need. may they rest in peace and may their memories be a blessing. thanks very much for watching, i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. you can follow me on twitter and instagram @wolfblitzer. erin burnett out front starts right now. out front next, unhinged, that's how one republican aide describes the president, vetoing one bill and may scuttle another on his way out the door. is it worse than we know? breaking news, hospitalizations reach a record high. team trump's repeated and false claims about a voting company's role in the election the president lost. tonight an employee is in hiding after being targeted by trump allies. he is our guest. let's go "outfront."

>> i'm kate bolduan in for erin burnett. president trump calling for a special counsel to investigate his allegations of widespread voter fraud in 2020 election. tweeting from aboard air force one this, i disagree with anyone who thinks a strong, fast and fair special counsel is not needed immediately. do you know who disagrees with trump? the man who served as his attorney general until today, the man who would have appointed a special counsel if he saw any reason at all to do so, but he did not. >> if i thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, i would name one, but i haven't and i'm not going to. >> this is just another part of trump's chaotic exit from washington this evening, landing in florida moments ago to spend christmas at his mar-a-lago resort and leaving a disaster in his wake. a mess so big that one

republican aide told cnn he's coming unhinged. the president vetoing a massive defense bill on his way out of town, a bill with overwhelming support from his own party, a bill that authorizes pay raises for his own military. republicans are looking the see if he'll do the same to the government funding and covid relief bill. the scariest part of that threat is that the president doesn't even seem to know what's in the bill. white house officials acknowledging to cnn that trump himself had not received a detailed briefing on the package. why not? perhaps he was too busy with the meetings we keep talking about, meetings with conspiracy theorists egging on the president on his misguided and dangerous attempt to overturn the election. if the president had read the bill, he wouldn't be complaining. a lot of his complaints are about what he actually asked for in his own annual budget. for instance, trump claimed about $85.5 for assistance to

cambodia. his budget proposal listed $82.5 million. trump went on to complaining about $40 million for the kennedy performing arts center in washington. trump's budget proposal, $40 million for the kennedy center. he kplapd about $154 million for the national gallery of art. trump's budget proposal, $161 million for the institution. i could go on. instead of reading the bill, because clearly he did not, the president is continuing to pursue dead ends to overturn the election and failing to do anything other than create chaos. today the president invited pennsylvania's entire republican senate caucus to the white house for lunch, still clinging to his impossible dream that they can somehow overturn the results of the election in the commonwealth. they can't. the president is also sending misguided message to his own

white house staff. the white house management office telling staff in an email to disregard a previous email with detailed information about their last days in the white house, giving the impression, of course, that they will be there beyond january 20th. they won't. and on top of that, according to "the new york times," the president is now turning on his closest allies, even on vice president mike pence because he thinks pence should be doing more to defend him. the thing is, if even mike pence won't defend the president here, the president should probably understand that there may be nothing to defend. because, in case you've forgotten, pence has spent the last four years doing everything he can to defend donald trump. >> in president donald trump i think the united states once again has a president whose vision, energy and can-do spirit is reminiscent of president teddy roosevelt. >> i'm deeply humbled as your vice president to be able to be here. >> i couldn't be more proud to

stand alongside this president. >> john harwood is out front tonight at the white house. john, why did the president veto this defense bill that his own party overwhelmingly supported? >> reporter: kate, the stated reasons are two. one, that he wanted the bill to contain the repeal of a provision of communications law that shields internet companies for liblt from things third parties pay about them. he thinks big tech is out to get him and he wants to strike back. that's unrelated to defense. the defense-related reason is the defense authorization act contemplates the renaming of military bases to get rid of confederate heroes who they were named after. the president, who has made racist appeals a big part of his political campaigns in the past wants to stop that. he doesn't want the confederate bases renamed. the larger reason is that he's

in psychological distress. the president cannot handle the blow to his psyche and his reputation of losing this election to joe biden. so he is thrashing about, pretending he didn't win, launching, as you said, these crazy schemes to try to stop it and lashing out at people who recognize the reality that he lost. that includes mitch mcconnell who shepherded this covid relief and only bus spemnibus spending. the president might actually try to take down covid relief and trigger a government shutdown. we don't know he's going to do that. washington is a mess right now. the reason washington is a mess is because donald trump is a mess. >> and he just skipped town. let me get over to phil mattingly. where john just left off, republicans overwhelmingly supported the defense bill, the government funding and covid relief bill we've talked so much

