hello. it's the top of the hour. the pandemic has now taken more than 250,000 american lives, a milestone that model after model shows could have been avoided. tens of thousands of families will miss loved ones at the thanksgiving tables one week from today and among them are mothers, fathers, uncles, grand parents, sisters, brothers that you are seeing here. other vicks include an elderly father and grown daughter who died within minutes of each other, two parents who died before their son's 5th birthday and children with no known prior health conditions. these faces here, they represent a fraction of those who are

knowledger with us. many of them did not have to die. more people have died from coronavirus than the flu, suicide and strokes combined in a year and as hard as it is to believe 250,000 died from 1 virus in a matter of months there are indicators are darker days are in front of us. 44 states are showing an increase in trend of new infections. yesterday the u.s. reported over 1,800 deaths and 170,000 new cases, second highest single day total. wednesday like every day this week hospitalizations broke records. there are now nearly 80,000 people who are in the hospital fighting covid. but while the weeks ahead look grim officials predict that this will be the last big surge of the pandemic as there's 70 million doses of vaccines by the end of the year. both filing tomorrow for emergency authorization from the fda. the nation's testing coordinator

saying that we cannot let the guard down. >> the end of the pandemic is in sight with the vaccines. we have two apparently highly effective vaccines that are safe and work in elderly. this is going to be our end game and we are so excited. that being said, this will get worse. we have had 1 million cases documented over the past week. our rate of rise is higher than it even was in the summer. we have hospitalizations going up 25% week over week. >> i want to turn now to rheumatologist, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at florida international university. thank you for being with us. i know it is tough times over the country and including florida. now seeing the nation at 250,000 deaths. what is your reaction to hitting this milestone? >> brianna, thank you so much.

listen. this is a tough time in the year for all of us. we are looking forward to the holidays, missing our families. i miss my mom. it is important to realize the traffic dick to see is 100% preventable. it is up to every one of us to turn and flatten this curve. >> that's the thing is we have the holidays upon us. and i know there are a lot of people who trying to figure out a way around this, trying to think of maybe a testing strategy so that they can get their kid home from college or they can go see the elderly parents who they haven't seen in a while. but they really want to see. what do you say to folks who are thinking about that? >> sure. so the first thing i say and what i tell my patients is i understand. i understand that we're all the tired, i miss my mom and my dad. please get creative. stay in the bubble.

get creative. at our house we do a virtual turkey. you can join us but the important thing to remember this holiday season is the spirit of the holidays. it is to take care of one another, be thoughtful. send everyone you love a mask and if you have a special situation to travel for despite guidelines please talk to your doctor. please talk to your doctor about what opportunities you have to mitt gait your risk but keep your family safe. >> that's such good advice. i want to talk about these potential -- seem to be vaccine breakthroughs, still awaiting key data but pfizer and moderna are planning to apply for emergency use authorizations for the respectedive vaccines tomorrow. when the vaccines are ready and people refuse to take it then what happens? how does society, how do workplaces, schools, how do they manage that? >> sure. so the important thing to remember is we have a path

forward. this is positive news, there's a lot to be thankful for this thanksgiving but vaccinations only work if we take them. just like we turned out the vote we have to turn out the facts. it is up to us to get smart, understand why we have to wear a mask so that we wear it. patients have questions all the time about stuff they hear on social media, they hear from the political leaders. the only person to make health care decisions with today is your doctor. you don't have to trust me. talk to your doctor. they will guide you correctly when and where is the time to take this vaccine and what you can do in the meantime. >> president trump right now is not allowing the transition to go forward as usual. that would allow joe biden the president-elect and his team from getting information about vaccine distribution, about stockpiles. what concerns do you have about how that will affect the coming months for the country?

