hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. you are watching cnn newsroom, and i'm rosemary church. pfizer ceo says early results show its coronavirus vaccine could be a game changer. still some medical experts and world leaders are urging caution. plus, joe biden is still 71 days away from being sworn in as president, but he's already taking action to try to contain the coronavirus. we'll have the details. and attorney general bill barr urges federal prosecutors to look into unfounded voter

fraud claims. how this latest move by the trump administration could signal a top transition ahead. good to have you with us, well, on the day the u.s. passed 10 million confirmed cases of covid-19, a leading vaccine maker has announced a potential breakthrough in the fight against the virus. pharmaceutical giant pfizer says its experimental drug appears to be more than 90% effective at preventing a covid infection. this according to early data from a study of 43,000 volunteers. pfizer's ceo says the results have exceeded expectations but more research is still need ed.

>> 90% is a game changer. 90%, now you are hoping to have a tool in the war against this pandemic that will be significantly effective. how long the protection will last is something that we don't know right now, but it's part of the objective of the study. >> u.s. president-elect joe biden welcomed pfizer's announcement but said americans still need to wear masks to slow down the pandemic. his remarks came as he unveiled his new coronavirus task force and spoke about his plans to contain the virus when he takes office. the transition of power has been rough so far with president donald trump still refusing to accept the results from last week's election. and now his appointed attorney general is telling prosecutors to look into allegations of voting irregularities while potential legal battles unfold,

cnn's jeff zeleny has more on the challenges facing president-elect joe biden as he transitions to the white house. >> a mask is not a political statement. but it is a good way to start pulling the country together. >> president-elect joe biden setting a new tone on coronavirus making clear it will be the top priority of his new administration. >> i will be president until january 20th but my message today is to everyone is this. it doesn't matter who you voted for. we could save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. not democrat or republican lives, american lives. >> reporter: biden and vice president-elect kamala harris moving swiftly in their transition to power, announcing a coronavirus advisory board as the u.s. surpasses 10 million cases, despite promising news about a vaccine, biden delivering a grim kwarwarning.

the board is led by three cochairs, dr. vivek murthy, dr. rick bright, a former trump administration vaccine scientist and whistleblower who accused the white house of interfering in efforts to fight the virus. it's a fresh start, even as president trump has yet to concede political reality and the outcome of the election. >> let this grim era of demonization in america begin to end here and now. >> reporter: words on congratulations pouring in from around the world, including a call from canadian prime minister justin trudeau, but silence or defiance from most republicans with the notable exception of former president george w. bush who made clear the results should be accepted, the american people can have confidence the election was

fundamentally fair. the integrity should be up held and outcome clear. we must come together for the sake of our families and neighbors. the refusal by the trump administration to acknowledge the president's defeat has real consequences. a rutrump appointee is refusingo sign a letter allowing the transition team to begin its work, saying an ascertainment that has not been made about the election. biden has instructed his aides to give more time before taking more aggressive steps. >> it's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric designed to demonize one another. >> but for all the calls of unity from president-elect biden it is an open question if republicans are listening to them. there is a resistance inside the administration that is surprising even some allies of mr. biden. i'm told they are going to start increasing their fight to make this case publicly, that it is time to move on with the

transition of government. as for mr. biden's part, he will be talking about the affordable care agent on tuesday with wilmington, pushing forward with the transition of government, as most republicans have not congratulated him. jeff zeleny, cnn, wilmington, delaware. >> and cnn's senior political analyst ron brownstein joins me now from los angeles. good to have you with us. >> hi, rosemary. >> let's start with a tweet you posted monday night when you said this. the post-election temperature changed radically today from trump's personal peak to a party wide effort, blessed by senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, of course, to find any pretext to try to overturn the results with the help of barr's weaponized justice department. however implausible, are democrats ready for this fight? so ron, that is a truly alarming tweet, i have to say. how likely is it that these various efforts by republicans

could come anywhere near overturning the result of this election given they have offered absolutely no evidence to support their claims of voter fraud. >> no evidence to support the claims as you point out. look what happened in the past 24 hours. we have gone from an image of president trump alone, stewing in the white house yelling at pictures on the wall, to republicans attorney general trying to intervene, republican senators in georgia calling for the republican secretary of state. senator mitch mcconnell blessing this effort on the senate floor. bill barr basically enlisting the justice department to try to find any pretext of fraud. you can say that, you know, the odds are high that the courts will stand firm and dismiss these baseless accusations, but there are a lot of republican justices that donald trump has put on the court, and i don't think you can feel, you know, a zero chance anymore that they

