grandchildren. they died just eight days apart. beautiful picture of that family. so many families going through that sort of thing this time of year. may they rest in peace. may their memories be a blessing. i'm jim acosta. erin burnett "out front" starts now. outfront next. breaking news. the first case of a highly infectious strain of coronavirus has been found in the u.s. it comes as the president-elect is warning that the u.s. is way behind when it comes to vaccinations. plus, trump at war with his own party. now attacking the senate majority leader after he blocked an effort to fast track $2,000 stimulus checks to millions of americans. and could a conspiracy theory about 5g cellar service have motivated a suspected nashville christmas day bomber? let's go out front. good evening.

breaking news. the u.s. tonight is reporting the first case of highly infectious strain of coronavirus that has been linked to a recent surge of cases in the uk. that first case of the covid reported in the state of colorado. health officials there say the case involves a man in his 20s with no travel history. this comes as president-elect biden is warning that the united states is woefully behind when it comes to vaccinations. >> the trump administration's plan is to give vaccines is falling behind. far behind. a few weeks ago, trump administration suggested that 20 million americans could be vaccinated by the end of december. with only a few days left in december, we've only vaccinated a few million so far. >> according to the cdc, only 2.1 million doses have been administered so far. in just over 11 million doses have been zriblt distributed. that's not close to the goal of 20 million doses that operation

warp speed set. just a short time ago, the president responding on twitter he said it is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the federal government. trump passing the buck as the president-elect gives this br e brave -- grave warning. >> next few weeks and months are going to be very tough. very tough period for our nation. maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic. >> today at least 2600 americans are reported to have lost their lives to coronavirus. biden warns that worse is still to come. yet this is what the president was doing. he was back on the golf course for the fifth time since he arrived at mar-a-lago six days ago. he has time to golf when it comes to the alarming number of cases and deaths, which biden warns, nothing from him for months. this is all trump had to say. >> we're rounding the corner of the pandemic.

we're rounding the corner. we're rounding the corner. by the way, we're rounding the corner. >> we're not rounding the corner. he's been saying that since late august. biden and trump also a universe apart tonight when it comes to masks. >> i hope the president will also -- unambiguously promote mask wearing. it's not a political statement. it's a patriotic duty. >> i don't wear masks like him. >> biden urging every american to get the vaccine like he and mike pence did and today kamala harris, as well. biden saying it would help if the president himself would get vaccinated. >> it is still the same degree of confidence. >> yet the president is not committing to getting vaccinated. only saying, quote, "i'm not scheduled to take the vaccine but look forward to doing so at

the appropriate time." kaitlyn collins with the president out front live in west palm beach, florida. kaitlyn, what has the president been doing today as we learn the new strain is now here in the u.s. and his vaccine rollout is coming under increased scrutiny? >> reporter: well, we haven't seen the president, really, that often since he's been here for the vacation in palm beach. the only times we see him when he's in his motorcade on the way to the golf course where we've seen him on the golf course. as we did today. cameras captured the president golfing once again with allies and old friends of his. that's been the main aspect of the president's day beyond the tweets we've seen. including that one just a short time ago about vaccine distribution given the criticism and the scrutiny that his administration is facing over the promised rollout and what we're seeing when it comes to people actually getting vaccinated and how the numbers are falling far short of what they were expected to be. so in that tweet, the president

was blaming it on states, which it is true that the federal government is giving them to states and letting them make the decisions about distribution, but as we've noted, the states don't have a lot of money for this. the departments of health have been pretty strained and overwhelmed by what they've been taking care of with contact tracing and with testing and now they've got the vaccine distribution as another responsibility of theirs. then at the end of the president's tweet, he lashes out at joe biden for the swine flu handling and the response there, often a criticism that the president has turned to when he's been faced with his own criticism for his handling of the pandemic. so i think it's just raised a lot of questions and we are not getting a lot of answers from people in the administration so far on what is going on with this vaccine rollout. and a lot of people have raised concerns that is similar to what we saw with the testing where the president said anyone who wants a test can get a test. of course, that's still not true to this day. then with ppe, they said, well all the hospitals have it or it's up to the states to make sure their hospitals and health