about. what are they going to do about this? >> reporter: on the former, republicans you talked about are all in on overriding the president's veto of the defense authorization act. one place republicans feel comfortable, if they're going to buck the president is on defense issues. from senate majority leader on down they made clear they plan to override this veto and it looks like they will be able the do it. they've already teed up the process to do that next week. they knew this was coming. on the covid relief piece, it's more just keep their heads down. i've seen it play out multiple times over the course of the last four years where the president goes through something like this, and republicans decide it's better to just leave him be and hope he works his way out of it and kind of comes back to them. in the end, the reality over the course of the last 18 hours, i guesses, the most fascinating thing is how few people know anything about what's going on right now including some former

allies -- close allies to the president. he's obviously in a feud right now with senate majority lead are mitch mcconnell because of his willingness to acknowledge that joe biden is going to be the president-elect. mcconnell is often on the phone vie privately, without anyone knowing, walking the president to an area that republicans are more comfortable with. mccarthy in a private conference call with house republicans saying the president did not commit to vetoing the covid relief package but was unhappy with it. i think the big question now, and mccarthy didn't give details as to what happens next, is just that, what happens next? nobody knows and there are very real deadlines in play. >> it's unbelievable but also i guess not at this point. out front with me tonight, abby phillip, cnn political correspondent and former republican congresswoman nia

love. david gergen, what is the president trying to accomplish with any and all of this. >> i think he's first and foremost desperately trying to hold on to power. he's going to cling to the curtains in the oval office until the last second on january 20th. he realizes his power is draining away. i think his second objective is to keep himself in the news. i think he intentionally wants to make these pardons which have grown increasingly controversial if he named his kids and named himself, to create alternative and competing stories so you don't have a three or four days or a week of focus on the pardons. you spread that out. i think that's partly what he's doing with these domestic bills and what he's doing as he beats a potential work-around with iran. >> congresswoman, as david was saying, one thing we know is that the president wants desperately to keep control of the republican party.

but i'm wondering your perspective on, if he's desperate to do that, is driving a wedge within the party the way to go about it? >> this is something i'm all too familiar with. when i was serving in the house of representatives and the president was in the white house, they would tell us all the time, whenever there was a major bill coming up, we don't want to push anything forward that the president isn't going to sign. this happened on immigration. the president said put one in front of me. we did that. he started hearing a lot of things from a whole lot of people and then he turned his back and said, i never said i would sign this. kevin spoke to the president. kevin speaks to the president all the time. this is the minority leader in the house. mitch mcconnell speaks to the president all the time. i don't think anybody should be baffled that the president turned his back and said i'm not going to sign this. this is par for the course for me.

i've seen this happen one too many times. >> abby, to add to that, trump is even complaining about mike pence, that he isn't fighting enough. and jared kushner has told people, according to the times, that the president is his children's grandfather. one o of the eternal questions remains. are there seriously no adults left in the room? >> well, there are certainly no adults left who the president wants to listen to. i think we should be very mindful of the fact that according to our reporting in "the new york times" and other outlets, last week on friday when the president had that unhinged meeting in the oval office about ways to overturn the election and posited naming sydney powell as a special counsel, a lot of other people in that room including people who have actually been supportive of his efforts to overturn the election disagreed with that. then just a few minutes ago, as he was landing in mar-a-lago, he

resurfaced this idea of a special counsel. it really does suggest that the president continues to push back against people who are around him who might disagree with his more outlandish ideas. his circle is getting smaller and smaller as the days go on. as long as that happens, we're in for a really bumpy ride here. the president is only listening to a few people, and they're the ones telling him exactly what he wants to hear and also telling him things that are outside the bounds of our democracy and outside of the bounds of things that are appropriate for him to do. so i think this is getting more extreme and not less. >> let me add one more to that, abby. as you wellpoint out, the callout for special counsel again, adding one more to that, david, tonight the president was also tweeting about the rocket attack against the u.s. embassy in bagdad pointing to iran as being responsible. part of the tweet he says some

friendly advice to iran, if one american is killed, i will hold iran responsible. think it over. i'm sitting here with 28 days left in the trump administration in military conflict with iran, the final 20 days of his presidency, what would that add to this chaos? >> i think bottom line here is the next 28 -- we're entering the most dangerous period in the trump presidency in the next 28 days. bill barr has left as attorney general. we'll have an enaa new acting attorney general. jeffrey rosen can order all sorts of things on the pardon front. this iranian question is really serious. tensions have been building, as you well know, and we're approaching a point, january 3rd, which is going to be the

