good day, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. glad you could join us the day after thanksgiving. today we have the latest reaction to president trump's combative interaction with reporters on thanksgiving. that included a small but significant concession on the reality that he is facing ahead. >> reporter: are you not going to leave this building? >> certainly i will. certainly i will. and you know that. >> but that comment came after a string of false claims about election results across this country and disinformation to fight the facts surrounding his defeat. >> you have to really take a look at what's going on, uh, they're finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes and nobody believes those numbers. i know one thing. joe biden did not get 80 million votes and i got 74 million but

there were many ballots thrown away so i got much more than that. it's going to be a very hard thing to concede, because we know there was massive fraud. >> so meanwhile, president-elect joe biden is looking ahead with his transition team, planning the next rollout of cabinet nominations and preparing to take the lead in the national effort to defeat the coronavirus pandemic. joining me now, msnbc political reporter ali vitali who is with us in delaware. nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house for us. reuters white house correspondent jeff mason. beth fouhy and chris lu, a former aid to president obama. good to see all of your faces after thanksgiving, thank you for joining us this afternoon. i want to start with you, kelly, because as we normally think of thanksgiving, we think of it as a quiet day, a day of reflection to spend with family. nonetheless, a lot of tick-tock

happening from the president. take us through what happened yesterday. >> this was strikes because it happened after an event the president does every year where he calls them, troops overseas, on videoconference. the president had not taken questions since election day. his longest stretch in his presidency, maybe even in his public life, both political and business. and so that was notable. there were these urgent questions that need to be resolved, and understanding from the president in terms of what his thinking is right now that the public really needed to hear. so while many people may have been enjoying time with their families, a small group of us were here at the white house working, jeff among them. he was in the room as these questions were put to the president, necessary, important questions, on the status of the president's thinking with regard to concession, what he would do come january 20 when typically

the moving trucks roll in and take one president out and another moved in during the time of the ceremonies of the inaugural, would he even attend the inaugural. a lot of these issues. the president had a different agenda, he wanted to talk about his claims of fraud, which we do not have evidence for, or a random group of different theories that he was purporting for different states about how he claims he was robbed of this election. reporters in the room were trying to get some critical issues of concession and what happens next and what are the president's plans in the future in the time that he has remaining. the fact that the president chose to take these questions at a time when many americans were busy with other things is also sort of significant in the sense that he's often credited with having such a savvy media perspective. that didn't necessarily play out last night. in terms of what he said that is new, the president does not want to concede this election.

that's not a requirement of a transfer of power, but it has been a tradition of a gracious hanovd handover from one president to another. that's not going to happen. when pressed, he did acknowledge that he would leave the building on january 20th if joe biden is confirmed in the electoral vote. it was notable that the president is aware of how little time he has left. he referred to reporters not letting biden take credit for vaccines. "that was me," he said. that's an indication that the president knows that he will likely not prevail after so many efforts to bring cases that have been blocked by courts, not going anywhere, not an example of being able to overturn any

votes, let alone enough in enough states to change the outcome. so it's really the president on two tracks, this fighting spirit and also some very noteworthy and important recognition beginning to bleed through. >> he also mentioned georgia, and you mentioned the inauguration, whether or not he will attend. but first, jeff, once again being the target of the president in the midst of this press conference or whatever it is we're calling it today. let me play some of that change for everybody, and then i want you to comment on it. >> reporter: just to be clear, if the electoral college votes for joe biden, will you concede? >> if they do, they made a mistake, because this election -- >> reporter: but will you -- >> they're trying to -- look. between you people -- don't talk to me that way. you're just a lightweight, don't talk to -- i'm the president of the united states, don't ever talk to the president that way. i'm going to go with another question.