care providers have it. we did find out moments ago that the senior members of the health and human services department and the department of defense, which, of course, have been handling the two parts of the vaccine rollout, are going to do a briefing with reporters tomorrow. they're going to take questions on vaccine distribution. so hopefully we'll get more answers from them on what is going on and what the updated numbers are tomorrow when they have that briefing. >> meantime, the president, as always, deflecting any blame. thank you so much. and now i want to bring in a member of biden's coronavirus advisory board. a surgeon at boston's brigham and women's hospital. great to have you on, doctor. we want to talk about vaccines in a moment but, first, let's talk about the news of day. the news of the uk variant reported here in the u.s. in colorado. health experts have been warning it was likely here for months but we're learning that the person infected had no known travel history. so how wide spread should we assume this is at this point? >> well, no known travel history

means that this person picked it up in the community. it is almost certainly in multiple states. i think we'll be seeing evidence of that in the days to come. exactly how prevalent it is is the real question. if it's been spreading, how dominant is it? we know it's a more contagious variant and that's of serious concern if it's only just now beginning to spread given that our hospitals and icus, in particular, are already being filled. >> so talk about that. we had dr. fauci on-air this morning saying that he fears that january could be even worse than december in terms of cases, in terms of hospitals being inundated. if this variant appears to be more transmisble, does it make it more alarming for you as a medical professional in terms of what could happen in hospitals across the country? >> absolutely. we're in a situation where we

know things are going to get worse before they begin to get better. it will be weeks, you know, a couple of months to begin to catch up on where we have fallen behind. and then if this mutation, this new dated virus, which is more contagious is not wide spread yet and beginning to spread, that means it will be even more important to follow the approachs we know work. and the reality, from my talking to colleagues 234 the uk, in their hospitals, is that the hospital workers who are working around the virus are wearing a mask, distancing, washing hands, doing all the standard things. that's working to keep it contained. it's just that it's even more contagious than we've seen. so we need everybody else to come along. >> the uk remains on lockdown and their numbers continue to rise. but the federal government here only yesterday enacted restrictions for uk travelers requiring proof of that negative covid test 72 hours before boarding a flight. the cdc researchers say showing

a negative test three days before a flight reduces spread by 5 to 9 percent. what do you make of the u.s. response to this? >> at this point, i think we found that the virus is already here and been circulating for awhile so the travel restrictions become less powerful. it is a weak travel restriction and much more timely, fast testing before people get on board, quarantine after they get on board, and having a real quarantine would be stronger measures. look, the biggest thing we need to do now is we need to double down on our mitigation measures that we are -- that we have not fully enacted. we need everybody to be masking. we need to maintain social distancing. we need resources to get out so that places where people are gathered indoors, like bars and restaurants, need to be able to pause on getting those crowds indoors.

this is what -- these are critical drivers of the infection. >> it's happening as the tsa is reporting record travel for the year. obviously, no surprise given the holidays. that's alarming itself. the cdc is also reporting that 11.4 million vaccines were zriblted. 2. 1 million people were vaccinated. that's well short from the goal operation warp speed of had 20 million vaccines by the end the year. that's over two days from now. it's clearly not going to happen. what do you think is the reason why we have fallen so far behind? >> well, first of all, we've had a pattern of consistency under estimating the virus, overpromising what is going to happen. that has to change. and what i think we're seeing signalled from president-elect biden is that in the next administration, which is to come in a few weeks, that he will be up front about what the challenges are, being transparent and where the bottle necks are. i would say we're still not at the bottom of why all the problems are there but i think

the second part is, as your correspondent alluded to, there has not been the advanced planning and then the resources to stand up the vaccination sites and capabilities required. i'm very involved in standing up vaccination sites in massachusetts and it's been a big problem that there weren't the resources to get them going weeks ago. then, you know, the protocols and the transparency about who is being prioritized when all of that came down in the last couple of weeks. that's not enough time when you expected all the distribution to be happening. >> yeah. we heard president-elect biden say he would enact the defense production act to help speed things up, as well. doctor, thank you so much for joining us and the work you're doing. we appreciate it. >> thank you. i want to bring in dr. jonath jonathan reiner. thank you for joining us.

