judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, joe biden and kamala harris begin their transition to the white house as the trump team refuses to concede defeat. then legal battles loom -- despite virtually no chancof changing the results, the president's lawyers file multiple suits to challenge the election. plus, a potential treatment -- as the pandemic worsens worldwide, a glimmer of hope emerges from a vaccine trial showing promising results. all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour."

announcer: major funding for the "newshour" has been provided by -- >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that is fidelity wealth management. announcer: consumer cellular. johnson & johnson. financial services firm raymond james. bnsf railway. the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at hewlett.org. the chan-zuckerberg initiative, working to build a more healthy, just, and inclusive future for

everyone at czi.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. judy: a newly-elected joe biden is moving tonight to set up his presidency. a defeated president donald trump is disputing the election results, refusing to concede and moving to oust senior officials he deems disloyal. looming over it all, covid-19 --

and potentially hopeful news. lisa desjardins begins our coverage. lisa: the first weekday since former vice president joe biden was declared the election winner, and the new president-elect made it clear he is full steam ahead. establishing and holding a teleconference with his coronavirus task force made up of well-known doctors and disease scientists. >> this group will advise on detailed plans built on a bedrock of science and to keep compassion and empathy and care for every american at its core. lisa: mr. biden outlined a specific plan he and vice president-elect, california senator kamala harris, have for fighting the pandemic when they take over in january. make rapid testing available. deploy more contact tracing. give clear guidelines to businesses and schools, and address communities including minority communities hardest hit. this comes as drug maker pfizer announced a seeming breakthrough that its vaccine trial was more

than 90% effective in preventing the disease. mr. biden pointed to the sign of hope but urged that in the months before any vaccine is widely available, americans must protect themselves. >> please, i implore you, wear a mask. do it for yourself. do it for your neighbor, a mask is not a political statement but it is a good way to start pulling the country together. lisa: today there was news that , the u.s. has now had more than 10 million covid-19 infections with nearly 240,000 deaths. meanwhile, secretary of housing and urban development ben carson tested positive for the disease as did the trump campaign's newly-appointed lawyer david bossie. they along with white house chief of staff mark meadows who is also coronavirus positive, had attended last week's election night watch party at the white house. as for president trump, he has given no indication of conceding to biden and, he has had no public appearances since

thursday. instead, he announced a major decision on twitter that defense secretary mark esper will be replaced by christopher miller , director of the national counterterrorism center. the president tweeted "chris will do a great job! mark esper has been terminated. i would like to thank him for his service." during a trump campaign press conference today, white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany and rnc chairwoman ronna mcdaniel discussed unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. >> in michigan, a court of appeals rejected a trump attempt to challenge the vote count there as "defective". meanwhile, republicans in congress have largely declined to endorse the election results, at least publicly. at the capitol, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell welcomed four new republican senators, even as the larger fate of the chamber is still unknown. in the presidential race, he called for the process to continue. >> we have the system in place to consider concerns and president trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities

and weigh his legal options. lisa: but fellow republican senator susan collins fresh off her own victoryast week in maine released a definitive statement openly congratulating president-elect biden. and then there are some like senator lindsey graham. on fox yesterday, he urged a continued fight. >> if republicans don't challenge and change the us election system, there'll never be another republican president elected again. president trump should not concede. lisa: and emily murphy, administrator of the general services administration and a trump appointee, has yet to ascertain that mr. biden has won the presidential election -- potentially delaying the presidential transition. some world leaders were quick to congratulate mr. biden and senator harris. chancellor angela merkel of germany. >> i congratulate joe biden from the bottom of my heart on his election to the 46th president of the united states of america.

reporter: some countries like russia and china say they are waiting for all of the votes to be counted. >> we noticed that mr. biden has declared election victory. we understand that the u.s. presidential election result will be determined following u.s. law and procedures. reporter: and, as the trump campaign lawsuits play out, the counting of remaining ballots continues -- with voter turnout already hitting a 50-year high. the associated press has yet to announce a winner in alaska, north carolina, and georgia. the peach state is so close that it's heading to a recount. before the -- for the "newshour" i am lisa desjardins. judy: so far, the fact that president trump will not concede, underscores his campaign's all-out legal effort to challenge the results. but those efforts have had little traction in the courts so far. we turn to benjamin ginsberg. his work as a republican election lawyer spans decades, and includes work on the landmark bush v. gore dispute after the 2000 election.

