an all star tribute hosted maine and special co-host kelly ripa. i want to hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." >> hard times make strong people and it makes strong people to make good times. hopefully all this cataclysm will somehow lead us to take one another to a better place but that remains to be seen. have a good weekend, my brother. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." it is over, again. georgia is a vital flip for democrats. they're dreaming of a senate majority. that will take winning two runoffs in georgia in january. chances are iffy but for biden this is a big flip. he also flipped arizona last night. that gives president-elect joe biden 306 electoral votes. that's the same number trump had in 2016. remember what trump said about the margin in the past?

>> we had a tremendous, uh, landslide electoral college victory, like people haven't seen in a long time. not only did we win the election. we had an electoral college landslide. okay? it was a landslide. we had an electoral college -- as you know, congressman, we had a landslide. 306-223. we had a landslide. they lost an election and they lost it big. it was really a landslide from the electoral college standpoint. he only got upset about it after the results were classification 306-223. it got bigger and bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder. it was 306-223, that's a lot. this was an excuse for the democrats who lost an election, who actually got their ass kicked.

306-223. that's a pretty good shellacin'. >> it's a shellacin', it's an ass-kickin', fair enough. and now you received it. remember, he also got worked by clinton in the popular vote. but the margin there, over 2 million votes, was actually competitive compared to the historic 5 million vote advantage that president-elect joe biden has as of today. remember, that number is still growing. more votes are being counted. it's already like the entire state of south carolina or alabama voted for biden. all of them. biden's win also changes the state of play between the parties. in michigan, his vote margin is well over ten times the amount that trump won in 2016. ten times. biden's margin over trump in pennsylvania nearly 20,000 more than trump against clinton.

wisconsin, slightly smaller margin than trump had but still clear flip. and so it stands. on friday 13, that's the day trump decided to show his face after more than a week of just tweeting tripe. and he once again embarrassed his office and his supporters by denying the obvious. >> ideally we won't go to a lockdown, i will not go, this administration will not be going to a lockdown. hopefully the -- the -- whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, i guess time will tell. >> time will tell. the only things that time will tell is how long it takes us to turn around the miss anthropic administration. still worse, in a way, are those who know how to be better and

choose to enable trump and spread disinformation. remember them when they try to be something else in the not too distant future. exhibit "a." >> are you prepared to say that president trump will definitely attend the inauguration? >> i think the president will attend his own inauguration. he would have to be there, in fact. >> you really think you can turn this around? >> absolutely. >> never lie to you. perfect spokesperson for this president. the truth is if you want to claim irregulirregularities, yo should. any sense of fraud should be exposed. but all such showings take proof. and trump has been trumped by that reality. sure, he can tweet "we won p.a. because the constitution says so." but that only works on twitter. you see, we decide matters of fact and law in court.

and while trump and his friends keep saying they're going to court, they don't reveal what happens once they get there. 18 times, at least, so far, they have gone and lost. nine times today alone. courts in states all over the country, all for the same reason. say it with me. no proof. in pennsylvania today, judges tossed six different cases filed by the trump campaign designed to invalidate nearly 9,000 absentee ballots. and we learned about that only after a law firm who was representing the trump camp withdrew from the case. they were left with a single lawyer. it's not easy to find even lawyers to front farce. and there's not going to be a recount either. why? the margins weren't close enough. in detroit, a judge today rejected a bid to block the certification of biden's win,

while debunking claims of fraud. why? no proof. in arizona, the trump campaign just gave up its lawsuit demanding a review of all ballots cast on election day. why? not enough proof to shake a vote margin that is simply too wide. oh, and trump's celebrated voter fraud hotline, they shut it down. too many prank calls. but here is the real prank. all these gopers pretending to be acting on principle when they are just pawns. remember them and what they tried to do during this time, and listen to how president obama just called it out for what it is. >> joe biden will be the next president of the united states. kamala harris will be the next vice president. there is no legal basis, there's no -- >> but he's getting support from members of the republican party who are not challenging him. >> and that has been disappointing.