you heard the biden's team coronavirus advisor laying out his concerns about the variant already being here in the u.s. it's, obviously, there's likely community spread and more wide spread, obviously, than we had known early on. is this worrisome for you? especially given that testing is still not where it needs to be in this country >>well, i think this variant has been here for awhile. you only find what you search for and we're only looking for it now. so we may even learn that this variant has potentially been one of the causes of the surge in the united states. i won't be surprised if we learn that in coming days. we also know, as the doctor said so clearly, that everything we know about mitigation of this virus works with this variant. ma masking, avoiding crowds, staying in place, avoiding, you know, indoor spaces. all that works to prevent a

spread of the variant, as well. so it shouldn't be, you know, frightening to the public. it should steel everyone's resolve to do everything we know we can do to prevent further spread. >> we heard president-elect biden today once again call on masks to be worn and saying he would implement mask wearing, when possible. when he's going to be president. this turned, unfortunately, into a political issue. we have millions of people not wearing their masks regularly. but in terms of vaccine distribution, we know that's woefully behind, as well. the president-elect and members of his covid task force say they can ramp this up to 100 million doses in 100 days. that's 1 million doses a day. is this overly optimistic? ? >> i hope not. i think it's not ambitious enough. let's do the math, dr. fauci believes ultimately we need to vaccinate about 80% of the country to achieve

vaccine-induced herd immunity. 80% of 330 million people is about 260 million people. right now the vaccines available are two doses. that's 520 million vaccinations, if we don't get a vaccine like the j & j vaccine that requires a single dose. so 1 million shots a day is a year and a half. not good enough. >> wow. >> we need to be doing at least, umm, at least 10 million vaccinations a week. so that's about a million and a half vaccinations a day. and that'll get us to about that number in a year. >> wow. hopefully it will help when we have more vaccines on the market, as well. and getting fda approval, which we should have in the coming months. dr. reiner, great to here from you. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thank you. up next, is senator mitch mcconnell plotting to kill efforts to give americans a $2,000 stimulus check? plus, what early voting

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blocks an attempt by democrats to increase the payments for american struggling to get by to $2,000. president trump supports the increase slamming mcconnell's move on twitter say, quote, "unless republicans have the death wish, and it's the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments asap." a bit confusing there. phil madingly is out front of capitol hill. what is mitch mcconnell saying? >> reporter: look, he's stuck between a number of different competing elements right now. you, obviously, have the georgia runoff. two republican senators endangered backed the $2,000 payments. mcconnell needs to remain as majority leader. he has the president with whom he's upsetted because he

accepted the fact it was reality. joe biden is the president-elect of the united states. he has a large majority of his conference were opposed to the expanded direct payments. so the question is what is mcconnell going to do? we got a hint. he introduced his own legislation. he combined all three elements of what president trump said he needed in order to sign off on the covid relief and government spending package earlier in the week. there's the $2,000 payments but there's also a repeal of the online liability protections known as section 230 and a voter fraud commission. these are things the president demanded. these are things mcconnell is giving him. here is the thick, with those things that bill is dead on arrival. democrats will never vote for those things. i think the recognition up here is if you're looking whether or not today was a day where things got closer to resolution and outcome in terms of sending out $2,000 checks to individuals 234 the country, the answer is no. mitch mcconnell has an alternative that democrats won't

vote for or let the clock run out entirely. >> they got days left until sunday for the congress. that seems to be one of his tactics. great to have you on, phil, thank you. one senator who made a passionate plea to his republican colleagues on the floor today to support the $2,000 stimulus checks straight up is democratic senator chris murphy. >> there are 52 of you. you get to decide do you protect the billionaires or choose to feed that 11-year-old kid? the only thing that stop $2,000 payments to struggling americans now is 52 senate republicans. some things in washington aren't that simple. but this is. >> and senator murphy is out front with us. he sits on the senate foreign

