Hospitalized this morning. That also a record. More than 217,000 new cases. Thats a record. A key model now forecast that the death toll in the u. S. Will double by april to more than half a Million People. And to give you a sense of that number, the city of atlanta has a population of about 500,000. So imagine atlanta wiped off the face of the earth. Thats what the pandemic is projected to do by april. So now, this is what the president elect and Vice President elect have had to say about all of this as part of jake tappers exclusive interview. The u. S. Is entering the dark winter that you warned about with the highest death rate. We just reached a new horrible milestone of new cases. On a policy level, whats going to be different, starting on january 20th, when you take office, when it comes to dealing with the pandemic . Its going to be a couple of things. Number one, its important that we set out national standards. We met with governors, democrat and republican as well as 50 democrat and republican mayors. They say they need guidance. And theyre going to need a fair amount of the money. Its one thing for us to talk about being able to get help out there, but its not getting there. Were having these hospital stays are overwhelming hospitals right now. Theres a need for more Financial Assistance. Theres more Financial Assistance needed as well when the vaccine comes forward. Theres need for planning. And so, now, the administration has been cooperating with us of late, letting us know what their plans are for the covid virus, for how theyre going to deliver on the vaccine. But theres not any help getting out there. Madame Vice President elect, pfizer and moderna have applied for emergency use authorization for the vaccines. Are you confident that, if and when the fda does give that approval, it will be safe and effective and will you take it . Of course, i will. And but we also want to make sure that the American People know that we are committed, the president elect and i talk about this all the time, that the people who need it most are going to be a priority. Weve talked a lot about the need to take care of our front line workers, as the president elect was talking about. Obviously, those front line workers are important, but you are, too, sir. And you will be the oldest president ever inaugurated. Do you plan to get vaccinated before Inauguration Day . And will you do it in public the way that president s obama, bush, and clinton have suggested theyre willing to do . I would be happy to do that. When dr. Fauci says, we have a vaccine that is safe, thats the moment in whichly sta li will s before the public and say, part of what has to happen, jake, and you know as well as i do, people have lost faith in the ability for the vaccine to work. Already the numbers are really staggeringly low. And it matters what a president and Vice President do. And so i think that my three predecessors have set the model as to what should be done. And once fauci says its safe, thats my measure, then obviously we take it. Its important to communicate to the American People, its safe, sa safe to do this. Speaking of fauci, have you spoken with him yet and have you asked him to stay on . Yes and yes. Ive asked him to stay on if the exact same role hes had for the past several president s and asked him to be chief medical adviser for me as well and part of the covid team. So what has to be done so we have to make it clear to the American People that the vaccine is safe when that is determined. And number two, you have to make sure, as he points out, you dont have to close down the economy like a lot of folks are talking about now, if, in fact, you have clear guidance. We talked about masking. It is important that we, in f t fact, the president and the Vice President , we set the pattern by wearing masks, but beyond that, where the federal government has authority, im going to issue a Standing Order that in federal buildings, you have to be masked, and interstate transportation, you have to be masked and airplanes and buses, et cetera. So its a matter of and i think my inclination, jake, is on the first day im inaugurated is to say, im going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask. Not forever. 100 days. And i think well see a significant reduction if that occurs with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably, considerably. Okay, joining us now, we have cnn political analysts, David Gregory and maggie haberman. Maggie is a White House Correspondent for the New York Times. David gregory, did you hear that . Did you hear the sound of that . Its hard to recognize anymore to our ears. That was a plan that was the sound of a plan. It has a beginning and an end. It has shared sacrifice, an ask of americans. I mean, honestly, its been so long since weve heard of a plan on coronavirus, im just wondering what your take on that is . Yeah, ive been sitting with this as well, the idea of a kind of return to normal business, which weve been away from for so long, to look at an administration, an Incoming Administration that has a plan thats facing a crisis just as joe biden did when he was Vice President to president obama in a financial crisis. That they had a plan, they had coordination, that they were asking for the publics health. And we know from back then during the financial crisis and know in this acute crisis how difficult its going to be for the Biden Harris Team to come in under these circumstances during this winter and i think the mask piece alone is obviously so important, because it uses the bully pulpit to say, this can help. Lets all do it. And it puts more pressure on, you know, flight attendants. Ive been on flights where not everybody is wearing a mask, not wearing it properly. And theyre fed up. On the flights im on, theyre not going to go around and enforce it to every person. Maybe this is a president saying, weve got to do this. And having the backup of health officials, who are going to see far more frequently, i think, with a new administration, can make a difference. What struck me, when you first heard that sentence, this is something new, something that broke as part of jakes interview. It seems so simple. But i sat back for a second and thought, wait a second, here. This is so vastly differently. Imagine starting on january 20th, when you have a president and the scientists, and he said dr. Anthony fauci will be there in an even bigger role, who come out every single day and same the same thing and ask americans to do something all together. I dont know if it will work, but i do know,s it is so different. Thats right, john. We dont know if it will work, but we know that it hasnt been tried before. And we know he is not treating this as some kind of a restriction on peoples personal freedom. And hes making clear the limits of a national mandate. But he is framing what he can do in terms of federal buildings as a requirement and is asking the public to take part. And as you say, this has been absent from the conversation over the last year. I can think of literally one time where the president really made clear to the public, and it was at the end of march when he was extending the guidelines, the restrictions related to controlling the virus for a couple of weeks. And he talked about that the country was going to go through a lot of pain. We never heard that again. It could have all been very, very different. So i think that biden is easing the public into its own transition into how the trump team has treated it as to how he, the next president , will. Were not exactly sure what january 20th, the inauguration will look like. It seems hard to believe that President Trump would go to the inauguration. He hasnt signalled that he will. So jake tapper asked joe biden about this. Listen. President trump has not saud if hes going to attend