♪ hello and welcome to our viewers here in the united states. i'm michael holmes. coming up here on "cnn newsroom," coronavirus cases surging across america. health experts warning the number of deaths from the virus could surge even more, even double. president trump playing through, hitting the golf course,

blasting out fact-free tweets. the pandemic on top of a sluggish economy, a recipe that could mean 50 million americans will go hugry f rhungry for the. ♪ welcome, everyone. right now in the u.s., the coronavirus pandemic gets more dire for people, while the political situation gets more desperate for the president. let's start with the virus. the u.s. has surpassed 13 million total cases, 4 million in november alone. think about that. for 26 straight days, the u.s. has reported more than 100,000 new cases. now saturday, the most hospitalizations were reported. more than 91,000 americans are in hospital with coronavirus. experts warn the thanksgiving

holiday could trigger a surge of new infections. and now we're about to see the impact on the holiday shopping season that small businesses rely so much for to keep going. some of the busiest places right now, though, are food banks as many americans are forced to seek help for basic needs. things could get worse if millions of people lose their jobless benefits next month. yes, that could happen. meanwhile, president trump on the golf course again. and hopefully his game getting better than his legal game. because he's racking up one loss after another in court as he tries to overturn the election results. saturday pennsylvania's supreme court tossed a lawsuit from republicans seeking to invalidate absentee voting and block vote certification, and they did so with prejudice. and in wisconsin, president-elect joe biden picked up more votes in the recount requested by trump's campaign.

think about that. did the recount, joe biden got more. now the president did find time on saturday to tee off on the election system again, tweeting out more baseless accusations of fraud. but how many times can he lose before he gives up? cnn's jeremy diamond reports. >> reporter: when he wasn't on the golf course, president trump on saturday continuing to make baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election. the president's focusing his ire this time on the states of pennsylvania and wisconsin, two key battleground states that president-elect joe biden recaptured from president trump in this latest election. but the president's continued allegations of widespread voter fraud and his conspiracy theories that he's been spreading, they now come against a mounting legal backdrop that is disproving the president's case. more than 30 cases now brought forward by the president's campaign or their allies have been dismissed in state and federal courts or withdrawn by those legal teams. the latest blow is coming from a

trump-appointed judge, judge stefanos bibos denying the campaign's appeal to try and decertify the results of the pennsylvania election, essentially trying to throw out millions of legally cast ballots in that key battleground state. judge bibos wrote, calling an election unfair does not make it so. charges require specific allegations and then proof. we have neither here. the campaign's claims have no merit. the president is also running into roadblocks on the recount front. after his campaign paid $3 million to have two key counties in the state of wisconsin conduct recounts, one of those counties, milwaukee county, certified the results of its election on friday. and the results of that recount actually found more votes for joe biden. joe biden coming up with 132-vote gain in milwaukee county after that recount went through. the state of wisconsin is expected to certify the results

of election tuesday. the question is how much longer does the president keep this up? wide receiver know privately he and his advisers recognize that it is almost impossible for him to overturn the results of this election. but the president has been charging ahead, trying to at least delegitimize this legitimate victory by president-elect joe biden. one key date that the president's advisers are looking at, that is december 14th. that's when the electoral college will actually vote for the next president of the united states, locking in president-elect joe biden's victory. jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. colorado's governor is the latest political leader to catch coronavirus. both jared paulos and his spouse have tested positive but are asymptomatic according to the governor's office. paulos says he will keep working remotely and is asking coloradoans to limit their time in public, wear a mask, and stay

six feet away from others. health experts in the u.s. are warning, we will see dramatic increases in coronavirus infections and deaths in the coming weeks. as we mentioned a little earlier, the u.s. now recording more than 13.2 million cases and more than 266,000 deaths. miguel marquez tells us where the country stands right now. >> reporter: here in new york city and testing sites across the country, people are still being tested, but those lines. the length of time it takes to get tested is going down. because we're in the middle of a long holiday weekend, this is something that epidemiologists expected during the weekends, the numbers sort of go down. the number of cases, the number of deaths, the number of people getting tested. all those things go down. as the weekend picks up into the weekday, they go up. they expect that same pattern with the long holiday weekend we're in right now. the u.s. on a typical day these days is averaging about 170,000

