it there and on the cnn app at any time on demand. i am chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. today is giving tuesday. i ask you to reach out in any way you can. the need out there is great. first, breaking tonight we just learned who may get the first access to a life-saving covid vaccine. a cdc advisory panel voting a short while ago 13-1 to recommend health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities be the first in line to get the shots when the fda authorizes one for emergency use. that may be later this month. now, the single vote against the recommendation came from a doctor concerned vaccine effects had not been studied yet in residents of long-term care

facilities. only one vote. concerns about the vaccine's safety and readiness are shared by many in this country and most say we are about split on taking the vaccine. for those anxious f, the first shipments of pfizer's vaccine will be delivered on december 15th. and the moderna vaccine is december 22nd, two and three weeks away. but it will be many months before we have enough herd immunity to make that vaccine really work. the period between now and then could be the worst of the pandemic. cases are only growing. a million new cases a week. 2,300 deaths a day. unimaginable that we had that

many. now it is more than double that. so forget your fatigue. face your reality. the worst is likely yet to come. what do we need, leaders and money. we need people to be told the truth. that is leadership. they need to be given tests and resources to stay safe. that is money. most of all they need cash in their pocket to survive the rest of the pandemic. can you believe today was the first meeting between lead negotiators on a relief bill for you since october? shame on them all. we pledge on cuomo primetime we will stay on the process soup to nuts, not just the big equipments, but the spaces in between. who is resisting. is it a good argument or a bad one. it matters. here is the latest offer, 908 billion. that sounds humongous -- that

doesn't include a second round of stimulus checks. one good sign is that our president is no longer just tweeting about poverty. by president i mean president-elect joe biden. he is directly pushing congress to make a deal while unveiling his economic recovery team. >> the full congress should come together and pass a robust package for relief to address the urgent needs. my transition team is already working on what i will put forward in the next congress to address the multiple crises we are facing. our message to everybody struggling is this, help is on the way. >> the scale and the scope is the biggest we have seen since the depression and i argue the motto of that time applies every bit as much as today. relief. reform. refer.

families need money in pocket in addition to programs. that is the relief. we do need to reform the response to the pandemic. testing. figuring out the best way to keep our kids in school can't be that one class is shut down by one case. it does not make sense. there has to be a better and smarter way. then and only then will we recover once the vaccine cuts the spread. what does it take? it takes a deal. can there be a deal with the party of trump? mcconnell still won't acknowledge biden will be president in just 50 days and literally refused to do so again today and also said this. >> we don't have time for messaging games. we don't have time to waste time. >> how does he say it with a straight face? that is the part that i admire.

how? he has done nothing but slow walk the relief and he knows it. he has told people there will be no deal. with a straight face he just lies to you. remember, remember. remember who did and didn't do what mattered in this moment. now the second big development today will remind mcconnell that he was once a man, not just a mannequin. that development, as we saw in the lion king the hyenas are starting to circle. the attorney general who weeks ago lent credence to the ballot bs trump was conning you about. and that will be a big part of trump's legacy, the conjob to stab taj the transition may solidify his place as the greatest maericon president we

have ever had. now barr is trying to resurrect morale leadership and told the ap there is no evidence to support the widespread fraud lie. attorney general barr, he says no evidence of fraud that could have changed the election. do you hear that? on the same day barr said that a judge forced his department of justice to tell us something else. they are investigations allegations of people seeking to bribe their way into pardons. that comes out as rudy giuliani and others are asking for pardons. question is for what? talk about a guilty conscious.

"new york times" reports along with the giuliani pardon, trump discuss with advisors to grant preemptive pardons to his kids, ivanka, don jr. and eric and son-in-law, jared. he wants to excuse them for things before anyone says there is an investigation. bad news for trump translates into good news for the drama finally ending around the transition. now we can finally focus on the pandemic trump all but ignored. now more on the breaking vaccine vote from the cdc, the acting director. good to see you doctor. >> good to see you chris. >> priority, 13-1, health care workers and nursing home

recipients. hospital workers, essential workers, medically fragile and then them. >> i think that it makes a lot of sense. i worked with the advisory committee. the group that advises on immunizations and who should get them. as a pediatrician i always looked at them for guidance. what they have done here, the first here looking at health care workers. we need to make sure that it is safe in order to take care of all of the people there coming down with covid and medical issues unrelated to covid who need care. if you look at it as two has the greatest burden in terms of mortality. one is keeping society and our health care system going and the