they obviously didn't think there was any fraud going on, because they didn't say anything about it for the first two days. but there's damage to this, because what happens is that the peaceful transfer of power, the notion that any of us who attain an elected office, whether it's dog catcher or president, are servants of the people. it's a temporary job. we're not above the rules. we're not above the law. that's the essence of our democracy. >> that must be remembered. now, mr. president, if you're listening, let your final act carry a dignity that you have failed to evidence in the years before it. for once, put the american people, put the pandemic, before your own selfish and fleeting interests. do the right thing. all it takes is accepting reality. any chance that that's going to happen anytime soon?

let's bring in van jones and kaitlan collins. kaitlan, what are you hearing in those daunting hills and walls behind you on capitol hill and in the white house? any word? >> it's kind of becoming an untenable situation for them to keep up this front. as you noted, the public relations aspect is a lot more difficult to maintain when your court cases are falling apart and your legal challenges are disintegrating before everybody's eyes. when your lawsuits are withdrawn in arizona and your attorneys are leaving your case in pennsylvania because it seems such a long shot and all these law firms are getting public pressure for representing the president. the question i'm really hearing again and again in trump world is how long can this last. you heard people at the beginning of the week saying they thought it would go until december when they start certifying these results. but if they continue losing these lawsuits as they have been or having them thrown out as they are, it's hard to maintain

that joe biden was won arizona and won georgia. it's not like those states are too close to call. now it's becoming more and more difficult. and the president seems to be inching closer and closer to acknowledging the fact that he is not going to be president after the next two months. >> what is the best thing that you hear in terms of an argument for why it's okay to they're doing this? >> there's no argument. basically the president is -- you have to handle things with him delicately. that's always been the situation when it comes to russia, when it comes to money, when it comes to other things with the president. people will not go and talk to the president about it because they don't want to anger him. this is kind of one of those situations where no one is going to the president and saying, you've got to stay in this, you have a legitimate basis for fighting this. instead, they're kind of working around what the president wants to do. and so the question is how long do you humor the president while you're misleading millions of people, because that's what the president is doing by pushing

these false claims. people actually believe him, his supporters believe him. we know what's going on. the president knows what's going on. people who work in the white house and the trump campaign know what's going on. but he's misleading people by pushing these claims and fundraising off of them. >> van, on a macro level, this is hurting the ability for the country to come together, because this is an artificial continuation of the division. >> yeah. well, it's certainly that. it hurts the country internally because you need a concession speech. your guy or your woman needs to step forward the way hillary clinton did. i'll never forget, cory lieu wan dou lewandowski excoriating hillary clinton for not coming out the night trump won, giving her 24 hours to get herself together they thought was horrible. we are now a week out and we haven't heard from the president. it's worse because you need the

concession people to bring people together. it's worse than that. it's dangerous, because a transition of government is the hardest thing you can pull off in the very short period of time you have to do it. imagine throwing somebody up in the air, a trapeze government. you're throwing the entire american government up in the air. someone has to be able to catch that thing on january 20. it is brutally difficult. it is 19, 20 hours a day of dozens, hundreds of professionals. none of those people are being allowed to have the money or the access to do their job. that puts in danger every soldier, sailor, air force member, marine, on planet earth, because all that has to be transferred. this is not just stupid and petty. it is dangerous internally and externally for the aweunited states. that is not america first. it's the opposite of america first. >> america first has only been that when it means trump first as well. general john kelly just came out

and said the same thing you did, van, that they have to do the transition, it doesn't hurt the administration to help them. and you need beachfronts or something, quick, small groups to get into the agencies that matter so they can get up to speed with what's happening, you need the security clearances. kaitlan, all of this is known, all obvious, probably relayed to the president. what's the best reckoning you have about how he is not able to care about any of this? >> the president is a petty person. that is how people around him will describe him in situations like this where he will acknowledge he's a sore loser, he said as much on election day. and in a situation like this, he doesn't want to give joe biden the validation of him acknowledging that he's president in a way where it's in a concession speech or a tweet or even giving them access to email addresses and office

space. it's basically because the president doesn't want to give joe biden that sentence of victory, the fact that he beat him. and so that is basically the way people have described it. and there's been all this talk about what republicans on capitol hill have been saying, give joe biden access to these daily intelligence briefings. i don't really think they should be awarded any points for that, because that's such a small facet. >> they won't even call him president-elect. >> they'll say, if he wins. of course we all know he already won the election. the daily intelligence briefing is a very small part of what joe biden's job is going to be, and joe biden knows that, he's been in government before. them acknowledging that small teeny reality is not equivalent, as they're looking the other way and not seeing there is a new president coming into office just because they don't want to upset the current one. >> that's what it has to be, because when you're not anchored

