and for christmas, there's no greater gift than that because that is what all of this has been about. and it's still a struggle to be about the masks, the social distancing, so that at some point, someday we can all hug our family and friends again and know all we can transmit is our love. dig into important topics and have in depth conversations at cnn.com/fullcircle or watch there or on the cnn app or any time on demand. news continue with chris, "cuomo news continue with chris, "cuomo prime time." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>two things, that guy william shakespeare is from the place william shakespeare was born. and you don't even know my brother. this christmas is going to bring out feels in you. your blue blood will boil when you are going through all of it with wyatt and seeing everything

through those eyes, those beautiful eyes looking at you. you will experience everything anew in a way you never imagined. love is going to come to you like you've never imagined. you'll see. color will come back to your hair. >> that would be a blessing. i'll go for that. >> actually you're getting the reverse start. most parents you get gray hair because of your kid. you went into it that way. maybe it'll turn out better for you. anderson, you're the man. everybody, i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." the big news, 9-0. scotus kicked the idea of election fraud in pennsylvania to the curb. not one justice on the high court, including the three nominated by trump, could justify reviewing the arnt trump ri before them. no conservative could offer even a word of support, not even i gnu

gnuly newly picked and prod amy coney barrett. guest barrett was swayed by a doctored photo of her straight out of "poeltergeist" or by thi courage whether it's legislature or legislators. let's see if they have the courage to do what everybody in the country knows is right. >> judges across country, conservative and liberal, don't see it that way. the republicans in charge in the relevant states don't see it that way. only him, the gang that couldn't sue straight, as jake tapper brilliantly coined, and the retrumplicans in congress. you've heard nothing from them

saying enough. so much for law and order, right? and to paraphrase aknee guo montoya, character from one of the greatest movies ever, "the princess bride." courage, you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. mr. trump, courage isinrare supply around you because no one seems to do what is courageous, to stand up for what is right, even when being afraid of being attacked. he doesn't mean courage. he means cowardice. trump wants fear of him and his base to motivate judges and others to do the wrong thing. it's not a crazy notion. it has worked for him politically. 88% of republicans in congress still will not admit who won this election. 88%. just hours ago, head of the senate mitch mcconnell punted on calling biden president-elect again, despite the fact that his home state of kentucky and as of

tomorrow, every state that any of those republicans represent, they all will have certified their votes. we're waiting on west virginia. 49 of the 50 states did so by today. west virginia's expected to do it tomorrow. that will mean the race is over. and if the electors vote as they should next week, biden will be the winner if inaugurated. why am i saying if, if, if? because i have a hard time trusting half of congress to do anything trump doesn't like. i honestly do. they've shown zero spine, zero. now, the law requires the electors to be submitted by the states as part of the certification process, which means as of today technically, safe harbor day, we should know if a state wanted to play at anything trump has suggested, putting up other electors. however, even under the law, congress can count whatever comes their way before they meet

next week. and it is hard to see the republicans, the retrumplicans standing up to trump. but that's okay because america has stood up to trump. 81 million of you outright and the institutions that back them up, namely the courts, all over this country, even the doj, even bill barr said, no, this isn't about fraud. i will keep arguing that the danger we face does not exit with trump. the retrumplicans who fear his return and covet his base are all in on the animus he harness. listen to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee fanning exactly those flames. >> there's a civil war brewing in georgia for no good reason. it's not unreasonable to ask the legislature to come back in and order an audit of the signatures in the presidential race to see if the system worked.

what is unreasonable is to sit on your ass and do nothing when you've got a chance to save the country. >> no. you don't mean save the country. you mean save your ass. georgia certified that vote three times over. civil war? seriously senator? do your words still come from your brain or just some reservoir of bile? graham's got plenty of company. did you see the tweets from arizona's republican party? it's calling on americans to die for trump. literally insighting violence on its official twitter clip, posting a clip from "rambo" the scene where stallone threatens to shoot a character in the face with an arrow along with this line from the movie, this is what we do, here we are, live for nothing or die for something. it was stupid in the movie. it's absurd and embarrassing as part of political dialogue.