first year anniversary when we took out soleimani and it caused such tensions between the u.s. and iran. now the iranians are sending rockets in bagdad toward the u.s. embassy. they haven't really hurt anybody. trump is warning them, if he needs it, if he wants it, he'll have a pretext for using military action. that's part of the worst case scenario, if in the next 28 days trump sends military forces one way or the other, even putting them in the streets of the united states. then we're in really serious crisis territory. >> congresswoman, getting back to what republicans in congress will or won't do, at some point, do you think they can, i don't know, successfully just put their heads into the sand and wait this out for 28 days? they have the votes to override the veto on the defense bill. they have made that clear, that

that is one area that they will buck the president. as phil mattingly is reporting, but someone has to say something when it comes to this government funding bill and this covid relief bill. this isn't a political football. this is life. this is livelihoods. this is people standing at food banks that need help in this moment. the fact that republicans just still are on a private conference call trying to figure out what's going on rather than standing up and screaming this is ridiculous, i don't think -- it actually should still shock people. >> it was one of the major frustrations, again, that i had, is that we got into the habit of negotiating with the white house, not knowing whether they would stand behind those negotiations. it is the house of representatives and congress's job to write bills and write legislation and then send it to the white house for the white house to execute, sign those bills into law and execute them. but i've been saying this over

and over again. it is not the job of congress to stand behind the president or any president. their job is to represent the people that have voted them into those positions. and if they can start getting that -- if everybody can remember that, then the american people would best be served. this is why we're seeing all this frustration, this back and forth. and at the 11th hour, the discord with the president saying he may veto the stimulus bill and has already decided he's going to go against defense spending. >> abby, it may seem small talking about lives and livelihoods at stake here, but what is the deal with this email back and forth at the white house over -- this is the exit plan, this is the exit process, here is the detailed information about your last days in the white house, how you'll receive your final paycheck. they received another email today saying never mind, guidance is coming. >> reporter: it's another normal, administrative process

that has become subject to the president's whims. this email was telling people what they already know, that on january 20th, they're no longer going to have jobs at the white house. this is the process and procedure by which that's going to happen. now it's being rolled back because people at the white house recognize that that story getting out would infuriate the president. so it is -- it's silly. kate, look, people in the white house are planning for their next jobs. they are starting their consulting firms. they're going out, getting other jobs. they're doing the things that they know they have to do if they want to be employed at the end of january. all of this is just a sideshow. people who work in that building know this is over on january 20th whether the president wants to admit that or not. >> just hold on until then. buckle up, actually, is the word we must continue to use. out front next, the u.s. shattering hospitalization

records tonight as the coronavirus crisis pushes the health care system to the brink. americans are being warned about many more deaths to come. plus bill barr's final day. he marched in lockstep with donald trump until he broke ranks at the very end. so what is his legacy? an employee of a voting systems company forced into hiding after the trump campaign and allies promoted lies about the election. he is my guest. wedding day, huh boys? been there, done that. twice your cousin. from boston.

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we have more breaking news in tonight. the president of the united states just issuing a slew of new pardons. i want to get straight over to pamela brown in washington for us. pam, who is on the list? >> reporter: the president continues his revenge against the russia investigation by rewarding two former advisers indicted by special counsel robert mueller, issuing full pardons to paul manafort who was convicted for a slew of financial crimes and to roger stone after commuting his sentence earlier this year. also on this list, just released from the white house, jared kushner's father, charles kushner. let's kick through these. paul manafort and roger stone were indicted by special counsel robert mueller, went to trial, convicted by juries of multiple crimes. investigators say manafort broke the cooperation agreement by lying to them. roger stone never cooperated after lying to congress to protect the president and never

shown remorse. now both men are being rewarded by the president for their loyalty. the president, as we know, kate, has been long aggrieved by the russia probe and said he thinks his advisers were treated unfairly. it's worth noting that the mueller report detailed in the obstruction of justice report how trump's team dangled pardons as a way to protect himself. now we're seeing the president's plan play out with the full pardons to paul manafort and roger stone. also tonight, charles kushner, the father to the president's son-in-law, jared kushner. he was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering and served a 24-month sentence. white house officials tell me that jared did not advocate for his father to get the pardon because it was the unspoken word to him and trump that this would happen. that's what sources have told me and my colleague, gloria borger. the story emerging from these pardons is that the president is using his pardon power to reward

