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 fathere president's campaign associates. these were people who were sentenced to prison essentially trying to protect the president. that's according to special

council robert mueller's prosecutors. in the case of manafort, he was sentenced for 7.5 years with bank and fax fraud, he tax frau. the president granted a pardon to him saying he was mistreated. in the case of roger stone, he lied to congress, to the republican congressional committee that was investigating russ russia's involvement with the 2016 election. one of the things the judge said in his sentencing was that he tried to protect the president and now he's got a pardon as a result of what he did for the president. charles kushne

convicted in 2005. chris christie was the attorney at the time. he's the father of jared kushner, we have been told by white house officials that jared kushner did not play a role in this pardon but obviously this is something that's on everyone's mind for some time to come. another name that stood out margaret hunter who's the wife of duncan hunter, the former congressman who was pardoned last night. she's also an estranged wife of duncan hunter, they were involved in misusing campaign funds. the underlying thing here is the president mattis using his pardon power which he has been obsessed with and realized that essentially there is no curb on it and he's using it in the last days in office to try to reward people, friends and those

associated with his campaign that he believes were wrongfully pursued or prosecuted. >> is there any reasons to believe these pardons went through the traditional process involving the justice department? >> no. we don't think they have so far. in the case of the 20 last night that were announced, only three of them had existing petition here with the office of pardon attorney. one of the unusual things about this presidency is you have an entire broks ureaucracy here in justice department that's supposed to go through these pardons, request for clemencies and they review them and make sure people are sorry and had some remorse for what they have done and they qualify. the president has kind of by passed all of that process. >> perez, thank you so much for

your reporting. we'll let you get back to work. >> andrew weissmann played a key role in the manafort's case. his new book is titled "where law ends" inside the mueller ip vision. karen cordero and john dean. now one stroke of a pen is all up in smoke. your reaction? >> it is not spirely entirely u smoke. >> it is important to remember that paul manafort will still have to spend two years in jail and we anticipated this, the

tens of millions of dollars was taken criminally and civilly because we were concerned that if the president were to pardon man manafort, the criminal would be eradicated by pardons. there still are consequences towards manafort, it is not with the criminality that he was in cre encrypted with. >> they play an essential rule, during the process and even after he was convicted and was supposed to be cooperated with you, you felt that he was angling for a pardon and behaving in a way to get a pardon and lying to you in some cases you felt to get a pardon. >> absolutely.

>> absolutely. i think evan got it right. the president used his pardon power during the investigation in order to get cooperations. people thinking they should cooperate with us. this president was saying not so fast because if you hold fast and you don't do what michael cohen did, you don't get a parton and he's made good on that promise. if you think about this from a big picture perspective of what he's doing is setting that example for the president. it basically means how do you hold about any president to account if the pardon power is going to be used to be a get out of jail free card for anyone who would cooperate within the investigation into the president. >> and just one last question on this point. >> you had never really witne witnessed you're experiencing anything like this before, this

was a huge obstacle for you? >> absolutely. >> many of us and i have prosecuted mobsters and enron executives. those people as heinous as they can be don't have powers that president trump had. he had the power to pardon or dangle pardon. what's a legitimacy for dangle pardon. he has the power to the plug to fire the prosecutor. something that enron executive had the power to go. j >> john, i quoted that tweet from president trump back in 218 which read "unlike michael cohen, man forth refused afort

threat." >> we think the same thing that happened with roger stone who was pardoned today and michael flynn earlier. it was always that potential back in my history daughter tur watergate, nixon tried to do the same thing and if it did not cross the line, he would pardon them. i didn't buy into it. >> carry, i want to play you some sound from chris christie. chris christie was the prosecutor who put charles kushner in jail. i want you to listen to how governor chris christie who was a u.s. attorney describes the crime committed. listen. >> i want to talk about jared kushner.

