♪ judy: i'm judy woodruff. tonight on the "newshour." the u.s. breaks 11 million cov case and approaches 250,000 deaths as hospitals brace for a hard winter. then, the biden agenda the president-elect looks to the economy as the white house spreads disinformation and refuses to accept the election results. and, the race for a vaccine -- fwe talk with a founder o moderna as the bio-technology company announces promising results. but experts say obstacles remain. we haven't haduation like this. people are used to saying, i have this disease, whereas the

drug, dick york, the therapy -- the drug, the ce, the therapy. judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that is fidelity wealth management. >> consumer cellular. johnson & johnson. financial services firm raymond james. bmsf. the william and flora hewlett foundation.

advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. the chance zuckerberg -- the chan-zuckerberg initiative. at czi.org. and, with the ongoing suppor of these individuals and institutions. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting in support from viewers like you. judy: the covid-19 paemic in

the u.s. is generating both t despair and hoight. total infections have soared over the 11 million mark nationwide, but there is also progress in the effort to stop the virus. william brangham begins our coverage. william: a new week and another new experimeal vaccine showing signs of real progress against this novel coronavirus.a drugmaker modeid today early trials show its vaccine is nearly 95% effective. idr. stephen homoderna's president. t a milestone, j ough. we have a lot of work ahead of us. knowing the vaccine is going to be effective is great we still need to complete the regulatory process. william: the announcement comes just a week after another leading candidate from pfizer had similar results.it r company has released the complete data behind their claims. still, america's toinfectious disease expert, dr.

anthony fauci, hailed the news. >> so now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. so i think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be about getting control of this outbreak. william: it a glimmer of hope as the country faces a health crisis that is growing exponentially. a staggering cases were reported one million nationwide in just the past 6 days. million mark over ekend. 11 when it comes to deaths, the average is up 33 percent from 2 weeks ago. 820 a day. fearing that hospitals are reaching their breakg points, officials nationwide are putting back into place a series of restrictns many hoped were in e past. california rolled back reopening plans, ordering non-essential businesses in 41 counties to close. in n jersey today, governor phil murphy tightened limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings -- ahead of the holidays.

>> t smaller the gathering i the less likely it is someone is infected and puts their loved ones at risk. it is that simple. william: the city of philadelphia introduced similar restrictions. over the weekend, washington freeze on indoor service at restaurants and gyms. >> this is where the virus gets us. inside, where we're heading during the winter. william: michigan did the sa while also cancelling in-person classes for high school and college students over the next 3 mpeks. but, president 's coronavirus adviser, radiologist dr. scott atlas, suggested on twitter people should quote "rise up" against those restrictions. he later tweeted he never meante to incite viol that drew a rebuke today from president-elect biden. mr. biden: what e hell is the matter with these guys? what is the matter wh them. resist? william: in wilmington, delaware, mr.

biden also warned thsident trump's refusal to concede defeat in the election and authorize a transition is delaying critical planning on a coordinated pandemic response. mr. biden: more people may day if we don't coordinate. if we have to wait until jan. 20 to start that planning, it puts us behind, over a month and a half. and so it'important that there be coordination, now. william: dr. fauci has said a smooth handoff was key to beating the paemic. for the pbs newshour, i'm wiliam brangham.li judy: as w reported, the promising news from moderna raised hopes about what could happen next year. it's important to remember the data have not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal yet.an the company has received significant funding from the federal government and from taxpayers. nearly 2.5 in dollars for research, development, and. potential supp let's hear more about this news executives involveading noubar afeyan is a co-founder

and chairman of moderna. is the ceo of flagship pieering, a venture capitaled firm that heaunch moderna. thank you very much for joining us. this promising news today. how confident are you that this could help p an end to all the human suffering we are seeing now? in the science and clinicalreme. arch, confidence is a relative term. certainly, the data today encourages us to go forward rapidly to make preparations upon regulatory approval, to help the vaccine get out the challenge we face around the world, it is so grave that we needed to go through these tests