by principle, you could easily drift into a bad position. van, they're saying we have to see it out. on what basis? see what basis? see what out? the lawsuits. trump tweeted we won pennsylvania because the constitution says so, we weren't allowed to see 700,000 ballots. it's just a lie. they've had tons of legislation in pennsylvania before today and today that completely vanquishes that idea. there's nothing there. so what are they holding on to? >> they're not holding anything at all except their fears that trump will be mad at them. they're more afraid of a mean tweet from donald trump than they are for the health and safety of the american people in the pandemic and the well being of the country in the middle of a transition. here's what should happen. there should be a small delegation, quietly, privately, of key republicans who go to the white house and sit down with the president and say, let's talk about how we get you off of this cliff, let's talk about how you save the republican party. you've saved us, we held the

senate, we had an increase in the house, all these governorships. how do we have that speech where you declare victory and get out of here. something terrible could happen on your watch, something terrible could happen overseas, something terrible could happen here, and you're going to be blamed for it. it's got to be done by key republicans. if they do not do that, this entire catastrophe now looming both with covid, possible terrorism, overseas adversaries taking advantage, will be on the republican party's -- not trump, the republican party's head. >> here is the problem. that already happened. and it's called the pandemic. last question. kaitlan, are they acutely aware in that white house that things are really bad and they are clearly seen as doing nothing about it? >> i think that some people are. i also think a lot of people in this administration have been pretty dismissive of the pandemic. and obviously all eyes look to the president, because he is the president, he is in charge,

that's where they've looked for the last several months. when that leadership has not been there, when the president has denied what's going on. it's not just the president. there are other people inside the west wing, inside this administration who have also downplayed it and thought these models were overblown, that there was too many faith put into how many people could die from this. we've seen how this played out, where it wasn't 50,000 people who died, like the president first guessed in the rose garden. now we're at a quarter million people that have died in this country because of this. and so just one more thing, though, on the way they've been denying what's going on. the white house had to spend so many years pushing back on democrats and people in the left who said that donald trump was not a legitimate president, that russia helped him get elected, that all of these things happened, attacking him as not a legitimate president. in and out preside now the president is doing that very thing and it seems incredibly hypocritical. i've talked to many people in

the president's orbit who recognize that and realize it is a problem. >> he is hypocrisy proof. it is those in congress and the cronies around him who will be remembered for this. because they're going to try to pretend they're something else not too far in the future and people must remember. kaitlan collins, thank you very much. van jones, my kumbaya cousin, always good to see you, thank you for being with me tonight and have a very good weekend. coronavirus. that's the pandemic that happened on this president's watch. the numbers are going crazy. and they're saying, well, the vaccine. it's not going to help us now. it's not going to help us for a long time. it will help. but not now. how many people have to die? this president clings to the "rounding the corner." i keep telling you, the only thing we're rounding is circling down into deeper circles of hell in this pandemic. what we need to know about our nursing homes. how do we avoid what happened

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the chief of operation warp speed announced two drug companies, phase and hfizer and will likely seek emergency use authorization from the fda in the next few weeks. the fda is supposedly on target to fast track. the hope is that 20 million people could be vaccinated by the end of the year. it's not nearly enough but it's something. the real question is when will the vaccination be ready for the general population. we're told april. the progress is absolutely remarkable in terms of the development. how will they do on the distribution? we'll see. but where was the president's acknowledgement of the reality today that is not fixed by a vaccine? >> case levels are high but a

lot of the case levels are high because of the fact that, uh, we have the best testing program anywhere in the world. we test far more than any other country. so it shows, obviously, uh, more cases. >> look, i don't know why he keeps lying to you even now when all of you know the truth. for the one or two who still believe that tripe, we don't have more cases because we test more, all right? if that were true, then the positivity rate wouldn't be going up. if we were just evidencing what's out there, that would be a reality, the more you test, the more cases. it's the positivity rate, that's what's increasing. and it's increasing faster than the number of tests being conducted, which means the number of cases we're showing with tests is probably not even close to indicative of the number of cases that are actually out there. sure enough, that's why we're seeing near exponential growth. for the 11th straight day, we surpassed 100,000 new cases a