>> every day that we delay this transition is more and more time lost to preventable deaths. it is unacceptable. we need to take a cue from the scientific community. the reason we are on the verge of breakthroughs and vaccines that will be available is because the scientific community led with collaboration, around the globe they focused on covid-19 and shared and collaborated like we never have before and academia has its ego, as well. but we understand, we understand this is not about one individual but all of us. we are going to do this together and all of our leaders need to let scientists and doctors lead and we the people need to listen and get smart and improve our health literacy across the country. that's the only way to do this. this is a team sport. we have got to do this together and if you don't trust me please call your doctor.

they'll explain it to you way better than any political leader ever could. >> we really appreciate you joining us. >> thank you, brianna. i hope to see you at thanksgiving. >> thanks for the invite! so kind of you. i really appreciate it. in the absence of any government leadership on how to handle this coronavirus crisis the response is falling to individual states to take the lead. governors are tasked with finding ways to flatten the curve. let's begin now in illinois. >> reporter: in chicago, here in illinois the governor says the virus is the third leading cause of death just behind cancer and heart disease. today illinois announced more than 14,000 new coronavirus cases. this comes one day before the state will implement tighter restrictions starting tomorrow. casinos, banquet halls, museums and movie theaters will shut

down. grocery stores and other retail spaces will be at reduced capacity. people are lining up to get a covid test but the state's top doctor wants to remind people a negative test is not a green light to visit your friends and family outside of your immediate household this thanksgiving. >> reporter: i'm natasha chen in orlando, florida, where people are in a long line of cars waiting to get a rapid covid test. this comes a day after the state of florida surpassed 900,000 coronavirus cases becoming the state with the third highest total case count after texas and california. just within the past hour the governor issued a recorded video message, talked about the effectiveness of a theemreatmend said 3,000 doses are sent to florida hospitals. he also talked about preparation for a vaccine distribution.

and the fact that five hospital systems in florida are prepared to store those vaccines at the appropriate temperature. what he didn't talk about was prevention measures as the state sees a surge of new cases. he has not been seen publicly addressing prevention measures for coronavirus since at least early november and of course the state is still in phase three which means there's no capacity restrictions on any businesses. a local jurisdiction like orange county can have a local face mask mandate and they do but for a local county to restrict the capacity of a restaurant, for example, they have to give the state a reason and show the economic impact. we have asked the governor's press office why he has not addressed the prevention measures and whether he would consider modifications to phase three. we are still waiting to hear back. >> reporter: i'm sara sidner in

grand rapids, michigan, where coronavirus is out of control. the state positivity rate is almost 12% and in this small city there's at least 300 patients in the main health care system here who are suffering with coronavirus. we spoke with an e.r. doctor, 28 years old, healthy, marathoner and got coronavirus and thought that he would be able to get over it quickly but he said he has a warning for every single person, every american out there that if it happened to him, hospitalized unable to breathe, it can happen to you or your family. wear your mask, self distance, do the things and coming to this thanksgiving he knows that people need to be around family. he has felt the isolation of coronavirus himself and says this is one thanksgiving and hopefully there will be many more to come and think of it this way, if you want to prevent families from having to say their final good-byes, something he has seen over and over and over again in the last few

months since coronavirus hit this nation then do your best to have a very, very small nuclear family and normally living with, that should be your thanksgiving. maybe next thanksgiving we can all relax and have a huge gathering and enjoy each other's company. >> thank you so much. such an important message. any moment now we are expecting the results of that hand recount of votes in georgia. they're not expected to change the fact that biden won the state but still the president's attorneys rudy giuliani continuing to spew baseless accusations of election fraud and we'll fact check those next easily. cnn is on the ground where the real crisis is, food banks across america seeing unprecedented demand as millions of families go hungry in this pandemic. when i was in high school, this was the theater i came to quite often.

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the trump campaign has dropped its federal lawsuit in michigan that alleged voting irregularities but doesn't mean the fight is over. the president is inviting republican state lawmakers from michigan to meet with him at the white house and it's not known exactly why but the trump team is trying to derail results in key michigan counties. this comes as the trump legal team met the media today to push a litany of conspiracy theories in what can only be described as a crazy press conference that they had. i'm joined by cnn justice correspondent jessica schneider. we know that rudy giuliani had some issues when he was pleading that one case in federal court in pennsylvania tuesday and back at it today. what are we hearing? >> reporter: rudy giuliani