but also be ready to make a difference. uli am hope can do that today, subject to regulatory review. judy: can you put in layperson's terms whynk you tou were able to achieve this high level of what you call efficacy, 94.5% succes? how were you able to do it? noubar: the underlying chnology, which is quite new and unprecedented, is called messenger rna. ryit is the intermed between dna, which is where the information is stored about every aspect of life, and proteins, which are the acts, the elements that do the things that make us function as humans. the intermediary molecule s

never been tried as drug or vaccine that could provide informatn to cel that they could then convert into a protein. in this case, the molecule coded for the spike ptein, now famous for this virus. what we did is we took the dna sequence of this spike protein, encoded it intona, which we had a decade-long program, and provided to the volunteers we had that we tested on so that their own cells make this protein. when their immune system sees

this protein, it thinks it has been infected and starts fighting back. in our case, there is no infection. the immune system gets activated, learns to know what to defend for, and waits on ard. when the virus shows up, like an immune system that can recognize the teat, that immune system rapidly activates and knows what to do to neutralize the threat. based on all of that, we believe we h a pretty goodhae that the preponderance of cases in the trial of in people who did not get the vaccine. judy complicated, but i am sure for peopleho want to try to understand it, they will be able to understand it. what about the refrigerator, the freezing that is needed?

noubar: what we announced as well today is that only could keep our vaccine stably for a long time, but we could take it out of, that conditi keep fridge rated for up to 30 days without loss of the efficacy. further yet, you can take it out of the fridge, put it on the tabl and it is stable for another 12 hours. so, from the logistics ntstandpif we are only going to give this vaccine to a dozen people, it would not be a big deal. but if we are talkin about hundreds of millions of people, you have to figure out where is it stored, how long can you work with it, the way many other

vaccines do. judy: it estimated that the federal government is putting something like $2.5 biion into moderna's work. could you have done this without public money and how much private money went into it? noubar: there has been susbstaintial capital by gov't rmer dharna -- substantial capital by the government and for moderna, and this was largely to make sure it went as fast as possible, which required more expenditures. sewe also had of partnerships with the government before the pandemic.

based on that history, when this started, very quickly our government colleagues said we will putta some caupfront, we will try to get more. we reached out to shareholders added yet another billionquity, dollars at risk to accelerate the program. as the year has gone on,e struck agreements with the ongovernment through opera warp speed. that capital has been to work, developing one of the most advanced vaccines and one of the more potent solutions to this pandemic. judy: there is a progressive

advocacyup g in the u.s. that is saying, because of that, what moderna should be doing is f providing acce who needs the vaccine rather than countries with abili to pay. they are saying, with u.n. protocols, thiatis something oderna needs to do. noubar: t distribution of the vaccine will be done through governments. we have worked with the u.s. government and many other governments we have entered into contracts to supply the vaccine. we also are i active discussions with the entity charge with supplying vaccine supplies for low and middle income countries. our intention and hope is that our vaccine will be part of that suite of solutions offered to all countries through their government. the good news, within tho

countries, we have standard agreements with some who have already signed up and others who isare activelyssing. judy: we thank you for talking with us. we appreciate it. ♪ now, to a personal take on the vaccine our own john yang has hundred been a part of these clinical trials. and he joins me now. john, not everybody would want to take part in one of these. what made you want to do it and why do you think they wanted you other than the fact that you are an amazing, wonderful human

being? john: well, judy, i wish it could say it was contributing to science, but quite frankly it was the opportunity, the chance i could get the real vaccine. half get the real vaccine, half get the placebo. i am in a high risk group. my age, i have asthma, high blood pressure. according to the dudtors of the that is what made me attractive. they wanted to find out if the vaccine was safe for people in those groups, and also a person of color. my desire get the real vaccine with was the shot, and paradoxically, the next morning

when i startedo feel some of the side effects, it started to buoy me a little bit, i felt good about feeling bad judy: so you thought maybe you got the real thing. d we have hee side effects are not too debilitating. and assuming you did get the real thing, how did it affect you? hn: there were two shots. the first day i was fine, second day started to get achy, muscle pain, muscle soreness, joint soreness, a fer too high, about 99.9 was the highest it went. i got the shottu on day and those symptoms persisted until about surday, the first day that i really felt fine. the second shot, the onset was much faster. ed bynight, i was in 7:00.achy, feverish fatigue, bus

onset was faster, it resolvedst too. i got in a tuesday and by wednesday it was fine. judy: in a situation like this where you don't know goingn i whether it is the real thing or a placebo, as this has ge on, what kind of questions has this ised for you about the vaccine? john: they asked me to continue usual routine. i was working from home, wearing a mask when i was out and shopping. we still don't know how long the immunity lasts or whether i personally have immunity. vi am beiy careful not to change any of my patterns, n to changthe cautions i am taking. judy: at sompoint, you will nd out for sure whether you have the real vaccine are not?