frankly, he's the one who fired you, right? >> sure. >> you believe that because there is history between you and him. >> between him and his father. >> if my father was guilty, i would. if i thought that my father had not done something and he's been wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. that's one thing. mr. kushner pled guilty. >> tax evasions and. significant crimes. >> i just think it is so obvious that he has to be prosecuted. if a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and video tape it and send it to her sister. do i need more justification

than that? it is the most disgusting crimes that i prosecuted when i was u.s. attorney. we had some disgusting crimes going out there. i lay out the facts and any person knows can front with those facts. i have a moral and ethical obligation to bring that prosecution. >> kushner now receives a full pardon. the connection is he's jared kushner's father. >> of course, he's part of the friends and family category that the president is pardoning. governor christie's description of mr. kushner's crime. the stone and the manafort

pardons are part of that. if we look at the bigger picture of what's going on, when we look at last night's pardons and the new pardons tonight. what it shows is what this president is doing in his last days of office. what he's not doing is not actually doing the work of a president. instead he's doing what he's always done is catering his own political interests and reward individuals to save his own political interests. he's worrying friends and family and close political allieallies. he's not leaving a government response to the coronavirus, he's not even signing the national organization act. instead, he's rewarding friends and family and criminals. >> of course he does have that power, andrew weissmann.

the president does have the power to pardon but i know how adam schiff feels and i believe you feel this way also. if the president use the power of pardon to obstruct justice, you think donald trump should be prosecuted after he leaves office. why? >> it is very broad. there are a lot of limits and it does not cover state crime for civil matters of future crimes. for example, i expect the president is going to try to pard pardon himself and that's selfless and an open question. even if that were the case, if he commits a crime in the future, he's going to have to file tax returns going forward.

there are still a variety of things that can played out as long as roger stone can be put in the grand jury to find out why he lied or obstructed justice and what would the truth answers would have been c. >> with respect to the president's federal crime, that's a big issue depending on what the attorney general wants to do and whether the president tries to pardon himself away and went out of that legal conundrum. i think it is something we have to wait and see what's going to happen. >> john dean, how does this compare? as we are looking through the final days and the actions he's taken and the situation carrie

describes quite well. how are you seeing now compares to those years? >> nixon actually looks good and as i knew it at a time and learned contemporaneously that at the end he was leaving, his former top aid and domestic adviser and his former general, all wanted pardons. they got words right through the president. he said bob, i can't do it. it will only make things look force and be worse. remarkable measuring, broad. he didn't want to add agony to it at all. he turned them all for pardons. nixon actually did the right thing. he diplomat kndn't know if he's

get a pardon. >> carrie, we have 18 days left. well, we saw a veto of a major national security regulation continues today. he's going to continue to create chaos. it is a major thing he's going to do. he's actively obstructing the transition to the next administration and other senior leaders, for example at the defense department also obstructed the answer serious condition. he's making it hard for the next administration to be prepared as they can do their job when they come in january 20th, we'll see what other pardons and other individuals close to him have done. if there is additional pardons, he has some political allies and

advisers who are under indictment or under investigations. we'll see if his next party will be not convicted of crime. >> andrew weissmann, karen and john, i have to say terrific discussio discussions. i can't think of three people with more perspective. we have more from democrat from texas, congresswoman jackson lee. your reaction to this latest round of parties? >> john, there are families and loved ones are dead because of covid-19 and there are families who'll not see their loved ones because of covid-19. the president of the united states have taken what's constitutionally grapted from a

nation that had been grounded in the adhere man slaughter hans to the constitution. the we have seen this president very sadly turn them into a destructive torpedo. he really imploded the relationship tailbone the branches of government, the executive. what he's done pardon power. e nisan ak knowledge that. but not to abuse those power. 15 pardons yesterday. no one knowing whether these individuals have been vetted or carefully done under the obama administration. >> many of them are undermining and terring apart t tearing apa.

and so what does it mean? >> the president one by one wants to eliminate those who'll provide testimonies and other settings to get to the truth of what happened with the russia investigation. it is bad that a commander-in-chief taken his power and use it in these manners. >> if you take his threat to veto or not sign. what dow think he's trying to do in his last 28 days in office. >> 54 million of americans are out of food. i have been home for two years and i have been more than food giveaways. people are lined up. they are hungry as well as there are people facinging e ficiatio.