cases. right now johns hopkins university says in the last 24 hours, the u.s. has added about 100,000 cases. that sounds good compared to where the u.s. is typically. it is stunning to consider that the u.s. in the last week has added over 1 million cases of coronavirus. that is something that used to take weeks if not months to get to. not only here in new york where it was horrible in the spring, the numbers are rising. not as fast as some places like south dakota or iowa or texas. but they are rising, they are rising everywhere. doctors, nurses that are working so hard, epidemiologists who follow this disease fear that christmas is going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. many coronavirus deaths could be avoided, of course, if and when a vaccine gets the green light. the most promising candidates use groundbreaking technology that could revolutionize the way vaccines are made for decades to

come. cnn's dr. sanjay gupta explains how it works. >> a historic day for science and for all of us. >> reporter: albert borla is ceo of pfizer and he's talking about their vaccine for covid-19. 248 days from an idea to now. applying for the vaccine to be authorized. that's just eight months. for context, eight years would have been considered speedy. but the truth is the story i'm about to tell you actually began more than two decades ago. and to really understand it, you first have to understand how most vaccines work. since the first vaccine for smallpox in 1796, they've all relied on the same basic concept. give a little piece of the virus, also known as antigen to someone, not enough to make them sick, and their body will then be taught to make antibodies to

it. those are the proteins that neutralize the virus if it ever tried to invade again. that's what makes you immune. but what if the body could be taught to do the whole thing? not just make antibodies, but also to make the antigens as well? to essentially become its own vaccine-making machine? it's why in the 2000s dr. drew weissman started focusing on this tiny strand of genetic material that our cells make all the time, mrna. >> back then we were thinking of using it for vaccines, for therapeutic proteins, for gene editing, for lots of different applications. >> reporter: mrna stands for messenger rna. it carries the instructions for making whatever protein you want. >> once you've got the sequence, it's a one-step reaction to make rna. that reaction is identical for every vaccine that we make.

>> reporter: if this sounds more like code in a computer rather than medicine from a lab, that means you're getting it. this is an entirely new way of thinking about vaccines. it's also the basic technology behind pfizer and moderna's covid-19 vaccines. >> vaccines are close by, they're coming. i said help is on the way. >> reporter: it's truly bio meets tech. the vaccine is not the virus at all, it's essentially just a genetic code for a portion of the virus. this portion, the spike protein. why the spike protein? because it's the key the virus uses to enter the human cell. but if you create antibodies to the spike protein, it's then blocked. so putting it all together, once the vaccine, made up of genetic code, is administered through a shot in the arm, our own cells then start making the spike protein over and over again. now remember, you're just making a part of the virus, so you

can't get infected from this vaccine. and within days after that, the body reacts and starts churning out the antibodies. plug and play. >> with rna, all you need is the sequence of the protein of interest. within weeks, you can have a new vaccine. >> reporter: it's a technology that could help lead us out of this pandemic. >> we're going to get a heck of a lot of help from a very efficacious vaccine, two vaccines, that just two weeks ago and this past week were shown to be extremely effective. i mean, efficacious in 95% and 94.5%. >> reporter: if true, remarkable results for an entirely new type of vaccine, and also a new way of thinking about medicines going forward. >> having a safe and effective vaccine is only part of the equation.

getting people vaccinated is, of course, another. celine guonder, a member of the president-elect's coronavirus advisory board, explains who should get first priority. >> certainly health care workers. so doctors, nurses, who are caring for patients in the hospital, including patients with coronavirus, should very much be among those first receiving the vaccine. then beyond that, there are other frontline workers, essential workers. whether that's the people who are working in food and meat processing, people who are at the grocery store checkout counter, people who are doing things we can't function without. whether with respect to food or drugstores or teachers, for example. >> a recent gallup poll finds 58% of americans say they would be willing to get vaccinated right now at no cost.

that is up from mid-september when just 50% said yes. one u.s. congressman floating the idea, though, of paying americans to take the vaccine, which would, of course, keep the virus from spreading. cnn medical analyst dr. jonathan reiner explains. >> look at our experience trying to get people to wear masks. we tried altruism, protect your neighbors, that didn't work. we tried to get people to protect themselves, that doesn't seem to work. so maybe money works. i'm all about paying peengs to do the right thing, so sure, so many people in this country are hurting financially, they need stimulus, stimulus money? get vaccinated, send the government your receipt, get paid? i'm okay with that, let's do that. >> marina dell rios rivera is a professor of emergency medicine at university of illinois, chicago. she joins me from chicago.