relations committee. is this a non-starter for you if mcconnell combines these three issues in the bill? >> well, mcconnell is intentionally trying to kill the $2,000 payments by lumping them in with a voter fraud commission that presupposes there was some massive mail in voter fraud and this repeal of liability provisions for internet companies that is completely half baked. there's an easy path here. there is a bill to increase the payments to $2,000 that has passed the house of representatives with a lot of republican votes. the president will sign it. it's pending before the house. we could vote on it tomorrow and send it to the president's desk and everybody in this country making less than $75,000 would get $2,000. that would save a lot of lives in this country. we have four days left in the legislative session. we won't be able to pass a new piece of legislation with massively complicated internet reform and a voter fraud

commission in it. so mcconnell, if he moves forward with that proposal, he's making it clear he wants to kill the $2,000 checks. if he brings up the house bill, then we have a chance to pass it and get it signed into law and help a lot of people in this country during a tough holiday. >> he may be getting what he wants and that's not passing any bill that is sending $2,000 checks out to families. given that republican senators have embraced the $2,000 checks, do you think it could help give them an edge to win in these crucial runoffs that will decide who controls the senate in georgia? >> well, listen, i don't know how this plays out in georgia. all i know is my folks in connecticut, you know, desperately need this help now. folks are getting evicted, as we head into january. moms and dads are having a tough time putting food on the table. they need that help. i mean, listen, ultimately people in georgia are watching what mitch mcconnell is doing. he's playing games with the lives of americans by coming

right up to the zero hour before he tells us what he's going to with this $2,000 payment. and i think folks in georgia, you know, want to give joe biden a chance to succeed. who don't want mcconnell to continue to play the games. you know, they know that a vote for john and warnock is a vote for more efficient and compassionate government. >> i don't have to tell you what happens in georgia sets the balance going forward. mcconnell announced the senate will begin to proceed tomorrow overriding the veto. the house voted to override it last night. do you think there are enough votes in the senate now to override it? >> i do i think there's no doubt there will be enough votes in the senate to override the president's veto here. there's a pay raise in that for

our troops. there's a provision that the president really doesn't like that renames bases in the country that were named after confederate generals. it's an important piece of legislation for the country's security. but i also think there are 60 votes for the $2,000 payment bill. it's true, as phil said, it splits the republican caucus. there's probably a good number of them that don't want those $2,000 payments, and that group may include mcconnell. i think there are, you know, 10 to 20 republicans that will vote for the $2,000 payments. if the bill came to the floor, it would easily get 60 votes. >> interesting. before you go, i want to ask you about a conversation i had last night with retired lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. he was a highly decorated army veteran who you called a patriot. he told me he has no regrets about coming forward to testify. listen to what he told me if i asked he believed the military did all it did to defend and

protect him from retaliation. >> the bottom line is no they haven't. and i think in certain ways, they probably have misrepresented the secretary of defense, former secretary of defense probably misrepresented the amount of support i was receiving. at no point did any senior leader, civilian or military, attempt to contact me and, you know, indicate that i was still in good standing in the military. >> he retired shortly thereafter this past year after 21 years in the military. but in terms of what precedent that can set for others that want to come forward and tell the right thing. when they see what happened to him in terms of what lawmakers could do, should they look into that? >> well, that's heartbreaking to hear from him. but it's unsurprising. not only did he not receive any support from the military chain of command privately but didn't

receive that support publicly. and, frankly, we should expect that our military leaders are going to publicly speak out in defense of whistle blowers. they should be just as interested as citizens or members of congress in getting to the bottom of wrong doing when it happens on their watch in their own administration. what this president has done to make it hard, impossible, maybe, for future whistle blowers to come forward, you know, it has real serious consequences for the country. i think that congress is going to have to figure out how we can better protect whistle blowers. there's a pretty strong statute on the books now that the president just ignored. we may have to look as to how we can apply that to, you know, ohs in the military command to try to require better behavior by folks who could be in a position to protect people. >> we don't have to remind our viewers the hell he went through following that impeachment trial. thank you for enginijoining us,

senator. out front next, a week before georgia voters go to polls in a race that will determine the balance of power in washington. will trump's upcoming visit help or hurt republicans? and a a republican who defied the president on not one but two votes last night is my guest. he wasn't the only one. is trump losing his grip on the party?