leading this effort by the trump campaign, spent more than 90 minutes blasting out baseless,en accurate information of ballots, the vote count and supreme court and speaking out more and more forcefully and at the same time judges are reacting dismissively about the claims that continue to be pushed out by the trump team. the strategy here really seems to be to delay and to sow public confusion by throwing out the baseless claims of fraud and voting irregularities in the courts and the public sphere and want to go point by point to lay out what's been debunked because as we have been reminded repeatedly making claims over twitter or at a press conference is different than proving them in a court of law. rudy giuliani continues to promote affidavits from election workers he claims and they claim saw fraudulent activity in michigan. two important points here. the trump team, they just voluntarily dismissed their own

federal lawsuit in michigan this morning that contained all of those affidavits meaning they're evading a judge's review of what they put out there in the record and rudy giuliani continues to talk about. second, for the affidavits this they actually have submitted previously to judges, those claims have also been dismissed and been debunked. a state court judge in michigan last week went point by point to point out that the claims are not backed by evidence and to the contrary every possible supposed irregularity that was raised was actually part of the process and the judge said that the poll challengers had gone to the training in michigan would have known that. next, rudy giuliani is wrongly portraying the supreme court ruling. giuliani said that the court ordered they be set aside and not opened and the supreme court that they've done up to this

point is to say that the ballots must be separated and that was in line with what the secretary of state mandated. finally here, the trump team continues to hammer the message of widespread voter fraud in democratic led cities like philadelphia and detroit and giuliani saying that philadelphia cheated in this election but look at the numbers here. this is out of wayne county, home to detroit, where president trump gained more votes this year than he did in 2016. in detroit, gained more than 35,000 votes this year over 2016. and now look at philadelphia county, home to philadelphia. president trump there received more than 24,000 votes this year than he did in 2016. so the takeaway here is this. this widespread claim of voter fraud in cities like philadelphia and detroit and other cities across the country, these claims of voter fraud,

they're baseless. th they're going nowhere in court. the trump team spouts them but there's no reality and no evidence here. >> and that doesn't stop them from yelling into the wind as we see. jessica, thank you so much for taking us through that. i want bring in cnn election law analyst jonathan diaz to talk about this. give us your take on what you are seeing from rudy giuliani and this team. he goes into court and talks about fraud and even seems to lack familiarity with the fact that the lawsuit he's there to talk about doesn't allege fraud. so what is the motive here as you see it? >> i think it's become clear at this tonight in the game that there isn't really a legal strategy behind what rudy giuliani and the trump campaign are doing here. this is in many ways a political and public relations strategy to

try to delegitimize president-elect biden and sow chaos and confusion agent tbout results of this election. none of the lawsuits have any evidence of wrongdoing and the legal theory is that they're pushing in many of them are to be frank totally bogus and even if they were to succeed none of them change the results in any of the states and so what this is really just doing is undermining public confidence in the election and doing a lot of damage to the integrity of the democratic process because it's reducing people's faith in the security and the integrity of what is an election that has no evidence of wrongdoing or fraud or any kind of malfeasance like they have been discussing at the press conferences. >> cnn confirmed that president trump called two members of the canvassing board in wayne

county. one said it was a quick call to see how she was holding up. what do you think about this? >> i think it's frankly disturbing that a sitting incumbent president who is a candidate in an election that he lost would be calling local election officials after the fact who are under enormous pressure and even if he didn't say anything to her, i wasn't on the call so i don't know exactly what he said, but the very fact that the president of the united states would call a county election official shortly, you know, around the time that she is supposed to be voting on whether or not to sertd if i the results of the elections is not how democracy is supposed to work and as was just discussed earlier he is now inviting state legislators to the white house when at the same time rudy giuliani is out in public trying to discredit the results of the election is deeply concerning.

you know? this election is not that close. there are multiple states whose results would have to be different and they are states that the president lost by tens of thousands of votes but if this were a closer election, if it was just one state decided by a handful of votes to have the president of the united states pressuring election officials not to certify results, to take things to state legislatures to subvert the will of the people who did not vote for him and hand him the election, you know, is deeply damaging to american democracy because if we have another close election in the future someone else is going to try to this and that's not how the american electoral system is supposed to work. >> you are right. this is not a close election so, jonathan diaz, thank you so much. >> thank you. so next, we will weigh in on the damage that is being done to

democracy that we were just talking about there as the president and the team try to reverse biden's win and block his transition and a new poll shows a alarming number of americans believe the lies. at aetna, we take a total, connected approach to your health and wellness to help you age actively.

