hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. top of the hour, i'm john king in washington. thank you for sharing. very busy newsday. world changing verdict from pfizer vaccine trial, 95% effective and the company says it's safe. public health experts say the united states will soon have the power to tame, if not end, this pandemic, if everything goes right. that is a big if because of a raw moment in american politics. president trump is lying again alleging election fraud where there is none. word last hour the president now plans to seek a partial recount in two counties in wisconsin. he lost that state by 20,000 plus votes.

it is his right to do that. but his refusal to allow transition cooperation with the incoming biden team gets more consequential by the day. >> we haven't had any official contact between the transition team coming in and the current administration. it is really setting us back. we don't want to have to step back, rewrite a plan, fix the communication gap, or do anything. we want to keep running as quickly and efficiently as possible to make sure americans can get the vaccines so they become available. >> the big vaccine news is welcome but you can see there comes at a very dire moment. 1700 american deaths tuesday. that is the highest single daily death count since back in may. a worrying omen as 77,000 infected americans sit in hospital wings right now across the country. president-elect biden is keeping the pandemic as priority number one holding today a roundtable with health care workers on the front lines of this pandemic. president trump is out of sight again. no public events for the 11th

time since election day. his twitter feed is his voice and it is a window into his alternative reality. the president routinely conjuring up wild election conspiracies. yesterday he fired another official whose crime is this, telling the truth the president refuses to accept, the election was secure and biden won. results are checked and ratified. rudy giuliani getting turned away in court after court because they offer no proof. president's tweetstorm, i won the election. voter fraud all over the country. again, he did not win. there's no major fraud. no evidence of it yet. the president's lies will not stop the inauguration but poich the well. one-third of americans in a new poll say they believe biden won because of fraud. do truth tellers include georgia's republican secretary of state. >> has your ordered investigation uncovered actual evidence of, quote, widespread voter fraud in the state of

georgia? >> we have knocked down widespread voter fraud. widespread voter fraud in the state of georgia. every single ballot, all 5 million ballots, counting them by hand, dispersions about the accuracy of the count. what we're seeing is no difference at all. >> that the top official in georgia the trump campaign saying will ask for partial recount has to pay for it in two counties in wisconsin. let's pop up battle ground wisconsin. joe biden winning by 20,000 votes. the trump campaign says it wants a recount here. in milwaukee county big democratic stronghold. as you can see joe biden won the county by 180,000 votes. statewide lead places like milwaukee. other places asking for rekouchbt recount, 180,000 votes. more than 360,000 between dane

and milwaukee. the trump campaign says it will pay for partial recount. this coming last hour. chief correspondent jeff zeleny in wilmington, delaware with this. jeff, why now and what to they expect to find? >> john, the reason now is because the deadline was today at 5:00 wisconsin time, so they had to make a decision if they were going to go forward with asking for this recount. it's so interesting, as you said, they are just asking for a recount, the trump campaign is, in two counties. two of the largest counties, two of the state's most democratic, milwaukee and dane county as you said. the margin in the state of wisconsin, of course, only about 20,000 or so, a little more than that. about the same as four years ago. you'll remember four years ago there actually was a recount in the state of wisconsin and it was paid for by jill stein, the third party candidate. there actually were 131 votes found statewide for president trump. 131 votes. the margin is more than 20,000.

even governor scott walker, longtime former republican governor there said there were simply not enough opportunities to find 20,000 votes. what the trump campaign clearly is trying to do is just push this narrative, continue to push this narrative this was a fraudulent election. they are looking to democratic strongholds. there is no evidence of that at all, of course. john, you'll remember very well in the 2000 campaign when on the other side they only requested a recount in one county, broward county. of course that set off a whole flurry of issues. if you're going to actually -- if your goal is to find the results statewide, try and find every vote you can, you don't just request a recount in two democratic leading counties. john. >> no, you wouldn't, unless you're just trying to run out some sort of clock. joining us to discuss kaitlan collins and rick hassan. kaitlan to you at the white house. election two weeks and one day ago. the election was called on

saturday, ten days ago. the trump has had nos in pennsylvania, georgia, in court and the recount in georgia not going its way. why wisconsin now. >> now they aren't doing statewide recount, only two counties. talking about milwaukee, certain areas that are democratic strongholds. the campaign pushing forward anyway. i was told no recount. that would cost $8 million, money based on what we've been told internally by people is something obviously incredibly expensive and not something they can really afford right now as they have been on this fundraising blitz. they picked these two counties. it's part of the attempt by the campaign to stop the certification of votes in states. that's really the point, delay it as long as possible. you talk to people involved in this. they understand they aren't going to be successful overturning the outcome of the vote. what they can do by continuing

