>> the lincoln project giving thanks. on behalf of the people who put this broadcast on the air every night during a pandemic no less, have a happy and safe thanksgiving and the true spirit of the holiday. good night. good morning, everyone. happy thanksgiving. we begin this morning with president trump giving one of his allies reason to give thanks while president-elect biden focuses on trying to give the entire country the reason to be thankful. president trump offered a full pardon to michael flynn who had previously pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi twice which is a felony. it's notable because it shows he's willing to shield his allies from legal consequences even when they admitted to breaking the law and one of the few official acts we have seen from the president as of late.

he did however call in to a republican policy hearing in pennsylvania. joining the attorneys as they try to make the case that the state's election results should be overturned but he alleged that the democrats cheated and that he actually won. claims that the pennsylvania's ag called devoid of reality. just minutes after trump tried to disenfranchise millions of voters, president-elect biden delivered a thanksgiving address that called on americans to work together to overcome the pandemic. watch this. >> i know the country's grown weary of the fight. we need to remember we're at war with the virus, not with one another. not with each other. this is the moment where we need to steel our spines, redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to the fight. let's remember we're all in this together. >> all right. i want to bring in ali vitali in

delaware. carol lee is covering the president from washington and charlie savage is covering all of this for us. he's a pulitzer prize winning correspondent for "the new york times." happy early thanksgiving to you all. carol, i'll start with you. what is the president up to today and could we see any possible new pardons in the short term? >> yeah, good morning. well, the president is spending thanksgiving in washington which is unusual for him. he's usually at his estate in mar-a-lago and the only thing on his schedule is a video teleconference with the troops around 3:00. yes, we are expected to hear more pardons. this is the first step. his pardoning of michael flynn is something he had been thinking about for months. this is not necessarily something that might have happened had the president at this particular time had the

president not lost re-election because the goal from flynn's team and from the white house prior to this is to allow the court system to play out. the justice department had filed a motion to dismiss the flynn case and they're waiting for a ruling on that. there's a number of individuals when you talk to the president who the president might consider pardoning. some names you hear are mostly individuals who people close to the president who were tied up in the russia investigation. people like paul manafort, and roger stone and then you heard the president talk about pardons. he mentioned possibly pardoning edward snowden back in september and then a questioning over this about whether or not the president would consider a pardon for himself. >> many scholars are divided on this issue. charlie, let's unpack this more. what the significance of the pardon is and the significance

of the pardoning of michael flynn as well. >> this is something that we see at the end of all presidencies, but president trump being unorthodox, this is going to be more of a wild ride even than we're used to. we understand that his -- all kinds of people are jostling to get before him or get before people like jared kushner around him for -- hoping for that last minute act of largess. something that president trump likes to do. not going through the justice department, not going through the normal process of applying and having law enforcement people vet their applications and talk to prosecutors and talk to victims and so forth and see whether to recommend that the white house do this or not. it's a free-for-all, and this michael flynn one is just the first of many, we think. you mentioned a few of the people around him. i think there's others. elliott broidy, he pleaded

guilty in a case. steve bannon, he was accused of defrauding people and jared kushner's father was prosecuted by chris christie. people who have a connection or know somebody who can get to trump and get on fox news, who can go spend a lot of money at his hotels and try to get before his eye in the next two months will be doing this. the one twist, even now trump does not concede that he lost this election, it's hard to make the pitch, hey, you have a little bit of time right now, you should help us out because premise is he has a little bit of time left. this is the one thing, maybe the only thing that's holding back a complete frenzy. >> at least in the public eye. at least in the back door channels they might be more forthright and as long as they do a public declaration they'll

get on his radar. and you wrote about if he can pardon himself and before charges are filed against him. tell us what you found on this. >> so the first question, is can you pardon someone who hasn't been charged with a crime, preemptively, this will come up with people maybe himself and the answer is clearly yes. the supreme court has ruled back in 1866 that a pardon can come at any time after the commission of an event. you don't have to wait until something specifically has been charged. famously ford pardoned nixon for all crimes he committed or may have committed shortly after his resignation and that was the end of it. of course they never tested it in court so who knows? the question is whether you can self-pardon is trickier. no president has ever tried to pardon himself and then been -- then had prosecutors try to