will find some pretext, not to overturn the lead but to cloud it enough that they can convince republican legislators to try to send slates of electors. jeff zeleny's piece where joe biden said i want to give them time to work through this. i think this is going to be a very good test of whether he recognizes how different the partisan landscape is just since he left office since 2016, how much more venomous, and really how ultimately he may have to fight a lot harder on this front than they have so far. >> you can't forget 71 million americans voted for donald trump, so he feels he's got some strength behind him. how much of mitch mcconnell's fighting words are about protecting his own role as majority leader in the senate rather than perhaps caring about what happens to donald trump in the end. >> i think it is largely about preserving his own role. certainly they hope these basele baseless charges will help them fire up the base in georgia,

early january, two runoff elections, democrats win both. they control the senate, they split. or republicans control the senate. to me, it's sort of the correlation damage here, that mitch mcconnell is willing to accept. this is just an extraordinarily dangerous course for republicans to be taking in terms of our democracy because as they know, they are seeding a narrative that this election was stolen, with no evidence that anything like the margin could be affected by any kind of missteps anywhere, and yet they are providing fuel in the fire. >> and our thanks there to cnn political analyst ron brownstein. for all the political wrangling comes as infection rates have soared to record highs across the country, the u.s. has surpassed 10 million cases of the virus, and over the past week, it has averaged about

100,000 new infections per day. but as cnn's athena jones reports, pfizer's vaccine announcement is offering some hope. >> it's very important day for humanity. >> it could be the coronavirus vaccine the world has been waiting for. pfizer and its partner biontech shows its vaccine is 90% effective. >> it's extraordinary. it's coming at a time the world needs it the most. >> reporter: the company says it expecting to seek emergency use authorization from the fda as soon as next week, and is on track to produce 50 million doses this year, and neurosurgeon -- more than a billion next year. others express cautious optimism. >> in the deep data if that shows 90% efficacy, that's

phenomenal. a vaccine even at 50% would help move the ball. >> reporter: the promising news as the country reaches another grim milestone, 10 million covid cases. more than 237,000 lives lost. 43 states now seeing a surge. sunday was the 5th day in a row the u.s. topped 100,000 new cases in a single day. >> many of our hospitals, across the mountain west, midwest, are already getting overwhelmed. >> reporter: hospitalizations setting records in 19 states, with 30 states hitting their peak average on sunday, including indiana, where notre dame fans ignoring social distancing guidelines rushed the football after the victory on sunday. the university president who was himself diagnosed with covid-19 after visiting the white house without a mask announcing new measures, including putting students registration on hold if they refuse to submit to covid testing. meanwhile, new concerns in new york city once the epicenter of

the crisis, where the positivity rate while still low is rising once again. >> that is dangerous. we have one last chance to stop a second wave. >> reporter: mayor de blasio says if new york hits a second wave, it will mean more restrictions and having to shut down parts of the economy again. the city's health department is providing more tools to help people track infection rates. releasing new data showing the percentage of people testing positive by zip code for the most recent seven days of the data. athena jones, new york. an infectious disease expert and epidemiologist, with us from los angeles, thank you so much for being with us, and for all that you do. >> thank you, rosemary, for having me on. >> we are seeing u.s. covid cases surpass 10 million with daily cases hitting record highs. but now comes this positive news about pfizer's vaccine being

more than 90% effective. i would be interested to get your response to all of that. >> definitely, so here in the united states, as you stated, we're around over 10 million cases. we're surpassing any other country. 110,000 cases per day, which is about over one case per second. so i think the entire world, especially the united states needs a glimmer of hope in this grim outlook that we currently have, so this pfizer vaccine showing about a 90% efficacy is that potential glimmer of hope that we have been looking for. and as a health care provider that's been involved in vaccine research for quite some time, i can state that these results look quite promising thus far, but there are still some unanswered questions. so just taking a step back at looking at these results, they're about 44,000 people that