to ask for recounts and continuing to go to court as rudy giuliani was yesterday is delay the certification of the vote and that appears to be the goal right now. >> so to that point, rick, milwaukee is to wisconsin as wayne county is to michigan, meaning a big democratic stronghold where if democrats are going to win statewide they need to run up the vote. joe biden did that in wayne county. they certified yesterday after a little bit of a hiccup. the democratic government requested in wisconsin, democratic governor of michigan says we're going to keep moving on, certify the results, but i have my eyes wide open. >> i have every expectation that as this goes to the state board next week, the process of finalizing results will be completed as the law requires. we have a full, free, fair and secure election. the will of the people will stand i think we've got to go into this, of course, bracing ourselves with more shenanigans. >> what kind of shenanigans,

rick, in the sense i've been at this a long time. we watched it play out in georgia. couple of hundred votes change, 1,000, none of these recounts is the president likely to reverse the result in the state. what is this really about? >> well, part of this is a pr thing. it's trying to show the president is fighting. you know, i think the end game might be to try to delay certification in the hopes you could get state legislatures to come on board and come up with alternative slate of electors. it's like one improbable thing after another. it's a way to delay the inevitable. the key point is this process is pretty much on autopilot. so far everything that the trump campaign has tried to do to delay certification has failed. i expect it's going to continue to fail despite the efforts they are making in multiple states. >> the stanford band play is funny on the football field, it's not funny in the middle of a transition in american democracy in the middle of a

pandemic. to that point, kaitlan, the president has every right to go to court and press credible efforts. his own attorney, he put rudy giuliani in charge after other attorneys failed. when pressed giuliani admitted he wasn't alleging voter fraud but still believed in the idea fraud can exist. no, your honor, we are not alleging fraud, giuliani said. it's a fraudulent process. help me. what are they doing? >> that's a good question. a lot of people aren't happy rudy giuliani is leading the effort. it does not lend credibility to their argument. what's important to know about rudy, when he's in court he's saying this is not a fraud case but when he's in public he's arguing it's a fraud case. you saw him come to court and basically everything he said in his opening statement at the beginning did not reflect what this lawsuit was arguing. he was contradicting himself saying republican poll watchers were not allowed in, then saying they weren't allowed close enough to watch votes.

it's got to be one or the other. those are things rudy giuliani is arguing. you're seeing frustration play out from people like mick mulvaney, former chief of staff saying this is a serious issue and they should move forward with it if this is what they believe. they should have credible election attorneys lead the argument. instead, they don't. a lot has to do with places like pennsylvania. the president is on his third set of attorneys. it includes rudy giuliani and former radio host at this time. that gives you an idea of attorneys who actually work on this kind of stuff are viewing these cases and whether or not they are actually going to be successful. >> so rick, one of the questions is, is this just a trump tantrum and will be over when joe biden takes his hand off the bible or is there impact on trusting institutions on the capability of institutions. just yesterday in a tweet the president fired a gentleman who worked for the united states government, ran the cyber part, part of the report said the most secure election in history, no

allegations of widespread fraud. here is something who works closely with him having the courage to say the same thing. >> when you talk to election officials across the country, they are confident in the security of this election. they are confident in the outcome of the election, that this was a fair election and that americans made their voices heard. we've got to respect the will of the people and the public servants that helped run the selection and made this all possible. >> is there lasting damage here? joe biden takes his hand off the bible and we just forget this sad chapter? >> i think we need to distinguish between two things. are all of these machinations going to lead to joe biden not becoming the president on january 20th? i don't think so. i think we're well on the path to that. but in terms of delegitimizing the biden presidency, in terms of convincing millions of people without evidence that the election has been stolen from trump, i think this is going to do a lot of damage. when you think about what a democracy depends on, it's that

the losers believe we had a fair election and they will fight another day. when you lose that, you lose the very foundation of american democracy. >> you do. it's an excellent point. just to echo that point, monmouth poll out today, 60% of americans overall think joe biden won fair and square. 70% of republicans think it was because of fraud. ladies and gentlemen, check this out yourself. there's no evidence of this fraud, please. thank you both. rick and kaitlan, thank you very much. word there may soon be a stay-at-home alternative to this. look at that line. that for coronavirus tests in illinois this morning. (mom vo) we fit a lot of life into our subaru forester. (dad) it's good to be back. (mom) it sure is. (mom vo) over the years, we trusted it to carry and protect the things that were most important to us. (mom) good boy. remember this? (mom vo) we always knew we had a lot of life ahead of us. (mom) c'mon. hi! (mom vo) that's why we chose a car that we knew would be there for us through it all. (male vo) welcome to the subaru forester.