thanks so much for being with us. 90,000 americans, more than 90,000, are in the hospital right now with covid. it's hard to get your head around that. are you worried many americans still don't understand the risks, and post-thanksgiving, what do you see coming? >> i really worry that people have just not gotten a complete handle of how serious this is. and yes, i worry that two weeks from now, our hospitals are going to be more than full to capacity, and i worry about the ability of our staff, taking care of patients. >> i'm curious how you and your colleagues are coping with the mental and physical strain. how do you prepare yourselves for what you're doing now, let alone the next several weeks? >> well, we call each other a lot. try to give each other support. i for myself am very lucky that i have a very supportive family. my husband is very good at equitable division of labor. because, you know, i have to admit that after shifts i'm

often just exhausted. it's not only just the physical exhaustion of being on your feet all the time and running from room to room, but also the mental exhaustion of having to deal with people that are so sick all the time. >> i was talking to an icu doctor a couple of weeks ago on this program. he spoke of the frustration of seeing what he saw, people literally dying, then leaving the hospital and immediately going out and seeing people in close quarters, bars, restaurants. you said you tell people you're not the front line, you're the last line of defense. i thought that was very salient. does it frustrate you to see so many people acting like it's not a big deal? >> yes. it's very frustrating. and actually, it's caused strains in my personal relationships. there's people i just can't talk to because it's just very difficult to understand. they've heard me complain of how difficult this job is becoming.

they've heard me with my concerns for, you know, patients that are just so sick, and i can't do anything about them, and yet, you know, they're still choosing to gather in big groups, to go out to bars, to eat in close quarters, and to complain. because there's mandates for mask wearing and for distancing. >> meanwhile, you're wearing a mask 10, 12 hours a day? >> yeah, at least a good 10 hours. for my own protection, i've decided that the wise thing to do -- our hospital has this as policy, to wear a mask for every patient encounter, regardless of whether we think this person may have covid or not. because we've learned that the percent is so high of positivity, in chicago it's 1 in every 15 people is estimated to have covid right now. so it's better to just be safe and assume that everyone might be infected, even if they're

asymptomatic. >> you know, i've covered wars for half my career. i'm trying to get my head around the mental stresses that you're dealing with every day with that risk that you describe. you just don't know. you're in a place that has covid patients, you don't know when you're going to get it, at the same time watching people die. i mean, that's got to take a toll. >> yeah. i have to say, you know, this wave has been difficult. because in the first one, we didn't know what we were dealing with. so i think we were still learning how to protect ourselves, how to protect our communities. now that we know how to protect each other, how we can reduce the spread, the fact that we haven't learned our lesson, it really is a cause of a lot of concern and of mental exhaustion. it's actually more exhausting to deal with that than it is to deal with the sick patient that's in front of me. >> yeah, no, that's well put. one thing about a vaccine, it's not like flicking a switch. it's more of a dimmer.

are you concerned that the politicization of the pandemic and vaccines will still leave a lot of people skeptical, reluctant to be vaccinated? >> what i'm worried about is we've had anti-vaccine rhetoric before covid. how many parents are choosing not to immunize their children or even people that are adults already that are refusing to get booster shots for tetanus or for even the flu every year, right? so i worry about just the fact that we have an effective vaccine is not going to be enough. we really have to fight against this anti-vaccine rhetoric that unfortunately is a part of the culture of american life. and with that, you know, also ensure that we're distributing the vaccine when it becomes available equitably, that we are actually making sure that our most marginalized and most affected population are receiving the vaccine.

one of the difficult things with all of this is how this has uncovered the huge health inequities that exist in our society. i think that's probably the hardest 9 hard est thing of all of this, the fact that a lot of our sickest patients are the patients that even if i get better, i wonder what's going to happen once they leave my doors. >> because they don't have the resources. >> exactly. >> powerful messages eloquently put. dr. marina dell rios rivera, thank you so much for what you do, thank you for speaking with us. >> thanks for giving me the time. i appreciate your work, too. >> thank you so much. fury and angry rhetoric continue to escalate inside iran after the killing of a top nuclear scientist. just ahead, what his death could mean for diplomacy and relations between iran, israel, and the u.s. (vo) here are all the gifts you bought this year.