>> what was it like, jeff, yesterday to be in that room and become the target of the president in that manner? >> well, kelly summarized it really well, it was interesting, obviously, for the reporters to be there and to have a chance to ask him these pertinent questions since he hasn't spoken or taken questions from the press in 2 1/2 weeks. i also think it's worth underscoring how unusual it is that the press corps needs to ask him if he's going to leave, if he's going to concede, given the fact that joe biden has won the election. but to your question, what it's like, i mean, it's happened a few times before, and it's not an awesome position to be in, but it's our job to ask questions, and it's our job to follow up. and that's what i was doing. >> jeff, just quickly, do you see a marked change in this president pre- and

post-election, having covered him at this point? >> i'm sure others, kelly included, have been asked things like that before. you see it sort of rises and falls, president trump's mood and his state of being throughout his presidency. i wouldn't say i see a dramatic change. the most dramatic thing has been that he hasn't wanted to engage, and that changed yesterday. in general he's sort of fore shadowed what we're seeing now. he's sort of slowly getting to a peaceful transfer of power, as kelly said, but also really wanting to make clear to his supporters that he hasn't given up the fight. >> beth, i want to go to you on this one. i mentioned the fact that the president talked about georgia and the fact that he wants to go to georgia and to support loeffler and perdue in the runoff elections that are happening in january. we're now getting word it's likely the president will be

going to georgia on december 5. do you think this is what the campaigns want and do you think it will help their case there in georgia? >> well, we know that president trump is polarizing in the best and worst ways. he will certainly bring out a lot of republicans in georgia to vote for loeffler and perdue, by making it clear to his supporters that he desperately wants them to and to carry on that republican control of the senate. i have to say, though, yasmin, he's really muddied the waters by up until this point describing the whole electoral process in georgia as being such a mess and fraud-ridden and rigged and all the other things, we're on to like a third recount in georgia at the president's behest. he just doesn't believe he lost that state to joe biden so he is insisting that the votes be recounted while he describes the whole place as an electoral catastrophe. that's a very mixed message to be sending out to his people when he also wants to get those republican senators reelected.

and you'll note, yasmin, today he 2w50etweeted, he acknowledge i've been saying the electoral system in georgia is very bad but republicans still need to come out. it's a bit of a confusing message that he's sharing. look, he's going to bring out a lot of republicans to vote for them but he's also going to bring out a lot of democrats to vote against them and that's exactly what we saw happen in georgia, he lost because enough democrats and disaffected folks who don't like the president came out and gave that election to biden. >> it's such a good point, because in fact the president is saying, hey, come out, vote, but actually don't trust the process, a lot of mixed messaging there. chris, i want to bring you into the conversation. we're hearing a lot more from one of the nonpartisan voices that president trump pushed out and that is chris krebs. he spoke out on "60 minutes." i want to play for you a little bit of that sound. >> the president tweeted after that statement, quote, the recent statement by chris krebs on the security of the 2020

election was highly inaccurate in that there were massive im o proprieties and fraud. do you remember what the president said at the end of that tweet? >> that i was terminated? yes, i recall that. >> were you surprised? >> i don't know if i was necessarily surprised. it's not how i wanted to go out. >> chris, this president, it seems, has put a tremendous amount of pressure on career civil servants. chris krebs being markedly one of those individuals. >> you know, we have seen four years of relentless attacks by this president on federal civil servants. he has maligned them as deep state, when people have spoken up about improprieties or ill

legalities, they've had to get security details to protect them from the president of the united states. we know this has been the safest, most secure election we have ever had. we also know that russia largely did not play in this election. and the reason probably why is that the disinformation that they would have otherwise pushed is coming from inside the white house. so notwithstanding the president's slightly conciliatory remarks yesterday, there was so much beneath the surface that is so troubling in his continued efforts to delegitimize the election. you didn't even play the sound bite when he called the georgia secretary of state the enemy of the people. he's convinced he won the state of arizona even though one of his strongest allies, governor ducey, has said he lost. look, maybe a lot of what's happening right now is empty rhetoric from the president. but his continued talking is not only hurting our democratic system but it's making it more difficult for us to solve the