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details on important vaccine news. a reminder, for most of us it's months away and the situation around the country is dire and getting worse. let's look at state by state. orange and red are bad. more coronavirus, new infections now compared to a week ago.

you see it there, 47 states. 47 of the 50 states trending in the wrong direction reporting new covid infections this week compared to data one week ago. states in deep red, that's 50%, more new infections this week compared to last week. 47 states in the wrong direction, two holding steady. only one state trending down at the moment, state of hawaii. the death trend also starting to head up. you see it there, 33 states. 33 states reporting more deaths this week compared to the data last week. 33 states, 8 holding steady, 9 states trending down when it comes to deaths. the case trend line is terrific, just terrific. the presidentling ago told us this would disappear in april. the vice president said it would be largely behind us by memorial day, that's somewhere here. then we had summer surge and now this, 363,944 new infections confirmed in the united states yesterday. you see that red line. it is heading straight up. the other lines like hills, a rocket, straight up in the air. with that comes hospitalization

trends again. first hill in the spring, second hill in the summer surge, third hill now. 76,823 americans, a new record hospitalized yesterday. eight straight days. eight straight days of hospitalization records across the united states because of the coronavirus. this the saddest trend line of all because it's starting to head back up as well. 1,707 deaths yesterday. the highest number since back in may, may 14th. you can see the trend line. you see the blue starting to head out. lines here heading in the wrong direction as well. just a reminder for many of us the vaccine is still months away, still months away. pfizer did have good news today on the vaccine front. the drugmaker nou makemaker ann final trials show more promise, effective rate of 95%. pfizer says 0 safety concerns here. let's get more details from senior medical correspondent

elizabeth cohen. sounds like fabulous news, any caveats? >> one caveat, they haven't finished yet. but it's a lot of data. a lot more data we had than when pfizer made its initial announcement ten days ago. the more data, the better. the more statistical significance you have, the more sure you can be this is actually on the mark. let's take a look at what pfizer has announced. they had a group of people, about 20,000 people, who g placebo, that's a shot of saline that does nothing. 60% got covid, 9 were severe covid. now pfizer vaccine. only eight of those people, not 162, only eight of those people caught covid and this group was the same size as the placebo group and only one was severe. good news, seemed to work just as well in elderly people as

other people. now, the next question is what's the next step. i want to show you a calendar with important days circled. cnn has learned fda has asked the advisory committee, vaccine advisory committee to hold these three dates open. december 8th, 9th, and 10th. on the 10th that's when the fda may be making its decision, giving it a green light or red light. there's still steps after that. a cdc needs to look at it. that's important already fda asked advisory committee members to hold those three dates free in order to meet. john. >> incredibly important. elizabeth cohen, thank you for the reporting. watch as the calendar unfolds. hopefully progress ahead of us. we're still in a deep ditch at the moment. elizabeth, thank you very much. state leaders stepping up to deal with the spikes. one of the governors ned lamont in state quarantine as he lead his efforts. he's next.

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there's another high-profile covid case in congress and it is again raising questions about safety and testing. republican senator chuck grassley revealed his positive test yesterday. grassley is 87 years old and the most senior republican in the senate. he attended a gop lunchon eon a was seen on the floor.

this from senator mcconnell. >> put on pause for the same reason it was compiled in the first place, leadership, service to others, aened a determination to set the right example. >> joining me now from capitol hill, phil mattingly. phil, chuck grassley, consider republican, one of 32 cases at least among house and senate members. a lot of questions and complaints about testing. are they getting better at this finally or not? >> starting to. i think taking steps, nine months in and they still don't have a everyone came uswide testing regime. no word when lawmakers come back, how to operate, when staff comes back, how to operate. if you look over at the house of representatives, they have started a voluntary process for lawmakers that returned. my understanding, i haven't gotten a test over there yet but my understanding it's effective and they turn it around quickly. biggest issue in the capital, microcosm of what you're seeing around the country. lawmakers are going home and coming back from places where

just about everywhere else in the country case numbers are going up. the opportunity to get in contact with somebody who has tested positive is going up. they are bringing that back to the capital. you talk about the 30 plus positive cases, you've also had somewhere near 80 lawmakers that at least had to quarantine because of contact with somebody over the course of the last several months. there are real world implications, i'll go through them quickly. this everyone came us involves more than lawmakers andert roers. capitol police officers, sfral workers, service industry individuals, folks that clean and take care of the capital that are here every single day that could come in contact with lawmakers from outside of d.c. and perhaps bring something back. i think another thing everyone is paying attention to real world legislative implications. we saw a trump nominee go down because republicans didn't have the votes after chuck grassley tested positive. there is the need to fund the government december 11th. stimulus talk they remain moribund as they have been.