those close to him, some of whom would not have met the doj criteria for par dong. it's significant when you think of the pardoning for paul manafort, as you recall, me and my colleague, evan perez were the first to break the news that robert mueller was indicting him. so now to be sitting here saying he's been given a full pardon by the president in the russia probe is truly remarkable. >> pamela, thank you so much. abby phillip is back with us. nick ackerackerman, served as sl prosecutor for watergate and evan perez, senior justice correspondent. evan, first to you. what statement is the president making tonight with this? >> the president is saying repeatedly that essentially special counsel robert mueller's investigation over reached. he called it a hoax which is a word he's used to describe this

investigation since the beginning, kate. one of the things when you step back and look, especially at the two russia investigation figures here, paul manafort and roger stone, the president is essentially rewarding these two men for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors. in the case of paul manafort, according to the mueller report, he spoke to another witness, rick gates, and said he had conversations with the president's lawyers and had been told that they were going to be taken care of. in the end, that's one of the reasons why prosecutors said that, even though he signed a plea agreement, he ended up not providing full cooperation during that. as for roger stone, he went to -- he was sentenced to prison for lying on behalf of the president, to protect the president. that's what the court said. so both men essentially went to the ends of the earth to protect

president trump, and he is rewarding that. as far as the charles kushner pardon, that's an interesting one because chris christie who obviously is very close to the president, was the man who sent him to prison. so that's been one of the interesting parts of this, waiting for that pardon to come which we all expected to come. >> abby, with charles kushner here, i guess trump checks maybe the final box of pardoning someone with family ties. >> dipping his toe in the waters of family pardons, i think, is what we can certainly say this is. i think it definitely warms people up for the idea that the president is more than willing to pardon people just simply because of their personal connection to him. that's been true though for some time. if you look at all the pardons the president has issued since he's been president, the vast majority of them have gone to political allies, people who he is personally close to and not to people who would have gone

through a normal process or people who you could make a case where the criminal justice system has worked against them. this is a president who has been waiting for this moment to undue the mueller investigation. kate, i think one of the important things about what we're seeing here is this is clearly also a president who knows his pardon power is running out. he only has a few more days to use it, so he's using it in the most provacative way possible, which tells you everything you need to know about whether he truly believes that he will be president come january 21st, 2021, which we know he will not be. >> we have actually a bit of sound i want to play, as we were talking about the webs and ties here, chris christie being the prosecutor that put charles kushner behind bars. let me play what he has had to say about this in the past? >> i think it was so obvious he had to be prosecuted. if a guy hires a prostitute to

seduce his brother many law and videotapes it and sends the videotape to his sister, to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do i need anymore justification than that? it's one of the most loathe some, disgusting crimes i prosecuted when i was u.s. attorney. i was u.s. attorney in new jersey. we had loathesome and disgusting crimes. confronted with those facts, i had a moral and ethical obligation to bring that prosecution. >> that does not make it pardon-proof, nick. >> it doesn't make it pardon-proof on the state level. in terms of loathing, disgusting crimes, what we're witnessing now is a culmination of trump's effort to obstruct justice on the russian matter. he has pardoned roger stone who was the interface between the trump campaign and donald trump and the russian hackers and

wikileaks that was releasing the stolen documents during the 2016 campaign. roger stone was convicted for covering up for donald trump. he's pardoned now paul manafort who was the trump campaign liaison to the russian intelligence agent who had the job of picking up the detailed polling data that the russian agents used in st. petersburg to suppress the hillary clinton vote in the 200 election. -- the russian ambassador he did at the behest of donald trump, after the russians backed him during the campaign. if you notice, the only two people in the russian investigation that have not been pardoned are rick gates and michael cohen, the two people

who cooperated and testified truthfully to the government. what we have witnessed now and what we have witnessed over the last few months is an obstruction of justice in realti realtime, and this is the culmination of it. donald trump is intent on making sure that the truth about his connections and what he did in the 2000 campaign with russia never sees the light of day. that's what these pardons are all about. >> evan, on roger stone, folks remember -- i think it was in july the president commuted his sentence. what is the difference now that he has a full pardon? >> well, the president says that now that he has given him a full pardon, it means that roger stone can do everything he can to work on these issues of criminal justice reform which roger stone has been already going around claiming that's what he's trying to do.