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250,000 american men, women and children are now dead of the coronavirus and the president of

the united states is tweet storming lies and absurd theories of election fraud but here's the problem. there's a lot of people in this country who believe him. look at the new poll where one of the questions was, did joe biden rightfully win? and when you look at republican voters, more than half polled said, no, they agree with the president and the completely false claim. that the election was rigged against him. i want to bring in gloria borger. and tim naftali to talk about this. what i think of is even has people believe what president trump said, if you look at the way president trump and joe biden spend their time, it's quite revealing about where they believe they will be in a couple months. >> right. i've spoken with sources who say that up until this day this president remains in his bunker convinced that or convinced himself, we are not sure, that

this was a rigged election and that he should remain as president and that's why we saw rudy giuliani and his conspiracy theater which the president adheres to at all times and so he's not thinking about covid. he's not thinking about 250,000 deaths. he is thinking about his own political future. that's what he wants to talk ant and cares about and if he can't stay in the white house he wants to know what he can do with the 70 million plus voter who is voted for him and how he can take that either into 2024 or how he can monetize it at some point for himself. >> you know, tim, as you watch this, it's sort of -- it is clearly unprecedented to have a president have such lack of value in american lives that the president, the president's unencumbered by another term.

he has time on his hands and we are looking at how he's spending it and it is not on americans and they're dying. >> yes. well, and we saw this in the campaign when the president insisted on having rallies. he continued wanting rallies even after a supporter likely died after a rally in oklahoma. the president put his campaign first and he should have altered the way in which he campaigned in a pandemic election but he didn't. so his behavior on that score hasn't changed at all. it is very consistent. he always put the political needs ahead of our needs as a people in dealing with a pandemic. there's something else that's unprecedented here and that's that he is not the first presidential nominee to claim there was fraud after an election. but he was the first

presidential nominee to assume there would be fraud and talk publicly about it before the election. and that's what makes -- made for many people, not enough i would say, but for many people the claims of fraud on election day and the day after not credible because he had assumed there was fraud even before all the votes were in let alone counted. >> gloria, listen to something that house minority leader kevin mccarthy said, there's no room for the two administrations to work on the virus at the same time. >> you have one president at a time. we have the military putting through and planning this ahead of time so i want to follow through and if we can get people the vaccine next month let's do it. that is what's going to save lives, playing politics with this is wrong. >> gloria, what do you think? >> is he accusing joe biden of playing politics here? and not donald trump who's the president of the united states? who should be out there --

>> yes. >> every day, yes, saying i want to make sure that the vaccines get to the american people. doesn't matter whether he concedes, what conspiracy nonsense is lurking in his head. he should worry about what happens to the american people and the enablers on capitol hill like kevin mccarthy who some of them whispering privately, oh yeah, yeah, yeah biden will be president and afraid to say it publicly or playing this game publicly. i don't know what's in kevin mccarthy's head. maybe he believes this conspiracy nonsense, i have no idea, but those giving fist bumps to kamala harris and then egging the president on because they're afraid of his political power, it's ridiculous. history is recording this. history will not look kindly upon these people. these people are cowards. >> just our luck that we are

here with tim who's a presidential historian. >> right. >> sometimes it's i think hard to know how history is going to judge a moment and sometimes it's not. it's not so hard but i know you probably have particular nuance on how to think about this moment and how history will judge a president who quite frankly doesn't seem to care about the lives of his citizens. >> one of the things of being a historians is that historians often don't agree. let me put it this way. richard nixon is remembered as having committed abuse of power and crimes. and as the data comes out i believe donald trump will be remembered for having committed a dereliction of duty in response to the pandemic. that the cost to this country in terms of lives lost and economic despair were much, much higher than they needed to be or had to

be in this international crisis. that in addition to the impeachment matter and the other abuse of power we know about will forever be a stain on the record of the 45th president of the united states. >> tim and gloria, sorry, gloria, final word to you. >> to tim who knows this better than anyone, there were members of congress, barry goldwater, who went down to richard nixon saying you need to resign and he did. there are no people like that on capitol hill anymore. nobody can get through to the president. he doesn't trust anyone. i mean, tim, there aren't any people look that. correct? >> two things. there aren't any people like that other than mitt romney. and two -- >> he won't listen. >> the american people had given up on nixon and they haven't on trump and that's a big dimp difference this time. >> that's a good point.