thank you for joining us. the president and people around him are saying there was widespread fraud, that the election was stolen. is there election evidence you see to back that up? >> there is not a -- evidence so far to back that up. it is worth remembering those were allegations made before the selection based on past elections with absolutely no proof of that so the credibility of these statements now are called into question by courts. judy: i'm hearing some of the people around the president say we gave al gore 37 days to contest the election result back in 2000, you can at least do the same for us. biz an appropriate comparison? >> i think a candidate taking his or her time to pursue recount and contest remedies is allowed under state law as

appropriate. remember the hillary clinton campaign interviewed in three jewels stein very long shot recounts on december 26 of 2016. so the president does have the ability to pursue those remedies. the difference here is he is alleging fraudulent elections and rigged results that there is no evidence for. judy: so we are seeing lawsuits in at least five states i can think of. pennsylvania, michigan, arizona, georgia, nevada, if not lawsuits, the beginning of some sort of legal challenge. pennsylvania seems to be the main focus because of the number of electoral votes it could give the president if overturned. do you see anything making a legitimate complaint? > the case before the u.s. supreme court that has to do with the absentee ballot deadline extended for three days by the state supreme court

rather than the legislature is a real legitimate issue, but there aren't enough votes involved to change the outcome of the election. the question of the legislature's role opposed to state supreme court's role does not have to be answered for the 2020 election. what judy: about some of these other allegations? in michigan they are alleging backdating of ballots. in georgia, they were talking about late arriving ballots. do any of these add up to something that could materially change the result? >> certainly not so far. i've been involved in trying to put together challenges to elections. the truth is you really need same day, election day affidavits attesting to individual ballots being mishandled or fraudulent or somehow improper. trying to create a case after an election is very difficult. they are allowed some time to

try and get that together. in reality, these cases tend to dissipate over time and not be successful. judy: so what is your best estimation at this point about what could happen? >> i think the margins to make up into many states are two great -- in too many states are too great, and the reality is this will require ballot by ballot, precinct by precinct, state-by-state findings of a gal balance and fraud. so far with whatever evidence from the trump campaign, there is not close to enough to overturn the results of the election. judy: not for lack of trying. but ben ginsberg, we thank you very much. >> thank you, judy. nice to be with you. judy:judy: we turn now to lisa desjardins, yamiche alcindor and nick schifrin.

lisa, how is the biden campaign reacting to everything including legal pursuits by the trump people for refusing to concede? lisa: first of all, they are very busy. i think the word you hear from all sources around the biden campaign is they are focused, they know there's a lot of work to be done. let's take apart these issues with the gsa administrator. the biden campaign says a statement that they look forward to the gsa administrator ascertaining mr. biden at kamala harris won the election. behind the scenes talking to multiple sources, they are not too worried about the gsa failing to release the money for the transition. they say they have raised money for months and they are planning for months. they have their transition teams ready to go and they are deploying them. one reason for that is the law that describes and projects how this transition should work was

written by ted kaufman, who is one of the key advisors for now president-elect biden. they know how the transition is supposed to work and have been ready for it. to add to reporting in the past, the biden campaign says they will have transition offices in wilmington, but also in washington, d.c. and that the president-elect will work in both places. one more thing, the president-elect is talking about the agenda and focused on the coronavirus and sources say he does plan a national mask mandate. he can only directly affects federal areas like national parks but they say he will be reaching out to governors asking them to also mandate masks around the country. judy: interesting. yamiche, tell us about the thinking inside the white house and the trump campaign as they continue to insist the election is not over. yamiche: the president is refusing to face the thing he has feared the most in his life and during this campaign. that is tt he has lost, he is

the loser of this campaign. he instead is not wanting to at all say former vice president joe is the president-elect. sources tell me the president is angry, blaming people around the white house, he's isolated. he's overseeing a white house that is paralyzed by his inaction and refusal to sig this form with the gsa administrator. i should note the trump campaign is filing lawsuit after lawsuit. when they had a press conference at the republican national committee trying to explain their different lawsuits, fox news, the president's favorite tv network, cut away saying that in good conscience, they could not air those false claims. another thing to notice the president is really feeling backed against the corner, not wanting to at all acknowledge what's going on here. there is some worry the president not wanting to do this might slow things down, including the distribution and operation of the coronavirus vaccine. that might feel bureaucrati