bring charges against him. so there's no supreme court ruling to look for this. it came up briefly during the nixon watergate scandal. there's a terse opinion from that era that says of course you can't, because no one should be a judge of themselves but the opinion does not explain why that moral principle translates into a legal rule within the text of the constitution there nothing that says you can't pardon yourself. so part of the coming flurry that trump is going to put his family on there, put the trump organization on there and perhaps even his own name to have one more shield in case future federal prosecutors try to come after him for tax evasion or fraud or who knows what. >> and carol, the other big headline yesterday, the president calling in to a republican hearing in pennsylvania. what was that all about? >> yeah, the president was going -- was called in, his

personal lawyer rudy giuliani was headlining this event. it was in a hotel ballroom, not an official hearing. it was a meeting of republicans in the state of pennsylvania, airing what they said were allegations of fraud. but there's no evidence of that obviously and so the president decided that he wanted to call in -- really the most we have heard from him since the election on the topic of the election. he's tweeted a lot about it, but we haven't seen him out or heard his voice on this. and he went through a litany of accusations and claimed that he had won this election. he said that democrats stole the election which isn't true. and he said that he thanked his personal lawyer rudy giuliani for leading this effort. but the takeaway from that was that he's defiant. he's digging in on this and that anyone in the white house or elsewhere around the president who is saying that he might be leaning -- moving closer to some sort of acknowledgment that joe biden is the president-elect, he did agree to allow a transition to go forward but we have this

counterprogramming from the president where he's making the allegations of fraud. >> all while offering no evidence to back it up, saying that's forth coming at some point. ali, while the -- i guess the trump administration or the president himself was talking about overturning the election, president-elect biden had a very different message talking about bringing this country together. what can you tell us about that? >> it was a very different message and it was a difference of the split screen that we'll see playing out until inauguration day. president trump talking about pardons and settling scores and talking about an election he believes is unfinished. joe biden is forging ahead. you saw the thanksgiving address biden gave before coming up to rehoboth beach and that all americans are struggling with the same crisis right now. thanksgivings look different

this year, including joe biden's. he's doing a smaller version of it and he spoke about the fact that americans are tired of the pandemic and he stressed for the need to come together and to abide by all the things that stop the spread of the virus. things like mask wearing, social distancing and yes, in the case of thanksgiving, paring it down and potentially not seeing family this year. but biden spoke to the 260,000 americans who have lost their lives to the virus. all of it paints a picture of why in these early days of the transition it has been his top priority. listen to what he told lester holt. >> i think it's important to send a message that -- of confidence and surety and let people know what i will do. give them some glimpse into what i will do. that's why i started off with the covid decision, who i appointed and put together that

group. i think people are just looking, is somebody taking this seriously, and i am deadly earnest about what i want to do and i believe -- i truly believe that i -- we, can unite this country. i think the country is so hungry for it, including a lot of republicans. >> and this is the message that he had on the campaign trail. one that he wanted to bring americans together. even in the closing days of the campaign, he doesn't care if you're voting for him, from a red state or a blue state, this is a virus he wants to tackle for all americans and you're seeing it play out in term of the policy he is pushing t way he's addressing americans and also in the personnel choices he's making. you'll remember on first day of the transition he put in place a covid task force and now some key members have been added to landing teams as they start talking with the agencies for the department of defense,

department of homeland security, and health and human services so that they can be innately involved in planning the response to this. the biden team is leaning on the experts as they start planning out what the government looks like especially as it relates to the pandemic. >> they should get some help as they get the briefings fairly soon. thanks for starting off with us this morning. there's much more ahead. if you're waking up this morning planning to sit down to a holiday meal in this pandemic we'll have some advice on how to do it safely. and one part of the country where pre-existing issues of economic struggles and poor health are causing them to see the highest covid rates in the country. as we hear from recovering covid-19 patient grateful to front line workers this thanksgiving. >> i'm grateful for northwestern