thank you so much to both of you. >> thank you. hundreds of thousands of americans filed new unemployment claims in the last week and we are seeing the impact of that in long lines at food pantries across the country. we'll take you live to one of them in new york next. greetings mortal! your journey requires liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. liberty power! wow. that will save me lots of money. you're insured!

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americans are struggling right now, more than 700,000 filed for first time unemployment been fits just last week according to the labor department and as americans lose their jobs they're at redskins of losing federal been fits according to research from the think tank the century found dag. it could land right before christmas, one person at risk, karen smith, a single mom who lost her well paying job at the department of education. >> luckily, florida's unemployment is so low that we qualify for food stamps so i can feed the 14-year-old growing boy. we stopped going to food banks

because they're closing and they're far now and we kind of if they open at 9:00 you have to be there at 5:00 a.m. to hope to get anything. south florida is in trouble. >> so americans are also going hungry, that's what that means. food banks across the country face unprecedented demand. vanessa is live at within of them in new york city. you tell us what's happening there on the ground, vanessa. >> reporter: hi, brianna. we are seeing that steady stream of folks in line for food. they're here for the thanksgiving meals. right now it's the end of the day but you see the line stretching just to the end of the block. they have shut down the entire street. one point we saw lines stretching around four city blocks and these were people here looking for the thanksgiving meals. campaign against the hunger is the organization that is putting

this on. they allotted for 1,000 meals for families. unfortunately, they have met that number and are now having to turn people away. we spoke to the founder of campaign against hunger and she talks about this increased and critical need. >> 75% of those we are seeing are unemployed because of the covid-19. covid-19 is why this line is in the state that it is now. we have never seen it like this before. >> i appreciate that i'm happy that i'm able to come here today. and get help. and i'm able to feed my kids every day. when i come to the food pantry. >> reporter: you heard from that woman, she waited in line here today in order to get a thanksgiving meal to feed her children. but, brianna, a lot of this could have been avoided in many ways. the enhanced unemployment benefits ended at the end of

july, that was an extra $600 a week for people and there's been no stimulus, no movement on federal aid for folks and as you mentioned at the top there are programs, federal protections that are expiring at the end of this year right up around christmas, protections on evictions, unemployment for folks that will be expiring. it is going to get darker for people this winter if they don't get some help soon. >> yeah. i think back to the pictures we remember of the great depression and the soup and bread lines that we would have seen in new york city, photos that harken back to that for us and people think of this moment in history they will be -- the line behind you, the spaced out line of people with shopping carts to be the same thing and so as these food banks are facing a tough winter, do they think they can make it through and provide for people the way they need?

>> reporter: it's a great question. it's one we asked. they know they have enough food for today and allotted for as much as they could and it is a se concern. a lot of people donate to this organization and able to provide more meals for folks in need but they're worried that people will forget and they won't be able to donate as much and also worried about another shutdown, another shutdown means there's more and more people out of work and this line will only get longer and more concern food will be needed and won't be able to meet that need. >> yeah. the help is certainly needed. thank you for showing us that. ahead, there is not a single federal agency working to help president-elect joe biden transition to the white house and my next guest says this process is just too important to politicize. she should help.