really the commutation, all it did, it saved him from having to go to prison back in july. at the time, one of the reasons the president said, he's in his 70s, because of the covid situation, he didn't want to send roger to prison. so now, this wipes it away. it's as if it never happened. >> thanks, guys. out front with me now, democratic congressman from connecticut jim himes sits on the house intelligence committee. congressman, i'd like your reaction in seeing this latest list of pardons. >> not one bit surprising, erin. we have not seen the last of it. donald trump doesn't surprise us, always and only in his self-interest. he's rewarding people who he regarded as being useful to him. that is legal under our

constitution. it's not even close to what the pardon power was designed to do. the pardon power is designed to be up lifting. it's designed to introduce mercy into a system of justice which sometimes can be unmerciful. it's supposed to not just address the e tenuating circumstances of somebody who committed a crime. it's supposed to up lift us all. a parent who committed a crime to feed a hungry child, someone who committed an act of violence to protect somebody vulnerable. maybe technically ill lee, but when it happens in those circumstances it's up lifting. when it happens to the members of congress who insider traded to make money for themselves, the people who supported the president, all it does is drag us and our country into the mud with president trump. >> congressman, we know four people charged in kconnection with the mueller probe that he's pardoned. he's got days left to go.

by the time this is done, what's going to be left of the mueller investigation? >> well, you know, history has a way of writing the truth. i know that donald trump and drum supporters have done everything to suggest it was one big hoax. i was right in the middle of it. it is a catalog of absolutely awful behavior. it's the president's son looking for dirt from russians. it's the president's campaign manager conveying polling information to a known russian intelligence agent. it's george papadopoulos lying the the fbi. it's just a catalog of awful behavior and lying and grifting. it wasn't, at the end of the day, according to mueller, chargeable or indictable crime. it's still some of the sleaziest behavior. the behavior in the mueller report makes richard nixon look like choir boy.

there's no changing that. that's what the president is trying to do. >> the pardons come on the same day that attorney general bill barr stepped down, resigned. is there coincidence in this timing? >> well, i'm not sure about that. there was no way in the world that the attorney general was going to make a peep about these sleazy pardons. attorney general's time in office will be remembered as him again being just an agent of donald trump. the idea that the attorney general was going to say something i think is far fetched. again, it's all part of the same story. donald trump could have let the attorney general finish out -- what have we got, 20 days? but instead, because barr went against him on the fantasy that he won the election, he gets shown the door three weeks early. >> while i have you, we know the president vetoed the crucial defense bill, the ndaa. now the covid relief bill and

government funding bill are hanging in the balance, hanging in limbo. do you know what's going on here? >> well, i think i know what's going on. donald trump can't not be in the limelight, at the center of attention. he's managed to yank that spotlight back to him today. the ndaa veto is pathetic, absurd and mean. this is the mechanism by which we give raises to our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. donald trump has said no, we're not going to do that. threatening to hold up food aid and unemployment to people really suffering. it's all because he's throwing a temper tan drem. bizarrely in the ndaa, he's angry about renaming military bases away from confederate generals, people who fought against the united states of america. this is all about donald trump's investigation to keep himself at the center of the limelight even if the house burns down around

him. >> thanks for coming in. >> thank you. breaking news on the coronavirus. hospitalizations at an all-time high in the united states. is this health crisis officially out of control once again? the personal and frightening toll that repeated lies from trump allies about a stolen election have taken on an employee of a voting systems company. he tells us how he's now fighting back. booster. h scent downy unstopables.

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the u.s. breaking record coronavirus hospitalizations for the third consecutive day. as the cdc projects as many as 93,000 additional deaths in just over the next three weeks. out front is william hazeltine, former professor at harvard medical school and dr. jonathan reiner, adviser to the white house medical team under president george w. bush. professor hazeltine, these grim numbers comes amid the new worry over the coronavirus strains in the uk and in south africa. the nih director said today he's

concerned that our country's surveillance system is not adequate in enough in keeping up with these coronavirus strains. how likely is it that you think the south african strain is here as is thought with the uk strain? >> first of all, i would say the tragedy we're seeing in realtime is the thanksgiving bump. we're about at the end of january, about a month from now, going to see a mountain which i will call the new year's mountain. people are traveling, they're getting infected. not only from the viruses that are around, but some of these new strains. it's very likely in the 300,000 british travelers per month that reach the united states, that virus has come here. it's likely that the south african virus has come here. it's likely we are creating our own strains right here at home. the nih director is right. other countries, including south africa are doing a much better job at surveilling their types