do you know what it sounds like? exactly what joe mccarthy was pushing against the boogey man. mccarthy would have been a trumper. he was a diluted demagogue who justified talks of leverage. fear of others outside the country was the cold war in the '50s, the reds, their infiltrating us. infiltrating our institutions. his enemies within speech sparked nationwide hysteria, conspiracies. trumpers have taken it a step further now. now it is that the enemy within actually comes from within. we have seen the enemy, and it is us. remember that line? borrowed from the military in the war of 1813 but made famous by pogo, a cartoon character. the cartoon was about identifying the source of littering in nature.

now we're destroying everything that holds us together, not just the forests. how do we stop it? let's look to history. the mccarthy hearings, people are growing tired of the act, tired of being scared for no good reason. mccarthy went too far. he questioned loyalty in the u.s. army. that's when someone with true courage stepped in. army counsel joseph welch in 1954. >> you have done enough. have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? have you lost no sense of decency? >> it worked. it's what people were feeling and thinking. they phrased that moment. republicans went bad on mccarthy, censured him. that was then. now trump has the whole party in a place that is far scarier than anything mccarthy ever mustered. what will shake the retrumplicans free from their frenzy?

reality doesn't seem to be enough. record numbers in the hospital from covid, covid itself, the record number of dead, the record number of poor. maybe the restoration of decency -- because that's what we need, right? it's not about left or right. it's about being reasonable. being reasonable is about listening, being open. maybe that will come in the act of faith by one man, the man at the top. that's what joe biden, president-elect of the united states is banking on. today, he announced his plan for the first 100 days and showed the optimism, the decency that we need right now. >> my first 100 days won't end the covid-19 virus, but i'm absolutely convinced that in 100 days we can change the course of the disease and change life in america for the better. we didn't get into this mess quickly. it's going take time to fix. but we can do this. >> is his plan enough?

are his first big things that we'll discuss tonight with experts to stop covid, are they enough? i don't know. they warrant scrutiny. but the bigger question is whether or not he will be enough. what will be enough to shake these retrumplicans free? will their scotus 9-0 negation of the nugatory non-sense from trump about the election be enough. let's consult with david gregory and michael smerconish out with a new document, "things i wish i knew before i started talking." gentlemen, thank you. it's good to see you both. >> thank you. >> michael, let's go macro. what changes the state of play -- first, do you accept my premise that trump being gone does not mean retrumplicanism is gone? >> absolutely. i agree with that premise. and here's the big picture you're asking, the big picture question. how can they possibly still stand with him? the votes have been tabulated.

joe biden has a margin of about 7 million. the trump campaign has lost 50 plus litigation efforts. the supreme court rebuked today. how in the world in defiance of all this evidence can they stand with him? and the short answer, chris, is he's good for them. i mean, this is hard to wrap your head around, but the only republican that donald trump did not drag over the finish line is himself. they picked up seats in the house, arguably maintained control of the united states senate, gained the montana gubernatorial mansion, held on to their advantage with state legislatures. so, there's no merit. there's no ethic involved in any of this. it is pure partisan winning, losing, self-preservation. he brings out the vote. and that's why they're not prepared to walk away. >> is there any sense within that phalanx of the right that, yeah, we won those seats. smerk is right, but we won trha

despite trump. it was his way that was rejected by all those people. is there any sense that could manifest itself? >> maybe eventually but we're not seeing it yet. even an unpopular president, which trump was, didn't cause that because he had such a choke hold on the base of his party, his version of the republican party. and that's what he's got now. you know, i spoke to somebody this week who's familiar with his thinking, senior republican who said, look, this whole election fraud business has been part of the fermment of the republican party for a long time, but not to this extent, not this level of absurdity. but it's always been there, especially in the grass roots. whether trump even believes it i think is irrelevant. i don't think he does according to this person that i spoke to. but what's clear is that he -- just like birtherism, claiming that our first african-american

president wasn't born in the united states, which was a lie. it was a racist lie. that propelled trump into a position to run for the presidency. now, this idea of, oh, the election was stolen from us. it's all part of the deep state and the democrats. that is setting up his potential run in 2024 -- rather in -- yeah, 2024. >> yeah, 2024. >> at least giving an opportunity to freeze the party and what smerconish said, which is to keep a chokehold over the party, those in power and those who want to seek the presidency again. i don't see that changing unless he just fade asway. >> so, how bad does it get, though, michael? you see this thing from the arizona state party. people are saying it's just twitter. i don't buy that. a state party puts out a tweet echoing the sentiment that, you know, go full rambo on this. i didn't take it as a joke. i don't think they intended it as a joke. >> yeah, i think that's vile.