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now to the latest on the coronavirus pandemic. here are the fact at this hour. the supreme court is barring new york from enforcing limits on attendance for houses of worship in the city. hard-hit by the coronavirus, but the court's actions won't have immediate impacts since the two groups that sued the catholic and synagogues are no longer held to the restrictions. and the coronavirus had 183,000 new infections and it brings it to more than 12.8 million infections. wednesday saw another sharp increase in deaths. more than 2,000 people died from covid-19 complications. that is the largest daily death toll since july.

overall, 263,000 americans have lost their lives since this pandemic began. let's go live to dasha burns in johnson city, tennessee, where health care workers are stretched thin on this holiday. tell us about the situation there for health care workers you're learning. >> good morning. this hospital behind me is the largest in this part of an latch cha. in this building behind me, there are nurses who right know are caring for patients who are fighting for their lives. there will likely be calls made to funeral homes here today because the record number of deaths here in just the last couple of weeks. at this point, the rate of admissions is outpacing the rate of discharge which means there are more patients coming into this hospital than there are coming out. that is putting a significant strain on health workers here. i want to turn it over to one of

the folks who are on the front lines of this thing. this is stephanie, she has spent 900 hours in the covid-19 unit here. i want to give you the floor, tell us what you have been seeing here. >> it's been very difficult. i often compare it to a marathon where you prepare your training, pre -- you think you're prepared, you sign up for it. then you get here and the demands and everything on your body, you spend hours some days, you know, 15 hours here without eating or drinks and then you feel like you're ready and you make the phone calls to families. you sit with patients in their last moments and it's just difficult to explain the emotional toll much less the physical toll of all of us. we have a great team here, but it's difficult. it's extremely difficult. >> how are you doing? how are you feeling? you actually just recovered from covid yourself. >> i did. i have been out 14 days. i'm feeling very weak today,

very tired. but my heart is here. you know, this is where i'm needed and i want to be here for my team members. there's too far of us to be out. >> stephanie. thank you so, so much. we'll let you get back to your important work and this is the problem as much as bed capacity is a concern. the real concern is the staff. the burnout and the fact that nurses are getting sick themselves. they have about 250 team members who are positive for covid, quarantining and recovering and they're looking for as much help as they can get right now. >> it's hard to put into perspective how many hours the front line workers have put in. wow. thank you for that report. joining us now, dr. jeremy faus, he's an emergency room physician at brigham and women's hospital. good morning to you. first of all, i want to take you back a little bit to the headline that we had a few

moments ago. your reaction to the supreme court ruling, enforcing the attendance limits on the houses of worship. medically speaking, could this hurt the fight in covid? >> medically speaking, it certainly could hurt because we know that small and medium sized gatherings are a real opportunity for this virus to spread like wildfire. so when i read the story about this case, what comes to mind is, well, if we can't legally do it we need to actually convince people that this is in their best interest and to find ways to do whatever they want to do, whether it's religious services or anything else to do it in a safe way. so that -- the cases show in terms of public health we have a long ways to go. >> let's talk a little bit about the astrazeneca vaccine and also making a little bit of news because it did seem promising earlier this week, but the company now admitting some mistakes were made and they didn't necessarily disclose that. some trial participants only

getting a partial dose of the vaccine. this spotty disclosure has eroded confidence, according to experts. are there questions -- and i should say, there are questions now whether u.s. regulators would actually approve it. what do you make of it? >> yeah, it's a bit messy and we had several good mondays in a row that we heard this has 90% and the pfizer has 90 plus percent and this monday we had the astrazeneca. it is messy. on the one hand, you said it's interesting an unexpected finding that's science that happens. they have the finding that the lower dose on the first injection and then the higher dose was better. great, that's kind of interesting and we had an unexpected finding but as you say, the bad news is it wasn't planned. there were dosing problems. they're mixing and matching the trial results. overall i agree that people have questions but one thing that i will say in favor of this trial is that it's still -- even