other addresses the issue of who is dying in the pandemic. >> 1 of the 14-person panel, one doctor said that we don't know how it works on old people. we have not seen testing of any vaccine that we know of on the population. is a reservation warranted? >> normally what would happen is that the fda would do their work first and they would review all of the data coming in sand they would make a decision do we license it or not. we don't know for sure these will be approved. who should get them. that is twhapd here. it may be in the work that the fda does that they can say look,

when we look at the studies they gave the vaccine to x thousands of people over a certain age. we think it will be good in that population. they could come back saying we want you to conduct different studies. >> now let's take it a step deeper. that is what the federal guidance is. i did digging around because you had so many cases here. they might not get enough doses this month. that is enough to immunize 20 million people, not enough to cover the health care workers and nursing homeworkers in phase

one. it does not mean you can fulfill the entire population. what kind of choices? >> they will have to make tough choices. there will not be enough vaccine to reach those two high priority groups. states have been working on this. it is only a recommendation. there is nothing legally binding them to that. as we have seen throughout the pandemic there is a desperate need of leadership from the top in terms of recommendations. this will give them work in terms of planning. i serve on the restart and the recovery commission here in new jersey. they are talking about the importance of equity and as you look at distributing vaccines to people in health care or long-term facilities, are you going to be making sure it is getting to communities of color hit so incredibly hard by the pandemic. or will it be in the wealthier

neighborhoods, those with better connections? >> we will have to keep an eye on that and that will not be easy. i understand operation warp speed is legendary in terms of the speed of doing this and putting the money up front when it could have failed. that was a ballsy move to use indelicate language. there are complaints the fda is taking too long to approve the vaccine since pfizer applied for their emergency use administration on november 20th. what do people need to understand about the timing of authorizations? a lot of people are concerned that things are going too fast. one thing about fda, they are known for doing their due

diligence. a lot of countries will take company data and go with that on their approval. fda scientists will do their own analysis and sometimes they don't agree. we need to let the fda do this. if people think the process is politicized, nobody will want the vaccine. we need the fda to look at it carefully and let us know the honest truth and if some people feel there is additional data needed or if they are able to show they can manufacture them to scale then we have to go slower than we are currently going. >> luckily trump did not poison the vaccine the way that he did masks. some people have misgivings about if trump wasn't behind it can we trust it. we will take it one step at a

time. now in terms of the real challenge, going forward the idea is that we will just distribute it. i am told on the state and the federal level that we give out 80 million vaccines a year here. we have never done anything like this. >> these vaccines have storage requirements. the pfizer vaccine requiring temperatures of minus 90. we are going to need to track people to have someone starting with the pfizer vaccine. it is the same vaccine.

logistically that is all really, really challenging. as it is going on there will be more vaccines likely that come on market. >> what happens if you get the first one and do not get the second one for whatever life brings? >> you know, typically a company will look at it and they will have people in vaccine trials that only get one dose. you can look at protective levels. i will expect with one dose that there is some level of protection and then you get more protection that lasts longer. that is one of the unanswered questions because of how fast they are being done and how short the period of follow up is. one thing the fda is asking for is following the people in the trials for many months if not years for long-term issues and side-effects and how long the protection lasts. >> how long the protection lasts is one question. the last question is how soon does it start working?

>> initial results, you be, company data. initial results we are showing protective levels seven days after the second dose. there is probably some protection after your first dose. but my biggest concern right now is that people are hearing the news thinking we are out of the woods. that means we do not have to do the things driving everyone nuts. you know, i hope it does not take pressure off of congress. if you are not putting money in peoples' pockets. keeping peoples' utilities on, this pandemic will be a debacle in the winter as more and more people get affected. >> doctor, thank you very much. >> thanks, chris. >> a breakthrough on the horizon

economically. how about that piece the doctor was talking about. relief to millions of americans. more people. hungry. more than any time since the great depression, 50 million people. we have one of the senators behind the new bipartisan bill in the senate. not a sure thing but the senator from west virginia wants to make the case next. d'shea: i live in south jamaica, queens,

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>> we have not seen anything like it in a generation. i can't believe it is not all that people talk about. look at the number of people going hungry in america. i mean how do you explain it? you can't pass it off as the poor people, they don't want to work the way that we do.