day, another record. more than 160,000. look at the curve. and now, what were we hoping? well, that the curve will come, it will peak, and them it will go down again. but what do you have to build into that? people haven't been masking up the way they needed to in the places where they did, or they're not social distancing. now they're back in school. those kids may not be getting as sick, but they can spread, and that's what they're doing. colleges also. so now, maybe this doesn't go down the way we hoped, after a peak. maybe now it plateaus. this is scary. and you should be afraid. and we need leadership to get out of this. some much, much more savvy take on this, former cdc director tom freeden is here. tom, do i have the analysis right about why people like you were worried about this constant peak now coming, one, as early as it has come, and two, because

of the external factors that may make it not go down the way it did the first time? >> it's extremely concerning. we're seeing more cases in more places, all over the country. we've hit the highest hospitalization rate we've ever had, more than 60,000 people in hospitals today for covid, and unfortunately at the current trend, it's highly likely within a month we will pass 100,000 people hospitalized in the u.s. for covid. this is going to get worse before it gets bet. and it's coming at a terrible time. we're going into the holiday season, people are traveling, thinking of getting together. that's going to accelerate spread. we have the abdication of federal leadership. and that's going to make it much, much more difficult. >> so when the president says today, people around him echo, but the vaccine is coming so we're going to be fine, what does that miss? >> i think you got it right, chris.

actually the news on the vaccine is very encouraging. none of us expected 90% effectiveness. this is something that is encouraging. it suggests that multiple vaccines may be effective. there's still a lot we don't know. we don't know if it's going to be lasting immunity, whether it protects the elderly, whether it will be safe when we've given it to hundreds of thousands of people. but it is encouraging, and it gives us hope that over the course of 2021, we'll see vaccine rolling out and beginning to get to a new normal with covid. but it's not going to bring a fairy tale ending to this pandemic. and it's not going to be here in time to deal with the terrible times we're going to go through in the coming months. but chris, there's still a lot we can do. wearing a mask, watching distance, washing our hands, and in lots of places, restaurants and bars are going to have to shut for indoor dining and service. if we're careful, we can keep more things open.

for example we can keep retail open if we use masks, increase ventilation, increadecrease ther of people in one place. maybe we can keep hair salons open, that's important to most people. if at all possible, let's keep kids going to school and learning in person, because it makes a really big difference, especially for k-6. we've seen that when there is spread around schools, it's not from the classroom. it's from the pizza party after school. so we're going to have to forego some of those social events so we can continue the education of our kids in person for as long as possible, for as many kids as possible, and as many places as possible. >> tom, covid cases in nursing homes are popping again. and they're up 40% in certain places in recent weeks. they face dangerous long waits for test results. you have 40% of the nation's nursing homes have yet to adopt

rapid tests. a look at 13,000 facilities showed only 17% could provide turnaround in less than a day. why does test turnaround matter? and what should we be doing that we're not? >> well, this is just another example of why you can't have this idea of let's just protect the vulnerable and let it run, you know, through society everywhere else. that's a formula for disaster. that's what's happening now. but there is a lot we have to do to protect nursing homes. that means restricting visitors. that means universal masking. that means pcr tests that come back within 24 hours so you can rapidly find cases and cohort them. >> how do you do that? >> anyone who's got symptoms needs to be tested immediately and assumed to be positive while they've got symptoms. staff need to have paid sick leave so they don't have any incentive to come to work when they have symptoms. you have to reduce contact staff have because they may bring it

in. visitors need to be controlled. >> what about test turnaround time? >> sorry? >> what about test turnaround time? >> test turnaround time, you really would like it to come back within hours so you can isolate people quickly. we all are interested in these antigen tests, these rapid tests, but they're not so accurate and not for screening of asymptomatic people. so they can have a role, we have to have the wh to figure out what that role is. with rapid pcr testing you can find out quickly, find out who is infected, cohort them, stop the outbreak in the nursing home. we can stop outbreaks in nursing homes, prisons, it's been done, but it requires quick, expert work, rapid testing and rapid action based on the results of those thefests. >> dr. tom frieden, thank you