without the sort of quote/unquote good, happy, se serendipitous result they had -- in the protocol they meant to use. i think overall the story remains the same. which is in one calendar year we have three vaccines with promising results, but of course we are still waiting for a much larger readout of the safety data and how things are going. >> it's something to be thankful for this holiday as we look into the following year. let's talk thanksgiving, already tsa has 5 million people traveling through airports, not heeding the cdc warnings. this is only a 10% decrease from last year and we have seen spikes in cases. let's talk about the timing of this. that's important getting into the next holiday, that we's what we saw the fourth of july and

memorial day. what is the timing of when we'll see a surge from this holiday? >> we'll start to see it next week and unlike memorial day, labor day and the 4th of july, it's thanksgiving, a lot of indoor gatherings which is problematic. if you're on the fence, please take this seriously and do something unusual. move it outside. it looking at weather.com and the national weather report, lots of parts of the country would be just fine to have a once in a lifetime outdoors. open the windows and i know it's weird wearing a mask, let's just do thanksgiving but honestly we know a lot about the virus. it's contagious in small limit moments. hundreds of thousands of people are becoming contagious today and got a negative test two days ago. i want everyone to think about that. it's really important that you may not know that you have it. you could be symptomatic or not symptomatic and i don't want

thanksgiving to ruin christmas for anybody. >> it's not weird to wear a mask if it's saving the lives of your loved ones around you and if you're someone who doesn't have the symptoms you might be spreading it. the danger is truly there. thanks for being with us this morning. denver's mayor is facing backlash for traveling during the holiday after asking others to avoid it himselves. michael hancock flew in to see his wife and daughter and this comes after colorado's governor said that the state is more contagious than ever with nearly one in four coloradans estimated to have crisis. now over to ali levine with more. the big question this morning, are people in denver accepting his apology? >> i have to tell you, this was a tough pill to swallow for folks here in denver.

plenty of them are not happy about the mayor's actions over the last day or so. you know, we're actually just about a block away from a main thoroughfare, there's a restaurant on the corner and on the marquee it says have a great trip, mayor hancock. kind of in the cheeky way and plenty of folks took his advice. they are not seeing their loved ones. they are not having big gatherings on this thanksgiving. some of them are just gathering in their home all by themselves because mayor hancock along with plenty of other politicians in our state including the governor and others has been telling folks here for weeks, maybe even longer to avoid all of that. as you said, right now, things are not looking good in colorado. our cases are rising and politics here and health officials are really just trying to get a handle on this. just to back up a little bit.

on friday, mayor hancock got on a press call. the public could see it and again he pushed this message, he pleaded with people to stay home avoid all nonessential travel. yesterday, his twitter account tweeted out another reminder, stay home. and then the same morning he got on that flight to mississippi to visit his daughter and his wife there. now, he did release a statement last night where he did apologize to the people of denver. and he said that this decision to travel was borne out of his heart and not his head. for some folks here, that's just not enough. >> yeah. kusa ali levine, thank you. the parade is happening this year but it will be different and we're live on the parade route with our own al roker coming up.

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welcome back. we are less than two hour ace way from the 94th annual macy's thanksgiving day parade. certainly this year will look a lot different but the important thing is that the parade will go

on. it is set to march on despite the coronavirus pandemic with history setting a high bar for canceling it. it's happened, rain or shine, every year since 1924. except the three years during world war ii. this morning, it is set to power through a pandemic for the first time ever. or very own al roker is outside the flagship store in new york city with all of it. great to see you back. second of all, what is the weather going to be like? what should folks expect to see? >> hey, first of all, happy thanksgiving. good to see you. what they're going to see, they're going to see what they normally see on thanksgiving day. of course, the spectators are not allowed in, but we are still going to put on a heck of a show here. this 34th street, the floats are all lined up. the tradition tom turkey right there, going to lead things off. we have got a few of the balloons down here running up 6th avenue including the boss