it is families that have been displaced by economic hardship from the pandemic all across the country, red and blue states, twhi white families, every color, every creed. >> just surviving. that is all i can say. you just have to survive it. >> i haven't been working since december. can't find a job. they cut off my unemployment. >> we have kids and don't have money to support them. >> all of us. for the first time in too long those elected to take care of the people that you see there are talking about doing something. that includes a word we have not heard in a while, bipartisanship. you need two sides to make a deal and a culture that seems to reward opposition more than anything else.

can they get a deal done. good to see you senator. >> good to see you, chris. >> is it true the lead negotiators have not talked since october? >> well, i am not go to speculate on what they have not done or what has happened. we don't have anything in front of us. about three weeks ago a group of us came together saying we are not going home during the christmas break if we have to face the people who you said are hungry and having a hard time keeping a roof over their heads. let's look at what the needs are. this is truly an emergency relief covid package through april to april 1. december 1 through april 1. we are entering the most

challenging times of the covid pandemic we have ever seen. >> so, your party says no, joe. you are only go to get one bite at the apple. even though $900 billion is a ton of money to the rest of us, less than the white house offered in october and way less than the democrats need and doesn't have money for checks directly to family. that is why there is only five of you behind the bill and not 45. >> on the senate side we have about ten senators evenly split. many more wanting to become involved. you look at everything people will be losing, food assistance, all of the lifelines we have.

you tell me someone in a right mind can go home leaving people in that type of memory. we are doing all we can right now to find the middle ground and the necessities that we need. we have $26 billion for nutrition. i have been watching your show. you are showing lines and lines of people. not the typical people that are going hungry. >> why not checks to families? we are trying to get someone that everyone can agree on, the emergency needs that we have right now. joe biden will be our

president-elect. the president as of january 20th. when that happens he can come back and determine we need to do that. right now we are just trying to get things out the door. we have the republicans stuck around $500 billion, not repurposing the money from the cares package. >> why wasn't the money spent? >> $300 billion is what it takes for an extension to the stimulus package as far as checks to everybody. joe biden might decide to do that. right now we are just trying to get a group of democrats and republicans together. >> you said there is a lot of money that hasn't been spent. why not? >> basically there was $128 billion of ppp money.

>> payroll protection. >> payroll protection. we will reappropriate that. we put another 160. the total amount will be $300 billion when we are done. >> you understand what i am asking, a lot of people say it was too hard to get that ppp. i tried to get online. the software didn't work. couldn't get connected. they never got the money. that need still exists. >> a lot of people did. >> we are forgiving loans of $150,000 or less and we are changing the things where we know we made mistakes. we saw the people that we had and the hardships they went through and a lot of people getting money that shouldn't have gotten it. a lot of large corporations. we are trying to close all of the loopholes, chris. doing everything we can to make sure that small needy

businesses. restaurants, outdoor dining, can't do that in the north. we have that. we have a lot of people. we have stages. entertainment. they are not go to make it. you can't wait until february for joe biden to come in to try to save us. they won't make it. >> agreed. you know that i respect you trying to get deals done. but i would not sleep all together on the shame game. you say this is an emergency and we have to get it done. that is true but it has been an emergency for months and the head of the senate said we don't have time to waste. you know he has refused to do anything on this. he slow walked it all along. why is it an emergency now? 200,000 more dead. crazy unemployment. that wasn't enough but now it is an emergency. >> leading up to the election, everything was trump, but

politics. election was coming up. everybody was playing who does it help or harm more. how can we blame somebody else. maybe that is the way that politics are played. peoples' lives are at stake. we have not done anything for quite a while. every bill you have seen, the house passed $3.2 trillion. they went down jaufadjusting it $2.2, stuck with mnuchin and the white house. mitch mcconnell put it down at $1.8 trillion at the end of july. we are excused and go home for august, which we should have never left here. we come back and he starts over at $500 billion. he went from $1.1 to 500.

