hi there. i'm kristen sze. welcome to our daily program called "getting answers." we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 and giving answers in real time. coming up, tv food host and we'll talk to a therapist about mental health over the holidays and ways to cope and get through these stressful times. first you heard the breaking news here on "getting answers" yesterday. the gsa declaring joe biden the official process. with us is professor lonnie chen who has served in the republican

committee. good to see you. >> thank you. >> finally happened after some three dozen dismissed lawsuits the president allowed the formal transition to begin. we got word the white house has given formal approval for biden to start getting the daily briefing. let me just ask you, is this trump's way of conceding? >> i think it's as close as we'll get at this point. this is a very important moment, it's a very important opportunity for the new administration, for the transition to formally get underway. some of these things are important, office space and funding, as well as more importantly some of this national security information that's conveyed in the presidents' daily brief, you no noted. it's very important for the continue newity of government to ensure that the incoming administration has it.

>> planning the vaccine distribution, so much to ham, the economy, the coronavirus. how is biden doing so far do you think in terms of the two weeks since the election in the way of cabinet members he's named and other things. >> i think it's a good first two weeks for the president-elect here. i think he's managed to demonstrate that his administration is going to run pretty differently from the trump administration in terms of the level of order and the amount of discipline we see coming out of the announcements they're making. we've heard some cabinet announcements, janet yellen as the potential secretary of treasury is one of the most experienced and well regarded economic policy minds in washington. she's been the chair of the federal reserve.

i think jake sullivan will be a great national security advisor. i think the president-elect so far has made. experienced folks who come into the job with understanding of how to get things done. >> i don't want to dive into the exact names. that will take too long because he's announced quite a few picks. what do you think they say to foreign countries, our rivals and our allies? what's the message? >> i think it's a return largely to the foreign policy that we saw during the obama administration with a few notable changes. i think there's probably going to be much more of an emphasis on multi-lateralism. working through multi-lateral organizations like the u.n. work with our allies particularly in the challenge of containing china. i think you'll see a lot some of interaction with allies in that

indo pacific region. it harkens back to an old approach. everything suggests that this administration come up is going to be sma of a return to the norm, if you will, over what we've seen for the last several decades. >> i want to bring in some viewer questions. mark comments that he says jail trump and lead him in cuffs out of our house. that does bring me to the question, what are the chances that he will get prosecution after he leaves the white house? he's been protected. well, you know, as commander in chief? >> there's two levels. one is a state level potential investigations that we're hearing about out of the state of new york, for example. i have no doubt those investigations will continue for potential violations or issues relating to state law. as far as federal prosecutions go, that's going to be up to the president-elect and joe

i would say most of the federal activity is not going to happen. i think biden has indicated his desire to bring people together, to try and be a healing president. i think going after trump in that way does make some of those fi physical yurs more real. >> the president kept warping that if biden won wall street was going to tank. today the dow rallied to new heigh heigh heigh heights. what do you think that's a result of? what do you think it is? >> i think j up a canal of things. first of all, the end of the virus, the end of the virus that might come with widespread vaccination, that's been a sign of hope. i think frankly markets crave

stability. anytime you have a more stable policy maker and more stable, that is something markets appreciate. other things are generally not favorable to business. the certainly of knowing that you're going to have a policy making process you can understand that's not going to be cryptic, those are things that investors like. i think that's a large deal of the explanation for why we're seeing the markets perform as well as they have over these last couple of weeks. >> got it. yes, we certainly do have more clarity right now. president trump really stress tested the election system, if you will, with his cries of fraud and an p attempt to get state officials to overcome the will of the voters. what did it show about our system? did we see cracks? >> i think the system is pretty resilient, actually. we had close outcomes.

georgia, arizona was very close. nevada was pretty close. even pennsylvania was relatively close. what we saw is that despite the occasional story about things going awry, people maybe not doing what they were supposed to do, by and large things worked pretty well. i think that the system survived this particular test pretty well. i think we're going to have room for improvement. there are things that we're going to continue to look at. reform will be on the agenda. by and large, i think as americans we should feel pretty good that we went through a strongly contested election. the president were lodging attacks that were p frankly unfounded in many cases but to demonstrate that our system still works well and the people's will can be heard, those are positives we should take away from this. >> i should say viewers you have worked for romney, mitt romney.