they were so happy with whatd they were finding that they would offer the realci v to people in the placebo group. i am going in for my two month checkup tomorrow. i'm going to ask the if they can tell me which group i am in and if i am the placebo, whether i can get the real vaccine. judy: when you offer to do something like this, you're making a sacrifice for everybody else. the race to develop a vaccine -- or more accurately, a number of vaccines, is a sprint noe u.s. hatried on this scale ever before. ident trump, his team, a long-time public health leaders who were not political hires, sy the latest news about moderna and pfizw this approach is working.ar but therquestions about

ramping up an effort like this. miles o'brien has been reporting on the larger vaine-search program and those concns. miles: in a factory built to fight pandemics, they are going faer and working harder th ever to build the vats and turn on the spigots for coronavirus vaccines >> there's a big onrush of materials, a big onrush of activity happening in this facility and we're currently normalizing our operations around that to ense that we get as much vaccine produced and out of the door as possible. miles: sean kirk is executive vice-president of manufacturing operations at emergent biosolutions, a company with a long history manufacturing drugs aimed at big threats to human health. ebola, zika,nthrax, and smallpox among them. >> we have a lot of experience with some potentially scary organisms, if you will, when we're bringing thatxpertise to that capability and that confidence to bear in the fight against covid-19. miles: funded with 628 million

federal tax dollars,mergent is already producing covid-19 vaccines here in baltimore. the team hopes to crank out tens to hundreds of millions of doses for their big pharma customers ke astrazeneca and johnson and johnn before they have finished clinical trials and before approval from the food and drug administration.es >> it reate the possibility that if they do not navigate the clinical pathway successfully and they're not approved, that the material may not be usable.le meaning it will be incinerated. but there is growing evidence science is not racing down a dead end. of the six leading vaccine contenders the u.s. government is shepherding four are in the third and final , four stageli ofcal trials, where efficacy is tested among tens of

thousands of volunteers. last week pfizer issued a press release claiming i vaccine is at least ninety per cent effective. >> from knowing that it is positive, all the way to knowing that it is positive, and 90 percent,hich i never thought would be, that gave me a joy that i cannot describe. miles: albert bourla is pfizer's ceo. his company is now completing use authorization he fda.ency >> i think we know if it protects against the disease. we don't know yet, because we haven't seen this data, ifnd how many of these cases were severe cases or light cases.mi les: today's announcement from drug maker moderna is nearly identical. all of this, only ten months after chinese scientists first fingerprint of the novel coronavirus, officrslly called saov-2 the news brought president trump into the white house rose garden to bask in a scientific victory on the heels of his political defeat.p: pres. trhis far exceeds any and all expectations. nobody thought they'd get to that level. and we have others coming, which we think will be an equal level,

maybe more, if that's possible. les: the friday the thirteenth victory lap was more than good luck. in the spring, the trump administration began funneling 10 billion dollars in federal funding to the private sector, mostly to hasten the hunt for a vaccine. it's called operation warp speed. it also has aimed to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage collaboration between private enterprise and federal agencies. derek lowe is a veteran drug discovery researcher and author of the influential blog "in the pipeline." >> people are scared and looking for a silver bullet. >> they sure are, and i don't blame them for a minute. d a situation like this. people are used to saying, "okay, i've got this disease. where's the ug? where's the cure? where's the erapy?" we know how to make vaccines for a lot of things but we've never tried to do it with the clock ticking like this. miles: johnson and johnson, a newshour funder, is deep in its

phase three work on its vaccine. paul stoffels is the chief ientific officer. >> this is a scientific moonshot. mohow are yong so quickly? fix it is motivation. everybody sees the challenge in society but also the disease is in their family and severally people lost faembers due to covid. so, we don't have to ask people to work weekends and nights. u they just shand do it. miles:el dr. stosays his team is doing many tasks normally done consecutively in parallel. that's why, among other things, they're already manufacturing the unapproved vacne at emergent. but hold onto your masks. it is likely no vaccine will be ready for widespread inoculations before the spring at earliest. still, science at the has raised concerns a vaccine could be released before it is proven safe.