that is supposed to be in good faith. nothing happened since then. >> i know. >> chuck schumer said if you can get people together, do it. if you can do it, do it. i appreciate that. we did. we have republicans and democrats truly, truly trying to get something done as quickly as we can. >> they are going to tell you not to travel anyway. senator, you are right about the urgency. i make you this offer that is guaranteed. i will give you a platform on the show every week to come on and just tell us the state of play. what is helping, hurting, what are the sticking points so people know. okay. >> let me tell you this, chris. for the last three weeks all through the thanksgiving break

we were on the phone five, six, seven hours a day. trying to work through the differences. too much. not enough. you are not taking care of the people that are hungry and losing their place of inhab tantan itting. we are trying to bring all of this together. >> keep telling them. keep telling them. it will be a tough sell. the number will be a tough sell on the right. imagine it was your family. keep saying that. you will have the platform every time that you want to tell us the state of play. >> chris, we are not ruling the checks out. hopefully they will come after joe biden is our president and

leads us to better times. >> on that everybody can agree. senator, again, i will invite you on every week to tell people how it is going. >> i will come, chris. thank you. >> thank you, sir. be well. look, you have to work all sides of the situation. you have to get the platform so they can get the attention for what they are trying to motivate. come on. make the case. because the status quo is killing us. not enough, too much money. people are hungry in this country. also developing in washington, an alleged bribery for presidential pardon scheme. did someone try to pay off the white house? and why did a judge need to force the information out of the hands of the department of justice so the rest of us could know it. the former attorney of the southern district up next.

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interesting bit of news, the department of justice was forced to tell you about something as troubling as it is timely. the d.o.j. is actively investigating a bribery scheme focused on obtaining a pardon from the president. a judge ordered the release of 20 pages from the case. a lot is redacted. this is a clear indication from the court that people need to know this is afoot. what can we tell? there is a "secret lobbying scheme and bribery conspiracy that offered a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence. let's dig into this. interesting that the judge wanted it out. this has been going on since the

summer. how does it conflate or combine with what we are hearing of rudy and trump's plans for his own family? >> i would be surprised if they are directly related to rudy. he has other reasons why he might want to give a pardon to rudy giuliani. the scheme that you are describing is on behalf of the person that needs to pay. as you can see from the order from the judge, this thing was written on or about august 28th of the year. i think because the department of justice thought it was sensitive relate to people not yet charged. perhaps because there was a concern that such a revelation in the days before the election

would violate policy. i think the judge was just doing her job. she is a well respected judge in d.c. the documents filed in court are public. i would not read more into it other than she is doing her job. >> right. i don't know how sensitive that they are about it. what did you make of his disclosures today? this man has bent over backwards to protect trump. today says no proof of anything fraudulent that would have changed the election. he has to have known the

president would not have liked it. allies of the president are attacking bill barr because it is seen as a betrayal. on this network with our colleague wolf blitzer, i expect thousands and thousands of ballots will be cast with no proof. in the face of what he knows the president wants and what rudy giuliani et al, i think it is a deliberate thing for him to have done and tells you how weak the president's arguments are about fraud in all of these states. he appointed a special counselil status with the russia

investigation, giving him additional ability not to be relieved of the duty when the white house changes hands in january. >> why is he not able to be relieved? >> i think it makes it a little bit harder and people are trying to figure out if he did it correctly under the regulations. special counsel is supposed to come from outside the department of justice. that is what happened with bob mueller. >> right. i think that there are ways you can do it this way. it makes it harder if it was done appropriately, a special counsel is entitled to serve on the job unless there is good cause to remove him. the attorney general would need written reasons to congress and the public as to why the person is being removed and gives an extra measure of protection in bill barr's head with respect to

john durham. >> is there an innocent reason to ask for a preemptive pardon. >> that is a great question. presumably someone like rudy giuliani knows well the southern district of new york is not going to bring some b.s. charge they can't prove and don't have a good faith reason to believe they can prove. someone like rudy giuliani who has been a lawyer for a long time and prosecutor before that has to understand that to have a need for a preemptive pardon must means you feel you are in some form of jeopardy. he knows what he has done. knowing those two things, if the

report suggest correct he is asking for a preemptive pardon from the president of the united states. >> lucky for him he is asking the right guy. these are remarkable times. i keep saying remember. i am just saying that if you want things to get better, you can't turn a blind eye to an outgoing president waging war and trying to sabotage democracy. my mentor has lived through and covered all kinds of catastrophes. next. in just a few months, we've learned a lot more

about the covid-19 virus. it's real. and it's dangerous. so, on behalf of all of us working on the front lines, please take it seriously. and while we don't yet have a cure or a vaccine, we do know how to keep you

and your loved ones safe. wear a mask. wash your hands. stay six feet apart. do your best to stay out of crowded spaces. and get a flu shot, it's even more important this year. we can do this. if we do it together.