were entered into this trial, and out of these 44,000, there were 94 cases that ended occupy developing the sars co2 virus, and so out of those individuals, they were less than 10% of those that ended up receiving the vaccine, and there were over 90% that ended up receiving placebo, so that's quite promising to see that most of those individuals that ended up getting covid-19 were those that received the placebo versus the vaccine. >> right. so what do you think this means in terms of when people will actually have access to the vaccine, and in any meaningful way, of course? >> i think it's going to be some time. this is an interim analysis. i think there are very important answers. this study looked at two different doses, given 21 days apart, and analyzed seven days

after, and so there's a total of 28 days. how long is someone immune from this virus. we still don't know that picture from just these interim results. we don't know whether those individuals which are elderly will respond just as well as those which are younger. we know from previous vaccines that elderly individuals do not respond as well, and those are the ones which are most vulnerable. so there are very many unanswered questions here. and we still don't know much about the safety. vaccines can have some very adverse events which are affiliated with it. especially with the sars co2 vaccine, early on in the phase one trials were shown individuals have fatigue, chills, many other adverse events affiliated with it. is this what's seen also with this vaccine? >> our thanks to dr. ravi

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president trump has kept a low profile over the last few days, but is still making consequential decisions. on monday, he fired defense secretary mark esper on twitter. our barbara starr has the latest on esper's replacement. >> christopher miller, a former special operations soldier and president trump's counter terrorism chief is now the new acting secretary of defense. he arrived at the pentagon a short time after president trump announced that he was replacing defense secretary mark esper, firing him. the president saying that by tweet esper getting that notice from a phone call from white house chief of staff mark meadows just a few moments before the president's tweet went out. the two of them had been on the outs since june when esper publicly essentially came out against the president saying

that he could not support any idea of putting active duty u.s. military forces on the streets when they were trying to quell protesters. he did not believe that that was necessary, but now, esper, of course, deferring to the president's decision and saying in his resignation letter in part, i served the country in deference to the constitution so i accept your decision to replace me. for his part, miller, as acting, faces a lot of uncertainty about what trump may decide to do in the days before the inauguration in january. the pandemic still front and center at the pentagon. u.s. military medical personnel now redeploying to some city hospitals in texas to help out overworked medical staff there, and the president still holding open the possibility that he wants to bring all u.s. troops home from afghanistan by

christmas, something that u.s. military commanders say is simply too soon to contemplate. barbara starr, cnn, the pentagon. >> joining me now is cnn military analyst, general mark herding, he served as the commanding general of u.s. army europe and the 7th army. always an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show. welcome. >> great to be with you, rosemary. >> so what was your response to the firing of defense secretary mark esper in a presidential tweet monday? >> truthfully, rosemary, not unexpected. we have been seeing the rumor last week of secretary esper carrying around a letter of resignation. he was asked about it, and hedged his answer. we know that the president has been upset with mr. esper ever since the incident last summer when mr. esper had a press conference and said he was

prohibitively against using active duty military forces in riot control, and cases of the insurrection act or martial law. >> you could sense this was coming. i think the president did not want to do it before the election. he felt it might have hurt his chances, so he waited until today. but it's troubling. even though many of us saw it coming, it's extremely troubling knowing that we're about in the transition period where the secretary of defense becomes very important as a key member of the cabinet to transition to the administration. that's what is disturbing to me because it brings more chaos into an already dysfunctional situation. >> and let's talk about that because as you mentioned, there were discussions at the white house prior to the breelection about firing mark esper. let's talk about the impact a firing like this has during a

lame duck presidential period. on the defense department and on u.s. and global security and how destabilizing could this potentially be. >> just from the shop keeping, the transition of power, you know, the secretary of defense, not many people understand what that individual does, but you're talking about running one of america's biggest bureaucracies with millions of people and a huge budget. the fact that he is literally signing deployment orders to move forces around the globe. he is the approval authority for that. the overwatch of contingency plans, what we call war plans, things that might have to be applied in case of a crisis. the army, navy air force, marines. all of those things are critically important. and during a transition, the individual that sits in that key spot in the cabinet has to turn that over to the person in the next administration, and it's

really nice to have someone that has a little bit of experience versus someone like a mr. miller that's coming in with 2 1/2 months left to go before the end of the administration. >> and just very quickly, how concerned are you about who else might be terminated by a frustrated president that clearly lost this election, and what impact does this all have on a peaceful transition of power. you pretty much covered that. >> i said the other day during a forum i attended with security experts that during any kind of a crisis situation or a transition, you're worried about four things. first of all, you're worried about intelligence, and what kind of feed you're getting from all over the world. secondly, your defensive posture in a global situation. third, your internal skurecurit and fourth, your homeland security. we're talking about, number one, the secretary of defense. the fbi chief. the cia director, and potentially the homeland security director.

