For the first u. S. Vaccines, and the initial doses may soon be on the way. The panel recommended the fda go ahead and give emergency approval for the vaccine developed by pfizer. The green light came after an allday meeting on its safety and effectiveness, all of it streamed live on the web. The fda may give that official emergency approval as early as tomorrow. Vaccines could then start going into arms of americans on monday. Approval will mean millions of doses will be deployed moving out to states within 24 hours, needles, syringes, ppe are already in motion. U. S. Confirmed cases now north of 15. 5 million with nearly 300,000 of our fellow citizens gone. And please listen to this. As the director of the cdc today described the stark reality of what were about to face. Covid19 now is the leading cause of death surpassing Heart Disease and other causes of death. Probably for the next 60 to 90 days were going to have more deaths per day than we had in 9 11 or we had at pearl harbor. And the reality of the vaccine approval as our nation slags beneath the load with the darkest months still ahead of us, the outgoing president was thinking about this today and we quote. The Supreme Court has a chance to save our country from the greatest election abuse in the history of the United States. Donald trump is placing what may be his last attempt at overturning the results of our election on a lawsuit from the attorney general of texas, a man currently under fbi investigation himself. This texas lawsuit seeks to throw out votes and seeks to put off certification of the vote in pennsylvania, georgia, wisconsin, and michigan all of which the president lost. 18 republican state attorneys general have joined this suit. Trump had lunch with some of them at the white house earlier today. 106 Republican House members are now also behind the lawsuit. They filed their own Court Document today. To be clear that means over 100 of your elected representatives are supporting the effort to overturn the will of the voters in these four key states. Here is how pennsylvanias attorney general responded to the texas lawsuit and we, quote, nothing in the text, history or structure of the constitution supports texas view it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections. The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process. Even texas senator john cornyn, a reliable trump acolyte and member of the Republican Leadership in the senate sounded down right cautious. Its unprecedented. I do not understand the legal theory. I dont want other states having a chance to change texas law based on a similar effort. I dont expect the Supreme Court to agree. John cornyn was a judge before he became a senator. So heres where we are tonight amid all the false claims of rigged votes and fighting to overturn an election thats been decided the economic damage from this pandemic just gets worse. Today we learned another 853,000 of our fellow citizens filed for first time Unemployment Benefits last week. Thats a higher number than expected. Negotiations on a relief bill appear to have stalled again, and many members of congress it being thursday night have left town until tuesday as they often do. As for the Incoming Administration president elect joe biden has tapped two more obama alumni for key jobs. Susan rice, former National Security advisor, will serve as head of his domestic policy counsel. Obamas former chief of staff dennis mcdona a his nominee for secretary of affairs. He will campaign there next tuesday for Democratic Senate candidates jon ossoff and ra raphael warnock. Lets bring in our lead off guests on this first night of hanukkah thursday, exactly two weeks until christmas eve. Jonathan lemire, White House Reporter with the Associated Press at todays rare White House Coronavirus task force briefing. Dr. Nahid bhadelia. She work would the World Health Organization back when we were a Member Nation during the ebola outbreak, among our medical contributors. And melissa murray, judge for sonia sotomayor. Good evening and welcome to you all. Doctor, this is an excitement dichotomy we have in front of us. We want to be excited about the arrival of the vaccines, and yet the predictions for the dark, dark winter we are in for dont get much more grim than what we just heard from the head of the cdc. As unfair as this question may be to you, can you give us a ballpark estimate by the month. When will most of the souls watching a broadcast like this one be inoculated . At least their first of two inoculations . Ill start by saying it depends what country youre in 2021 in the u. S. Were probably looking at if everything holds true, the manufacturing holds true, the distribution and actually getting people to take the vaccine, and if more vaccine candidates come through and are successful. Because it doesnt look like the supplies of the current vaccines will be enough then potentially early summer, fall is when were looking at achieving that vaccine herd immunity. We lit a candle tonight, but the only miracle were going to find in the next few months is our own action in really wearing those masks, in distancing and not traveling if we dont have to. And eventually i think the biggest challenge is going to be Vaccine Hesitancy and covid denialism, that even when we have the tools we may get to a position in 6 months or 8 months we might have communities that might have Vaccine Coverage and go back to normal and others still suffering from this pandemic because they dont have the same vaccine uptake as other communities do. I hope everyone watching heard what the doctor just said and takes those words to heed. Counselor, over to you. This legal matter we have before us. Donald trump came to office with close to zero Institutional Knowledge of how the three branches of government work. There is reason to believe he views his appointment, a fully one third of the u. S. Supreme court as something thats redeemable to him, something transactional. I want to play for you a sampling. Well discuss on the other side. We need nine justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that theyre sending, its a scam, its a hoax. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court, and i think its very important we have nine justices because i think this scam that the democrats are pull, its a scam. The scam will be before the United StatesSupreme Court. And i think having a 44 situation is not a good situation. Are you counting on the Supreme Court including a Justice Barrett to settle any dispute . Yeah, i think im counting on them to look at the ballots definitely. So counselor, a lawyer told me last night this lawsuit is not a serious document. That was certainly underscored today when someone discovered that it misspelled the state of louisiana. What is your view . Well, this is really unusual challenge, and as you say the president who has put stock in what could only be described as a hail mary effort is really misguided on this particular point. The Supreme Court very rarely grants original jurisdiction in this these cases. It has the option to have original jurisdiction in cases involving two states, but it doesnt have to necessarily take up the case. In this particular situation its not clear that texas or any of the parties that are seeking to intervene in the matter including President Trump have standing to sue on this particular count. And then substantively as well as procedurally there are a number of really troubling aspects. At this point many of the votes and a number of the states being challenged like pennsylvania have already been certified. So for the Supreme Court to take action on this point, it would essentially be disenfranchising millions of voters across the country in those states. Professor, i wont ask you for a prediction, but would you be surprised if we got a very terse just like the last time we heard from the court a onesentence denial and perhaps even a onesentence mandatory denial . I think its likely itll be very curt and to the point and simply get this out of the courts and back to the work of actually doing democracy. All right, jonathan lemire, ive got to play for you a clip of the White House Press secretary with sean hannity tonight. Well discuss on the other side. I dont really see a path where they can just kick the can and not deal with an issue of such legal importance. Thissed should be a nobrainer in my opinion in terms of them taking up this case. It should be a nobrainer. Theres original jurisdiction here with some states suing other states. Its very clear that they have standing. Its very clear they deserve to be heard. So jonathan, a member of the new york bar said to me tonight, reminded me Kaley Mcenany went to Harvard Law School and said, quote, she knows better. What is going on here . And how many in the west wing are hanging any real hopes on this case that, again, is being described as an unserious document . She does know better, brian. And its a good reminder just how small this circle is around the president right now. Most of those who will ever speak up to him or challenge him on these beliefs have long since left. Or certainly in the last couple of week as the west wing is totally hollowed out because of covid cases and the Election Results becoming obvious to some in the building, he is now just surrounded by the true believerers, the loyalists. That includes the press secretary, and very few are suggesting to him that he should stop. But also no one ervin there thinks it could change the result of the election. This is about the fight, but its more than that. Its obviously this is dangerous moment right now for the democracy for the president is bucking democratic tradition, not adhering to the very tenant of our electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power with these longshot lawsuits that seem doomed to fail. And what its doing instead is simply undermining the confidence of many millions of americans into the Incoming Administration, many of whom believe that joe biden was not duly elected. On that point, dr. Bhadelia, this is the era of disinformation and you raised the specter of antivaccers already, which is going to be the enemy of Public Health in these next few months. Why wasnt the vote by the Advisory Panel today, again all of it very forthrightly streamed live. Anyone could watch it and see the expertise and the oldfashioned rigor that went into this process. Why wasnt the vote unanimous . Brian, to some extent there were two people who dissented who spoke out aloud. The other two we dont quite know the reason for it. The ones who spoke out mentioned is because they wanted the wording of the approval to be a little bit differently. Its currently approved for those 16 and over, and they felt there wasnt enough evidence for 16 and 17yearolds because there werent enough participants