of viruses. we need to know what our enemy is so we can fight it. >> dr. reiner, new york's governor andrew cuomo has been speaking up about his frustration with the federal government, the lack of action. he's wanted travel to be banned from the united kingdom. he wants testing to happen as well. listen to this from him. >> why aren't we saying test the travelers in the uk before they get on a plane? that hhs and the cdc have not acted on this is really reprehensible. >> the reason he's asking is the cdc hasn't really spoken up with regard to these new strains and what the guidance should be. should the cdc have spoken up by now? >> absolutely. the cdc has been largely side

lined for months. director redfield pushed to the side for many weeks and months now. the federal government in the spring stated most of the coronavirus response -- seeded most of the coronavirus response to the states. now we're seeing the outcome of that. where is the task force? the task force has not held a press conference other than once in the last six months. where is the head of the task force, the vice president? you know where he is? he's going to vail colorado, on vacation. how is it possible that the head of the coronavirus task force when our hospitals are literally drowning and our health care providers are drowning, where we're having 3,400 deaths a day, that he's going on vacation. where is the leadership? there is none. it's a rutterless ship. >> cnn has new reporting tonight that the white house coronavirus task force has informed states they're no longer going to be

sending out these weekly state-specific updates with data and specific guidance and recommendations for the states, that the states are now going to have to request it for them to get it. this may just be one layer of the response and the job of the task force, but i'm sitting here wondering, what do you think it means in terms of how engaged the task force is at this point if they're offering up less information, not more? >> well, we've known, as dr. reiner has said, that for a long time there's been virtually no leadership on covid. what leadership there has been has been negative. they've encouraged people not to wear masks, minimized the seriousness of the disease, they've said let this go. this is the consequence. we're the worst nation by far to suffer from this disease. even in the current pandemic, around the world in the winter

months, other countries are taking serious actions. they're lacking down people over christmas in great britain, a holiday which is almost synonymous with the life of that country. that's how seriously they're taking it. what are we doing? more travelers than you can imagine packing the airports, without masks, some with masks. it doesn't matter. they're getting together and they'll suffer the consequences. we'll see very serious disease and many people going on those vacations are going to die at the end of january. >> professor, doctor, thank you. repeated claims from the trump campaign and allies about a stolen election aren't just talks. the chilling effects on one employee's life, one employee of a voting system company whose life can be ruined. the divide between those for and against the border wall. where do things stand tonight? >> i promise you it's never

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whatever you choose to do, go safely, california. new tonight, on notice. dominion voting systems sending letters to both white house counsel, pat cipollone and president trump's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, to keep all records related to the baseless claims that their voting machines changed votes to help joe biden win. why you may ask. the company says that legal action against giuliani is, quote, imminent. after a top campaign is suing the trump campaign, rudy giuliani and sydney powell. the lawsuit saying this, in part, defendants knowingly circulated and amplified a baseless conspiracy theory to challenge the integrity of the president election. while this theory has been

thoroughly rejected, its immediate and life-threatening effects remain very real. out front with me, the man behind the lawsuit, eric coomb ever, do m coomer. i do need to say there is no evidence that you or your company did anything to manipulate or steal any election. the trump administration itself has actually said this was the most secure election in u.s. history. but for a month now you have had to be in hiding. we are not revealing your location for security reasons. can you describe what these conspiracy theories and disinformation surrounding you and your company have done to your life? >> thank you, kate, and good evening. thanks for having me on. to put it briefly, what i've experienced over the last six weeks has been a complete

upheaval of my life. as you mentioned, i have been in hiding in a secure location. i have not been able to return to my normal life since all these baseless accusations came out. i'm currently, for security reasons for both myself, my colleagues, i'm currently on leave from my position. so i'm not working. i'll still employed with the company but i am on leave due to the security concerns. it's been, again, a complete upheaval of my day-to-day life. >> this is because, as i understand it, you've been receiving death threats daily, threats to your family, threats to your colleagues. it all started days after the election. an activist out of colorado accusing

or even being on phone calls. i never joked about influencing election, i have done this for 15 years. i do it because i believe in the democrat democratic process and it is not a joking matter. even if i wanted to, there is no way for me to manipulate those votes. i don't have access to state and county election system during an election. i never written a single line of code out in the field. i never made statements or friends or family orloved ones. i am hiding because i have received many death threats. my entire family, their information have been published online. all of my private information has been released online.