tonight georgia's republican senators are heaping praise on president trump.

it comes one week from the state's crucial senate runoff elections that will decide the balance of power in washington. outfront now two reporters who have been covering these races for weeks. thank you. you spoke with voters today at a campaign event for senator loeffler. these are the republican faithful. these are the ones who have been showing up to these runoff rallies wearing red hats, waiving trump flags. they are the republican base here in georgia and when we talk to them specifically about the stimulus payouts, they say they careless about policy and more about whether senators loeffler and purdue agree with president trump.

take a listen. >> he didn't think, umm, that the $600 was enough. i mean, it's a slap in the face to the american people. >> personally, as a retired citizens, i don't need a $2,000 stimulus check. >> yeah. he's saying he doesn't need it. what you're seeing here is there is a political reason it makes political sense for them to fall in line with what the president says. that's what the base wants. >> clearly they want those senators to follow whatever the president is doing, which is why they switched this past week in support of the $2,000 checks. instead, the president has loomed large in the runoffs from his baseless claims of voter fraud to the stimulus check. now he's coming back to georgia for a big rally on the eve of the election on monday. is it a good or bad thing for republicans? >> reporter: it's the republican's best hope. i mean, we know president trump is a driver of the republican base. this is going to be a turnout

election. it's going to be something where both sides are trying to push for their baseline of voters to be the ones that carries them over the top. we've seen that democrats had strong showings in early voting that democratic districts are coming out at near or above presidential levels. we have not seen that from the republican side. republicans are hoping they make that up in-person voting on january 5th but it requires a huge turnout. that's what they're hoping president trump can be the difference maker, particularly in the rural counties, that's where they're looking for him to take them over the top. they need it to happen to make up what democrats have already done in the early voting. >> thank you so much for your insight. i know you spend a lot of time on the ground in georgia. we appreciate it. now i want to bring in harry, senior writer an analyst for cnn politics. harry, president-elect biden georgia but you said the democratic candidates have ground to make up here. ings plain why. >> sure.

take a look at the results back in november. remember joe biden carried the state of georgia. he won it by .02. but in both the senate regular election and the special where there were all the democrats and republicans running in november, you see the democrats ran behind the republican candidates. the republican candidates won in that regular election by 1 point. the democrats need to get more voters come january if they want to win in the senate elections. >> where is the most likely place democrats should be looking for to scare make up for the lost ground? >> the atlanta suburbs. that's where they should be looking. six congressional district. all though biden ran ahead of both ossoff in the special statewide, it was specifically large in the sixth congressional district. in the atlanta suburbs, a lot of white college educated voters were anti-trump but not willing to pull the lever for the senate democratic candidates. let's see if they're willing to do so in this runoff.

if they do, both ossoff -- both in the special and the regular the democrats will be in better shape. >> we know the democrats have raised a boat load of money leading up to the runoff elections. are you seeing anything in the early vote to suggest there could be a change from turnout of what we saw in november? >> yeah. african-americans are making up larger share of the early vote right now as compared to where we were in the elections leading up to november. you see this white here on your convene. they're making up three percentage more of the vote now that could be because of warnock, obviously, an african-american running in the special. right now democrats have to be very, very happy that black voters are turning out in large numbers. >> a lot of credit goes to stacy abraham's way leading up to the runoff and, obviously, the election in general in november. but it took ten days before we knew biden won georgia. could we be waiting for awhile until we know who won these races? >> absolutely!

i mean, it should be -- >> say no. we'll find out right away. >> no, you know, we have to be patient. it wasn't just in that presidential race it was also in the senate regular election. we did not know that was going to runoff until that friday. we had to wait three days! in that presidential race, we had to wait ten days. patience, patience, patiences. it's better to get it right than it is to get it fast. >> oy. we're running out of patience. we have given so much patience in the past few weeks for elections! when the president comes monday, the big question, you know, we've been asking you and you heard it in the previous segment, will he help republicans or are they nervous about what he could possibly do and what he's going to be prioritizing and focussing on? what is your take on the eve of the election? >> the turnout -- look, the republicans want that election day turnout, especially in the rural counties, for sure, that are running behind so far in the early vote. but at the same time you know georgia's sixth congressional district there are a lot of swing voters there.