i mean, it's one thing to go and pursue every legal remedy. i'm for that. if they think they've got something that they can assert in a court of law, go do it. that's what the process is there for. but what you referenced with regard to arizona is the sort of thing that makes me worried somebody's going to get hurt because, you know, there are a lot of folks out there who are not playing with a full deck who listen to this sort of thing and act on it. look at what happened with governor whitmer in michigan. so, that's really the troublesome aspect of this. >> so, david, now we look at -- what's the counter? the counter is biden. now, if they lose these seats in georgia, if the republicans win them, this is it. state of play stays just as it is right now. or what? what could biden do if he doesn't have control of both houses, david, to get something done, even ocn the pandemic? >> you know, i think it's very difficult. i think, you know, we can spend a lot of time talking about

biden's experience in the senate and being a washington insider and having relationships with mcconnell. but i think republicans are playing a much shorter game, and that game is, look, mccarthy said it. we talked about it on this program. if you've got a majority of republicans who believe trump was cheated, that the election wasn't on the up-and-up, then biden's going to have a hard time. obama faced this among republicans who wanted to block him at most every turn. and they did it. and biden saw that first hand. and i think he's going to face that now. i think he'll face it again. i think it's one of the reasons i think he's being careful on some of these picks for his cabinet, thinking about who he can get through. may have a problem over at the department of defense with his pick. so, i think on the pandemic, what he's got to do, he's got an opportunity here to work with republicans because they've really got legitimate light at the end of the tunnel. and i think that's different. i think the power of the

presidency to bring people around to behavior is greater than moving significant pieces of legislation. >> could the pandemic be his best leverage at least early on, michael? >> i don't think anything is his leverage. i have to say it this way, chris. if mitch mcconnell, having known joe biden for four decades, doesn't have the decency to pick up the telephone and say, known you a long time, congratulations. you got it done, you ran several times, god speed. even if he had a qualifier and say, if you're sworn in on january 20. but to not even make that call tells me that we're headed for merrick garland on steroids. i don't think anything gets done if republicans maintain control of the senate except perhaps a continued funding of the government. very bare bones. and i hope i'm wrong. >> i hope you're wrong too. thank you very much. appreciate you setting the table for us tonight.

>> thank you. here's something we can all agree on, right? this is killing us. this is killing. it's literally making us sick. it's literally taking away from our ability to control a pandemic. 15 million cases today. i know the numbers are noise. but this has never been worse. never been worse. so, also the day that president-elect biden rolled out his 100 day plan. like i said, it is open to criticism. is it ambitious enough? does it do what we wanted to hear on covid? did it learn the lessons of what we've seen with trump or not seen? thoughts from a former cdc director next.

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and yummy broccolini! (doorbell rings) thanks. (doorbell rings) thank you. ♪ is that my leotard? no. yes... ehh, you can keep it. as the uk became the first nation to vaccinate its citizens today, the u.s. had its own

first as well. but they were devastating milestones. we've now topped 15 million covid infections. the spread is accelerating. it took us five days to reach a million cases. back in september, it took almost a month. five days versus a month. hospitalizations, deaths are soaring, yet the president insists on lying to you about why covid is spreading. it's not that we're testing more. that's just a lie, a deadly lie. and he's lying about the election and what was supposed to be about the vaccine. joe biden is on task. he named a health team to combat the pandemic beginning with a three-point plan. in the first 100 days biden's focus will be on widespread mask use, issuing 100 million vaccine shots by mid-april and getting more kids back in school. part of that means getting

teachers vaccinated as soon as possible. let's bring in somebody who's going to analyze this like nobody else. dr. tom frieden. good to see you, doc. >> good to speak with you again. >> what do you think of biden's plan? what do you think of the big three points? >> i think it's definitely right in the right direction. and i was really encouraged to hear the president-elect level with the american people. this is not going to be quick. we didn't get into this mess quickly. we're not going to get out of it quickly. and we're focusing on the right things, protecting people with masks, getting our kids back to school. and when the vaccine becomes available, getting people vaccinated to that we can begin to really end this pandemic. >> all right. i get the vaccine part because that's about ramping up production and make sure it's there. i get the mask part because that's messaging. back in school seemed to leave out a huge piece for me. testing. you know, for all the trump ri surrounding testing, we don't