we have seen rumors tonight after mr. esper was fired kay otically o -- kchaotically on a tweet, ci director esper. i'm very concerned, those are the four areas of government during a transition period that we want to keep the nation secure. that's troubling when you think about the potential repercussions of that. >> and about 70 more days of that period to work through. lieutenant general mark hurdling, many thanks for your analysis. appreciate it. >> always a pleasure, thank you, rosemary. >> well, extremely encouraging news about a coronavirus vaccine sent stocks soaring on monday. but how are investors reacting now. we will check on the markets. back in just a moment. businesses today are looking to tomorrow. adapting. innovating.

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officials and health experts around the world are welcoming encouraging news about pfizer's potential coronavirus vaccine. early data from the drug maker showed the vaccine is more than 90% effective at preventing infection. the company says the results were much better than expected, and its ceo is calling the research a game changer. >> i think that the likely would be the greatest medical advance in the last hundred years, if you think about it, right, and it is extraordinary, but it's calming in a time that the world needs it the most. right now only the u.s. will

have 100,000 victims every day. 1,000 deaths every day. i can't count how many people are losing their jobs every day, so it's very important day for humanity. >> despite the encouraging news, the company still hasn't determined how long the vaccine's protection will last or if the drug prevents severe infections. even so, researchers plan to seek regulatory approval in the coming weeks and could have up to 50 million doses ready by year's end. several countries have already placed orders including the uk and the u.s. pfizer says u.s. citizens will receive the vaccine free of charge. and that promising news about a covid-19 vaccine helped u.s. stocks surge on wall street. the dow closed nearly 3% higher on monday. the s&p 500 was up 1.2%, just short of a new record high.

but the tech heavy nasdaq closed down 1 1/2%, and this is a look at how the u.s. futures are acting right now. you've got the dow and s&p 500 in positive territory. 1/2%. let's go to john. is wall street a little out of step with the medical challenges of distribution in this instance, do you think? >> i think that's a good way to frame. they're focused on the progress of the vaccine but not the hurdles in terms of distribution. we had the huge surge at the start of the trading day, almost outlandishly high, and came back to reality. a 3% gain or near that for the dow industrial is significant, and a shift to reengaging with

companies that have been locked out because of the pandemic. a more subdued response in asia. the markets higher but not by a whole lot. hong kong up 1%. shanghai was below the line, and it's almost a split decision, if you will, rosemary, what we're seeing in europe with london and paris with pretty sharp gains and germany and zurich hovering at the line or just below it at this stage. we saw companies like the airlines and the cruise liners, a company like disney, surging on monday. what is that telling us about the next three to as i said mont -- six months in terms of investor sentiment. take a listen. >> the market as you pointed out looks ahead three months, maybe even four months. that's why today you see the normal stocks, the sectors, getting a major boost. you're seeing disney, the consummate consumer discretionary name getting the boost. >> that was the boost on monday, and oil prices surged about 10%

because of trains and plains and automobiles are moving again. oil will rise. we had a gain of, what, 10, 11% at one point, and they're holding on to those right now. rosemary, but there is the political risk of donald trump trying to throw sand in the engine and slow the process down. the big asset manager, black rock, which manages $7 trillion, it told its investors not to worry. it will slow down the process. it will not derail a joe biden presidency. quite entesiinteresting to thin. donald trump said he's the man of wall street. now a shift the other way to a democratic leader. >> he didn't think it was going to react well, but it's looking good right now. john defterios joining us live. appreciate it. pfizer's vaccine prospects came as welcome news to millions in europe who were under strict new lock down measures to try and battle a surging second wave. british prime minister boris

johnson was cautious in his reaction warning the public not to become complacent. >> irrespective of whether there is a vaccine on the way or not, we must continue to do everything possible right now to bring it down. that's why we hope and believe that mass testing will help. neither mass testing nor progress on vaccines, both vital arrows in our epidemiological quiver. they're both key parts of our fight against covid. at the present time, they are no substitute for the national restrictions, the social distancing, hand hygiene, and all the rest. >> and france is also dealing with a covid-19 crisis, with more than 20,000 new cases reported on monday alone.