>> democrats said out a three pl dollars project eight months ago that would saved america but could have been apart of the negotiation, we'll be on the floor tomorrow with the new hampshiha a new hampshih unanimous consent. i guess what we see and the american people have to see is that this is a president who left his job. this is a president who'll use the next 28 days to my sadness. i agree with 2,000. we wanted more in may, most democrats do agree wit. i imagine if you are

republicans, i have postponed a bipartisan bill to increase the amount of cash disbursement. this instance, you have to be the game and be apart of operation on the field to get the job done. >> as he realize alexander in chief, he's over a medical plus and military with families who are wearing the uniform unselfishly. he would take that bill and veto it? >> what consciousness is there in terms of leadership. the 28 days going forward will be a helicoptcontinuous effort intermind the branch of government that's trying to serve the american people.

right now is the united states congress. >> we'll have january 6th, i think we have to be diligent andville lent. we have to be very much having the american people number one and number one priority. >> congresswoman sheila jackson lee. thank you so much for being with us tonight. >> more on all of this next and throughout the hour including at what may be going on inside the president's head from the man who cowrote the art of the deal. >> with holiday travelers dot staying home. addly it is grimmer than the last one.

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with all those checks about to go out. quite a busy night from jeremy diamond is joining us tonight. >> reporter: well, we don't know if the president is going do more pardons this week. what is clear is the president will be doing more pardons in the next 28 days before inauguration day. this is the president who's only getting started as it relates to these pardons. that's stunning of the amount of pardons we have seen. 49 pardons and three corrupt congressmen, pardoned and one father of the son-in-law is pardoned today. it is clear that the president is going to continue this. what we are seeing from the president is his effort to exert

what power he has left. he's a lame duck president and he's fighting it in every way he can. >> who's going to be around him over the next few days and whispering in his ears? >> reporter: i can tell you advisers to the president are nervous any time he comes to mar-a-lago. this is the place where so many of the president's allies including those on the fringe of his political orbit gets the most unfettered access to him. they can go up to him when he's at mar-a-lago courtyard. this is where we have seen some of the president's erratic behavior where he tweeted the baseless claim of president obama wiretapping trump tower during the 2016 campaign and following through afterwards in terms of firing the director of

national intelligence dan coats. this is the place where the president tends to engage in that kind of behavior and given where the president's head is already at, he's considering a range of delusional attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. watch the space and watch what happens during the metroplnext the president spends his holiday at mar-a-lago. >> given how erratic he's been, he can be more erratic at mar-a-lago? >> that's what i would say, john. >> jeremy diamond, get some sleep tonight, you will need it. kirsten powell and rick santorum and john harwood, john, let me start with you of all these questions over the past four days of donald trump's feelings of national security and the rule of law. what do these pardons say to

you? >> i think the pardons he did represent open corruption. this is a president whose goal for much of the last four years has been to try to absorb himself politically and legally from the connection with russia that prompted the mueller investigation. let's recap briefly, donald trump, russia was a financial factor of trump before he ran for president. russia helped donald trump become president by interfering in the election. donald trump lied about what he knew about that, fired the fbi director who was investigating that and as president has taken actions that no other world war ii presidents had done to

advance the objective and to weaken nato and enforcing article 5 of nato and weakening the western alliance. his administration is now ending with a mass activiive russian h the u.s. government and business. when his own secretary of state says it was russia's fault, he blames china. it is true that robert mueller did not show or demonstrate collusion or conspiracy between the trump campaign in 2016 and russia, however, he laid out and he said russia helped him and trump welcomed help and trump taken a series of action that amounted to efforts to obstruct his probe.