have enough, you still can't get them, they take too long to get back, they won't be accepted by hospitals or employers or schools. why wasn't testing one of the first big three? doesn't it matter as much as anything in terms of how we keep track of this? >> testing is important but it's only part of an overall strategy. first off, if you've got cases running rampant, you're never going to have enough tests. you have to take this with the one-two punch. first you knock it down with closures, mask wearing and measures that keep it from spreading so you get it down to manageable levels. right now in much of the u.s., it is just way out of control. as it gets down to those lower levels, then you can come in with the more strategic attack to stop cases from becoming clusters and clusters from becoming outbreaks. and you keep it at a low boil, a low simmer until the vaccine can come in, more and more people

can get vaccinated and we can reopen society. and while you do that, you protect our kids and our kid's education because that's so important. >> testing in schools is fundamental. one case in too many places shuts down an entire classroom if not an entire grade if not an entire school. him saying i want more kids in school, that's great. but it's all about the how. what can be done to get our schools looking at it more strategically, to use your word, because you've got cases among peop people. 18 to 22 is one of the highest-growing populations of case load. so, what do we do? >> first off, let's get esk subpoena. if you're talking pre-k through 8, there's less spread. keep kids with underlying conditions out and let them learn by distance. you look at your staff and teachers and others and if they've got underlying conditions you may need to allow them to participate by distance or on leave. for the other kids, you make

sure they can participate in person because we're exacerbating terrible inequalities in educational outcomes in our society. it's not just about covid. it's about all of us moving forward together, protecting our kids, protecting our health care workers, protecting our future by working together, staying apart. now, for the high schools and for universities, more complicated. but you can operate safely. you then have a little more flexibility to participate by distance to have more teleschool in those places and lose less of that educational progress that we need to be having. >> yeah, we've got to get more of the best ideas from around the country that are working, more resources. that speaks to oversight by the fed. let's see if they do it. you wrote a brilliant piece in the "wall street journal" about the vaccine hurdles. there's a lot in there about the good news but also how you manage the vaccine will make the difference in terms of time and depth of its effectiveness. what are the high points? >> well, big picture is vaccine

is coming. the news is better than we could have hoped. the level of efficacy is terrific. tens of thousands of people vaccinated, no serious adverse events. so, that's the good you innews, it's not here yet. we've got to double down on protection protocols so as many of us are still here when the vaccine becomes available. congress has got to pass the package that providing funds for the programs keeping our economy going that will allow vaccination programs to proceed because there's a need for at least $6 billion to get the vaccine out. it would be just pathetic if we got this great scientific discovery, this strategic investment of the government to get these new vaccines, this fortune that our bodies are pretty good at faithing covid, and the vaccine can really protect us. and we don't have the wherewithal to get it out to people. that would just be tragic. it would be a crime. so, we really need the congress

to pass the new package so that the program can go quickly and get to people so we can recover our health and protect our economy as well. >> dr. tom frieden, thank you so much for the insight. appreciate you. >> thank you. now what we need to do on covid obviously plays into the congressional relief bill. schumer, right, the senate leader for the democrats, is accusing mcconnell, of course the republican leader of the overall senate, of negotiation sabotage. a key negotiator takes us behind the scenes, senator joe manchin said he would come back, keep us in the loop so we can help motivate change. and he's here. a follow up also coming up after joe manchin. remember the raid we showed you last night, the home of the florida covid scientist. she says she wasn't fired. she didn't send that message. guess who agrees with her.

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to answer your question from social media, yeah, fredon did say the money we need for the vaccine to get to go out where it needs to go is tied up in the relief bill. so, if it doesn't get done, that part doesn't get done. there are three big economic sticking points within this covid relief fight. let's go through them right now. money for state and local governments. that's first up. the retrumplicans will tell you this is a blue state bailout, that liberals are using the pandemic to cover up for wasteful spending. revenue problems are getting hit harder in california and the northeast. they're also huge economic engines, they got hit harder,

they're tax pockets and population centers. if you look in the interior of the country, the density is different, which means you have less depth of devastation. it doesn't mean the people there aren't going hungry as well. the proof of that is that governors of both parties, red and blue, are arguing for it. why? primarily because of where the money goes. jobs. 13% of all jobs in this country, state and local government. it's not all faceless bureaucrats. it's not that deep state bs. these are the people that teach your kids, pick up your garbage, plow your streets, protect you, cops, firefighters, first responders. in terms of dollars we're talki talking about 9% of the gdp, more than airlines and auto makers combined. so, they matter. the so-called party of lower taxes is fighting this, but the reality is without it, the pandemic will be followed by massive tax hikes. that brings us to sticking point number two, direct payments.