mitt romney was one of the early ones to stand up, if you will, against the things the president had done after the election. do you think more republicans will go that way and do you think they'll try to create a new party, a post trump party from here? >> i think there will be an acknowledgement of reality. if the states certify their election results, we saw more today, more over the next week or so. they are the same in terms of not understanding or recognizing the results of this election. i think they have to come around. i think it's reality. in temples of what happens next, it will be interesting to see. donald trump has talked about running again in 2024. there are a lot of other ambitious republicans out there wanting to run in 2024. i think the republican party, they're elements, policy

elements, for example, focussing on working class americans more, those kinds of things we are going to see the party try and adopt more of, but in terms of the personalities, the most interesting one in my mind that needs to be resolved is what is the role of donald trump himself? is he going to continue to be a candidate? is he going to come back or is he going to move to the background and be the mor of behind the scenes king maker? those are the questions that will have to be sorted out over the next several years. >> no doubt if he decides to run again, that clips the wings of many republican up and comers. who do you think are some of the top makes who could become the standard bearer? >> it's interesting. you have a couple of different wings of the party, if you will. you have people who are firmly in the trump camp. that would be trump himself. some of donald trump's progeny, as it were, don trump jr. if he

decides to go into politics. people who are looking for their own pathway. people like pompeo, secretary of state, nikki haley, members of the senate like tom cotton of arkansas, josh holly of missouri, ted ted cruz, marco rubio, those names are likely to be in the mix and others were more skeptical of trump. looks like the governor of maryland, charlie baker, the governor of massachusetts, people who have been more overtly hostile to trump, is there going to be room for that in a republican primary where i think in a couple of years trump may be pretty popular. it's going to be a wild field. there's going to be a lot of people who will run and that's what makes these politics. >> thanks for stopping by and have a great thanksgiving. >> thank you, you, too. speaking of thanksgiving, can you have a safe one? a safe dinner?

up next we'll explore it with alejandro

all right. welcome back. thechg will look different for most families this can year. how can we enjoy it safely? joining us is new york based chef and food guest alejandro ramos. hey there. >> hi there. thanks for having me. >> oh, my gosh, no. i'm delighted. i see you have a spread in your kitchen already. for those smaller parties, single family thanksgiving meals without much help, or people who are just not used to handling

the chicken duties, what can they do? >> i think we need to sort of let go of the expectations and pressure and think about the things you really love. that one recipe that you really want. get that rite and then there's so many ways to get the other things done. i outsource. i love going to the grocery store and pick up some sides. or if you want to make it, picked up ingredients, have some chopped onions. that makes it a little bit nicer this time of year when it's already a little bit complicated, right? >> it certainly is. i wonder if it's harder to do smaller portions. is that your advice with the smaller gatherings? if you're the same size, smaller portions, what do you think? >> i say you don't have to go with the smaller portions. instead of that, think fewer, but go ahead and make full size versions of the one or two or

three things that you really love. leftovers are i think one of the universally loved things about thanksgiving. and then also i think it's going to help you out because sometimes you have a recipe or you try to make it smaller you're more likely to overcook it or burn it. make the full thing the way you always make it. it will taste the way you want it to taste. freeze the left overseas, enjoy them throughout the week or better yet, share them with someone. maybe you can arrange with a neighbor so you do half and half so everybody gets to enjoy what they really love. >> i get it. when you do share, put it on their front porch and don't have that face-to-face contact. >> exactly. >> we are urged to try to celebrate just with our own immediate households. if people choose not to do that, if they choose to have two or three households, hopefully no more than that, give us some

safe alternatives. what else? >> absolutely. as much as you can possibly be outside, get tested. it's a little late for things like starting to isolate. hopefully you've been isolating. you've been staying home and away from other people for as long as possible, at least for those two weeks. you really do need to take advantage of this. talk to the friends and people you're getting together with and find out who they've been in contact, sort of inspect what's going on in that bubble, so there aren't any surprises. it really is risky, though. so i really do recommend keeping it small. you're going to do it, do it outside. even if you do something outside and everybody had little tables set up in their own little area, so you're not all at the same table. >> ah, yes. >> you can take into consideration, a much safer way to do it. >> got you.

different tables, different areas for different household. or maybe do it in the garage, open the garage door, right, and kind of have your ventilation. >> another thing you could do is -- i was going to say if you have your own meal at heenld you've got the zoom for that but afterwards meet up for a mass walk or a casual get-together in the park afterwards so you get a little bit of that together time but you're not unmasked in a closed space together. >> got ya. you don't want to be doing zoom while you're eating, anyway. i think it's -- how about tips relating to cooking safely if you were to serve, you know, a couple of households, for example, how to handle and preserve that food? >> exactly. if you are cooking for other people, cook like a chef in a restaurant, anything that you're

going to be touching that is end up getting eaten. i'm double slicing bread someone else is going to eat, i would wear gloves for that. wear a mask while you cook, so you don't contaminate any food that you make. containers should be new and sanitized. keep everything separate and then labeled also. you know exactly what's in there. that's the other thing, when you're cooking for other people. make sure they know about the allergies, make sure they know what's in there. >> absolutely. >> and that will help keep things safe. >> that sounds great. i want to get a message in from ave maria. she said she is an award winning flood blogger. that's great she's with us. >> oooh. >> what is your best advice for