>> we have to be clear-eyed about this and that we aren -- that we are not taking on you cannot have you cannot have the vaccine be the world record for speed and e rk perfectly and be perfectly safe not all by d of the year.ff miles: ss and his scientific colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry bristle at the notion that pitics has set their timetables. have you personally or your company felt political pressure to deliver faster? and if so, what have you done about it? >> we want to say we work fast, but it's not under political pressure and we do what we need too in order to get to the results to show the safety and the efficacy. i've never had any pressure from anybody and i won't take it either. it will be there when it is there. [vo] miles: and in fact, johnson & johnson and astrazeneca have had to briefly pse their vaccine

trials because of unexplained illnesses among their volunteers. in a world wherecience is moving at break-neck speed to solve a global crisis, tapping the brakes may be the most reassuring news of all. for the pbs newshour, miles judy: this leaves us with a number of quesons about whene vaccines couldailable more widely to the public next year and the challenges that exist. doctor frais collins is the director of the national institutes of health. he has been involved with all of this and the president's original task force on covid. he joins me now. thank you so much for joinings again. how great is the risk still with these vaccines? dr. collins: i think we are all these results as to theraged by efficacy. and the safety has turned out for both pfizer and moderna, to

look pretty good. there are certainly people who have had side effects in terms of soreness, low-grade fever, we are the optimistic that we are on a good path. that means that this is good enough to be submitted to the fda. that would include a public session of their advisory committee. at that point, that will be the trigger to start distributing themi roughly 4ion doses that would be available in december for pfizer m aerna. 40 million doses, 20 million people. judy: the fda part of this, you

see that moving pretty smoothly? dr. collins:bsolutely. the fda career scientists are extremely hard-working. they are working to make sure that what we have is safe. we are working at a bit of a public concern because of the speed. even the name warp speed has causedome to worry that corners are going to be cut. they are not. to go to fda, this is as rigorous as it gets anywhere in the world. if this does gethrough any emergency use authorization, it will be because of the data. judy: you knownghat we are seuch a spike, such a surge in covid across the united states.

we are up a million cases just in the last week. it seemed like just the other day we were at 200,000 deaths. now we are at 250,000.gi us your read on where we are right now. dr. collins: it is such a moment dofmatic contrast, to have these encouraging results from vaccine trials but to know they are still months away. to see this explosion, suburban as well as rural areas, thiss what we'll feared might happened. if there was ever a time for americans to say, we can do something here to get through to the light at the end of the tunnel, those vaccines present, but they areot here yet. we're a mask.

this is actually a life-saving medical instrument. we have the data for that. we are really concerned that this could get worse if we do not follow these guidelines. w' three wear your mask, watch your distance, and wash your hands. i can be thankful at thanksging that we now have vaccines. i ca be thankful that americans can pushut the resetn. to make a decision to tese those measo do everything we can to save lives. :ju it is clear that youris messagot gotten across to enough people. i want to ask you about aco ent from president-elect biden. he calle on president trump to

begin the transition process. he said more of a die if we don't coordinate. is he right about tt? dr. collins: goodness knows that we nd to have a clear plan going forward for, testi putting forward more public adapt to.people can it is not a good time to be losing even a day in terms of that effort. i understand where the president-elect is coming from. as ait member of the current house task force, i think all of us will ok forward in being able to take part. the message to be communicated. judy: if there is one message today for the american people, what would it be? dr. collins: the cavalry is coming.