why not get rid of the middleman and just give the money directly to you? the white house is playing games with this, offering a one-time $600 check in exchange for ending the $300 a week that people are getting in unemployment help. why? one is obviously cheaper. but then the argument is that you're incentivizing people not to work. two things. the idea that people would choose to not work can only be made by those who have never known any other option, okay? and we know for millions of americans, the last stimulus check was the difference between poverty and survival. survival is exactly what the third main sticking point comes down to. workplace liability protection. now, in other words, this is about making sure that you can't sue your employer if you get coronavirus at work. got to have it, mcconnell and co

say. why? because they're protecting the businesses. otherwise we're back to what we've seen early on, massive food shortages and skyrocketing prices. they'll tell you without some protection it's just too risky for plants and manufacturing facilities to stay open and keep the economy moving. they're right. whether it's meat processing plants, farm workers, health care heroes, too many are being asked to put their lives on the line just by going to work. but this protection does nothing for them. this isn't about how you keep the people who are keeping us safe safe. it's about protecting profits, the amount of money a company has to expect it's going to have to deal with in claims and litigation. they're big problems. big problems. that's before you get to this bizarre why senate republicans want to include a tax deduction for business lunches. we have more people going hungry in this country than any time since the great depression and you've got to take care of business expenses for

entertainment. that's the reality facing leaders like my next guest, joe manchin. joe, thank you senator for keeping your promise to come back and letting us know the state of play. did i get the sticking points? >> i don't know if i can say anything else, chris. you've covered it all. you did a heck of a good job too. >> you're in the room. where do things stand? >> i'm in the room. well, basically you've painted a really good synopsis of what we're dealing with. and first of all, this an emergency. ee it's an emergency. emergency means you need to do something now. at the end of december we lose all the lifelines for people, unemployment. and then they come back with an offer tonight that we're not going to give you any unemployment assistance. we're going to go ahead and the money we have, we'll give it to the people that already have a job and a paycheck. i want to help stimulate everything i can, but if i've only got x amount of dollars, don't you think the person that has nothing and their job's not

there for them and we made them close down their businesses need a little bit more help during an emergency to get through the first quarter of the next year, which is going on the most challenging time? we're just trying to put common sense. this is not hard, but basically if you put politics involved with egos on top of that, it makes it extremely difficult. and we've got to take that out. quit playing the game. we've got democrats and republicans that have been working together day and night for the last 3 1/2 to 4 week. we're ready to go. we're putting out language tonight section by section that you can see how we're trying to address. and basically the two big sticking points right now is you've got state and local aid, state and local assistance. and then you have liability. we need both. we need both. i'm a democrat telling you you need to protect the businesses to a certain extent. but you've got make sure that the people are responsible for safe workplace, that the workers have safe working conditions. but on top of that,

unemployment -- worker's compensation takes care of most of that, chris. >> right. >> if you work at meat packing or food processing, you've got worker's comp which prevents these wild schemes they're saying about wild type of suits, lawsuits that go on. what we're trying to protect from is the person that might have walked into the store and get a class action suit. >> right. >> so, these are basically basic things that this person has done in their establishment that they're not going to say i've got to pay $50,000 to defend myself but yet i haven't done anything wrong. i did everything the cdc told me to do. i've lived by osha standards, i've done everything right, but we just didn't know with this pandemic what this scenario was. so, it's kind of a moving target. there's a way to protect them and way to -- go ahead. >> no, go ahead. there's a way to protect them and what? please finish. >> there's a way to protect them. we're coming -- those lawyers we have are very smart people. democrats and republicans are working as we speak right now