problems that we need to in this country. >> so ali, as this is all going on, i just spent the first 11 minutes of the show talking about the current president and all that took place yesterday, over the last 24 hours or so, but then there is the president-elect, joe biden, who is standing by, not necessarily responding to everything going on, staying quiet, celebrating the thanksgiving holiday, staying his course and building his team. >> you look at the way that you guys have all spent the first ten minutes of this show talking about how differently donald trump spent his thanksgiving day than the way that president-elect joe biden spent his, which was releasing a video on twitter, talking about the need to unify, talking about how thanksgiving probably looks a little different for american families this year because of the pandemic, then telling them that we will get through this even though right now it's a really tough moment for the country. it's a split screen presidency between the white house and the white house in waiting. i also think it's notable that the biden transition team right

now is trying to show their priorities, trying to roll out personnel. we know that over the course of the next few days and the early part of next week we're going to see biden put out some new picks for economic-related posts including likely treasury secretary, which we expect janet yellen be put up for that position. biden has said his choice he's made for secretary is someone who would be accepted by all parts of the democratic party. certainly the reaction to yellen from the markets, from moderate democrats, and from progressives has been that. i would also note we haven't heard much from the biden team on all of these different news cycles that trump has popped up into the ether. that's probably the point here. they're not only trying to establish themselves on policy and priorities, but they're also trying to establish themselves that they're going to set the pace of their own transition and their own administration and the pace of news won't be the fire hose we've been drinking out of for the last four years.

>> that's for darn sure. it doesn't seem that the biden administration will be as active as the trump administration has been. thank you all for joining me, always the appreciate it. as fears are rising about the potential of holiday super spreader events, the cdc is now saying the real number of covid cases could be eight times higher than we even more. more on that eye opening report and a look at hospitals struggling to meet the surge of patients coming up right after a break right here on msnbc. asthm. less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala at home. find your nunormal with nucala.

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welcome back, everybody. we are nearing 13 million coronavirus cases in this country as doctors and nurses nationwide race to see how the coronavirus spread impacts the country. 1.2 million people have been diagnosed alone. the cdc now says the real number

of coronavirus cases across this country could be eight times higher than that. officia officials suspect there has been a gross undercount in cases. germany became the sixth european country to surpass a million cases. italy is calling on war zone doctors to assist in the health care crisis emerging there as well. but i want to get back to the united states. governors are putting new restrictions in place to try to control the spread of this virus however a supreme court decision late on wednesday is complicating some of their efforts, saying attendance cannot be restricted at houses of worship. nbc's gabe gutierrez is at a testing site here in new york city. and the way different states -- good afternoon, by the way, gabe, good to see you -- and the way different states are dealing with this is interesting. you have south dakota with a 43% positivity rate but no mask

mandate in place. here in new york, there's much lower positivity rates across the board but much stricter laws in place. talk about what you're seeing on the ground. >> reporter: that's right, yasmin. this is something we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic, where this patchwork of restrictions really throughout the country is now being more pronounced heading into the holiday season. behind me there is a testing line. i can tell you i was here this past weekend, this line wrapped around the block, as the pre-thanksgiving rush of people wait to go get tested before they see their families, although public health experts say it's not an all clear if you do come back with a negative test. but today at least here in manhattan there does seem to be less lines, perhaps people not so eager to get those tests right after thanksgiving. but back to the issue of the restrictions across the country, yeah, yasmin, no mask mandate in south dakota. the republican governor of west

virginia coming out this week, he has imposed a mask mandate in west virginia. he's faced backlash for it. he says he doesn't want to be south dakota, despite there being a republican governor there as well. you mentioned here in new york, and that is where the controversy is really heath ingp after the u.s. supreme court ruling blocking the state of new york from enforcing capacity limits on houses of worship. yesterday governor andrew cuomo called the ruling irrelevant. he says essentially the court is playing politics. he says it's not relevant on a practical level, the governor argues, because those particular restrictions in brooklyn had already expired. but the question going forward is, yes, what role will authorities here in new york be able to -- how many restrictions will they be able to put in place, because the positivity rate here in new york state is about 3%, more than 3%. in schools, though, it is much less. and city officials are facing criticism here, why close the

schools when other businesses are allowed to have indoor dining. certainly a lot of questions as we head into the holiday season. we have post-thanksgiving, public officials here as well as throughout the country feel we could see a dramatic rise in cases, then the question becomes how you take care of that and what restrictions can you put in place, yasmin. >> comparatively those numbers are astounding, 3% positivity rate in new york, much more strict things here to mitigate the spread. south dakota, almost half the folks in that state getting tested are testing positive. so good to see, gabe gutierrez, on this friday. the combination of high poverty rates and low access to health care and the rise in coronavirus numbers is having an effect in the appalachians.