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president-elect joe biden is hosting a meeting with the national governors association right now pushing ahead in spite of president trump's efforts to impede his transition. this week the state department is refusing to share messages with foreign leaders to joe biden. to joe biden. hhs won't even share the research on the coronavirus with his team. and the head of the general services administration emily murphy the refusing to quote ascertain that biden won and is holding back millions of dollars in transition funds in the

process. a form administrator in 2000 says he thinks murphy is being used by republicans. these republican senators and cabinet members who are letting emily set out there twisting in the wind strike me as not courageous. they are being not courageous and asking her to be courageous. it's just not right. >> joining me now is denise turner roth. she was the administrator for gsa and helped president trump's team trans ig to the white house in 2016. denise, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me, breanna. >> you wrote a very interesting op-ed for cnn.com. you talk about worrying about the implications of delayed transition. tell us what's at stake here? >> there's a great deal at stake. that's been pointed out. the agencies across the federal government, 100 agencies, will not start the process of

transferring government from one administration to the next. that means major policy items addressed at these agencies are not being conferred between the two bodies. what you want at this point is for the team to be with the administration team talking about the existing policies, whether it's covering covid, infrastructure policy, what have you, wanting them to talk about what's happening currently, what's on the horizon and what are the things we need to plan for in the future. that is a concern whether it's a security agency, be it gsa, housing agency. all those efforts aren't happening. each day that goes by is a day lost for that purpose. >> being someone, denise, not many people who have been in this position of ascertaining the outcome of an election and starting this process. i imagine most americans had no idea about what this process

was. with that in mind, you think about emily murphy, you're in a position certainly as someone who ascertained the outcome of the election. that's what she's supposed to be doing. what do you think about what position she's in right now? >> i'm sure there's a lot that she and her team are debating and discussing and she's giving good advice from all sides. at the end of the day, i think it's necessary to look at where we are at this point. we're almost two weeks out. the states have confirmed the performance of the polling and voters. there's been clarity in terms of where the decisions have come out. in terms of the electoral votes, we're not in a position, like we were in 2000, where there was question in terms of the span between the votes with the administration and the incomes president-elect. so we have to look at all those pieces and make the determination, are we at a place

where we can transition government. at this point, i would say yes. that's where i have been concerned, understanding this is an important moment and it's important for us to move forward and not lose this important time. certainly the biden administration does have experience and will be able to pick up the ball and keep moving us forward and taking steps currently to move forward. at the end of the day, there's important policy discussions to be had, important understanding to be had between the two and that's not happening now. it's really impacting and can impact the continuity of government. >> you quickly had the results in 2016. there's former and current trump officials reaching out to the biden team, some of theming to it very quietly. i wonder if there's any latitude in the system that does allow agencies to work around gsa with the biden team and key trans

knowledge for transitioning to the biden team when they get the go ahead to do it. >> the gsc hat authority to move forward with the transition. i don't see any agency taking steps outside of the transition process until that ascertainment is reached. it's the agreement between the existing administration and the incoming team that there is agreement around moving forward and agreement on what they will share. that ascertainment, those agreements, those need to be put in place before any of those agencies take any formal steps. the fact we would ask them to maneuver is not the place we would want to be. we want to have a smooth and easy transition of our government. we want the government leadership to be focused on what's next, how do we work together and ensuring what we need for the public safety.

that is not happening currently. >> can i ask you one more question, which is about the archiving of work that is so important in the white house and around the administration for this administration cannot proceed without the ascerta ascertainment. >> there should be transition activity that will happen for each agency that has to do with whether it's archiving or scanning documents or other preservation steps they should be taking that should be happening regardless. that shouldn't be held up by ascertainment. >> good to know. denise turner roth. thank you so much. we appreciate it. coming up next hour president-elect biden is speaking from delaware. we're going to bring that to you live. michigan secretary of state joins cnn to respond to outrageous claims made by rudy giuliani and the rest of the campaign legal team. it's neutrogena®. rapid wrinkle repair® visibly smooths fine lines in 1 week. deep wrinkles in 4.

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i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. just a heads up for all of you, new in minute we'll hear from president-elect joe biden and vice president-elect harris, their remarks how to beat the pandemic this president has fully surrendered to. cases are surging, hospitalizations at record levels. 250,000 americans have died. according to the administration's own testing czar, the worst is still ahead. despite all of this, the president of the united states continues to put his ego ahead of every single one of us. refusing to work with the biden team, actively hindering their attempt at a transition. trump's own health secretary even ordered his team to not work with the incoming administration. simply put, that means lifesaving vaccines might not