but if he does not sign this over and biden does not get the different people in place that he needs, that vaccine could possibly get to not all the people it needs to in time. judy: and what does the president for food -- refusal to concede so far actually mean for the government transition going forward? yamiche: typically, 24 hours after a race is called and the winner is clear, the transition starts. in this case, president trump is not doing this. some people are worried. there's a question of, can he actually says -- succeed? also, in charge of the lawsuits, he has the coronavirus right now. another thing to note is senate majority leader mitch mcconnell threw his support behind president trump today. a lot of people say he's key to possibly getting president trump to back off and admit he has

lost but he's concerned about holding onto republican voters as well as winning the senate race in georgia. a lot of people think mitch mcconnell will stick to this because he is handcuffed by politics -- "handcuffed by politics." judy: lisa, back to you on that. what about the fact that you cover the hill and the vast majority of republicans are not congratulating joe biden, they are going along with the president, challenging, questioning the results? what do they see as the way forward here? lisa: i can handle this quickly, judy. republican senators, their words today, "was there fraud?" " not my role to decide." senator john thune said they will get a result at some point. some limbo, senate republicans not yet willing to go against the president. judy: we are watching them all

very closely. and finally to you nick, all of this taking place as the president fired his secretary of defense mark esper. what's going on there? nick: mark esper was the president's number one national security target ever since he resisted the president's desire to invoke the insurrection act this summer. if his firing was not that much of a surprise, chris miller's appointment as acting secretary of defense was a surprise to many. the republican chairman of the senate armed services committee said he did not know. miller is a former green beret and former assistant secretary of defense who joined the intelligence committee -- community recently during a purge by the president of senior officials. he is seen as an ally of the president and he was chosen above the deputy secretary of defense and senior officials who have more experience. but a senior official in the defense department says miller will represent continuity over the 72 days he will have in

office. his guidance will not offer changes. some people believe he will have one impact, he could go along with some kind of adventures decision for the military perhaps against iran. we asked former secretary of defense leon panetta about that, and he said military officers would push back with the help of congressional aides. he gave an expert interview with the military not -- times before he knew that miller was good to replace him. he rejected the derisive nickname he had of yes-per. he said "you have to pick your fights." esper said he would hold his tongue because "who will come in behind me? it will be a real yes-man."

then he concluded, "god help us." judy: well, that certainly gets our attention. nick schifrin covering that part of today's fast-moving events. nick schifrin, yamiche alcindor, lisa desjardins, thank you all three. as we reported, this is a transition of power unlike any we have ever seen. to help us understand what's happening, i'm joined by david marchick. he's the director of the center for presidential transition. it's a nonpartisan group that helps presidents and candidates prepare for the next administration. david marchick, thank you very much for joining us. how unusual is what is going on right now in terms of compared with other transitions? david: thank you for having me.

there have been peaceful transitions of power for 223 years. this is very unusual. this is not like the year 2000 11 state, 500 37 votes determined the outcome of 270 electoral votes. here, there a very wide margin. the outcome is clear as president george w. bush said and the transition should be moved forward. judy: that's exactly what i wanted to ask you and i posed this question to ben ginsberg. you hear republicans saying we gave al gore 37 days and 2000, why can't we do the same thing? you are saying they are just different situations. david: the factual circumstances are entirely different. the law that governs with the gsa administrator does requires her to make a decision when the outcome is clear. this year, there are four states that president-elect biden has won and he's above the margin of victory by significant amounts.