the vaccines are working. ogbiotechn is hard work. it has paid off in a dramatic fashion. r we have neen anything quite like it before. usually takes eight years to get to this point. we did it in 11 months. we are also in a dark perd with this pandemic. for attention to what we can do day by day, just like wearing a seatbelt, put on your mask. judy: dr. francis collins,. director of the national institute of health. thank yovery much. ♪

with about nine weeks until his inauguration, pre ident-elect den's focus today was on rebuilding the economy after the coronavirus. lisa desjardins was at thet' president-e's news conference and joins us from wilmington, delaware. let's start with the promising news on a vaccine, a second what is president-elect biden saying about this and the potential for mass distribution? lisa: the president-elect is concerns, he thinks a real threat in our country if they are not able to get inforcction about a e plan and other things. i talked to one of the members of president-elect biden's

coronavirus task force. he said that nothing like this has ever been attempted, not in scope, not in speed. they need to know as much as they can if there is a plan about that plan. something else interesting, it is not just about the vaccine that biden has a concern. frohe is also hearing nursing homes and others saying there could be a shortage of supplies like gloves and masks, things people need. there is a critical supply questi that the biden team would like to have more answers to. president-elect was also focused on the economy, and he met today

with leaders of unions an business. any signs of common ground on a th forward? lisa: how many times doou we her these meetings and here, there is common ground, it was productive? sometimes we are skeptical. i spoke to people in the meeting who said it wact produe. the leader of the services international union h many nurses in our union. all of the ceos and everyone agreed that there is a need to focus on ppe right now. and there is a need for more attention right now on gmle andric cars, is that a way to help in the future if they get some future help from a

biden administration. judy: he has only been president-elect for a little over a week as the race was called. is there talk about what he can do now before he takes office to help with economicecovery? lisa: president-elect biden said there is time.ne president at a what he is doing to try to marshal resources for the future and right now. one thing he asked to do is put pressure on congress right now to try to pass some more coronavirus relief. he might not get credit for it but he is saying we need it now. judy: thank you very much. meanwhile, president trump has still refused to concede the

election, more than one week after the associated press called the vote for president-elect joe biden. yamiche alcindor has our report. pres. trump: who knows which administration it will be? yamiche: defiant and divorced from realitypresident trump ent the weekend on the golf course and on twitte he repeated familiar, unsubstantiated claims of frd d. continued to refuse to admit defeat, instead spreading disinformation. "i concede nothing" he wrote sunday. dashing hopes that he was slowly realizing he'd lost.r, earle wrote of president-elect joe biden saying quote, "he won because the election was rigged." that seemed to at least acknowledge the results of the election. but president trump later deleted that tweet. gop leaders, including house ngnority leader kevin mccarty, are still supporhe president's refusal to concede. >> regardless of how thiyo outcome is, want to be able to trust t election. if there was something that was wrong in this election, we doo not wantpeat it for the future either.

yamiche: former president barack obama hit backn republicans on cbs news sunday, in his firstsi remarke november 3. mr. obama: the president doesn't admits lose and nev loss i'm more troubled by the fact that other republican officials going along with this, aree humoring him in this fashion. it is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming biden administratio but democracy generally. yamiche: with thuntrys path. dionded on trusting the elec results, thousands of supporters of president trump tooto the streets of washington, d.c. there, they enjod a visit from the president, who waved from inside his motorcade.dr the event thousands of ople, but did not live up to its name, the "million maga march." it also didn't live up to the trump campaign's estimates, including white house press

secretary kayleigh mceneny's false claithat the crowd talliedt more than one million. by day's end, the initially peaceful gathering turned, in some cases, violent. class between pro-trump and anti-trump protestors resulted in 21 arrests. four police officers werend injured,ne person was stabbed. earlier today, in a press conference, the district's police chief, peter newshom, praised his officer's handling of the event but decri the circumstances. >> to see our country havingth e kinds of physical disputes over an election, that's something we attribute to other countries across the world. we don't see that in the united states so that's the worst of it for me.mi e: though a peaceful transition of power remains in question, president-elect biden expressed confiden w that his teld be prepared come january. president-elect biden: i am hopeful that the president will be mildly more enlightened before we get to january 20. i find this more embarrassing y r the country than debilitating forility to

get started. yamiche: and outside the capitol, the work to put on the inauguration 2 months from now continues as workers constructer the stage the winner will take his oath.is evening, president trump is continuing to double down on his rightful winner of the 2020 election. ehcritics say hisior and rhetoric is dangerous in terms of imperiling democracy. joe biden says he is continuing. he with his transition even ou he does not have all the resources needed. the biden campaign is expected to announce nior staff positions as soon as tomorrow. while the biden campaig's hiring, the trump campaign is letting people go. on sunday, the majority of the staff ended their employment. while the president is continuing his legal btles, he is doing it with a much smaller staff. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamich house.or at the white