forming language that does exactly what we need to do. but you can't give just blanket amnesty. you know that. >> right. >> then basically you lose all protections. >> you also don't have to do it right now? you know what i mean? that litigation is going to have to take time. those classes have to form, you have to see it. in terms of what's the emergency, what's you have to do now, given the business protection from litigation is not a now. now is giving people that $600 check, getting people who are looking for food, you know, money, dealing with unemployment. those are the circumstances. i don't understand mcconnell's urgency here. why is that something that has to happen now, but giving checks to individual families doesn't have to happen now? >> well, i think right now he's saying that he might never get another opportunity to do any of this. i think he will. joe biden's the most reasonable person. look and see. he's not going to let people sue the bah jesus out of people for

frivolous suits. the democrats aren't going to do that. we're going to make sure there's a balanced judicial system that makes the workplace safe and make sure people are held responsible. but we're not going to let our businesses collapse. that is not going to happen. this is exactly what he's thinking right now i believe. i'm telling him, if they don't make a deal with us now, if they believe that, they're never going to have a chance to fix it later. now is the time to work with us in the most compromising way. and we're willing to do that. and i think we'll get there. the other thing is basically they say we don't want to help any of the states because you mentioned blue state bailout. they're saying -- i said, an emergency is an emergency. if a state basically has shortfalls that they can't now provide basic services -- i'm talking about frontline services, essential services, 911, police, firemen, all the e essentials we depend on, they can't even hire them and make sure they're employed, you've got a big problem on your hands.

and we're saying that has to be protected. and all we're doing is making sure that there's a need. if they haven't had revenue loss and they haven't had excessive expenses on covid, on the covid pandemic, they're not going to get the money. if they have and they can show it and prove it, they're going to be held accountable for fraud and abuse. >> is there any chance to break out the vaccine money so that we can ramp up production of that? is there any chance that gets done as a stand alone? >> vaccines not going to have a problem. i don't think there's a democrat or republican no matter their politics would prevent the vaccine greting out the door. >> but it's caught in this bill. >> it's caught in this bill here but basically we're going to get this done. you've got to be -- you can't give up. be a supreme optimist. we're going to get this done. we're not going home. can you imagine a u.s. senator or congressman going home saying sorry, merry christmas to you if

you can have one. we're going home for christmas. if they do that -- i just can't believe it. i don't think anyone's that callus to do that. we're going to get something done. >> i hope you're right. senator joe manchin, again -- >> it's got -- we can't walk out, chris. you can't do that. you can't leave people with no -- unemployment tstops in december. we've got people in food lines longer than we've seen before. and these are not the people you see in food banks. goeft people losing their rent, being evicted. all this is happening at one time. and the 900 billion -- what i'm happy to see is first of all finally the president, mnuchin, everybody said okay that's the right number. 900 billion. we came to that agreement about two weeks ago. we found the spot where we thought everyone could agree on. we've got to move forward now and now we're putting the language to it. you'll be able to see tonight or tomorrow exactly how we want it to be spent. >> our time is your time. so, if you want to come here to make the case of what it is, what the sticking points are,

what the last point is, you want to bring somebody else on, whatever you want, this has to get done. we're here to inform. >> kres, you're doing a good job of evaluating what's happening. you are spot on when you mentioned at the front. it's basically now down to two items. it's basically on state and local aid and they need it. if there's an emergency, they need it. >> i hear you. >> as well as the people who need protection against just frivolous lawsuits. >> i got you. senator joe manchin. thanks very much. good luck, good luck. we'll stay on it. >> thank you. >> we'll get it done. >> i hope so. one of the reasons it has to get done is we have to take care of the people who are taking care of us, okay? we have to do that with the vaccine. we've got to make sure we take care of them. and we've got to make sure there's money for all the stress and strain. they are not doing the normal job. being this kind of capacity against the pandemic for awe year. that breaks you down. physically and mentally. mental health care for professionals, okay? you remember dr. lorna breen?

what just a beautiful example of humanity in action, top er physician, new york city, crazy pedigree, everybody thought she was amazing. she was helping. she was vivacious. she was doing it for the right reason. she was putting purpose to passion. and she dies by suicide out of nowhere in a frenzy of this fog of war against covid. her family says, this should have never happened. the address on your screen is a place to go to learn more about a bipartisan bill that's been out since the summer. will they make this part of the covid relief package? will they give money to our heros to make sure they get the help they need for their head, their heart and their body in this war to keep us alive? that's for you. now, i want to stay on this story about what happened in florida because i think it's a window into a kind of muscle of politics that is bringing us