there are things we need to get done and lawmakers facing the reality not only what they have back home but bringing it back to capitol hill, there are real questions whether that's going to be possible particularly given the fact we're going into the thanksgiving holiday. >> part of the issue, it's not uniform. you mentioned lawmakers going into quarantine. some idot, follow cdc or follow some guidelines. others say i'm okay. roy blunt, he was asked, senate republican leadership said yesterday, you all were in the same room with grassley, should you quarantine. you have to ask them. i was 12 feet away from him in the meeting. that's why we're in the big room. he's been great about wearing his maersk, taking care of him, does everything you can, doing everything you can do. sort of a laissez-faire, ask the other senators. no set standards. it's up to them. >> they can consult with the physician. it's a different world if you go

between senators. i'll give them credit, the vast majority wear masks, certainly wear a mask when they talk to us. you go to the house it's a different world. they are supposed to wear masks on the floor. a number reject the idea and don't when they walk off the floor. you're right. it's up to everybody's personal. that was leadership, the entire top of the republican conference that was meeting there. so real concern even if maybe they are not necessarily taking action to a person right now. >> keep an eye out as we go forward. phil mattingly reporting on the hill. democratic house leadership had leadership election. looks familiar will top leaders keeping their roles after elections, facing no opposition even after recent losses in the house. nancy pelosi, steny hoyer, clyburn and hakim jeffries. this process was conducted

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covid surge numbers in recent days staggering. more than 1 million covid cases in just the last week. highest number of deaths in a single day in six months.

nearly every metric shows a worsening pandemic in the united states. governors across the country now each on their own, some of them tightening -- many of them tightening restrictions. look at the trend. showed you this at the top of the hour. 47 states, 47 of the 50 states trending in the wrong direction. that's orange and red. more new infections this week than last week. red states, 50% more this week than last week. look at the positivity, iowa, 50% getting tested for covid positive. south dakota, 56%, wisconsin 16%, double digits is bad. state like connecticut 5%, new england and northeast you see they are lighter. they went through this early on. most of them ticking up, most way lower than national average. remember european union, united states started this fall spike. european union in purple, european countries have put in a lot of new restrictions. look, starting to trend down. u.s. trend line heading up. they will pass each other in the days ahead, certainly the way it

looks. governor by governor making restrictions. 21 states at least have added new restrictions. some severe, some moderate. in november 21 states including new mask restrictions. some of them limited like in iowa. seven states adding or expanding mask mandates in the last week. masks as we learned during presidential campaign became way too political. governors in the midwest trying to tell their people this isn't about politics, it's about your health. >> we will get through this together. >> mask up, kentucky. >> mask up wisconsin. >> mask up illinois. >> mask up ohio. >> mask up indiana. >> mask up minnesota. >> mask up michigan. >> the connecticut governor, ned lamont is directing his state's covid response from quarantine. the governor's communications director tested positive so the dpmpb is in quarantine now. as a precaution governor lamont from hartford. let me start there. governor, any issue at all or

just being safe? >> just being safe. i've been in quarantine about a week, tested negative a few times. i want to set the lead by example. >> we appreciate that. i hope people are listening. set the lead by example. we see people acting different ways. 50 states the charm of our democracy. sometimes the complication in our democracy as all these states go through this. if you look at the new cases in your state right now, you see it's starting to trend back up again. i just showed positivity rate is 5%. i know that's not what you want, you would prefer lower, but that's better than national average. where do you see yourself when you see that go up again and memories, of course, of the horrific spring and see your positivity rate there tuesday up a little bit, what do you need to do? >> i see the black cloud of the covid infections coming over from the upper midwest, now into pennsylvania, western new york. so i don't think we're going to be spared. i think it's going to get worse before it gets better.