in that group. Its unclear when theyll change that wording to meet the consensus. Theres a lot of discussion not just about that but the ethic of releasing an emergency use authorization. Now when you have new vaccine candidates will other people want to take part in those trials . And how does pfizer continue the study of the people already in its trials so we can get answers like longterm protection or even getting a sense of does this protect us just from infections but also asymptomatic infections also from disease which is currently what we know from the trial . And asking for forgiveness for pingponging among subjects, profelser murray, back to you. This is where i work in your alma mater from Yale Law School by saying you spent time in the law. Whats your reaction to seeing not only 100 plus members of the duly elected signon to this case but 17, 18 attorneys general put their reputations, their good names onto this case . What is surprising, again, it is unprecedented and unorthodox but so has much of the last four years under this administration. And i think its really clear at least around the Republican Party donald trump is still calling many of the shots. And again, i dont expect the Supreme Court to take this case seriously, certainly not in the way the president would hope. But its really dispiriting to see individuals who have been elected to congress, individuals licensed and barred and sworn an oath to uphold the constitution signing onto something every legal scholar ive spoken to believes is truly meritless. Jonathan lemire, two items here. Number one, a potential trigger for donald trump to learn that tonight Time Magazine has in fact named their people of the year. A lot of people expected front line medical workers. It was taken as an article in faith. In fact, not so. It was joe biden and kamala harris, that uvted slot in the life of donald trump has has always and will continue to elude him. Number two, wall street journal report out tonight about the hunter biden tax investigation, and this story would have us believe that attorney general barr did not want to make this public during election season. Youll forgive any cynicism. Youll forgive any skepticism. A good many people are going to say this doesnt match the attorney general barr we have come to know. Is this another attempt to try to salvage the smoldering rubble of his reputation . Well, first, brian, there are a few people i think who spend more time thinking about the time person of the year award. So im certain he wont be very happy with tonights result. In term of the attorney general, yes, the reporting sums he adhered to the department of justice guidelines which suggests there should not be overt action, publicity of an investigation when it comes so close to an election, a rule of course many people would note james comey ran afoul of in 2016. In fact, it was enforced after that when he talked about the Hillary Clinton investigation saying that while she was not being charged with any wrongdoing he held this extraordinary press conference and sort of scolded her behavior, and it was seen as very damaging to her. In an effort to not have Something Like that happen, again, doj has these guidelines. But youre right. William barr has spent most of his time in his position doing it appears to most Donald Trumps bidding from the beginning. So this would indeed run as a surprise he would not do something that would be politically advantageous to the president and publicize these investigations into hunter biden. What is clear is this, we havent heard a reaction from the president , we will. We already know hes angry at barr for barrs insistence there wasnt widespread election fraud. This would ratchet up attention between the two men as the president we report tonight privately fuming he wasnt doing more to publicize his investigations before the election. Three friends of this broadcast to start us off tonight, a premier journalist, a premier lawyer. Thank you all for helping us start things off. Coming up for us how much damage can an outgoing president do to his own Political Party . James carville, mike murphy standing by to join us. Well talk to one of the most famous chefs in the world who says we need a secretary of food in this nation and in the president s cabinet. All of it as the 11th hour is just getting under way on this thursday night. But how do we make sure the direction were headed is forward . At fidelity, youll get the planning and advice to prepare you for the future, without sacrificing the things that are important to you today. Well help you plan for healthcare costs, taxes and any other uncertainties along the way. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction youre moving is forward. To show up. For the sweet. The hectic. The tender. The tense. And the fiery. But for many, migraine keeps them. From saying. I am here. We aim to change that. With. Aimovig, a preventive treatment. For migraine in adults. One dose. Once a month. Is proven to reduce monthly migraine days. For some, by half or more. 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He doesnt know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. The man is ulterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him. So fast forward to now and what a difference 4 1 2 years can make. This week donald trump offered ted cruz the job of arguing this attempt to overturn the election before