the country has the 4th highest case tally in the world, and its health chief is warning that this second wave has yet to peak. and for more, let's turn to cnn's melissa bell who joins us live from paris. good to see you, melissa. what is the latest on the situation across france and of course reaction to this vaccine news. >> reporter: what we have started to see in several countries and the head of france's public health agency spoke of yesterday, yes, a second wave yet to peak in r countries like france and the beginning of some hope that the figures are just beginning to shift, and in particular, he said, rosemary, those french cities that have been under the tightest restrictions for the longest. of course as you know, here as elsewhere, we have a second partial lock down. before that was put in place, curfews had been put in place in several french cities. it was there. those worst hit metropolitan areas that are now beginning to

see some hope in terms of the figures. if you take the positive rate, 19.8, that sound like a lot. it's the first time it has come down since the month of august, coming from a high on saturday of 20.6. the beginning of a turn around, of course a great deal of need to go on with these measures. and in a sense, you're right, rosemary, to point that out. it is that sort of restrictive measures and trying to keep whatever needs to be kept in place in place in terms of restricting people's freedom of movement, until the figures show not at least some improvement but certainly some ability to allow the countries in question to weather the storm, until that vaccine can be found, a sort of halfway house between open economies and restricted economies that will allow hthem to keep the icu functioning as long as they need to, until the vaccine can bring hope to countries like france. so hard hit, rosemary, as they have been by the second wave!

melissa bell, bringing that update live from paris, many thanks. concessions, allegations of voter fraud, and legal cases. coming up we speak to our election law analyst about the next steps for president trump and president-elect biden. back in a moment. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood.

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this is cnn breaking news. this breaking news coming this hour, the chief negotiator with the palestinian liberation organization has reportedly died after being hospitalized with covid-19 just last month. sayed was in critical condition and had received general anesthesia as well as ventilation. he tested positive a month ago, and was considered at high risk because of a lung transplant he underwent back in 2017. cnn's oren liebermann looks back at the life and legacy of

sayeb arakat. >> reporter: a man from an increasingly impossible mission. he was head of the plo's negotiations affairs department for daecades, in charge of finding common ground with israel that would lead to a peace agreement. >> please let us stop scoring points. let us stop finger pointing. let's go to sanity, wisdom and courage and come back to the negotiating table immediately with no conditions whatsoever because at the end of the day, we have recognized the state of israel's existence. it's up to you to take the high ground. >> reporter: born in jerusalem and educated in the u.s. and the u.k., he joined the political party growing close to its ch r chair -- leader. >> he has always been a man of peace, a man that i trust, a man that i respect. that's the good news.

the bad news is that he does not call the shots. >> reporter: he was a critical part of the accords, when ending the israel palestinian conflict seemed achievable. as years pass he found himself with little common ground to stand stand. he never moved from his goal, even as it grew more distant. >> my option, i may be in the minority. i'm criticized heavily, i'm sticking to the two state solution but i know in history that i read, and teach and write and so on, that if we want to have a solution, we must have a negotiated solution between us and the israel, this will be

translated in the blood of my children and their children and nobody else will do it for us. >> reporter: when president donald trump unveiled the white house's plan for middle east peace it was soundly rejected by the palestinians and the arab world. araka c ara arakat and the leadership wanted to part. >> he's busy determining my future, and dictate me. actually what we hear about, security borders, it cannot even be called the deal of the century. it is the fraud of the century. >> within months, he would find himself on the outside looking in as israel normalized agreements with the united arab emirates and bahrain. it was his most important mission, one that remained unfulfilled in his lifetime. >> so let's head straight to

jerusalem now. elliot, we interviewed sae saesaeb saeb erekat many times. his legacy was immense on this. how will he be remembered? >> reporter: he will be remembered as a man that was in charge of both negotiations, that gave so much hope and a peaceful resolution to the israeli palestinian conflict could be reached. he was close to arafat, chief negotiator for the negotiations with secretary general, close to the palestinian authority president mack mahmoud abad. which he was a part of, great