baby balloon. of course they will all end up here, right in front of macy's and that's of course where we will see the fantastic performances, broadway shows. some of the floats, keke palmer will be on one of the floats. what's going to be terrific is that people should be -- you know, kind of sequestering together, small groups. just sit in front of the tv on nbc and enjoy this. of course, it kicks off at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. it is going to be a heck of a parade. 80% fewer participants. normally it's a 2 1/2 mile block, now it's a two-block route. you will see at home just some fantastic performances. great broadway shows that have been recorded and of course santa, just before noon, coming in to the square and marking the beginning of the season. >> yes, not the same without santa.

we want to note that everyone watching at home, al roker and hoda kotb and savannah guthrie will be bringing us along on the historic experience. i notice that you got to the top of the rockefeller tree near the star. what was that experience like? >> i've got to tell you, i had never been up there before and it is an amazing, amazing view from the top of the star -- the tree, looking at that swarovski star and then next wednesday, we'll -- it will be craig, savannah, hoda and myself bringing you christmas from rockefeller center. the lighting of the rockefeller center christmas tree, again without spectators, but it's still going to be a fantastic event. one more thing we need to bring a sense of normalcy to 2020. happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving to you, al. yes, curl up with the family and enjoy and a reminder the 94th annual macy's thanksgiving day

on nbc from 9:00 to noon in all time zones. of course millions will be watching the parade from home. the year filled with kids learning remotely and parents working from home. and families have been struggling to make it all work. we caught up with one family in philadelphia to see how they're handling this new normal. >> hi, we're working from home and going to school from home during the pandemic. >> it has been a circus, life in general with kids but being at home with them all the time it's like being in the jungle. you don't know what's going to pop up next. >> something happens that's the breaking point. like the feeling that you're juggling all of the balls and then all of a sudden, something will go wrong. owen is our 15-year-old, in tenth grade. samantha, she's our 10-year-old and in fifth grade and henry is our little one, he's 4. he's in pre-k and our great dane

is named chewy, he is 9 years old. our cat is 2 years old. >> i usually get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and hopefully i try to get a little bit of work done actually. and then around, you know, 6:30 my youngest usually wakes up. the kids are online at about 8:00 for school. >> i do miss in person school. i got to interact with my friends. i got to sit at a lunch table. and we wouldn't have to have all of the help connecting with computers and stuff. >> there have been tears. i have definitely cried a few times. never ending laundry. i'm like the cleaning person. vacuum a lot. sometimes like you have to flip your hat. you know, back and forth within like 60 seconds. so it's like, mom, you know, i need you to braid my hair. so then it's doing this. and then it's like this person didn't meet this deadline, you need to talk to them about it. and you have to flip into that

personality. >> you'll be in the middle of doing something for work then all of a sudden, there's someone who spilled orange juice. just yesterday, you know, the dog threw up all over the carpet. >> some days i wake up and i feel like i can't believe we're still doing this every day. >> i think the best part is probably that i'm able to like be here with my parents and my family. >> we're tired, we're working hard. but we're happy. >> ready. >> as hard as it is to go through this, none of us will forget this experience. >> it's a snapshot of what parents are going through and spare a thought for them and others. president trump and media playing up supreme court cases that aren't going anywhere. we'll be right back. es that aren't going anywhere we'll be right back. we are the thrivers.