does he turn the voters against the senate republican candidates? it's sort of the iffy equation. i'm not quite sure. but that voters will have the say on tuesday. >> warnock and ossoff have stayed on message throughout the runoff. obviously, we saw that hurdle from the president really make, umm, loeffler and purdue change their views and support the $2,000 checks even though they said the $600 checks were appropriate. does it impact them? >> it could. you want to stay on message, right. in any division that republican base can be bad. we'll have to wait to see. tuesday will be the ultimate. >> i know you'll be following. >> i will be. >> thank you. get some rest. "out front" new body camera videos show the chilling moments before the christmas day explosion in nashville. and president trump

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tonight a growing number of house republicans defying president trump during his final days in office. 109 republicans joining democrats to override his veto of a key defense spending bill that would give u.s. troops a raise but a bill trump opposed because it didn't repeal a law that protects big tech companies. 1230 -- 130 republicans voting

against the -- disgraceful act total submission by weak people to big tech. negotiate a better bill or get better leaders now. the senate should not approve ndaa until fixed. "out front" one republican who went against president trump on both of those votes. republican congressman french hill of arkansas. congressman, thank you so much for taking the time to join us tonight. let's start with the defense bill. what do you say to president trump calling this a disgraceful act of cowardess and total submission by weak people? >> well, thank you for having me on. well, this is president trump's defense authorization bill. it contains his strategy for changing our national security strategy. it contains all the authorizations for new platforms, pay raises for our troops, it contains over 40 recommendations to change our

strategies as it relates to china, particularly something that he's been very concerned about. in my view, this is a key bill, a bill that is supported and you saw it on both sides of the capital with the vote for the ndaa, the national defense authorization bill and the vote in the house to override the veto. he's right about concerns of sections 230, as it relates to immunity for big tech companies but it doesn't belong in this bill. i was very pleased to hear mitch mcconnell in the senate, our senate leader he thought it should be taken up and dealt with. i know in the house, on both sides of the aisle, we want to look at section 230, how it can be amended, and how it can be rectified. >> i know many are referring to mcconnell's proposal as a poison bill now, at this point, really putting democrats up against the wall even though they had the been the ones pressuring republicans over the past few days.

i want to ask you about president trump's repeated calls for americans to receive the $2,000 stimulus checks. not the previously agreed to $600 that his own treasury secretary put forward. he tweeted in part, quote, "unless republicans have a death wish and it's also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments asap. $600 is not enough." this is a popular measure with americans struggling to get by. are you worried that president trump is right and that opposing this is a, quote, "death wish" for the party? >> well, look, during the course of the year, republicans and democrats came together in the c.a.r.e.s. act and provided immense relief in the face of the pandemic. particularly in the spring. we didn't know how it would affect the economy, how it would affect our individual families. during that time, a family of four with one person out of work has gotten over $20,000 in direct support in 2020 from the federal government on top of their state unemployment. so in my view, the $600

additional economic stimulus check for families combined with rental assistance, the paycheck protection program, to bring more people back to work, the enhanced weeks of unemployment. all that should be looked at together and it got 60 votes in the senate. i'm not sure that the $2,000 threshold will get 60 votes in the senate. i believe why treasury secretary mnuchin was able to craft the bill that we voted on that president trump signed into law. >> i guess the big question is the president could have pushed for this months ago. who knows, he's convincing. he may have been successful at it. why do you think he's putting your party, his own party in such a bind now? >> well, i think the president always advocated for more economic stimulus payments in the summer. of course, speaker pelosi delayed bringing covid-19 relief to the floor for politics, in my personal view, before the

election. she didn't want president trump to have the victory of covid-19 relief before the election. she was a foot dragger on this measure, as well. so president trump is advocated for bigger checks for families. he's had that consistent view. he should have pressed harder before the bill came to conclusion with treasury secretary mnuchin, speaker pelosi, and leader mccarthy in the last three weeks. we didn't hear that vociferous statement at that time. >> thank you so much for taking the time, congressman, we appreciate it. >> thank you. happy new year. >> you too. out front next, business owners try to make their way to the site of the massive explosion in nashville. we're there. are you angry? >> plus what melania trump did that sources say has put the president in a foul mood. did n go to libertymutual.com to customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need?