breaking news out of the white house. outstanding president trump held a christmas reception during covid. many attendees not wearing masks. that will be his legacy, someone coughing. that is not even the headline. now what matters, trump delivered this line to his guests. "it has been an amazing four years." we are trying to do another four years. otherwise, i will see you in four years. now that is very important. even if it is a tease, it gives you a window into why these retrumplicans are so afraid. what do we do about it? legendary former abc news anchor, sam donaldson. how are you doing? >> fine, as smart as i know.

in 14 days we will know. but as far as i know i am okay. >> what are we to do after an unprecedented people by people in the party where they sat silent. how do you cover that going forward? >> the way that men and women have done for the past four years, increasingly towards the end of the trump era. that is call a lie a lie. ask why he lies and ask him to explain it and to be very aggressive. the presidents that i covered were gentlemen. they never said to my face i should be fired or a disgrace to the networks. they may have thought it but never said it. but the men and the women that had to deal with donald j. trump

had something as unprecedented in our history. give it to him and give it to his enablers. they have to come to the lord if the republican party will be reconstituted, and i hope it will be. >> when you hear the line from him tonight, i will see you in four years. >> first of all, i don't think he will be back. he will be back in talking about the lie that he was cheated out of it. he may say i am going to run again. don't you think that all of those young men of the party are going to say oh, yes. we will wait. no, no. the republican party can reconstitute itself. i hope it is. we need two strong parties. the first thing it needs to do is cut ties with donald j. trump. that will be difficult because

the republican base is his base though it has to be done delicately. you have to keep the man away from any influence from the standpoint of reconstituting your party. they made deals with the democrats. the democrats made deals with them. and when jimmy carter left office we had less than $1 trillion of national debt. since accide since? both parties have cut the taxes and the tooth fairy is not available to pay for it. you want highways, bridges, air system and defense, you and i have to pay for it. it is called taxation. the republican party, they are not interested in fiscal

integrity. they are interested in wealth, money for the rich. >> don't you see mcconnell not wanting to do relief. isn't that a nod to not doing anything the boss does not tell him to? >> i think mcconnell is playing a very interesting game called georgia. let's get those two republican senators back. if i don't get both back i am no longer the majority leader. he is not even thinking formally trump is not the president-elect. the same goes for the stimulus. you would think mcconnell having a stimulus bill amounting to something, the trump administration is not too bad. that might be my tactic but nobody is asking. >> sam donaldson, i need you back on a regular basis so people can understand the right

way forward. that still matters. >> i will come when called. >> thank you. we will be right back. we're all putting things off, especially in these times. but some things are too serious to be ignored. if you still have symptoms of crohn's disease

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needtoni(doorbell rings)ting crab cakes with spicy aioli. thank you. can we be besties, simone biles? i guess? yessss! should we dismount now?

today is giving tuesday. more than 50 million americans are going hungry. we have not seen anything like it since the great depression. it is a struggle we are seeing everywhere, all over the country. in your backyard and mine. in the very church where christina and i got married. in that basement is where heart of the hamptons dos it work. we got married and lived for so many years. volunteers work it and have been hit with need the likes of which never seen. they store all kinds of food, canned goods. 2019, they gave out 65,000 meals. as of this year, right now, they are at 175,000.

imagine how many more need help in the coming weeks with the holidays, back packs for school. these nonprofits are being stretched thin and need help from us to give to others. i want you to see the work they are doing. music in the background is all part of keeping the spirits up. >> there is so much of a need out here that we are having to purchase a tremendous amount of food. previous to the pandemic, we were serving about 350 unduplicated households. we have seen a 300% increase in demand for our services. the important thing is that we need the funds to be able to keep up the pace for the community.

the folks that are getting the food are not, you know, toothless, you know, homeless people or whatever. it is every day americans like us. we are all just one tragedy away from needing services that heart of the hamptons provides. part of the reason we don't have photography or video of our food lines or drone images because we live in a small community. we support a video like this. >> i love that. i love that. he wouldn't put people like that on video. that is my brother from another.

can't fish worth a damn but he is always working, doing god's work in the community. there are people like him all over the country. learn more about how you can help. go to their website, heartof thehamptons.org. cnn.com/impact. remember, when you give, you always get more in return. thanks for watching cnn tonight with d-lemon starts now. we live in the same community. we know hilton. don has been a friend. also a helper for heart of the hamptons. >> he is a good guy. why do you want to call himut on his fishing? every time someone hears the hamptons.