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slamming a judge's ruling that is temporarily stopped the process that certified president-elect biden's more than 80,000 vote win in that state over president trump. a republican judge in pittsburgh has set a hearing for tomorrow morning to hash out the dispute over mail-in votes and governor wolf is calling it unprecedented election interference. this is separate from the lawsuit trying to toss out tens of thousands of ballots in the state and when we heard from the legal team we haven't heard very much from the team itself about the fight to overturn the election or any evidence thereof. the campaign has gone quiet, at least publicly. with me is kourtnei brown, from axios and a senior politics editor. welcome in all of you. happy thanksgiving. meredith, i want to begin with

you and get to some of your reporting. now, you spoke with the senior campaign official who said that bill stepian was m.i.a. and that nobody was doing anything inside the campaign. and you spoke with stephen moore who says there's a really good chance that the president runs in 2024 but if he wants to that he doesn't want to diminish his stature by playing the sore loser. talk to us about what's going on behind the scenes here. >> well, president trump and his personal attorney rudy giuliani are pushing ahead with a political crusade that many say in his inner circle say is a dead end. we saw the president call in via speakerphone about the odd irregularities in pennsylvania, but there's no path forward for them here. at the white house it's been incredibly quiet. we haven't seen or heard from top advisers to the president's campaign like his campaign

manager or even his communications director in days and that's because rudy giuliani has really taken the lead here much to the chagrin of people around the president and he's told folks that he wants to press on. yesterday in pennsylvania, he said that he thinks the election results have been overturned, but they're really just shouting into the wind here and the president, his own white house, is already starting to move forward with transition efforts to help out the biden administration. joe biden is picking cabinet picks and senators and lawmakers and his own party are really hoping that the president looks ahead to his presidential legacy here and also looks to georgia where the republican party is facing an important senate runoff race that they really wish the president was focusing more on and moving his political capital and clout there at a time when they feel like they could really use a boost from him. >> yeah, it seems like he's

trying to walk this tight rope and obviously not focused at all on the pandemic. courtney, our pete williams has crunched the numbers on the legal efforts and spoiler alert, it's not going well. 26 of the cases have been denied, dismissed or withdrawn. you cover the markets for axios and it seems like the market is setting aside the concerns for the legal fights. can you tell us why that is or why it appears that way for now? >> right. i think if were to ask a trader, analyst a few months ago and maybe you had a crystal ball and you were to tell them what was playing out right now, i think they would be afraid. one of the big things that traders were worried about was a chaotic transition and, you know, the market has really shrugged all of this off. it's completely ignored it. the dow hit 30,000 for the first time ever a record high for the s&p 500 too.

i think if you take a step back and look to what ceos are saying, corporate america has moved on. they are setting up their businesses and thinking about what business looks like under a president biden. the economy is very much still stuck where we are right now. we have some discouraging economic data yesterday about the state of employment in this country and that is something that president-elect biden will have to deal with on day one. >> yeah. it's significantly up from what economists thought it would be reporting in at. we'll get to those numbers here in a moment as well. but speaking of the trump election fight i want to play for you the sharp contrasting messages of what we got yesterday from the president and then from the president-elect. listen in. >> our democracy was tested this year. what we learned is this. the people of this nation are up to the task and in america we have full and fair and free elections. and then we honor the results.

>> the election was rigged and we can't let it happen we can't let it happen for our country and this election has to be turned around. >> quite the contrast there. the initial words coming in after it was clear that the incoming biden administration was going to take over was that this might complicate his ability to do that. several weeks out now, do you feel that that's still the case or is it a quaint notion at this point given the deep divisions in this country there's any working together before biden takes over on january 21, 2021? >> this has been biden's message throughout the campaign. that he can bring the country together. he's never wavered from that message. he's stilling with it now. huge contrast to that scene that you just showed of, you know, president trump being reduced to sort of being a voice on somebody's cell phone in the middle of this partisan hearing. the leader of the free world.