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stunning body cam footage capturing the christmas day blast in nashville. revealing what police say were just moments before the explosion. this as the fbi agent in charge of the investigation is saying tonight that the agency is looking at all and any possible motives. martin savidge is "outfront." >> reporter: investigators in nashville won't say if there's specifically looking into whether online conspirac y the blen bulletin issued may 13 order warns online bombing. there has been dozens of attacks

at cell towers. the explosive rv belong to warner was parked next to a facility owned by at&t. cnn's parent company. one of a number of communication companies rolling out of the new 5g service. the location can be seen in this police body cam video released by nashville police pd. the blast knocked out cellular and internet service and as well as 911 call center. the same body camera video captures the blast. police go door-to-door warning

people about the threat then two officers approached the rv. the officers comment on the surrealness of the scene. >> it is so real. it is like out of a movie. >> reporter: a short time later as the officer opens the trunk of his car comes the shattering blast. followed by frantic calls on police video announcing what happened and calling for additional help. >> we need all resources out. >> reporter: the video shows officers rushing into help and direct victims from the bombing. >> are you guys okay? >> go to your car. >> reporter: while radio traffic warns of additional explosion danger. >> ammunition, do not get in the open. do not get out of the vehicle.

fo >> reporter: four days after the explosion, some business owners were allowed to go in the the business area to survey the damage. demetrius kelly was turned away. his restaurant was too close to the center which was still a crime scene. the devastation is significant. it is 6:30 in the morning. just instant like dusts and you know debris. >> are you angry? it is heart more than anger but no. it is what it is. >> reporter: whether or not that blast was targeting at&t or 5g, experts say what it points out is the vulnerability of america's communications system. one blast could take out so much as far as civilians and

government communications and disrupting retail business for days on end shows that many companies going forward now are going to have to harden their facilities and think about security and redundancy, the impact of the blast here is going to be feel far beyond. >> thank you martin savidge. next, president trump can be seen smiling while playing golf but behind closed doors. he's acting out. it is not just because of the election. i'm a performer. always have been. and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis. voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. and it can help you too. feel the joy of movement with voltaren.

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upset with renovations at mar-a-lago. sources tell cnn the president was upset of changes to his private corridors. many were over seen by the first lady asking for white marble. >> trump has been moody spending christmas vacation at the club, what else are you hearing? >> reporter: one, he didn't like the renovations. the president had a specific aesthetic, we have seen its before sort of showcased in trump's land, it is gold and guilded and heavy on this stuff. he didn't like some of the renovations not only in the private quarters but elsewhere at the club which had been under going updates here and there as the first lady looks forward to life after the white house.

she's been involved in some of these changes and the president did not like it. the president has been moody and the vibe has been off and certainly his last holiday there as president of the united states, things in the country are completely out of whack. so certainly that mood is being reflected. >> clearly these are high class problems whether it is dark or light marble. and as you mention what's transpiring in the country and soaring covid cases and record hospitalizations in the u.s. and the president is quiet and not saying much at all about this and as hospitalizations continue to rise in particularly hard hit states like california. what more can you tell us about what he's been doing and planning for new year's. >> reporter: as we connitinuing every year, some guests have

seen him. they're planning at mar-a-lago and this year is the new year's eve event. it is black tie and well attended by club members and local palm beach members as well and this year will be no different. i am hearing approximately 500 reservations have been made for thursday night's party. as we have seen at the white house here at the holiday parties here, they're particularly not necessarily masked people who attends. there is not a lot of social distance and we may expect to see that at mar-a-lago certainly avoiding the rules. >> must be nice. i hope they at least wear masks and social distance. >> thank you very much for joining us tonight. "ac 360" starts right now. good evening to you, jim sciutt