very much. it's not just a better test, it's what you're doing while you're waiting for the test to come back. it's why you need federal guidance and leadership, somebody who has a central brain, who says here's what's worked better, here's how many people you have to put aside, here's how deeply you contact trace with this kind of person, here's what we learn from another place. there has to be somebody coordinating, thinking, and distributing information and know-how to different places as they suffer. that's what federal leadership is about. it's not just money and manpower. it's know-how. it's data. it's analysis. these places are flying blind all over the country and we just don't learn to do anything but cry more. so another question we had. what is going on with why this president has to stay where he is? i can't name a good reason. can you? here's where i may not be thinking the right way, maybe you're with me on this. chris cillizza says don't think of the good reasons, think of

the bad reasons that he's trying to avoid. he has at least six, six reasons the president does not want to leave office, next. to support a strong immune system, your body needs routine. centrum helps your immune defenses every day, with vitamin c, d and zinc. season, after season. ace your immune support, with centrum. ythey customize yours lcar insurance. so you only pay for what you need. wow. that will save me lots of money. this game's boring. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. we're all finding ways to keep moving. but how do we make sure the direction we're headed is forward? at fidelity, you'll get the planning and advice to prepare you for the future, without sacrificing the things that are important to you today. we'll help you plan for healthcare costs, taxes and any other uncertainties along the way.

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ego. false pride. delusion. maybe none of that is the real reason trump is holed up in the white house. maybe it's because he doesn't want to go from there to the big house. chris cillizza has been digging through the looming legal threats and he has a list of worries. good to see you, my brother. >> hey, my friend. a president's got a lot more legal protections than a former president. so let's jump through where we're at. these are active investigations. number one, the manhattan district attorney, this is cyrus

vance jr. this is pretty well along. this is a big, broad investigation. we know it deals with at least the hush money payments that michael cohen paid to doth stormy daniels and karen mcdougal who both had affairs with president trump. michael cohen testified on capitol hill that donald trump knew about these payments. there's possible tax fraud, possible bank fraud. >> unindicted co-conspirator number 1. >> correct. letitia james is investigating whether donald trump overinflated what he's worth to make him look richer than he was, and underinflated his assets because they wanted to pay less taxes. eric trump, one of donald trump's sons, testified, he had to give a did he aeposition, he it, but he had to give it in

october, so that one is active as well. number three, the maryland and d.c. attorneys general filed a lawsuit that said donald trump's hotel smack dab in the middle of washington violates the emoluments clause in the constitution, a big word that simply means you can't as president profit for foreign governments, you can't take money from them, and that he was by having this hotel with his name benefiting from that. there's also another emoluments suit with restaurant owners and a hotel operator, that's a separate suit. i'll knock these next two out quickly, they're similar. e. jean carroll has accused donald trump of raping her. he has denied it, his words, "she's not my type." she says he's defamed her. number five, summer zervos,

contestant on "the apprentice." he denied her claim that he sexually assaulted her, she sued him for defamation. the next, mary trump, we know her about the book she wrote about donald trump, a scathing bestseller. she's sued donald trump and his sister and late brother, saying they committed fraud in not letting her get a piece of donald trump's father's wealth. those are six active investigations. one which we remember are obstruction, robert mueller, testifying on capitol hill, said he did believe the former president could be tried for obstruction, that's not an active investigation. the other one i want to note is, donald trump may well be tied up in the southern district of new york investigation that is looking to rudy giuliani and lev

parnas and others. those are the six to really keep an eye on. there is a clear reason why donald trump wants to stay in office for as long as he can. he retains significant legal immunity that he would not enjoy as a former president. >> chris cillizza, thank you so much. have a good weekend, well done and appreciated. so let's look at that now, we went through the kind of journalistic lens on it. now let's go through the legal lens of what may stick there, what should be the priority concern. for that we're lucky to have the legal brain power of former u.s. attorney preet bharara, good to see you. >> good to see you, chris. >> if you're hired to be counsel for trump, which on that list are you worried about? or is it something else? >> assuming that he wouldn't decline the representation, which i would for various reasons, i think the only one on the list of six plus the additional two that chris mentioned that he would really care about is the only one that

might result in jail time if a charge is brought. half of the list of six involve private citizens, defamation, internal family quarrel about money. >> that's about money. >> yeah, those are not going to result in a prison sentence. those might be settled. donald trump has spent his entire adult life engaging in litigation, suits, countersuits. i don't think that bothers him that much. in addition, i don't want your viewers to say left with the misimpression that being president allows you to forestall those suits. those are going forward, as paula jones' suit went forward against president clinton. the emoluments case and attorney general case appear to be civil cases as well. the thing donald trump gets protection from, being indicted from an office of legal counsel opinion in the department of justice. i'm not making any prediction as to whether or not donald trump will be charged at all by cy