fortunately i don't have to tell people to mask up. they have been masking up every since the spring. we've never opened our bars. we kept the restaurants closed, 10:00 at night. we're not going to do winter sports until january at the earliest. john, i'm doing a lot of this just to try and keep our schools open for in-person learning as long as we can. >> as long as you can. i get that. if you look at the european model, they would argue most of them the schools are okay. restaurants, bars, other large gatherings seem to be more of the problem. i want to just show this map right now. you have a travel advisory. you mentioned the cloud of other states. 45 states plus washington, d.c., their citizens not welcome in your state right now because of this. does that work? >> i'll tell you what i'm really nervous about, john, is thanksgiving. we're going to have tens of thousands of kids coming back to our region from colleges in states where they have an infection rate, as you point out, that could be ten times ours. we're asking them please test and quarantine before you get on

that plane and test again when you get here so you keep your families safe and communities safe. >> we're at this weird moment, governor, you know so well. joe biden will become president of the united states in a little under two months. the current president of the united states doesn't attend coronavirus meetings anymore, doesn't talk to experts anymore. i want you to listen to the call national institute of health. there's a problem here. we need a more coordinated transition. >> everything we've done so far on covid-19 that's made progress is dependent upon collaboration and openness about everything we're doing and that's my goal as well. anything that gets in the way of that troubles me greatly. we have a crisis. people are dying. we should do nothing except inform everybody who needs to know about what decisions have been made and what further decisions have to be made. >> what's your concern at the state level? i know you've had frustrations with trump administration. i know sometimes coronavirus task force, doctors on that work around that. they try to talk about things

the president refuses to talk about. is the biden transition in touch with you? is there information sharing? are you worried about at least a few days of turbulence when the turnover happens? >> yeah. we talked to dr. burks and dr. fauci and respected folks on outgoing covid transition team. we've spent some time talking to the biden transition as well. look, we need leadership here. we need to make sure this is seamless. it's going to be incredibly complicated rolling out the vaccines. the 3.5 million people that need two shots, has to be refrigerated, 100 degrees below zero. that is a planning exercise that has to be coordinated. the more support from the top the better. >> take me through this part. i think the urgent thing, i get worried talking about the vaccine because it's months down the road. you think people will let their guard down. talk about today, tomorrow, next week especially with thanksgiving and christmas coming. as a governor when you're working with the federal

government now, work with the new president soon on this vaccine plan, do you have what you need? if they said we have emergency authorization in a week or two and your frontline workers can get this or people who are vulnerable, immune compromised can get this, are you ready? >> we have a strategy in place where we know how to go out to the nursing homes. we know how to do our hospitals. we've got refrigeration units there. we are getting support for vaccine. all the states need more support than that when it comes to distribution, implementing the shots, follow-up two, three weeks later. that's going to take a lot of resources and a lot of people. >> governor lamont, grateful for your time. hope the rest of your quarantine goes well and safely. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. iowa one of 19 states recorded new high for coronavirus hospital patients on tuesday. urgent and alarming is how the state's most crowded county describes this hospital.

miguel in iowa with more. >> this is iowa county. cases like this, not huge, like a rivuletifieding into a river not only iowa but entire country here and health care system across that entire swath is starting to fell to the brim. that's what officials here are really concerned about. we went to see howard county regional health services. this has everything. it's a big county with a small population. this does a little bit of everything. ambulance service, hospice care, health department, the hospital, of course. they have rearranged everything for covid. they did it in march. they didn't really need it but now it's on. now they are seeing cases. when they were seeing two and three and four a day, now they are seeing 20 and 25 cases a day. they have 19 beds in total. they have three or four with covid patients if need be. they cannot treat the worst of the worst here. they have to move them up to

rochester, minnesota, other places. that's becoming more difficult. it used to be easy to get them there. those places are now filling up and there's no places to get a lot of those patients to. so that's a very big concern for hospitals here. a quick anecdote. we went in to see their emergency room and they took us to see another part of the hospital. at 8:30 a.m. emergency room, one person checked in to be checked out for covid. came back 20 minutes later, there were then four people at that emergency room. that's how quickly the patients are starting to come in even in small places like cresco, iowa. john. >> great fig for that. joining us, assistant professor of emergency medicine at johns hopkins. thank you for being with us. when you hear what miguel marquez is talking about in small towns, we talked about this in big cities as well. i know one of the things you're concerned about, explain this. when it was novel coronavirus, we were dealing with this in the

spring, and somewhat during the summer surge, people could move around. you could surge medical personnel from one state to the other. federal government could help in some places. when it's everywhere, are we at capacity everywhere? >> i wouldn't say beyond capacity everywhere but beyond capacity in any places across the country, many places than the surge we saw in spring and early summer. one of the concerns we have is when it's regional localized surges, we can pull staff, other resources and have them support those responses. when it's across the country or even most of the country, we don't have that staff to pull from. hospitals across the united states are facing and even before covid facing major staff shortages and that continues to be a huge problem for our response. >> when you see this, put up a map, projections from the university of washington. essentially most states.