small gathering, like but we want to be safe and best advice. >> yes. so i mean, absolutely outdoors if you can. where were where you've been, you've got to take care of that first. then, i mean, in terms of the -- i guess once here you're already sharing in the food, you're already going to be in that space. i think it's what you do before handled. i think it's about knowing where you've been, where your guests have been, keeping things distant, like we mentioned earlier. even like you said, something in a well ventilated space. if you are going to be in indoors, get the windows open, if you can. use an air purifier or something like that, keep the air fresh. anything you can do to keep the air moving, to keep things as fresh as possible, that is going to help you out, if you're going to be indoors. >> all right. alejandra ramos, thank you for

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welcome back. the holidays can be a stressful time. add on a presidential election, pandemic, it can almost be unbearable. how do you keep your mental health intact? joining us, catherine o'brien. catherine, thamgts for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> i know you see a lot of patients. so how real, how widespread is depressioning right now? >> yes. this last year, there's been an increase in depression and anxiety and the holidays are always a difficult time and it's more intense this year, i think, than in the past. >> then we all need coping mechanisms, right, ways to make lemonade out of lemons. do you have any suggestions for us? >> i think it's always so important that we take care of

ourselves. especially around the holidays, we the end to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make everybody else happy and do all the things. i think right now we need to limit what we do. minimize things that make things easier, set real expectations for ourselves and to make sure that -- and through all this we're taking care of ourselves, making sure we're getting enough health care, enough rest, that we're not drinking too much, that we're eating healthy foods and everything. >> i want to bring in a question. anna navarro wants to know how do we let our families know that we will not be gathering with them in a way that's filled with compassion and lo. >> yes. this question has come up so much in the last couple of weeks in my office. one of the things we've talked about is saying this is what our family needs. this is not ideally what we want to do but this is not a typical year, so our -- we need to make

sure that we stay safe, so we're going to take precautions this year and we're hoping, you know, in maybe a few months with a vaccine coming out, maybe six months from now, we can have another get-together in a different way but right now we need to make sure we stay safe for our family. >> absolutely. now, you know, during holiday gatherings, usually you have the arguments and conflicts and surprises. how do we avoid that this year? i know it begins with communication, and you do have some tips for us, right? >> yeah. i think a lot of times about what we need to do. we -- you know, not to stir the pot, not to use passive-aggressive statements and keep it about this is how i'm feeling, this is what i need

and this is, you know, blaming or doing anything like that. >> you have some tips for us here. determining with your partner and family what you feel comfortable with this holiday season. i assume you mean how to gather. you said avoid scheduling to please inin-laws. what do you mean by that? >> not just inlaws. i think sometimes we overschedule because we're trying to please everybody. but i work with young parents and young families and a lot of times we haven't been able to do it and we're stressed and don't enjoy the holiday that we want to enjoy, so i think it's limiting what we do on a specific day and not do it all at once or too much in one day. >> ok. >> even in that week, you can spread those things out. >> for sure. setting healthy boundaries between yourself and your extended family and friends. how do you do that? >> i think it's being direct and let them know what you're

going -- what you need and what you're going to do and be commune ka active, share with them exactly what it's going to look like. i think sometimes we try to avoid things. people make assumptions and have ideas in their head and we feel more pulled in that way, so if we can be direct up front right away. communicating with your partner in your immediate family so that you guys know what you want, and then share it with the rest of the family. >> we're just about out of time. i want to ask you, thanksgiving, or in a couple of weeks, how do you celebrate and should you still celebrate if you're not with family and friends? if you're arhone or with a small group? >> yeah, i think you can definitely celebrate. make it -- you can make it different. maybe you don't get out of your pajamas and watching movies all day or you make your favorite

male, you make pancakes or cinnamon roles or whatever. you can do it. even if you can't be with people we've gotten good at doing this zoom thing. it's like decking in other ways with your family and friends. >> all right. some important tips this holiday season to help is cope and get through it all. catherine o'brien, thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you for having me. >> and happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving to you,

and we're back. thank you so much for joining us today on this interactive show "getting answers."

we talked about how to have a safe thanksgiving and how to tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. sending in reinforcements, just two days before thanksgiving. members of the air force arrive to help at hospitals. the national guard helping with makeshift morgues. and we have just learned tonight 170,000 new cases in just 24 hours. 1,800 more american lives lost in just one day to coronavirus. hospitalizations on the rise in 48 states, a record high number of patients now reported. and in new york city tonight, the field hospital now up and running. the head of the cdc warning tonight, we are going to see the health care system overwhelmed. and states from california to florida to massachusetts now imposing new restrictions heading into the holiday, as millions now fly home. now three weeks after the election, the transition tonight