the likelihood of of recount changing the outcome is almost zero. he would need to lose both pennsylvania -- he would need to win both pennsylvania and georgia. he's up by almost 50,000 votes in pennsylvania. in the last 20 years, there have been 31 statewide recounts and only three have changed the outcome. the largest daughter that led to a change was 200 -- delta that led to a change was 200 votes. the outcome is clear in the country needs the transition to go forward. judy: explain to us why it makes a difference. some people say he doesn't really take office until january 20, the new president, what is the rush? why does it matter? david: it matters for national security, economic security, and most important a to combat covid. in 2000, president bush, then governor bush had a shortened transition and he only got about

half the number of people in their seats by day 100 as president obama did eight years later. when the 9/11 commission looked back and did an autopsy of what happened, they concluded the shortened transition, the difficulty of getting national security offials in their seats hurt our national security . today, we have multiple crises. covid,conomic crisis, racial justice crisis and a criminal -- climate change crisis, and they need to come together and solve these problems and collaborate just as george bush did and obama did in 2008. judy: what exactly is triggered? once emily murphy, the woman at the general services administration, so far has not certified joe biden is the winner, has not certified that -- b once she does, what

changes? what benefits a crew or access is then available to the biden team? david: three things. money, more space, or access to agencies. money is not that big a deal. they would like the money but they have plenty. they don't need that much space because we are in a covid environment and it is virtual. the critical thing is having the outgoing administration, the career officials into agencies and the biden transition team start to work together on national security issues, economic issues, on making sure the vaccine, where we had such an important breakthrough today, can be developed and distributed quickly to 300 million americans. that work it's critical and it cannot start until the transition starts and outgoing and incoming work together. judy: sense of whether this administration, below the highest level, the white house

level, understands that joe biden has won and is prepared to cooperate and have the transition move forward? david: i have worked on this for over a year. my organization has word on it for four years. what i've seen up until now has been very diligent work from the trump white house, from the agencies, and joe biden's team. i have been very impressed up until about this point. i think people do know and people are prepared. people i talked to want to get going, but the politics are very very difficult. judy: meaning the president? you are referring to the president? david: ultimately they are looking for a signal from the president, but the transition act does not require a signal from the president. the law gives that authority with gsa and gsa alone and the

determination is whether the outcome of the election is clear. yesterday, president george w. bush certainly not a fan of the democrats, certainly not a supporter of joe biden, said the outcome of the election is clear. that's the trigger further transition formally started. judy: david marchick with the center for presidential transitions, thank you. david: thank you for having me. stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with "newshour" west. we will return to judy woodruff and the rest of the program after the latest headlines. late this evening, the food and drug administration said it authorized emergency use of an experimental antibody treatment for covid-19. the eli lilly drug shows it can reduce mild-to-moderate symptoms in patients who do not require hospitalizations. earlier today, pfizer announced

progress on a covid vaccine. after the headlines, we will have an interview with the pfizer ceo. . and response on wall street the , dow shot up 1,500 points before ending with a gain of 834 , nearly 3% to close at 29,157. , the nasdaq fell 181 points, as tech stocks that have benefited from pandemic restrictions, lost ground. and, the s&p 500 added 41. in election 2020 news, attorney general william barr has authorized federal prosecutors to investigate "substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation of irregularities," but in a letter to prosecutors, he urged them not to pursue fanciful or far-fetched claims. so far, no evidence of widespread for odd -- fraud. south florida faced major flooding today, as tropical storm eta blew past. whole neighborhoods were swamped after the storm crossed the florida keys overnight and veered into the gulf of mexico. rain bands dumped up to a foot

of water, taking people by surprise. anthony lyas: never seen, this never. not this deep -- period. i mean, it'll settle a little bithere, but a few hours it's gone, but this? no. stephanie: the storm already killed dozens in mexico and central america and left more than 100 missing. it is expected to strengthen into a hurricane again, before striking northeastern florida next weekend. and, general motors has issued a major new recall of more than 217,000 vehicles in the u.s. and canada. it involves transmission oil leaks that might cause automobiles to stop or even catch fire. affected models include an array of buick, cadillac, chevrolet and gmc models from 2018 through 2020. the company says it has no reports of crashes, fires or injuries.

still to come on the "newshour," a glimmer of hope in the fight against covid emerges from a promising vaccine trial. our politics monday team breaks down the tumultuous transition of power ahead plus much more. announcer: this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: as we reported earlier, there was a lot of excitement around pfizer's announcement today that early data show its covid vaccine looks very effective. it is just one of a number of leading vaccine candidates to tackle covid-19. and it's quite possible the world will need several vaccines made by different companies to eventually end the pandemic. we are going to look at this news in two parts. william brangham has our breakdown.