nbc's dasha burns is with us in bristol. dasha, having spoken to health care professionals across the country, there is this idea that the more rise in cases, the more likely it is that doctors and nurses will also begin to test positive, and there won't be enough resources at the hospitals to take care of patients. how are folks faring there so far? >> reporter: hey, yasmin, that problem is happening here as it is happening in so many places across the country. i'm at one of the hospitals for the only hospital provider in this part of appalachia, covering 1.2 million people, and about 250 members of their staff are currently out because they have tested positive from covid, they are sick or recovering. the strain on the system is significant especially as over just the last month, they've seen an almost doubling of

hospitalizations. and they're seeing record numbers of deaths in just the last a couple of weeks. to dig into this with me a little more, i have chief physician executive dr. clay reynolds. dr. reynolds, talk to me about the landscape in this area, and the challenges you're facing, particularly of some of the issues that were going on here in this appalachian region before covid hit. >> well, one of the challenges we see is the effect of c co-morbidities in our patients, being things like hypertension, diabetes, obesity, copd, coronary artery disease, that exist in a patient before they become infected. and those sort of things can lead to the severest form of disease. i think that's why we have worked so hard in this region to communicate with our communities about following guidelines with regard to masking and social

distancing and those sort of things to try to slow the spread of the disease. >> y >> reporter: can you tell us what you're seeing in the er as you're seeing this rise in cases and hospitalizations in this population? as you said, because of co-morbidities, oftentimes patients coming to you are coming pretty severely sick. >> yes, the influx of covid patients, particularly the sickest of that group, put a strain on the emergency resources. these patients require attention and specific care. that's a lot of strain on the health system and the er in particular. however we've been able to manage effectively and i can tell you that i couldn't be more proud of our staff. they're so committed and courageous. and they show up every day to care for the community and for the patients. >> reporter: dr. reynolds, thank you so much, thank you for your team for all they do. yasmin, i've been talking to so many health care workers the last couple of days who are

spending this holiday week taking care of patients, in many cases taking care of folks they know. a lot of these communities are small and they're caring for neighbors and friends and they are there for them, oftentimes in their final moments, yasmin. >> we are so grateful for all of those front line health care workers. dasha burns, thank you, good to see you this afternoon. some breaking news today from overseas. it involves iran and that country's nuclear program as well. and a big question being asked across all intelligence communities, coming up. [ thunder rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ] ♪

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get test x180 from force factor, the #1 fastest-growing men's health brand at walmart. welcome back, everybody. we are following some breaking news out of the middle east where iranian state television is reporting a top nuclear scientists has been assassinated. mohsen fakhrizadeh was a well-known figure commonly referred to as iran's robert oppenheimer, america's scientist who is considered the father of the american nuclear program. talk us through what we know so far.

>> reporter: hi, yasmin, here is what we know so far. mohsen fakhrizadeh, as you know, iran's top nuclear scientist, highly revered here, was traveling back from the north with his family. we don't know how many family members were with him. and his security detail. by the time he got about an hour east of tehran, a pickup truck was in front of them. as there was an explosion at the back of the pickup truck, fakhrizadeh's car stopped. at least five armed gunmen ambushed his car and opened fire on it. state media say his security detail fired back. they were injured. his family members, we don't know how many were with him, were injured. fakhrizadeh was transported by helicopter to a hospital in tehran where he died of his injuries. and authorities here, yasmin, are up in arms.