♪ judy: in the day's other news, hurricane iota blew up into a category 5 storm with winds of 160 miles an hour, threatening catastrophe in central america. the storm closed in same parts of nicaragua and honduras already battered by hurricane eta. the nicaraguan army has evacuated hundreds of people from low-lying areas. the storm could dump 30 inches of rain, and trigger floods and landslides. the u.s. military is set to cut its troop numbers in afghanistan mid-january.o 2,500 -- by pentagon officials confirmed today that president trump is issuing an executive order. it would also reduce tin iraq by 500, down to 2,500. of top american commandersadvice .

fighting in ethiopia has escalated again. various reports say e ethiopian military bombed the capital of the tigray region today after tigray fired rockets into neighboring eritrea, an ally of ethiopia. in 2 weeks of fighting, hundreds of people have died, and some 25,000 refugees have fled into sudan. >> [speaking foreign language] >> a bomb me from the eritrean direction, and an attack from the direction of the ethiopian federal government, in the city. a lot of people died. i fled on foot. i was afraid of the bombs andst thkes. a lot of buildings were blown up. judy: e tpian government has resisted international calll to start peace. in paris, an islamic state suspect went on trial today -- accused of attacking a high-speed train in 2015. the heavily armed mo man allegedly opened fire before he was overpowered by 3 americans.

their story was later made into a movie. if convicted, the accused attacker could face life in prison. 3 americans and one japanese astronaut are due to dock at the international space station tonight on a history-making space-x flight. they blasted off sundafrom cape canaveral, florida. it's thfirst time a private spacecraft has carried out a full-scale human ferry flight for nasa. the deadline passed today for filing sexual abuse claims against the boy scouts of america. psalm 92,000 -- some 9000 people have come forward, saying they were assaulted by scout leaders. the aimants are seeking damages in federal bankrupy court, after the scouts filed fochapter 11 protection. the trump administration is moving to sell oil and gas drilling rights in the "arctic national wildlife refuge" before leaving office the federal bureau of land

management served notice todaype onng 1.5 million acres of the alaskan wilderness. president-elect biden could blocany leases after taking office. and, on wall street, stocks rallied on news of a second possible covid vaccine. the dow jones industrial average gained 470 points to at a record 29,950. it has now erased all of its pandemic losses. the nasdaq rose nearly 95he points, and,-and-p 500 added 41 -- also a new high. >> this is the "pbs newshour" and from theat west the waltern cronkite school of joualism at arizona state university. judy: as we remain in this contentious traition period between two administrations,

oury's analysis with politics monday duo. >> thanks, judy. they are amy walter of the cook political report and host of public radio's "politics with amy walter." and tamara keith of npr. she so co-hosts the "npr politics podcast." welcome to y both. it is good to see you. tomorrow marks two weeks since election day. as we have been reporting, president trump is still fusingo et the transition begin. lay this out for us. the shorter the runway gets, how does that complicate how and i the biden team can hit the ground running? amy: that is right. we are heading this point where its not just about if donald trump concedes and he is magnanimous. the issue is if the general service adminisesation allows

funds to be disbursed and allows thent bodies of govern in the trump administration to talk to the incoming biden administration this is happening at a time when we are at the ti of a pandemic. it is not such a big deal if people get that a week, two weeks from now, ocloser to januar but the fact that president-elect biden will have to tackle this pandemic, the possibility of distributing, hopefully, a vaccine, getting all of this prepared in time is ally important. lars last week about thise transition process, what they reminded me was that the 9/11 report, what it poted out was