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targeted by gunfire and a vehicle explosion. top iranian officials accusing israel of being behind the killing. and iran's supreme leader vowing revenge. cnn's alex marquardt with more. >> reporter: iran is saying it will avenge the death of mohsen fakhrizadeh and is pointing the finger squarely at israel for carrying out this attack. a list of actors who could mount such a brazen, well-coordinated killing of one of iran's figures in broad daylight is short. israel is neither confirming nor denying any role. the trump administration is being very quiet. the question is how or whether iran responds. the attackers were able to reach into iran and take out the country's senior-most nuclear scientist, is very embarrassing for them. it comes almost 11 months after the united states killed iran's most famous military commander,

qassem soleimani in an air strike. there's been no major reaction to that either so there is pressure for them to respond. if iran were to respond in a significant way against u.s. or israeli targets in the region, for example, it could set something off. at the same time, iran knows joe biden is about to become president and he wants to engage with them, he wants the u.s. to get back into the nuclear deal, to ease sanctions and the maximum pressure campaign of the trump administration. so iran could hold off. meanwhile, vooei president benjamin netanyahu sees the clock ticking down on the trump administration and knows he will have leslie way with a president biden when he's sworn in. biden is not eager to inherit a war with iran and is most certainly hoping things will be calm when he's sworn in in january so there can be a fresh start. alex marquardt, cnn, washington. ka rim sentabor joins me

from washington. good to see you, kareem. joe biden has said he wants to have a look at a u.s. return to the iran nuclear deal. if israel was indeed behind the assassination, could it be the reason was just to mess with iran's nuclear program, to interfere with diplomacy? >> i think that's certainly a plausibility. what's happened is now, by assassinating iran's top nuclear scientist, iran is obviously going to feel like it has to take revenge. in order to not only restore national pride, but to restore deterrence. but how is it going to do that without sabotaging the possibility of either a full or a partial return to the nuclear deal, which is so important for iran, because it's one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, not only suffering from economic sanctions, but it's been hit hard by the pandemic as

well. and so iran has been in a very difficult spot the coming days and weeks and months ahead. >> many things to consider. the killing of such a senior figure clearly exposes internal security failings. how embarrassing is this for iran, their top well-protected nuclear expert taken out like this? and of course it comes on top of a few weeks ago, israel reportedly assassinated al qaeda's number two. january 3 will be the anniversary of the killing of qassem soleimani. how embarrassing is it? >> you put it well. over the last year, four major global figures will have been -- who were ostensibly being protected by iran's security umbrella were quite easily assassinated. and for a country, for a regime like iran, which really prides itself on being a security state, being a police state,

this is deeply, deeply humiliating. and this comes at a time when iran has been imprisoning, in a sense, academics and environmentalists on charges of being israeli spies. and they can't protect their top figures from israeli or american assassinations. so i think morale must be very low right now in the islamic republic. and they must be thinking, what else do they know about us? what other means of our communication have they penetrated? >> yeah, good point. of course, not all groups in iran, all factions, have the same calculations. how does this potentially change the dynamic between iran's hardliners and moderates? which have been notoriously fractious. >> well, my view is that over the last two decades, iran has been gradually shifting from a country ruled by the clergy, from these elderly shiite

clerks, to a country ruled by middle aged military men, the iranian revolutionary guards. i think the more insecurity you introduce into iran, whether a that's assassinations or escalating nuclear situation or regional crises in places like syria and elsewhere, any type of insecurity plays to the advantage of the security forces within iran. and at the moment, even though we're talking about 150,000 men who constitute the revolutionary guard, there certainly is diversity amongst them. but at the moment, the hardline folks who are not at all keen on issues like civil liberties or human rights, things like that, are the ones that are firmly in control. because they make the argument that this is a time of existential crisis. >> you make a good point.

iran's got pride that might say they need to retaliate, and the economic realities which are a huge part of the calculus. it can't afford in a financial sense, to make a misstep here. >> you're right. i mean, iran's currency reserves are dwindling. and its population has really been battered by a combination of the sanctions, the economic mismanagement, and the corruption. and throughout the trump presidency, they were really just waiting for trump to be elected out of office with the possibility that they could go back to this nuclear deal with a democratic american president. and as you pointed out from the outset, that's precisely why the israelis may have wanted to take this action to sabotage the possibility of a revival of the iran nuclear deal. but the brutal reality for iran

is that its dwindling economy and currency reserves simply cannot be reversed if they don't go back to either a full or partial nuclear deal. >> literally, if you can summarize in 10 seconds, what do you think is going to happen the next month or so? >> i'm confident that we can avoid war, but i'm not confident that we can go back to a full nuclear deal even under a biden administration. >> a lot of moving parts, kareem. always good to get you on and take advantage of your expertise. thanks so much. >> thank you, michael. up next, president trump told them to stand back and stand by. now in an exclusive interview with cnn, a former member of the proud boys tells us what drew him to the far-right group.