your inauguration yet. Do you think its important that hes there . Youre laughing. I think it would important only in one sense, not in a personal sense. Important in a sense that we are able to demonstrate at the end of the chaos that hes created that there is peaceful transfer of power with the competing parties standing there, shaking hands and moving on. I think thats an important. What i worry about, jake, more than the impact on the domestic politics, i really worry about the image were presenting to the rest of the world. David, john and i have been talking all morning, about the mood, about the temperature coming down. With every question with joe biden, its this sort of steady answer. Its not personal, its not he doesnt take the bait, not that jake was baiting him, but there may have been a way to Say Something snarky there. He doesnt engage in that. And were all going to have to deprogram from the past five years of, you know, not covering a nasty tweet or some nasty rejoinder from the president. But i totally agree with the president elect. And it has nothing to do with whether trump is going to somehow get over his grievances or act like a mature president in that role. Its about how the rest of the world sees us. Its about the strength of our institutions and its about the passage of power. And you know, president obama in his memoir writes pretty extensively about how trump and sarah palin before him understood that they could violate certain norms of public behavior and Political Behavior and it simply didnt matter anymore. I think we want to rye to stop that decescent. And we want to show some of that pageantry. Thats a way to arrest that slide where there are things that matter. I dont have high hopes for trump being able to do that. But i hope theyll be some people who prevail upon him and say, hey, for the sake of, if you want a political future and be listened to, symbols like this matter. Joe biden clearly and consistently has behaved in a different way than twitter wants him to, than some in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party want him to. This is who he is and how he operates. But maggie, this is something Toluse Olorunnipa talked about, hes behaving as a man who knows that he won the election. And theres nothing that would bug trump more than seeing that. Whats our current reporting on what donald trump plans to do on inauguration and how he plans to react to the president elect over the next 47 days . Everyone ive spoken to, john, says they do not expect President Trump to go to the inauguration and, again, we will see what happens. He likes to keep people guessing about his own behavior. So if you see a commodity in that, i think youll see him tease out the possibility that hell go. Most people think its very unlikely, whether or not hes even going to still be in washington is another open question. There are some people who are hoping hell go down to people in his own group who are hoping hell go to maralago in florida for the holidays, not come back. Other advisers ive talked to do not see that as likely. But the current president is doing everything he can to try to suggest that the incoming president is not legitimate and by going to the inauguration, as david correctly said, that would send the signal about the transfer of power. I do not expect donald trump to suddenly decide that this is the moment to care about norms. I think if anything, what we have seen from election day, john, is hes going in the other direction and he is lashing out, after the first couple of days, everyone around him said that he seemed to understand that he had lost. He just wanted to play out the string. That attitude is gone. He has dug in. So well see where it goes in january. Okay. David, maggie, thank you both very much. And stick around. We have many more questions, because coming up, more from cnns exclusive interview with joe biden and Kamala Harris. Their response to the criticism from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that says that the cabinet is not diverse enough and more. keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. 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New this morning, president elect joe biden responding really for the first time publicly to pressure to appoint more minorities and progressives to top positions in his cabinet. Biden and Vice President elect Kamala Harris in this exclusive interview with jake tapper also talk about how they will work together. Whats been the Biggest Surprise about working with her . I know you knew her before, through beau. Well, look, there hadnt been any surprise. Because we had a discussion about this beforehand. We are sim pat kco on our philosophy of government and how we want to approach these issues that were facing. So when we disagree, its been just like when barrack and i did. Its in private and weve discussed at length our views on foreign policy, on domestic policy, on intelligence and the great thing is, she has a background in the senate on intelligence, on a whole range of things that will be pertinent to what we have to do. I dont have to tell you that the naacp is suggesting that they are disappointed so far that there havent been more black americans named to highprofile positions, present company excepted, and that jim clyburn said, hes watching your cabinet picks and quote, i can think of at least ten black folks that qualify for every single one. One position that you have yet to announce is attorney general. Do you think given george floyd, black lives matter, the social justice issues. The justice criminal Justice Reform issues that a black attorney general would be the right direction . Look, im going to be announcing the remaining 50 members of the cabinet. The first eight members are the most diverse cabinet anyone in American History has ever announced. There are three white men, there are excuse me, there are three men, five women, there are five people of color, three white people. I mean, this is going to be an incredibly diverse i am going to keep my commitment that the administration both in the white house and outside in the cabinet is going to look like the country. Last month, senator Bernie Sanders told the Associated Press it would be, quote, enormously insulting if your cabinet, the biden harris cabinet, ignored progressive voices. Who would you point to now as a leading progressive voice in the cabinet . Well, were not done yet, jake. So were not even halfway there. So i think that we should have this conversation when were done. What i think people are saying is, a lot of people are saying, am i going to pick some very, very prominent and wellknown progressive who sits in the house or the senate right now . As close as everything is in terms of the house and the senate, they are tough decisions to make. To pull somebody im going to badly need out of the senate, and we now dont reelect or have an appointment of somebody who is a democrat. And so, it is, i think people are going to see not only at the cabinet level, but the subcabinet level, theres already people we have appointed and well appoint many more. But it is not again, i understand the push. Back with us, David Gregory and maggie haberman. Maggie, that was a very interesting discussion. There are two sort of separate issues there. Theres political diversity in terms of progressive versus moderate democrats. But also the issue of racial diversity. And the push is real. The naacp now is concerned that they dont believe the cabinet is as racially diverse as they were hoping. Weve heard from hispanic members of congress, the hispanic caucus who also feels the same way. So there is that feeling out there and the Vice President elect and the president elect in a different part of the interview acknowledges that he knows that there are people but hes saying