iran's foreign minister javad zarif says this bears all the hallmarks of an israeli operation. a senior adviser to the supreme leader has talked about revenge as has the head of iran's armed forces. this release 2012 when there was a string of assassinations of iranian nuclear scientists leading up to the 2013 nuclear talks. many believed that was designed to put pressure on iran to come and negotiate over its nuclear table. the rumors here are now this is putting pressure on iran to renegotiate a deal that they already signed but they are saying they are not going to do that. but right now, yasmin, the talk in tehran amongst officials is talk of revenge. you can't overstate how important this man was to iran's nuclear program. he was as important to it as

soleimani was to iran's military operations. >> when they speak of revenge, ali, when the iranian government speaks of revenge, what does that look like, what do you expect that to be? >> reporter: he was critical to iran's nuclear program. he was credited for building all of iran's research, defensive, missile capabilities, and building all of iran's nuclear infrastructure. whether that will leave a dent, from what i hear, no, because he had created something that could be easily passed on. it wasn't something that he was only in the know-how about. but this is very serious. just to highlight how serious it was, prime minister netanyahu of israel in 2018 gave a talk on the dangers of iran's nuclear program and he named mohsen fakhrizadeh by name and said, remember that name. so he was obviously key to the israelis in iran's nuclear

program. >> ali, my friend, thanks for joining me on this, i appreciate it, i know you'll stay on top of it and bring us anything you have as this develops. good to see you. i want to bring in nbc's ken dilanian into this conversation. ken, let's talk about a couple of things that are developing here. i know that you talked about this intelligence report and the big question as to whether or not the president should receive an intelligence report after he's no longer the president. we'll get to that in a moment but i do want you to comment on developments out of iran. this complicates things for the biden administration starting january 21 and the mountains they have to overcome especially when it comes to relationships with iran and israel going forward. you think about the sanctions so far that they have to overcome, whether they'll get back into the jcpoa. this certainly further complicates things. >> yeah, that's right, yasmin, this comes at the worst possible time for the incoming biden administration. we began the year with donald trump ordering the assassination

of qassem soleimani, iran's top general. now we have the assassination, a lot of my sources believe by israel, of the top nuclear scientist and the extent to which the united states cooperated with that, provided intelligence, if at all, is unknown but the iranians will assume that happened. we can almost be sure there will be some kind of significant response from iran. and there is a lot of worry on the biden team that donald trump will order some kind of kinetic action against iran in the final days of his presidency which would really complicate biden's wish to get back in the nuclear deal. this move may in fact be a setback for iran's covert attempts to perfect its nuclear weapons program. they say they don't have a weapons program but this scientist, u.s. officials believe, was working on one. and since they left the nuclear deal, their breakout time has reduced from one year to three

or four months, u.s. officials believe. but it's incredibly destabilizing and could send things in a very bad direction at a time when joe biden says he wants to get back in the nuclear deal and reduce the tensions, yasmin. >> there will be a lot of cleanup, to say the least, on all of this, we'll stay on top of this. i want to get to your reporting, an important question you're asking, when the president leaves off, can an ex-president like donald trump be trusted with america's security secrets, and is there a possibility you can keep this intelligence from donald trump? >> there absolutely is, because there is no law that affords an ex-president intelligence briefings. they are granted as courtesy under the authority of the current president and they have been given to ex-presidents from time to time when they travel overseas or if the current president wants to consult them on a matter. this question has never come up before because it's assumed that an ex-president can absolutely be trusted with the nation's

secrets since he was the steward of them while he was president. but with donald trump, obviously we have a history of his carelessness with classified information. people may recall that in 2017 he revealed highly sensitive terrorism information to the russian foreign minister in the oval office. on another occasion he tweeted what experts said was a classified photo of an iranian nuclear installation. so there's that factor, there's also the question of his international business entanglements. people i talked to from across the political aisle including a prominent members of the bush administration say donald trump can't be trusted to be discreet and it's bad enough he has a lot of secrets in his head already, he shouldn't have any more as he leaves office, is their point of view, yasmin. >> that is a major point, with so much debt, he has $400 million of debt according to "the new york times" reporting, that could compromise him to say the least. ken dilanian, thank you, my

fresh friend, so good to see you. coming up, what pope francis is saying today about those people who are protesting covid restrictions and ignoring health guidelines, back with that right here on msnbc. here on msnbc. at dell technologies, we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use.