william: judy, the first thing to know, and we can't emphasize this enough -- is this is very early data that pfizer reported along with its partner, german drugmaker bio-n-tech. but the result was beyond what many expected. pfizer said initial results found the vaccine was 90% effective in preventing covid among volunteers who had no prior infection. the data has not been published or peer-reviewed by a medical journal yet. but pfizer released it today with the hopes of getting approval for use in the weeks ahead. dr. albert bourla is the ceo and chairman of pfizer and he joins me now. very good to have you on the "newshour." as the ceo of this company, what was your reaction when you heard the news? >> it was a relief. i was feeling the pressure of the hopes of so many billions of people. this is one of the most promising technologies, the one that had the best results in

terms of immunogenicity, for cell immune, but didn't know if translated to protection. i was very worried. cautiously optimistic, but hamly -- humanely worried about the consequences if it was going to be negative. but all the way to knowing it's positive up to 90%, which i never thought it would be, that gave me a feeling i could not describe. william: initially, the fda set a benchmark of 50% efficacy for the vaccine. you are reporting 90% efficacy. what we know about the data about what this is actually protecting against? dr. bourla: the efficacy measured with positive lab tests, but confirmed by central labs in new york. it has examined whether all people are sick people coming to

, the hospital and examined by a physician, they take samples. they send those samples to the central lab and we are testing if they have covid or not. william: so right now we still don't know whether he protects against developing the disease or developing a more serious infection, those will come later? dr. bourla: we know if it protects against the disease. we don't know yet because we haven't seen the data how many of the cases were severe cases or light cases. only a group of independent experts independent from pfizer, they are allowed to have a look in the unblinded data. william: if you get approval, can you give us a sense of when people might start seeing the vaccine distributed, and what kind of numbers do you estimate? we hope we will be able to produce -- dr. bourla: we hope we will be

able to produce about 50 million this year and 3 billion year. 50 million doses means 25 million people. this is global production. if the u.s. receives 20 million of the 25 -- of 50, this means in the u.s. it will be 12.5 million we can protect. it is a small number comred to the totality of the population but of course, it's a gigantic step because if those used sttegically could be the people that are more likely to get the disease like first-line workers or sensible -- sensitive population. william: you did not initially take money from the government for operation warp speed. some members of the trump administration and members of the trump family have suggested

something suspicious about the timing of this, that former vice president joe biden is declared the winner and in this news comes out from pfizer. can you speak to the timing of this? was political consideration in this at all? dr. bourla: of course there was no political considerations. there was nothing political in the whole process to develop the vaccine. despite the fact that it was discussed, unfortunately, and protec -- political terms rather than scientific terms. i sent a letter to our empyees after the first presidential debate in the u.s. telling them some people are telling us to move faster and some are telling us to move slower, but we are going to move with the speed of science. this is exactly what we did. if the results were coming in october as predicted, we would have told them in october. they came a little later and we disclosed immediately. william: dr. albert bourla,

ceo of pfizer, thank you. for more, i'm joined by miles o'brien, our science correspondent covering the hunt for the vaccine throughout the pandemic. great to have you back on the "newshour." can you help us understand, the substance of this announcement, we have not seen the data, correct? miles: we should be doing some verifying. we are waiting for for the independent review and the peer-reviewed science work is still unknown to us. assuming this bears out, this is an extraordinary number. this vaccine will easily get into the hall of fame batting .900. 90% is stunning actually. when you think about the typical flu vaccine, its efficacy is between 40% and 60%. but there's still a lot of work to do here.

we are talking all of 94 cases, among tensf thousands, 94 cases of covid. almost all of those individuals received the placebo that was a saline solution. it is a vaccine however that is really an unproven thing in humans. it uses a piece of genetic code called mrna. it is a novel approach to making vaccines. there's never been a vaccine brought to the human market that uses this particular technique. here's an encouraging part of this though. if all this bears outcome all the vaccines that are out there right now are going after the spiky surface of the coronavirus, the spiked protein, including this one. if this was so incredibly effective, it bodes well for the other trials we are looking at. back in march, which seems like an attorney diego before we had