down. has there been a covid cover up in florida? we showed you that raid last night on a fire data scientist's home, a whistleblower who think the governor has been trying to silence her and others. their developments tonight on that rebecca jones ins dent. we have a florida official who just resigned over that raid and the pandemic response by governor desantis. why? an exclusive next. now is the time for a new bath from bath fitter. every bath fitter bath is installed quickly, safely, and beautifully, with a lifetime warranty. go from old to new. from worn to wow. the beautiful bath you've always wanted, done right, installed by one expert technician, all in one day. we've been creating moments like these for 35 years, and we're here to help you get started. book your free virtual or in-home design consultation today. ...this one's for you. you inspired us to make your humira experience even better...

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i want to bring in, you remember this, the video from the raid. was the raid emblematic of political strong-arming by the governor and a cover-up of what is actually going on with covid in that state. allegations going on from the beginning. now an insiders understanding of what is happening in the state and government. we have with us now ron f lirvegs -- once life-long republican, he

resigned over what you saw and joins us exclusively. counselor, thank you very much. you were vice chairman of florida's judicial nomination committee. why was this too much? >> well, i watched the video when she tweeted it out after the incident happened. i could not believe what i was seeing. i knew who she was. i have been following her as an independent source of data after she was let go by the state. i saw that it was happening and i couldn't believe it. i read the search warrant. i couldn't believe what i was reading about how broad it was and what they were alleging as a supposed crime. i was outraged by the situation. and hearing the governor's spokesman come out saying he did not know anything at all about the raid and had no knowledge of it and nobody told him anything about it. which i found to be fantastical,

just not credible. >> you don't think that there is any way that the florida department of law enforcement does something like this and the governor's office does not know? >> rebecca jones has been a thorn in the governor's side throughout the whole pandemic. most people know who she is and what she is up to. i could tell you that, you know, she is not his favorite person. >> right. >> they have to know when they are going to do a raid on her like this it is going to make news and it is going to be big news. the idea that a small law enforcement agency reporting directly to the governor would do a raid on this without clearing it through the governor's office. there is no way. >> she said she didn't send a message that they were going to do the cyber crime.

speak up now. you know they are not telling the truth about covid. she said she didn't send it. but in terms of the meaning of the message, as an insider there within the government, you are aware that there were suggestion busy how reporting was handled from hospitals about cases, how reporting from schools was handled about cases. there have been allegations that the government hasn't been straight with the people there or with the country. what is your experience. >> well, that is what we have seen. you know, we watched the governor in his press conferences be abrasive and short with the media. we are really looking to people like miss jones and the media here in florida to give us and get us the facts. when something like this is done

it is not only meant to intimidate and silence miss jones but people inside the administration right now. >> well, that is another angle on the story, that they didn't take the router and other things they wanted to look at to see what ip addresses were communicating through their system, but they took the phone. >> exactly. >> that is a very dangerous look at someone's first amendment rights. do you believe your governor has been dishonest about the covid realities in your state? >> yeah. in may he was looking at an apology from the media because he conquered covid in florida when we all knew it wasn't the case. he claimed if there is a death with someone that dies of covid and they have a pre-existing condition it shouldn't count as a covid death. he said a lot of things like

that. his approval ratings in florida were in the lower 70s and they have taken a nosedive. specifically because of the way that he handled the pandemic. >> i know that speaking out against a member of your party is not only an act of courage but some would say an act of lunacy. i think if you are going to stand up for the right things it is worth taking whatever comes along with it. thank you for telling the truth in the situation down there and what your concerns are about covid and how the state government is handling it. i respect it and i appreciate you. if there is a backlash on this, let me know and i will take on the fight with you. >> all right chris, thank you. >> all right. be well. we will be right back. lp you ret liberty mutual customizes your home insurance,

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thank you for watching." cnn entertainment tonight" about the big star, d-lemon starts right now. >> how are you holding up.

living in reality? >> i am on the real 24/7 all day. my concern is that this relief bill is showing all the politics ats it ugliest. my fear is that you need the money to ramp up the vaccine now. operation warp speed was a ballsy move by the government and the president to get it going. they put money on the line that could have been lost, and it wasn't. $1.5 trillion they put up there. but they need more, now, to figure out what they have to do to get it to all of the different people they have to. remember, the vaccine only helps us when it reaches the 100 million people with id