vance, but that's the one he arguably gets protection from while remaining in office. the southern district in new york attorney would take the ball and run with it from mueller, those would result in the president of the united states going to prison without the protection of the presidency. >> so the real trouble then is that cy vance is looking at something that involved michael cohen before he was president. it sent cohen to jail. cohen had some bank fraud issues too but the bank fraud issues were kind of tied up in part with how he got that home equity line of credit that was part of the payment scheme that he said he was doing for donald trump. how does trump avoid going to jail for what the man who helped him do that went to jail for? >> so that's a good question. instead of looking at it from the perspective of the cy vance case i'll talk about the southern district case, from where i come. i have no personal knowledge of the case at all.

>> cy vance is the manhattan district attorney, by the way, he's the manhattan district attorney. now we're talking u.s. attorney looking at the same aissue. go ahead. >> correct. michael cohen was prosecuted by and sent to prison for pleading guilty to a charge brought by my old office, southern district of new york office, and in connection with his guilty plea, i stated it in a way that was inflammatory for a lot of folks in court, that he committed one of those offences at the direction of and in coordination with individual 1, donald trump. ordinarily that suggests an understanding by the prosecutor's office that individual 1, in this case donald trump, was somebody who participated in the crime. now, they didn't prove it in court, it wasn't a trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury, but that's an unresolved issue of how the southern district will treat that matter if donald trump becomes a private citizen. now, part of the issue may be that michael cohen, they never

signed up to a formal cooperation agreement. he's had issues with truthfulness, he begged to be a cooperator, they didn't sign him up. in my experience you don't sign someone up because you have worries about what kind of witness they're going to be. and the only way you prosecute donald trump for that thing that i just described, i think is if you have michael cohen locked in as a cooperating witness. so that is sort of an unrealized suggestion, allegation against the president of the united states. i don't know if it will go anywhere but it should be remembered. >> also remember, michael cohen taped having a conversation with him about doing it that we had on the show here. and that is not good for the president either. what do you make of the switch that we just learned about from maggie haberman over at "the new york times" that the president has now put his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, in charge of all election lawsuits? >> i saw that tweet. and i replied to the tweet, not only all election lawsuits but

all communication about those lawsuits. i joked on social media just before coming on with you, that to me indicates that donald trump has basically conceded the race, because given the performance of rudy giuliani, once a great lawyer in his time, also ran the southern district of new york a number of years ago, based on how he's been defending the case and how far away from the case donald trump's lawyers, other lawyers are running, and how difficult it is to be recruiting other attorneys, and given the pace at which donald trump is losing pretty much every suit, not even losing them but sometimes being almost literally laughed out of court by judges, you know, i don't understand the move as a strategic matter, it seems like a political matter because rudy giuliani appears to be popular like the president is among the base. so to me it's a message to the base. it's not a strong legal move. and it amounts to me to a concession. >> have you heard anything so far that would give any kind of substantial basis to a suit? >> no, i haven't.

there was this business in pennsylvania with respect to some of these ballots, the question was the ballots that were received or would be received after the date of the election, would they be counted or not. the trump campaign and gop officials joined a preexist lawsuit and some of that was heard by the supreme court. at the end of the day, it's not going to matter at all. i may have missed the news flash earlier today where that has been resolved. but otherwise, in case after case after case you have issues of people recanting. you have issues of the trump campaign filing suit in the wrong court like the federal claims court. they're suing the wrong party. there seems to be mistake after mistake, on top of not having any evidence. all of this seems to be a pr strategy, a face-saving strategy, not a successful legal strategy. >> and again, at latest count, not completely done-done yet, not certified, in pennsylvania biden is plus 63,005. have a great week, preet

bharara, thanks for the analysis. >> you too. why this matters, okay, beyond the politics. you do have legal implication for trump. what about the rest of us? this president is stonewalling the election he just lost. it's not just classless. it could be catastrophic. that's the warning from a man the president once trusted in the oval office, his own former chief of staff. why? well, we're going to go into that right now with former fbi insider andrew mccabe, on where these games put us at real risk as we've seen in history, next. your own home... [music playing throughout] it's more than just a house. it's a kitchen that's been passed down, along with the recipes. three generations on the wall...