the fact that in 2000, the very tishort tran time between the then clint administration going into the bush administration was ctainly a weak point. while they did not blame that nofobeing prepared for the attacks, they dig say hav that shorted window of time is a real security threat. i think we have to take that very seriously right now. amna: we are seeing some anrepubl lawmakers discussing right now. i want to talk about the president, what you are hearing from white house sources. d't want to get into his twitter team -- twitter feed because it is rife wit misinformation, because he continues to say he won the

election. is there anyone inside his i ort thdelivering the message to him? lot of: he talks to people he is getting a lot of messages. he picked the messages he wants to receive at any given moment. in his twitter feed, there have been glimmers of him acknowledging that he may not be president much longer.there wast the vcines where he said, remember, this happened on my in talking to people in the president's orb or the white house, what you hears that play out.e to let this they have to let all of these lawsuits get to the end of the road. theyw don't k what will happen or the president will do. there may never be a speech or a handshake or anything that resembles what is traditional for a ansition. but that eventually joe biden

will get the keys. esthe on is, as amy pointed out, h problematic is this lag? joe biden today said lives are on the line. i was talkingo someone who represents governors who said that having this sort of queson, one of them could get upset if governors start working with the future president. they are in this really challenging position right now, president.y say, biden will be amna: the pandemic in the u.s. g continues worse. more and more election results around the country, plople taking ar look. in some states where theeairus

has beeny badly surging, republicanson big in a lot of those areas. what do you make of that? amy:pr as did thident. we saw thoseer surges in the u midwest. the presidt won two of those handily, camclose to winning in wisconsin. i think this goes back to something we have been talking about sort of acknowledging for the last four years. everything now is politized. when i was asked before, what gridlock in washington. eunfortunately, it will t something really dramatic, really horble that can unite us together as one. we are in the middle of a crisis and yet at this point we still

have two very different ness of ithe serio and how to deal with it. that is not something that president-elec biden is going to be able to fix overnight. so that is a challenge that i still very much in front of us. i think we alreaa hoped tha beatty election would give us some guidance. what mandate, what kind of message they are sending. theoretically, where the pandem could be the issue working against the president, he actually won those areas rather handily. amna: you have been talking to some leaders at the state leveld in thee of a crisis, voters sending mixed messages. what are they saying about how

they could or will be working with an incoming biden administration? tamara: amy talks about the liticization of the coronavirus. democratic governors are saying things like, i want my opponents to live long enough to vote against me. sasurethat your governor is a dummy on the mask, just wear are finding a way to attempt tos get the results they want without conceding to the politics. i think the real challengen that bi has -- biden faces, there is n a lot of nuance. it is either shut down or open up. in reality, it is not a switch. it is a dial.politics does not n

the realm of -- especially during campaigns. amna: any chance in this next coming session of any covid reliefunding? tamara: never bet onck a lame- because you never know what will happen in these weird times. t there does not seem to be a lot of momentum and energy. hyou don'e the president at this point focused on it or seeing as part of hisac lto push through a covid relief package. d you need someone like the president to push for that and make it happen. amna: meanwhile, time when millions of americans need that more than ever. thank you very much. judy: i always learn so much. thank you, all three. online right now, schools are trying all types of strategens to keep st on track an

engaged, but parents and orachers say it sometimes feels as if nothing isng. in the latest episode of our podcast,america interrupted," amna talks with a michigan t family and thecher about the challenges they're facing. find it on our web site, pbs.org/newshour, or whereve you get your podcasts. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. tomorrow evening.d again here for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> architect, bkeeper, mentor. a raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. oh>>on & johnson. consumer cellular.

bn railway. the candida fund, committed to investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more candidafu.org. ♪ >> the alfred p sloan foundation, driven by the promise of great idea >> supported by th john d. and catherine macarthur foundation. committed to a more just and peaceful world. and, with the ongoing support of these institutions. this is made possible by the broadcasting it contributions to

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♪ ♪ ♪ -today on "cook's country," bryan makes bridget a foolproof recipe for pennsylvania dutch apple pie, jack challenges julia to a tasting of vanilla ice cream, and bridget and julia make gift-worthy amish cinnamon bread. that's aht here on "cook's country."