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now through cyber monday get up to an extra 15% cash back on top of the best sales of the season. ♪ rakuten welcome back, everybody. there are some major concerns today about what was one of the most promising vaccine trials in the world. astrazeneca and oxford university have acknowledged some patients in their clinical trials accidentally got just half the dosage of the vaccine. that half dose proved really effective, but the fact that there was a mistake at all is racing alarm bells. dr. natalie azar, thank you for joining us on this. i want to address this news from astrazeneca. it's fairly troubling, we had great news from pfizer and moderna followed by astrazeneca.

astrazeneca landed on this half dose followed by a full dose. i had a representative from astrazeneca on the show on monday, i asked him how they arrived at this half dose. it proved to have a 90% efficacy. we're now learning that it was an accident, and the uk arm of oxford is admitting that. how trouble should folks be about them not be forgthcoming and what does this mean for fda approval? >> yasmin, there have been a lot of red flags raised about this particular astrazeneca/oxford trial, not even just the issue with the dosing, which i'll set aside for a second. as an immunologist, that was unsettling to begin with, that press release and how to even make sense of that. but a lot of other things, meaning that they pulled data

from multiple different trials, from the uk, from the brazil. they only reported on certain subgroups. they didn't have standard dosing in the control group. i mean, the list actually goes on and on. and what we've said from the beginning, or i should say i borrowed this from dr. freiden because it's so appropriate, a vaccine needs to be safe, available, and trusted. i don't think that i can overstate how important it is that the scientific rigor here is just absolutely transparent and top notch. remember, we're giving this vaccine to healthy people. this is not a hail mary last ditch effort in the hospital where you just throw everything at a patient, hoping that something will work. you know, i mean, they basically compared the astrazeneca trial to the phafizer and moderna tri

saying this is what you should be following, not what happened in this trial. >> i saw some reporting, though, indicating the fact that a lot of scientists were really only expecting 50% efficacy from any of these vaccines at the outset, that they didn't expect to get 90, 95%. these were credibly surprising and really in fact encouraging numbers. even with the two full dosages from astrazeneca, they had a 62% efficacy which it seems is pretty good, right? >> yeah, before we had pfizer and moderna releasing their numbers, we'll remember the fda had set as a floor for efficacy 50%. so yeah, if this had come out a few weeks prior to pfizer and moderna and had said, it was 62% in the standard dose, i think we would have all been pretty, you know, relieved at least to hear that. and this whole thing about the half dose is very, very troubling. as you mentioned, there was not that full transparency from the

beginning saying, oops, this looked like an accident. they were basically saying, yes, this was actually intentioned. and sort of giving an explanation that perhaps it primed the immune system. and as i said earlier, i was sort of trying to think about, you know, immunologically how this could happen. i was happy there are folks this week who are trying to dissect this more carefully for us, and sure enough, unfortunately it has unveiled some serious delinquencies in the methodology of that particular trial. >> so i do want to read one more thing for everybody, and it is this rare opinion piece from pope francis, talking about what we're dealing with right now, the covid crisis in general, as we await this vaccine to hit the market and we return to some kind of normal. he writes this, dr. azar. with some exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well being of their people first. yet some groups protested,

refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions, as measures that governments must impose for the good of their people, taking the position that they restrict freedoms. he talks about finding the common good, how important, dr. az azar, is it to hear this message today? >> i think it's incredibly important, yasmin. i've always said there is this tension between, you know, your civil liberty and your civic duty. and the politicization of this, of masks and, frankly, all of the behaviors that we have been encouraging and endorsing from the beginning, is so, so unfortunate. i wish that people could really just acknowledge and recognize that we're all in this together. and the sooner we all start to behave sort of collectively in this manner that is really meant to protect ourselves and protect all of those around us, the

sooner we can get back to our normal. new normal. >> we are all in this together. the new normal, that is for sure, dr. natalie azar, thank you, so good to see you on this friday afternoon. this year the centers for disease control has been tested as it's never been tested before, both by a deadly pandemic and by a white house that has worked to control the messaging. nbc's geoff bennett looked at low morale and a damaged reputation. >> reporter: the cdc has been at the forefront of the pandemic response and under fire after months of mixed messages, political pressure, and public gaffes about covid-19, creating cracks in the public health armor as cases surged. >> cdc has lost its voice as the lead on pandemics.