you look at darker orange, those will exceed icu capacity in november, this month. states below them in december. so you're looking and it's just everywhere. what happens when that happens? not only covid patients -- tougher to get an icu bed but domino effect on other illnesses as well, right? >> that's right. hospitalizations that were happening prior to covid don't just stop because we're having a covid crisis. people still get sick for many other reasons besides being infected by coughvid-19. we enter into the winter, we'll wait for flu this year. as people go inside and mix for the holidays, we're going to see those covid cases surge as well. so as the icu cases continue to climb, i think one of our biggest concerns is how do we manage these patients. that oftentimes can lead to crisis standards of care or delayed access to care for people who need it regularly.

so one of our biggest concerns is how do we maintain our level or standard of care when our hospitals are just bursting at the seams. >> bursting at the seams. i just want to show this, 19 states setting hospitalization records yesterday. nineteen states. what about the exhaustion factor of health care workers. if you can't surge other states or communities within a state because everybody or almost everybody is overwhelmed, what is the toll on the people doing this heroic work? >> i think we're continuing to see that toll, health care workers across the country absolutely kpa lly exhausted. you go back to spring and summertime but we were tired then but just starting the response. everyone is feeling the pressure but you get that mix of adrenaline and early bit of the response and you can kind of go for longer days and more hours. now we're eight or nine months into this response with no one in sight and no deep bench to pull from to get that support so

people can take that rest, take that mental health break and really take care of themselves. that is weighing on a lot of people's minds, both health care workers and public health care workers across the country. >> lauren sauer, thank you for your time. we don't say thank you enough to people on the front lines who are exhausted and help us so much. afghanistan and iraq, the latest place president trump making foreign policy decisions at the he said of his term that the incoming president might not like. ♪ irresistibly smooth chocolate. to put the world on pause. lindor. made to melt you. by the lindt master chocolatier.

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troop withdrawals, arms sales, terrorist designations, all powers any president has and purchase is looking to use in these final weeks in office. watching all this closely, of course, is president-elect joe biden who may well inherit some late trump decisions with which he profoundly disagrees. cnn national security correspondent joins me from the state department. it is this fascinating moment, president trump wants to get done, many of which team biden doesn't like. >> that's right, john. as we're seeing the trump administration has taken or is going to take a whole host of actions in the foreign policy space in the final months being in office. this will make it hard to develop foreign policy and in many instances they will have to

be responding to what the trump team did. defense administration explained it to me trying to set off as many fires as possible so the biden team can't get it all out at once, the legacy is still felt. i want to tick through some of the actions trump administration is taking. first trump announcing troop withdrawals from afghanistan and iraq. thousands of troops are going to be coming home from those countries. then there's consideration for sanctions or potential trade restrictions on china. trump also, according to the "new york times," discussed the possibility of striking iran nuclear site. trump administration pushed through $23 billion in arms sales to uae last month. pompeo is going to visit israeli west bank this week and the state department is also considering designating the iranian-backed houthi rebels as a terrorist organization in the

final months here. that's a long list, john. this isn't normal. i want to provide a little bit of context. i spoke with steven hadley, outcoming national security adviser for president bush. he met with incoming president-elect obama team. they decided on actions they would hold or take depending on what the obama administration wanted to do. clearly that was not happening. >> steve hadley was a good man and public servant, probably one of the differences there. appreciate the reporting from state department. on capitol hill congressman hakim jeffries, introducing renominated newly nominated house speaker nancy pelosi with high praise. >> it is now my distinct honor and privilege to introduce speaker nancy pelosi, a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the disenfranchised, a legendary

legislator, notorious legislator, powerful, profound, pr prophetic, principled. >> nancy pelosi will be back as speaks. brianna keilar picks up our coverage right now. hi there, i'm brianna keilar, and i want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. the president has fired his top election security feshl. it official. it's a continuation of scourge and scorched earth. chris krebs gone in a tweet for doing his job and telling the truth. he real estately real estate add statement saying the election was safe and secure. no evidence any votes were deleted, lost, changed or compro