-- an attorney t ago, before we had mask requirements, i spoke with neil king and he walked me through the process of identifying a vaccine like this. >> figure out how to present this molecule to the immune system in the right way so you get the right response. and really for the spiked protein, what that means is which part of this do you want to hit with an antibody to shut the virus down? then how can we shine a light on that to the immune system? miles: so the spike protein appears to be the key and it bodes well for the other trials. william: you heard dr. bourla say that they think this year they might get 50 million doses out the door and next year, over one billion. what do we need to do between here and there? miles: the devil is in the logistics as much as anything. over the next few weeks, they

will try and get more data on the safety of this vaccine and then they will submit process and approval for emeency use authorization for the food and drug administration. obviously the fda knows it is coming so it should happen quickly. but when you start thinking about distributing millions, up to one billion doses, this particular vaccine likes it cold. really cold. it needs to be transported at -90 degrees fahrenheit. that is colder than some of the competitors on the vaccine front. that is creating a problem with what is called cold chain logistics. ups is one of the big ones. they showed us a raft of freezers they geared up to deliver the vaccine without it getting spoiled. pfizer meanwhile has come with its own shipment scheme, a box with dry ice in it. hopefully they will be able to get the vaccines to people without them being spoiled.

hopelly they will manage, but it haseen tried. william: let's say they do get authorization to distribute these. pfizer is not the one who decides who gets the first doses. . who decides? miles: the federal government will make the decision. there are all kinds of review plan roles -- panels making specific decisions. everyone agrees frontline health care workers should be at the head of the queue. then of course the elderly and others with pre-existing conditions which might be adversely affected by the coronavirus more than others. the government has already signed on with pfizer for $2 billion to buy 100 million doses, but you have to remember that pfizer and many of the others except for johnson & johnson's vaccine require a booster. so it's actually two shots. one, then a couple of weeks later, a second shot. getting one for the first shot

where we have a lot of people who are suspicious of vaccines is wanting, and then making sure they come back for a second shot. all of those things have to be in order. william: thank you for helping us wade through all of this. miles: you're welcome. judy: speaking of vaccines, doctors are worried too many children are not getting the standard childhood vaccinations they need in the beginning of -- they need. in the beginning of the pandemic, many doctors' offices told people to stay away to control the spread of the virus. many parents listened -- maybe o well. but while vaccinations are now inching upward, stephanie sy tells us, health officials remain concerned. here's her report from michigan. >> are you ready? stephanie: four-year-old leah long likes whooshing down slides , driving her imaginary car, and

going for walks with her parents, michelle and craig and her big brother bubba and his specially designed wheelchair. like lots of four-year-olds, this summer leah was due for some of her critical childhood vaccinations, those that guard against serious diseases like tetanus, pertussis, and measles . but bringing her to the doctor in the midst of the pandemic was a big concern for her mom. >> having two medically fragile kids. i mean, it's, it's hard. i'm not going to tell you that it's easy and this pandemic just makes it that much harder. stephanie: leah and her brother are both adopted. six-year-old bubba is a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. >> i always worry about him catching something because, you know, while he's not going anywhere right now, we've been told respiratory is going to be the thing that that takes him. so being in this pandemic right now, it's all respiratory. stephanie: parental fears about bringing children in for checkups and routine vaccinations have led to worrying trends.

in the first few months of the pandemic, the centers for disease control noted that orders for vaccines had fallen drastically compared to the same time period last year. in the state of michigan, where the longs live, vaccines administered by federal and state programs dropped 63% in april over the prior two years. bob swanson is the immunization director for michigan's department of community health. we're now several months into the pandemic. bob, have you seen vaccination rates go back up to where they should be? bob swanson: no, unfortunately, we haven't. we're still about 21% lower doses administered when we compared to the same time a year ago or two years ago. we're very concerned about this whole pocket of kids that that will go through the system and not be vaccinated. >> i think vaccinations have proven over time to be one of the most effective tools that we have to protect ourselves from infections.