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welcome back to our viewers. i'm michael holmes. you're watching "cnn newsroom." we thank you for doing so. a cnn exclusive. a former proud boys member speaking out, detailing why he became disenchanted with the far-right group. the proud boys gained notoriety in recent months after president trump urged them to stand back and stand by during the first presidential debate. cnn's allie reef with the story. >> they're afraid to say what's on their mind for fear of getting into a fight. but if they have that guy or that group behind them, they're more bold in saying what they think because they think someone has their back. >> [ bleep ] antifa!

>> the proud boys are the vehicle that attracts those people and accepts them in. >> reporter: russell spent a year and a half as a proud boy in portland. he was at a lot of political protests and had a big presence online. he says he quit, but the proud boys say he was kicked out in may 2019. russell is a witness to what it's like inside the group and why some men would want to join it. >> too much like a nationwide criminal gang is where they're heading. i didn't want any part of that. >> this is for proud boys. only proud boys. we need more political activists on the right side, more, not less. >> reporter: russell grew up around portland. he's jewish and voted for obama twice before voting for trump twice. >> donald trump is bull headed, determined. he takes criticism but keeps fighting. i like his political policies. i got involved because of trump supporters getting attacked. i wanted to stand up to that and say, that's not what we do in america. >> you weren't just a trump

supporter, you got involved with the proud boys. how did that happen? >> we were holding a free speech rally in portland. all of a sudden the fights are breaking out. here come marching across the field these guys in black and yellow striped polos. to me it looked like something from a "braveheart" movie, it was kind of cool. they asked me to join. i thought about it, yeah, okay, it would be fun. goofy little shirt, looked like a bowling team. >> reporter: the proud boys were founded in 2016 and are known more for street fights than vague ideology. they celebrated when president trump mentioned them in a presidential debate. >> proud boys? stand back and stand by. but i'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left. >> do you think the proud boys felt encouraged by president trump? like that he had their back? >> yeah. yeah, because everybody wants to feel special. >> reporter: unlike many far-right groups that emerged around the same time, the proud

boys don't say they're trying to defend the white race, they say they're defending western civilization. if you think that's code for white people, you're the racist. >> i don't perceive them as racists. there might be some that might be misogynists, but most of that might be their defense of rejection. a lot of it, i see people showing up because they want to have drinking partners. they want to join a gang. so they can fight antifa and hurt people that they don't like and feel justified in doing it. >> reporter: chairman enrique tario told cnn, currently there is no criminal activity happening in the proud boys. russell left the group, but he hasn't left the mindset. his antipathy toward antifa motivates his actions and he shows up at rallies. while he criticizes the proud boys, he defends most of what he did while with the group, including violent threats, as either a joke or justified. >> i'm going to shoot you in your head or chest. >> reporter: antifa posts information about far-right activists online.

they say to raise the social cost of being a fascist. in 2018, antifa posted russell's address and workplace and reposted videos where he talked about violence. >> in the last rally i almost ran you over with a car and you're lucky i didn't kill you. >> i've never seen that one. i'm glad they posted that one. >> i'll shoot you in your head or your chest. you are not going to survive. i will survive and take my chances in court. >> okay, they are violent threats. >> they are violent threats and for good reason. >> why, what happened? >> we were going to have a religious march, a pro-jesus march, antifa was saying they were going to throw urine and feces on us. that was my way of saying, okay, do that, that's a threat, i don't know if it was aids tainted, i made that threat so they wouldn't come over. >> reporter: antifa said they

did not threat ton throw poop at the geez march and do not know how to lace poop with hiv. proud boys got into fights with anti-trump counter protesters. videos of the violence circulated on social media. >> look at him, big old fat dude hitting a woman. >> from behind, she didn't see it coming. >> how is that proud masculinity? that's as low as it gets. >> yeah. >> it's crazy we've come to this point. >> uh-huh. >> do you feel you're part of it that brought us to this point? >> that brought us to it? >> yeah, the propaganda. >> honestly, yeah, i had a role in it. i never advocates for the violence to come out of it, though. >> do you see why people make the argument that it was never really a joke? that joke is just a cover for what you actually were going to do? >> i don't think it was meant to be a street gang, not at first. it kind of morphed into that. you probably wouldn't know who proud boys are if there hadn't been antifa attacking patriots or trump supporters at rallies. maybe that would be better.