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we can do this. if we do it together. this is a significant development, or at least it should be. trump's former white house chief of staff john kelly is the latest to call for the president to order the transition process to begin immediately. kelly is a retired four-star

marine general, of course, and he says, quote, the delay in transitions is an increasing national security and health crisis. it cost the current administration nothing to start to brief mr. biden, ms. harris, the new chief of staff and all identified cabinet members and senior staff. he goes to say, but not doing it could have catastrophic effects. here to give us perspective on what the lack of transition could mean, andrew mccabe. welcome back to "prime time." >> thank you, chris. >> safety is about recognizing risk. 9/11, the 9/11 commission report said the delay in transition mattered in terms of that administration getting up to speed, terrorists look for vulnerabilities, they look for gaps in coverage, and there was one there. 1993, i think that was in march during the clinton administration. early on when that

administration was still getting its feet under itself and understanding the risks and profiles, you are vulnerable then. that's where we could be right now. fair point? >> absolutely fair point. absolutely fair point. look, general kelly knows this, right, he's been there and seen it before. any of us who have worked through transition periods with different administrations have seen it before. it's happened before. the iran-contra crisis really -- the iran hostage crisis came to a head during the transition between carter and reagan and then of course between the transition from reagan to bush you had the terrorist downing of pan am flight 103. history is our guide here. it has happened to us before. and, you know, chris, generally we know that the world and the threats don't wait for us when we're in a position of transition. they don't take a break. they don't give us breathing room. you have to stay up on national security every single day. that's why it's imperative that

the outgoing team and the incoming team work together on a smooth handoff. >> gina haspel, head of cia, people around trump dismisses his problems with her, he doesn't like her and she's going to be gone with the new administration. it doesn't matter if she's there or not. fair point? >> no, not a fair point k. . can he get rid of anyone he wants? he can, but should he? is that a good idea for the kentuc cia and the safety of our nation. gina haspel has done a great job. she's a career distinguished cia officer, the workforce loves her, she knows the job, she knows what she's going over there. there's no reason to take on additional risk by upsetting the apple cart at cia for no reason with two, three months to go in the administration. it would be a bad idea and if

done, you know why he's doing it, it's because he's mad, he's trying to, you know, seek whatever retribution for whatever perceived offense and that's not a reason to put the country at risk. >> let's assume that this president doesn't have coup ambition and is the next leading theory other than just pay back is he wants a lot of stuff from the russia investigation declassified because he's been told by nunes and others, the more comes out, the more it will look like you were framed. what's the risk there if a lot of stuff comes out? we talked about sources and methods. let me reverse the question. from your knowledge, is there anything that could come out that people would look at it and say, wow, i can't believe they ever included the president in this analysis. he and his people clearly did nothing? >> there is some very, very serious, very specific undeniable intelligence that has not come out that if it were released would risk compromising our access to that sort of

information in the future. i think it would also risk casting the president in a very negative light. so would he have a motivation to release those things? it's almost incomprehensible to me that he would want that information out. i don't see how he spins it to his advantage. i don't believe it's flattering -- >> you think there's more bad stuff about him that we don't know? >> there's always more intelligence. there was a lot more in the intelligence community assessment than was ever released for public consumption. the original version of that report was classified at the absolute highest level i have ever seen. talking about top secret, code word stuff, and it would be tragic to american intelligence collection for those sources to be put at risk. >> andrew mccabe, thank you so much for shedding some light on this, especially on a friday night. best to you and the family. >> thanks, man, you too. friday the 13th. you know what i want for all of

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friday the 13th is supposed to be spooky because of the unknown. these days, what's so scary to us is what we're all too aware of, right? that's what we got to work on. that starts with cnn tonight and its big star, d. lemon. >> i thought you were going to make a cheap joke about me. it is scary, that's what i have to start with. it's the truth. we thought everybody, the election is over. covid is not over. those numbers we're looking and it is frightening out there, don't you think? >> i'll tell you what is scary to me in talking with the expert and is the new task force and the old task force is, they knew there was going to be increase this fall. they expected it later. but going back to school, having people back at