>> reporter: he's a cdc adviser who retired from the agency after four decades of service. >> i spent 35 years at cdc and i want to see cdc prosper and improve and get back to where it was before. >> reporter: carlton duncan previously served as the agency's chief operating officer. >> i was there 21 years and that was one of our strengths, that we lead with science. >> reporter: dr. madeleine sutton is an epidemiologist and ob/gyn who worked in the cdc's aids prevention division. three cdc insiders speaking out after an unprecedented effort to sideline science during the covid crisis. emails and documents obtained by nbc news show how the trump white house pressed public health official to fall in line with president trump's political agenda, burying cdc reopening guidelines, watering down covid guidance for cruise ships, churches, and theme parks, even

installing political operatives at the cdc to try to control the information it released. one veteran cdc staffer who wished to remain anonymous telling nbc news, the house is not only on fire, we're standing in ashes. the three you represent decades of experience at the cdc. has the agency ever been politicized in the way you say it has been under the trump administration? >> i think during the aids epidemic, we experienced a lot of barriers, and some of the political opposition we received resulted in greater infections. >> even though we could have saved more lives than we did, it was nothing. it pales in my opinion, in parisen to what we're experiencing now. >> reporter: while a new white house offers the cdc a new opportunity to regain public trust, one current staffer says i don't know if the damage to our reputation can be overcome with a new administration.

i worry it's a permanent problem. what's the culture like now that there's a new administration elected? >> it's almost like you can see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of science being able to go further in terms of its reach. we all feel very excited and that help is not too far away. this is decision tech.

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of the holiday season. things are totally different this year because of the pandemic. our business and tech correspondent jo ling kent is with us. talk us through this. how are businesses trying to reach holiday shoppers this time around with the pandemic raging across this country? >> it's good to be with you on this black friday. it's one unlike any other. you're seeing some people line up to go inside this best buy, but that line disappeared really quickly this morning. and a lot of the activity is happening online. we're seeing record breaking spending happening, and here at best buys and stores across the country, you're seeing a lot of action at instore pickup where you can buy online and pick up at the window or curb side pickup where you place your order and pop open your truck and pick up your stuff. what we're seeing overall, according to adobe, a 20% surge in online shopping on thanksgiving day alone. and so that's a record 5.1

billion already spent. and so we do expect black friday, even though it looks relatively peaceful and quiet, to be a record breaker for online sales. that's just because of the pandemic. people wanting to stay at home, and the stores, equally, executives at best buy all daying they want to keep shoppers safe. they're offering the same deals online as they are in store. and so essentially, what you're starting to see is that 75% of shoppers saying they prefer to do their shopping online. they're able to access the same deals at places like best buy, walmart, target, and a lot of small businesses as well. overall, because spending is so important on this holiday weekend, things are looking pretty good from a business standpoint. in terms of safety, if you do want to venture out and hit the stores and have a little bit of that holiday tradition, you're going to see social distancing inside. and you'll see the hand sanitizing stations, the plexi glass windows and a lot of

masked up people and employees ready to help to make it as easy as possible. certainly a pandemic black friday unlike any other, and also may change the way we shop forever going forward. >> i got to admit to everybody, i took advantage of a lot of the online black friday deals before i came on air earlier this morning. >> reporter: same here. >> a lot of slashed prices across the board. you've got to take advantage when you can. good to see you this morning, thank you for joining us. comiing up, more concern th thanksgiving holiday is going to lead to a new surge of cases across the country. that's leading the next hour. stay with us on msnbc. ur stay with us on msnbc. the mirror. and know you're not alone because this is not just a mirror. it's an unstoppable community. come on jessie one more. it's a race across time zones. come on you two, lets go. a gift for the whole family. so

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