>> do you think after trump leaves office, the proud boys will fade away? >> no. >> why not? >> because they found that other part we're talking about, where they felt like a big part of a group. you've got these guys that normally they'd be at this bar by themselves, they have no friends, they can't talk to a girl, for whatever reason, they don't have the self-confidence. they join the group, now they have that self-confidence. i'm with these guys. they get some attention. >> reporter: allie reeve, cnn, vancouver, washington. when we come back, cuba is looking to president-elect joe biden to help stop a booming drug trafficking business. just ahead, a cnn exclusive report as cuba tries to combat drug smuggling at sea. it's the black friday sale.

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we're hearing more from the top cybersecurity official

president trump fired last week. christopher krebs got the heave-ho via twitter after he rejected trump's false claims of widespread voter fraud in the election. krebs spoke with "60 minutes." >> i don't know if i was necessarily surprised. it's not how i wanted to go out. i think i -- the thing that upsets me the most about that is i didn't get a chance to say good-bye to my team. and i'd worked with them for 3 1/2 years. in the trenches, building an agency, putting cisa on the national stage. i love that team, and i didn't get a chance to say good-bye. that's what i'm most upset about. >> krebs says he stands by a statement that the election was the most secure in american history. homeland security officials claim krebs and his agency

overstepped their bounds. despite the raging pandemic, cuba is seeing a surge in drug smugglers piloting boats through cuban waters to the u.s. these spikes come after the trump administration ended an obama-era agreement that increased cooperation on combating drug running. now cuba hopes the incoming biden administration will resume their joint effort. cnn's patrick offen gained exclusive access to a border control team as it captures and burns thousands of pounds of illegal drugs. >> reporter: trespassing into cuban waters. these drug smugglers attempt to outrun a cuban government patrol boat. after the cuban crew threatens to open fire, the smugglers throw their contraband into the ocean. just in october, cuban border guard officials say they confiscated enough drugs to fill two whole trucks.

smugglers trying to sneak boat loads of marijuana and cocaine past cuban controls and into the united states have become an increasingly common occurrence over the past year, cuban border guard officers tell us. in this last period, there has been an increase, he tells me, we've deteched 40 vessels that were suspicious or smuggling drugs, as well as the drugs that have been recovered. under close guard by special forces troops, cuban officials unseal the secure facility where they have stored the seized drugs. nearly three tons' worth, they tell us. we're going to walk in right now. you see from floor to ceiling, bags and bags of marijuana that's been captured, either taken off boats that were coming through cuban waters, drug smuggling runs, or found, smugglers who would ditch the drugs in the ocean, or found

later and turned in. what i can tell you is that the smell of the drugs in this room is completely overwhelming. it's just overpowering. much if not all the drugs that cuban officials say they recovered were headed to the united states. 90 miles off cuba's shores. >> the capable forces that we have in the law enforcement community is not only a guarantee for the national security of cuba, but it's also beneficial for the national security of the united states. >> reporter: while the u.s. criticizes cuba on human rights and lack of multi-party elections, the state department acknowledge in their 2020 report on narcotics that cuba is not a major consumer, producer, or transit point of illicit drugs. this cuban government video obtained by cnn shows u.s. coast guard officials turning over drugs to the cuban border patrol that they recovered at sea to help with the prosecution of the

smugglers who were arrested by the cubans. but after the trump administration rolled back improved relations with havana, cuban officials say regular meetings with u.s. law enforcement agencies were canceled. the trump administration did not respond to our requests for comment. "despite this policy," she tells me, "cuba is willing to combat international drug trafficking. we have stopped tons of drugs from reaching the u.s." to make their point, cuban officials give us rare cuban officials heavy guard. to haul them by crane to this industrial furnace where packet by packet, they are incinerated. smoke signals the cuban government is sending to the

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