stephanie: doctor layla mohammed is leah and bubba's pediatrician in ypsilanti, michigan. >> for my my wonderful family, michelle and i actually corresponded and discussed how the visit is going to be. >> if i could give you my email thread with me and the doctor, you would laugh because i was every day, and some days twice a day, e-mailing the doctor saying, you know, i'm not sure. she assured me. she kept telling me, it's ok, we have everything. stephanie: after getting many assurances from dr. mohammad, leah went in for her visit, 30 days after she was originally scheduled, and her mom took extra precautions. >> with a four year old being everywhere and touching things and putting her fingers in her mouth, that was my biggest concern. what i did was i put gloves on her and made sure that she didn't touch anything. we played a game and just pretended like it was wintertime. stephanie: one of the critical vaccinations leah received was

from measles, which is six times more contagious than scientists know covid-19 to be. > before 1963, the childhood disease caused 6,000 deaths a year in the u.s. and even now, it's seeing a resurgence around the world, which could be further fueled by the pandemic-related gap in inoculations. that lag, could that present a real public health concern? >> it absolutely does, because the more susceptible people you have to a disease, the greater the risk of of it being reintroduced into the population. and then the spread becomes quicker as well. stephanie: in the suburbs of grand rapids, michigan, 11-year old twins rae and reese defrang got in a few last flips on their trampoline under the watchful eyes of their mom, renee. while the mulder siblings -- ages 2 to 8 -- got creative with sidewalk chalk.

they were burning off a little energy before piling into their family suv's for a different kind of doctor's visit. our crew tagged along as they went to get their flu vaccines without ever setting foot in an office. >> obviously with four kids, nothing's quick. nothing's easy. but to get it all on one visit, to just be able to go out in the parking lot and have them do it that way, it say, you know, it's convenience. it saves time. >> it's so nice to have this option for those who are a little bit more nervous about that. when you're right in your car and you have less risk of exposure, you can still get the vaccination that you need to get. stephanie: spectrum health, the largest healthcare provider in western michigan, started offering the drive-through immunizations when they noticed a huge drop in visits during the spring covid lockdowns. mary zimmerman oversees immunizations. >> that's where we decided we

needed to kind of think outside the box and come up with something different so that the patients felt safe getting vaccinated. vaccines prevent children, adolescents from 16 different serious diseases. stephanie: convenience and comfort aside -- for healthcare professionals, these flu vaccines serve an especially vital function right now. rae and reese's dad -- doctor aaron defrang -- explains. >> you know, if someone were to get infected with influenza and covid in close proximity to each other, that might not look good. that might be a very serious illness. i think people don't realize that most hospitals traditionally are at or near capacity in the wintertime. and we just ne to have that safety net. we need to have those beds available for people if there's any surge of anything, of course, covid being the main concern now. stephanie: on the opposite side of the state, that message has resonated with michelle long. she already has a date scheduled for leah and bubba to get their flu shots. for the "pbs newshour," i'm stephanie sy.

judy: from the results of the presidential election to the beginning of the presidential transition, amna nawaz is here with politics monday amna: that's right, judy. what a difference a week makes. to talk about it, i'm joined by amy walter of the cook political report and host of public radio's "politics with amy walter." and tamara keith of npr. she also co-hosts the "npr politics podcast." welcome to you both. great to see you. now that you've had a momento breathe and hopefully get sleep, i want briefly yr biggest takeaways from the election. >> what stood out for me is president trump did not do as well in the suburbs and joe biden really did do better in the suburbs than hillary clinton had. it was like revenge of the suburbs part two. also a little surprising was as

the trump campaign was saying they would do better with latino and black voters and there was a lot of skepticism. well, they did better in areas like cities like south florida. amna: amy, what is your biggest take away as you are reflected? amy: both parties had a theory of the case. the trump theory was despite the fact that he didn't win the popular vote in 2016, that he failed to get a majority of the vote in key battleground states, he won those with a plurality, he still counted on winning by division rather than addition, by focusing on the polarization, by talking almost exclusively to his base, and as such, he came up short. you still have to win over the folks in the middle, independent voters and swing voters to win an election. on the democratic side, what i

thought was also interesting, their theory of the case that trump was going to be so toxic that he was going to bring everybody in the republican party down with him. that didn't happen and specifically it did not happen in maine, a state that nt overwhelmingly for joe biden, but susan collins, longtime senator, ran as an independent candidate, was able to outperform president trump in maine by about eight points. amna: pick up on that point. in terms of the incoming biden-harris administration, control of the senate is still in the air.house democrats actually lost seats . what does that mean for the dynamics the biden harris team will face coming into office? amy: it is not what they had hoped. they really had been counting on democrats being able to not only get control of the senate but increase their numbers in the house. so joe biden becomes the first democratic president since grover cleveland to come into office without having a majority in the house and senate.