the president pardons a series of people that were apart of russia. those efforts in attempt to pardoning himself before leaving. >> senate ersor sanatorium, how you feel about these? >> first, i reject everything that harwood said. i don't think the conspiracy felt flat and the reality is that what donald trump -- >> are you kidding? >> he's affirming one thing that he's not president on january 20th. if he did believe he's going to be president on january 20th, he would not do these things. he believes are just before

he leaves office. that's the insights that i have seen on these pardons. >> you got to be kidding? >> i am not kidding at all. not a sense. >> i think everything that -- >> ask bill barr whether he believes it or not. the attorney general does not believe it. >> defies logic. >> we spent four years talking about something that's unproven and more of a hoax than what we ever could have anticipated. >> manafort was convicted and roger stone. >> it had nothing to do with the election. it had to do with his dealings. >> do you feel good about those

pardons tonight? >> i don't believe -- i am not big fans of those guys and i think what manafort did was something that was wrong and he should suffer consequences, i don't agree with manafort and roger stone. again, i don't like the way he handled himself in the situation. i think he was cavalier and undermining the rule of law. i don't think he should be pardoned. to suggest those pardonpardons, already been through the trial and you can't leverage it anymore. it had nothing to do with unshackling people that's unl unleveraged. >> manafort lied to them because he was trying to get a pardon. kirsten, tonight we have 28 days left in the administration.

rick sanatorium says that trump knows he has 28 days left. >> i have no idea. i don't believe he would not be doing this if he thought he's going to be in the white house. i really have not seen anything the last four years to suggest that he felt hemmed in any way buy these guard rails that are supposed to exist for presidents to not do things that are not illegal. this falls into that category. what he's doing is completely unethical and inappropriate. he demonstrated that he's more than willing to do things like that. i think he would have known for quite some time but did not win the election. i don't think he's in denial

tch. he's raising money and gaining more power and basically mislead people and take their money and continue to do all the way down the white house as he drags everyone with him and trying to m mess with him and trying to mess with relief for covid. it is just what he does and what he's going to continue. >> if you are unemployed looking for an enhanced $300 benefit or check or service member looking for a paycheck with the authorization act, and you see the president what he's focused on which is pardons, how does it make you feel tonight? it is repulsive to me.

the way that he's unconcerned of what's going on in this country and there is no way around it if you look at his behavior that he would be throwing a wrench into providing relief. now, he's right. he's right that the check should be $2,000 but where has he been? he has not been helping people. that's the point. he's consumed with himself, always been consumed of himself and he'll be consumed at himself all the way throughout the door. he's causing a lot of harm to people. >> there are people that desperately need this money. the military also needs to have approval of these. i think these are immediate needs. >> we have about a minute left, 30 seconds to each of you, rick and john on the question of what

position does this put republicans in. rick, first you. >> it puts senators in georgia in a tough bind to have a president, and having to decide whether they're going to bump the president and what the impact on their base in georgia. number two, the covid relief package. same thing, having the president putting that number out there is a top thing for these members because i think most republicans don't feel that's an appropriate amount. the president is not doing anybody any favor on either sides of the isle. >> john harwood, last word. >> it depends on whether the president is serious about trying to take down the covid relief bill. don't know if he is yet. i got to go back one thing on the russia probe. if there is nothing to this, why did mike flynn lie and george

papadopoulos lie and why did he try to get don mcgahn to lie? why did he take all those actions and why did he in helsinki that he believes vladimir putin over his own intelligence. >> john, rick and kirsten, thank you to all of you. come on! ♪ over here! ♪

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learn more at xfinitymobile.com. one big unanswered question tonight. what could the president be thinking and is there an end game here? off top his christmas in florida and leaving out on the spending

bill. you just heard santorum saying that donald trump is not doing anybody any favor. tony, thank you very much for being with us tonight. what's your take away from these pardons of the president's friends and associates and family? what do you think? >> well, i think he's determined that trump under these circumstances that is maintaining dominance in my way i possibly can. make other people suffer more than i am suffering. all this is consistent with it.