national find, and also more than that, not just for the palestinians who are in mourning after, you know, their happiness of the victory of the president-elect joe biden. he was also the face of the palestinian people very much. not just for the palestinians but for the outside world. you know, we have interviewed him many times. he was always being interviewed by the international media, spoke english, educated in the u.s. and the uk. he's a man that, you know, other countries could do business with, and you know, this moment he has been seriously ill for a few weeks now, obviously will still come as a bit of a shock, and a psychological blow to the palestinians. >> elliot,s a as we mentioned, saeb was vulnerable to the covid-19 infection. given he did receive the lung

transplant back in 2017. we haven't seen him in recent times. what was his thinking during these last few years, and his expectations. >> i mean, in the beginning, he said, you know, too, that was suffering from difficult symptoms, but that things were under control. as we have seen with covid-19, there's a situation deteriorated, his health deteriorated and he was moved to the medical center in jerusalem, a hospital with a very great reputation, and obviously matched resource any of those that he has been able to have received in the controlled area, so this was something that i suppose won't be a shock in the sense that he was seriously hill, and hope as to why he was receiving the best treatment

possible in jerusalem medical center. but there was a chance that he would recover. but as we have seen, that wasn't the case. >> we are talking to elliot godkin on the line in jerusalem covering in breaking news of the death of saeb erakat from covid-19. we're going to continue this conversation but take a very short break. we'll be back in just a moment. ! hi. so you're the scientist here. does my aveeno® daily moisturizer really make my dry skin healthier in one day? it's true jen. really?! this prebiotic oat formula moisturizes to help prevent dry skin. impressive! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.

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chief negotiator of the palestine liberation organization has reportedly died after being hospitalized with covid-19 last month. saeb erekat was in critical condition and had received general anesthesia as well as ventilation. he tested positive for covid-19 just a month ago and was considered at high risk because of a lung transplant he received back in 2017. so let's go back to jerusalem and on the line, we have elliot godkin, elliot, we were talking about the legacy of saeb erekat,

so many of us have spoken to him over the years as he has tried to forge peace in the middle east. it unfortunately remained elusive for us. but talk about his legacy, what he achieved throughout his life, and his thoughts maybe toward the end if we're even aware of them. >> there was obviously during the course of his being, you know, for the palestinians, close to the founder of mahmoud abad, you know there was obviously huge changes that took place, the recognition of the state of israel and its right to exist. negotiations obviously gave a lot of hope which were ultimately left unfulfilled. obviously the assassination of

rabin to those negotiations because they were soon after by the election of benjamin netanyahu, is israel's prime minister today, and imagine that of course, you know, he fought and negotiated all of those years and made the position of being somewhat of a hard liner to someone that looked and tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the israeli palestinian conflict. ultimately he was unsuccessful. the last four years would have been particularly frustrating, under president donald trump. during that time, the u.s. changing its position, its long standing position, and recognize israel, recognize, excuse me, jerusalem as the capital of israel, the palestinians to the eastern part of the capital of

the future of the palestinian state. donald trump leaves the u.s. embassy through jerusalem, and then following that brokered those peace agreements with arab nations, united arab emirates, ba h bahrain and sudan, effectively felt up until that point. there's been a case there was no -- the conventional wisdom would be israel would be able to make peace with other countries in the region, with other arab nations in the absence of progress with the palestinians. and say thosimilar things happe in the last period of his life. incredibly frustrating, as his daughter painted on facebook, in his battle against the coronavirus infection, covid-19 infection that he had, in the same way that he was kind of

permitted to try to achieve an independent palestinian state and justice for the palestinian people. >> all right. i would very much like to thank elliot joining us on the line there from jerusalem. and also we have received a message from his daughter on facebook, and it reads this way, our father moved in peace after he showed extraordinary strength and will. the same determination that characterized his career to achieve freedom for palestinian and a just peace in our region and his commandment to us all is to adhere to the rights of the palestinian people until they achieve freedom and independence. a message there from saeb erekat's daughter as we report this breaking news. the passing of saeb erekat as a result of covid-19. thank you so much for your

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welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "early start." i'm christine romans. >> and i'm laura jarrett. it's tuesday, november 10th. it's 5:00 a.m. here in new york. and we begin this morning with disruption, disinformation, and denialism over the election results. republicans in washington aided by those on fox unmoved by facts, peddling false hope that trump could some how emerge the winner of this race. it's a strategy rooted