wants to it to be hard for biden. He wants biden to have trouble governing. On top of losing, john, President Trump is in the white house watching tv nonstop. Who is he seeing all over . The former president barack obama . Do you think obama feels vindicated helping make trump a oneterm president . You know they tried, they said hey. Were going to make obama a oneterm president. Turns out obama is a twoterm president. Trump is a onetermer i think obama actually thinks a little bigger than his personal impact on donald trump but it is fascinating to think of donald trump you know it kind of feels good. Come on now. Sure. You saw how much fun he was having on the campaign trail. You see the president in this shame spiral tweeting, watching tv. Presumably fast food on the side. This isnt quite the last days of nixon but it is probably not a portrait of a particularly happy human being. You guys follow him. I dont follow him. I just read the news i have to. I cant. It is way too much and my life is much better because of it. Listen, i know you said earlier you have Better Things to do and you didnt want to be here with us. I got to ask you another question. I want to get to the republican secretary of state in georgia, okay . He is saying that he is getting pressured by prominent republicans like Lindsey Graham to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots. What do you think . He explained it to wolf blitzer earlier. By the way, graham is denying it. You go on. This is a kind of shocking accusation coming from the secretary of state but i think it is in line with what weve seen from republicans nationally. Just consider the extraordinary situation were in. This is a republican secretary of state, a kind of tried and true conservative in georgia, who was hand picked by brian kemp who beat Stacey Abrams a couple years ago in that Gubernatorial Race and he is under fire from his own party because he is unwilling to go to support unfounded, unsupported conspiratorial claims of voter fraud that are being done in the service of only President Trump. He has had both republican senators who are up in those runoffs try to pressure that secretary of state. He is now saying he has experienced pressure from members of the Senate Judiciary committee folks like Lindsey Graham. I think this builds into a larger kind of infighting among republicans that were going to see going forward. You have the specter of donald trump that remains so politically important that republicans cannot get rid of him but you still have the reality of his loss and you have a reality of a changing party that is still ahead of them. The secretary of state is saying he will not bend to those demands but he is pushing back against a party that is still under the grip of donald trump even in a loss. All right. Thank you all. I appreciate it. See you soon. Thank you. I want to turn to former nato allied general wesley clark. Thanks for joining me again. Lets talk about some of my colleagues reporting jake tapper reporting that now fired defense secretary mark esper warned the white house earlier this month that the unanimous consensus of the chain of command is that conditions hadnt been met for troop withdrawal in afghanistan. Does that answer the question of why he was fired . I dont think thats the full answer but i think that might be part of the answer. Look, the situation in afghanistan, don, has been problematic since really the fall of the taliban in late 2001. We went in there without a strategy to get Osama Bin Laden out. We didnt really know what to do after the taliban government fell. We set up hamid karzai who was associated with india. Which infuriated pakistan. The same oneyear war fought 18 times. Now were trying to do the negotiations. We lack the military leverage. We lack the ability to deal with pakistan. So when the joint chiefs and the secretary of defense tell the president look dont pull troops out. It doesnt meet the conditions we set. They are absolutely right. There is no assurance well ever get those conditions met because the taliban are rolling up the Government Forces in various provinces. Its going to be an ugly situation no matter whether you pull the troops out now or you wait until President Biden takes over and it becomes his problem. So if you pull out half the troops now and you give people warnings that it goes over a period of a month youll do damage. But its going to be an ugly ending in all probability no matter what. So is President Trump doing the right thing now . I dont think hes done the right thing from the beginning but this is the military trying to salvage what they can out of a negotiated, honorable exit. So its not a doesnt look like a complete collapse. We need to keep sufficient forces there to gather intelligence, strike at terrorist cells. The taliban has not delivered on cutting ties with el al qaeda and we need the forces on hand to physically cut those ties if necessary. They know better than i do sitting here. Theyre worried when he cuts it below 4,000. I understand their worries and i sympathize but im here to say this is going to get ugly. We are committed to pulling everything out by may of 2021. It is going to be ugly because the taliban are not going to suddenly give up their arms and embrace the government as blood brothers. Sure. They want power. Pakistan wants them to have power. This is really about pakistan and india. General, i just want your reaction to this New York Times story reporting that trump asked senior advisers last week if they had options to take action against irans main nuclear site in the coming weeks. Are you concerned about the president that he may do, what he may do before january 20th . I am concerned. Thats no rational policy. First of all if you take action against that site youll get retaliation of some type. Secondly there is no assurance you can really eliminate the site. Third, theyre going to come back and rebuild under ground and it really is problematic for the biden administration. So i think its a really bad policy if we strike iran right now. General, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir. Thank you. With the virus raging the current president wants you to think weve got to choose between the virus and the economy but the truth is we cant get a handle on the economy until we get a handle on the virus. That as president elect biden is warning americans we may have a very tough Holiday Season ahead of us. Look. I just want to make sure that were able to be together next thanksgiving. Next christmas. I mean, it is an international crisis. It is an International Health crisis and the idea were at war with the virus. 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A modern approach to wealth management. So coronavirus cases spiking across the country as the economy craters. President elect biden addressing the crisis today. We wanted to get the economy back on track, we need our workers back on the job by getting the virus under control. Were going in a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier. That requires sparing no effort to fight covid so we can open our businesses safely, resume our lives, and put this pandemic behind us. Once we shut down the virus and deliver Economic Relief to workers and businesses then we can start to build back better than before. Joining me now is the former chair of the White House Council on economic advisers and the former labor secretary under president clinton. Gentlemen, so good to see both of you. Thank you so much for appearing. Secretary reich, i am going to start with you biden is making the point the countrys economic success is tied to fighting covid, the coronavirus. That is not one or the other. Is that the approach the Trump Administration has taken in the case that it is either one or the other . Unfortunately, don, that does seem to be the principle that the Trump Administration has used. And as you have pointed out it is certainly not one or the other. In fact, it is impossible for this economy to do well as long as the virus is surging because obviously people are going to not go into restaurants and shops even of their own even if there were not lockdowns. Workers are not going to be as readily available. The economy as a whole is going to be under greater and greater stress and on top of that if congress does not pass emergency legislation to provide Disaster Relief essentially additional Unemployment Insurance for people then well be in a deeper fix and have a worse economic problem. Kevin, the decision to close some schools are learned remotely, parents really in turmoil balancing safety against the need to work. Listen to what hss secretary alex azar said about school closings. Its ridiculous to close our schools. It is not driven by science and data or evidence. Schools k12, universities, these are not major vectors of disease transmission. Our work places are not. Airlines are not. It is indoor gatherings where we let our guard down and dont wear masks and dont social distance and the governors keep going after the schools and the kids. There is real harm to the kids mental and physical health and emotional well being. We shouldnt be closing our schools. Science and data part, i dont know. No one wants schools closed. Kids should be in schools. For months we heard from the president we should open up businesses to save the economy but should schools have been the priority all along . It is a fair question, don. If you look at europe theyve pretty much kept their schools open throughout the whole episode and precisely because of what secretary azar was emphasizing. Mental health for the kids stuck at home and the scariness of the disease is something that i think professional teachers could probably deal a lot better with than parents trapped in a little house with their kids for month after month. So i do absolutely think this school should be open. It is something secretary azar has been emphasizing for a long time, too. Also think about it, it is kind of monday morning quarterbacking because no one knew in the beginning if you sent kids back to school if they were going to wear masks, socially distant, if it was going to spread. I understand that. This time around there seems to be some data saying that, or can follow the guidelines and can