the contrast could not be greater, but look, i don't think anybody has any illusions that joe biden saying it's time to unify, that's going to happen automatically. the country is very divided, it's been very divided for many years now. president trump has really staked his political capital on making that division even broader and sort of being president of his own base. rather than the whole country. he's also spent the last several weeks debasing the results of the election saying those words it's rigged, it's false. so there's going to be a lot of people in the country, a lot of trump supporters who go into the biden administration thinking it's not legitimate. so joe biden will have a lot of work to do in his actions, not just his words to try to make that unity that he's capable of doing. it's a tall order, but with the pandemic and all of the many challenges this country faces this is a message he'll stick with and see if he's successful. >> and one of the things that

came out about janet yellen, having some trouble because of moves by steve mnuchin that could make her job more difficult. what do you have on that reporting wise? >> yeah. there is a lot of concern on wall street and from folks who watched the economy about what's going to happen when -- if and when janet yellen is confirmed for treasury secretary. we know that congress is kind of stuck on a next stimulus package, so a lot of attention had turned to the federal reserve. and what the federal reserve can do to kind of support the economy while congress and the white house hash out a deal. the moves that the current treasury secretary steven mnuchin would make it more difficult for the federal reserve to implement some emergency economic programs should they choose to do so. and so that's something that we're definitely going to need to watch. there's still a lot of questions about, you know, what exactly the ramifications are of

secretary mnuchin's actions. >> yeah, democrats will need access to those funds if they want to continue to have some of the programs in place for people who need help as the pandemic continues and we know that two key programs are up in december. we'll be watching that closely.. meredith mcgraw, courtney brown, and beth fouhy, thank you all this morning. we appreciate you. when we return, a look inside new cutting edge low cost covid-19 testing that could get students around the world safely back into class rooms. that's why doctors recommend tylenol®. it won't raise blood pressure the way that advil® aleve or motrin® sometimes can. for trusted relief, trust tylenol®.

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window. dun-dun-daaa! the first big screen. we really need to limit thunk's window time. not now. the birds are on. in my day we fought them. let me live my life! . let's widen our scope a little bit and go international. government officials in the united kingdom are backing new testing technology to help schools stay open amid the coronavirus pandemic. the technology is also helping to keep some colleges and schools open in europe and possibly right here in the united states. let's get details now from willem marx in london. what kind of technology here with retalking about? >> reporter: good morning, we're talking about saliva, spit, spittle. essentially this is about changing the way people's samples are testing. the backside of things, that's similar to when you see the nasal swabs. this is about helping children in particular collect their

samples. we've seen schools all over the east coast now adopting this technology introduced really by some folks at yale who have been working with the nba on this but also a pooling system that allows large batches to be tested at once. the woman who founded the company that's offering this now to dozens of schools on the east coast. i sat down and talked with her a couple of weeks ago and asked her why she thought this was so important and why she decided to pursue this technology. >> the sample collection of a nasal swab seemed to be the bottleneck of getting tested. for nasal swabs you needed a trained person to actually take that sample. it's quite an invasive procedure. the nasal swabs at that moment in time as well were, you know, a supply shortage and lastly, you know, the trained person has to be fully dressed in ppe, which also was in short supply and put themselves at risk. so these were the things we really tried to get around. >> reporter: and so i've talked to teachers here in the uk and

in states like connecticut about why they themselves introduced this technology in their schools, and it comes down to ease of use. it's not an invasive test, and also cost. that company that woman founded charging $15 per student per week, and experts hoping this can be rolled out at the federal level, state level and across countries here like the uk because of that low cost, corey. >> this is something that will be good news for all parents dealing with being a teacher at home as well. willem marx, thanks so much for that this morning, and happy thanksgiving to you. in our next hour, president trump granting a full pardon to his former national security adviser who pleaded guilty twice to lying to the fbi on the russia investigation. i'll talk to a member of the house permanent select committee on intelligence, congressman mike quigley will be here. stay with us.

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good morning, and welcome in. happy thanksgiving to everyone. i'm cori coffin. welcome in to our special coverage on msnbc. as you're waking up with us on this thanksgiving, millions of people are waking up as well trying to figure out what they're going to make of this unusual holiday. one man in particular has an extra reason to be thankful, the president's former national security adviser michael flynn. on wednesday the president issued a full pardon to flynn who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi not once but twice as the president's latest