people taken photos of my house, people have threaten to come by, decapitate me and referred to me as a traitor. it is not safe for me to you know go about my daily life and even my father received harassing letters to his home. >> i want to play for everyone just so they can grasp what you have been facing, a sampling of what people have been facing of what these conspiracy theory and how they made it on television. >> the koomer character who's close to antifa, he fizz chi says he's going to fix the election. >> he said don't worry about trump. i have already made sure he's going to lose the election. is that true for starters? >> yes. >> you have that. >> in koomer's case, he was in a

position of power to act on trump's voters. what does he mean when he says trump won't win, i meant effin sure of that, nothing? >> yesterday you are filing this lawsuit and a slew of them for defamation, what do you want to get out of this? >> well, ultimately and primarily i want to set the record straight and try to reclaim my reputation. secondarily, people need to be held account able. baseless acquisiticusations hav consequences. again my safety and safety of my family is at risk and someone

needs to be held accountable for that. >> the people should be held accountable. >> eric, thank you for coming on. >> thank you so much for having me. >> tonight with just four weeks left, president trump is not giving up on one of his big campaign promises, his border wall. ed lavandera is out front. >> reporter: the desert beaten ford pruickup truck. >> we are not big time ranchers, we love the lifestyle. >> reporter: it is hard to tell where united states ends and where it begins. this year it changed, the trump administration carving through a big wall right through this

valley. >> what is it like to see this massive construction in your appropriate? >> we did not think it is necessary. >> reporter: this is what the wall looked like across the san bernardino valley in february, this is what looks like today. >> the american taxpayers does not see, they hear build that water, it is going to secure this country. i promise you it is never going to secure this country. not any better than it already secured. >> reporter: the rush is onto finish at least 450 miles o f the border wall. border officials say at least 438 miles of that are now complete as the coronavirus pandemic raged to this year. border wall construction never stopped. antiwall activists document a

catastrophe. crews bulldozing through rugged mountainous terrains. the new walls are vital. >> it gives us critical seconds and minutes. as of now, a lot has been erected and we are opening in the future it pays off dividend. >> reporter: the army core of engineer says eight border walls have been finished with crews working around the clock on 37 other projects. >> good evening my fellow americans. >> reporter: what happens when president-elect biden takes office. biden pledged he would not build another foot of border wall. >> construction is going to go up this mountain. >> reporter: brandon judge leads the board council. tl union has been a voel allyca president trump. >> those are the footers? you are going to throw it away? it does not make any sense

because you are throwing money down the toilet? >> reporter: halting construction is not enough for some antiwall animal vtiactivis. >> kate scott says this construction is a deadly threat to wildlife that migrates through the area. >> we wake up and we try and we get to work. it is so painful for me to witness this. >> reporter: the wall is also not being built fast enough. >> the international boundary. >> this is not the kind of wall you want. >> no. >> reporter: he's lobbying for a wall on this spot. it is so remote but he does have the ear of the border wall's

biggest cheerleader. president trump put shulton in the spotlight during a rally last year. >> mr. president, we need a wall. >> offered it for a dollar a year and i even told them i will give them the dollar if you can't find one. >> reporter: you made the border patrol, the federal government an offer they could not refuse. >> they said they would study it and that was four years ago. >> reporter: chilton's branch at the gap of the border wall, he says it is for drug smul lggler. he deployed cameras which are more than a thousand. >> reporter: my ranch is controlled by the cartel.

>> this wall is purely for political theater. it does nothing to stop people. >> reporter: he drove us around the cactus national monument. a breathtaking national park in the heart of the sonora desert. crews billing more than 60 miles of wall through this national park. >> they're pulling out all the stops to rush this project through. >> reporter: he says he resigns after president trump took office. >> it is an insult to those of us who live down here. we are seeing our community ripped apart and ecosystem is being destroyed. we don't care what you call it. it is a disaster. >> reporter: lavandera.

john merrimberman with "ac " we have breaking news. being nice to the president changes everything. 24 hours after pardoning corrupt criminals, the president is at it again. this time the big three are his disgraced campaign, manafort, roger stone and real estate charles kushner. charles kushner is jared kushner's father