i think this is exactly the scenario that i for saw in the fall of 2016 before his election. at that time i thought he was going to lose but even then my assumption was that he would never, never acknowledge it and he would do anything possible to mobilize his opinion against it and he would do whatever he could to cause a destruction. i don't think donald trump has any interest of $2,000 for americans. he's doing it because he wants to show that he's powerful and he wants to show that he can still step in and blow it all up. >> is there a plan? what is the plan do you think if such a thing exists? >> donald trump's long-term plans are i would say five to

ten minutes ahead of the present moment. no, i don't think he ha has -- first of all, he does not think clearly or rational or logical way. no, i don't believe he has a plan. i do believe he has a bunch of ideas and they're swirling in his head. what he's feeling right now is rage. white, hot, rage because he feels on plbliterated by this. everywhere he looks and among his previous allies, he's hearing failure, failure and loser and loser. i think he's besides himself. he's furious to the point of madness. >> is there any part of him that accepts responsibility for being a loser, by that i mean someone lost the election and a one-term election? >> no. there is no part of him that

accepts that. there is a part of him now that recognizes that shortly blasting with guns and trying to save himself he's going to have to leaf the white house leave the white house on january 20th. he has told himself this story and anyone who disagrees with this story or his closest allies, people like bill barr who were there for him, now he sees him as an enemy. anybody is an enemy who'll not support the fantasy that he bought himself into. the reason is to acknowledge he has lost and a loser and that's oblitera obliterating, that makes him feel like he does not exist. he's almost dead when he calls himself a loser. >> anyone surrounding him wanted to do anything to make the

situation better and stop him from doing some of these things, could they? what could someone do if they want to save the country, stir this in a different direction, could they stand up to him? >> i mean what was the 25th amendment made for but to deal with a situation in which a president is completely in come pa in co incompacitated. he's taking criminals and giving them pardons. he'll continue -- i don't agree with one of your previous guests that no, i don't think he'll do something terrible beyond this. yes, he will. we are not done. anything he can think of to do that'll allow him to feel

dominant he'll continue to do. the 25th amendment would be one way. it is problematic and close to the end of the election. i don't think there is anything that even the people closest to him could do. jared kushner's thousands and thousands miles away because he does not want to be near his line of fire so if jared kushner and ivanka does not want to be there, who does? >> tony schwartz, i appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> we are not finished with the breaking news. millions of passengers reported screening yesterday, another milestone reached by americans hospitalized with coronavirus, that's next. been there, done that. twice your cousin. from boston. karen, i'm just gonna say what everyone here is thinking. you look smokin. total smokeshow. and they never did find his finger. they had to close the pool for like an hour. ♪ i brought a date. name's sam. dig in.

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. the u.s. has reached another milestone in the pandemic. more than 119,000 people are hospitalized with the disease. along with that, more than 179,000 new cases and more than 2,700 deaths reported tonight, numbers that are certain to climb as the night goes on. these alarming figures come as

more than one million prechristmas passengers were screened yesterday alone at u.s. airports. also at one million tonight the number of inoculations that have been administered across the nation. officials say they do not expect to reach their previous estimate of 20 million vaccines allocated to americans by the end of december. now they're saying early january. add to that numerous state officials tell cnn the white house coronavirus task force won't be sending weekly reports and says states will have to request reports each week. they still worry about the new strains of the virus, one from britain and the other from south afri africa. so dr. murray, for the second week in a row, your model protects an increase in u.s. deaths by april 1st. the most likely scenario has

567,000 people dying. the worst case scenario, 731,000 people. what's driving these numbers? and do you think this upward trend is going to continue? >> well, we think the upward trend will continue, and probably continue well into january, depending on how people react and how governments react. it could even continue in that worst case scenario going up right into february. what's driving the increase is the big epidemics, particularly in california, that are larger than i think any of us expected. and, so, it's the same thing for the last six months. it's people's behavior, mask wearing, how much social interaction is driving tr transmission. >> a lot of concern over these two new variants. experts in england said the new