what it's going to be a premium on is something joe biden talked about a lot on the campaign trail. we will see if he can deliver which is being a bipartisan dealmaker. this is a man who does like act of compromise. he has spent his career in the senate. he's a creature of the senate. he has a decent relationship with mitch mcconnell. is that going to matter? is that going to be enough at a time when we know we are still so deeply polarized and republicans are looking at taking control of the house and the midterm elections and expanding margins to the senate? amna: those same republicans mr. biden said he can work with and he knows, and he can work with, some of them are saying they are backing the president's decision not to concede, will it work? tamara: i don't know if they are

ultimately going to end up working with biden. certainly he has that relationship with mitch mcconnell but we just don't know what will be in their political interest but weo know there will be a midterm in 2022 and certainly some republicans i spoke to, not elected but sort of trumpian republicans, dacey 2022 -- they see 2022 and 2024 to really strike back, and elect candidates in the mold of president trump. i think a bigger challenge for joe biden will be that the coronavirus has gotten so polarized. some of it is stuff he can work on in the transition. it has become so polarized and politicized. is he going to be able to convince people who voted for president that he deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to dealing with affairs? amna: amy, briefly before rico,

clearly the pandemic will be issue number one. the team already talked about it and they held a briefing today. does that sidelined the rest of the biden agenda? amy: i think it has been the topline agenda from day one. for the people who voted for joe biden, they said it was their number one issue. but to that point, a majority of those folks who were republicans and voted for donald trump, it's not that they didn't think coronavirus was as important, but they think a lot of it has been overblown. it's one thing to say this to side have to come together but it's another to say they see a common problem. they don't see a common problem at all. amna: and we still know there is

great uncertainty about the pandemics effects in the weeks and months to come. that is politics monday with amy walter and tamera keith -- tamara keith. thank you so much. amy: you're welcome. tamara: you're welcome. judy: finally tonight, we mark the passing of a tv legend. alex trebek was known to millions the world over for hosting the game show "jeopardy." jeffrey brown has our remembrance. >> here is the host of "jeopardy," alex trebek. reporter: in an age that questions facts, "jeopardy" celebrates them. >> before this word was common, some folks used radio with pictures. justin? >> what is television? reporter: in an era of loud, fractious voices, alex trebek's was calm and measured. >> they're dealing with famous phses, and this clue. reporter: and somehow it worked and went on working for 37

years, more than 8000 episodes, both records for a game show. trebek was like a caring professor -- encouraging, but ready to show disappointment. >> dallas cowboys. >> you think we should go to commercial? [laughter] >> we want to entertain you. we want to inform you. reporter: trebek -- then in bushy hair and mustache -- took over "jeopardy" in 1984. born in canada, he would later become a u.s. citizen and humanities lovers rejoice -- he was a philosophy major in college. the style and substance, and maybe the utter defiance of contemporary norms helped turn trebek himself into a pop culture icon. >> aren't we forgetting something, marge? you were down $5,200. reporter: -- including a turn on "the simpsons." and, played by will ferrell, on "saturday night live." >> i have some news to share with all of you.

reporter: in march of 2019, trebek announced he'd been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. his millions of fans, many who'd followed him for decades, watched him carry on the same demeanor and dignity they'd come to expect. >> what you see on air really is what i am. i'm a reasonably nice guy. i'd like you to view me that way. i don't go out of my way to malign anybody. i want to be considered as helpful and generous, generous and kind. reporter: alex trebek died sunday. he was 80 years old. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jeffrey brown. judy: proof again that nice guys can finish on top. and that is the "newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. thank you for joining us and for all of us at the "pbs newshour"" thank you, please stay safe and see you soon. announcer: major funding for

"newshour" has been provided by -- >> architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. announcer: johnson & johnson. consumer cellular. bnsf railway. the kendeda fund committed through restorative and meaningful work. more at kendeda fund.org. >> the alfred p sloan foundation, driven by the promise of great ideas. announcer: supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur

foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ announcer: this is "pbs newshour west," from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ >>

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -today on "cook's country," bryan and bridget update a classic recipe for one-batch fried chicken, jack challenges julia to a tasting of strawberry spreads, and christie makes julia a regional favorite --