strains are more trance misable. there is no evidence they have a different impact on people. clarify exactly what that means. >> so both of these variants in the u.k. and south africa appear to have mutations that make them more easily to enter cells, to bind to cells and to enter them. that means they are probably more transmissible. so if something is even more transmissible, that's definitely a worry. now, it is good that so far it doesn't appear that these variants are more deadly. although, if you have more infections, by definition, you are also going to get a higher level of hospitalizations, which is something that when we have hospitals that are so overwhelmed right now, that's hardly something we can take at the moment. this is a warping to all of us to double down on the precautions we know will work like masking and social

distancing and the sooner we can control the impact of the spread, the better it is for controlling future mutations when they occur. >> doctor, i know there are also questions about whether or not children might get this more often. what do we know about that? >> so it's not so much that the virus is somehow specifically attacking children, but what we have seen in the u.k. and in south africa is preliminary data showing the increase in the rate of infection in children for this variant is greater than the increase in adults. we don't know if that's because of behavior of children or because of a specific characteristic of the virus, but again that's cause for concern and for us to keep a close eye on that here, too. >> since monday, more than one million americans have received their first dose of vaccine. how many people do you models project will be vaccinated by april 1st? what does that mean in terms of lives saved? >> well, in terms of vaccination, we're now predicting with all the data that's available on supply, how

quickly things are rolling out, about just over 70 million people vaccinated on april 1st. and that's going to make a modest difference to the number of people whose lives we can save. but because the vaccination doesn't come soon enough in this winter surge to make a really large dent on the death toll. >> just put numbers on that because i think it is interesting. you are talking about 30,000 plus lives saved because of vaccinations? >> yeah. we're expecting 250,000 deaths between now and april 1st. and you can save 30,000 with the scale-up of the vaccinations. if you were to scale-up the vaccination super fast, like twice as fast as we think currently is the possibility, you could save, you know, quite a few more lives than that. >> but mask wearing, universal mask wearing would save how many lives? >> well, we're already at -- we made progress in the country. i think it's really important to recognize that people have been

listening. we've got mask use up to 73%, 74%. but going up to 95%, you can save a further 50,000 lives between now and april. >> that's what i was going for. it is so interesting. your model suggests that mask wearing could save more lives in the short term than vaccines. more than a million people have been vaccinated. as baltimore's former health commissioner, can you talk about the challenges health departments have ahead of them to get the doses from the freezers to people's arms. there is this difference between allocated and administered that people are just coming to understand. >> that's right. as we say, it is not the vaccine that's going to save lives. it is the vaccination. local health departments have been substantially underfunded and underresourced and understaffed throughout the years. since 2008, local health departments lost a quarter of their staff. these are individuals who at the start of the pandemic had to be pulled off of whatever they were

working on, maternal child health, the opoid pandemic, issues that did not go away with the pandemic, but they were working on these other things. we're asking them to set up the most ambitious vaccination program our country has undertaken. we need resources to get these individuals. local state health departments know what to do. if they don't have the resources to do so, i'm afraid that operation warp speed for scientific development is not going to translate to anything close to warp speed for distribution. that's so tragic when we have thousands of people dying every day. >> this new set of data, you looked at home people are willing to receive the vaccine. what did you find? >> well, just under half say yes they will take the vaccine and about another quarter say they're unsure. and then the last quarter says they don't want the vaccine. so as we go from the supply of the vaccine being the limiting

factor to when there is more vaccines available, those unsures and the noes will really become absolutely critical for us getting to that point where we can put covid behind us. >> thank you so much for your time. i know the message both of you want to send tonight is stay safe, stay close to home with your nuclear family for christmas. i wish both of you a merry christmas. don't miss "full circle," gives us a chance to dig into important news. catch it streaming live at 6:00 p.m. eastern at cnn.com/fullcircle or watch it there and on the cnn app at any time on demand. another night of major breaking news, which continues, so let's head over to chris for cuomo "prime time." >> all right. thank you very much, john. i am chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." we do have breaking news.

in 24 hours, just the past 24 hours, this president has vetoed pay for the military, stalled relief for millions of you and issued the most toxic tally of pardons we have ever seen. 26 new trump pardons tonight, gifts to many convicted criminals that you know well who did horrible things. many admitted it, and then he left to go golf in florida. after vetoing pa