good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington, as the covid-19 spread is staggering. this morning, the united states hit a daily record, daily records, for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. with 14 million confirmed cases and 2 million new infections in just the last two days. there are more than 205,000 new cases on wednesday alone and nearly 3,000 covid related deaths, both contributing to overwhelming strain on doctors and nurses across the country. i'll be speaking with dr. anthony fauci this hour ahead of his first virtual meeting with the biden transition team today. we begin with nbc's shaq brewster in richmond, indiana. nbc's megan fitzgerald at los angeles national airport and a senior scholar at the johns hopkins center for health security. shaq, you're in one of those rural areas where hospital staff is being stretched so thin as they try to keep up with the surge in the coronavirus in

surrounding counties. >> reporter: that's right, andrea. you're really getting a sense of how creative these medical professionals are having to be to deal with the surge that you're seeing across the state of indiana and really across the country. yesterday the united states hit more than 100,000 people who are in the hospital fighting with this virus. when you look at things in indiana, 80% of icu beds are full. most of the hospitals are at critical capacity. listen to how the vice president of this hospital, reed hospital in richmond, indiana, explained the practical impact of those high numbers in that coronavirus surge. >> they are having to build other units in places that they wouldn't typically care for patients. and something that many don't think of is, yes, you can build the unit but how do you staff that? we have a dedicated team that are, you know, used to staffing our inpatient units across the system. but when you're building new

units, that requires more staff. and, you know, you're doing what you can with what you have. and it is very scary. >> reporter: this hospital will also be a distribution point for the vaccine. so there is that sense that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. first they must get through and survive the surge we're expecting to see after that holiday break, andrea. >> shaq, thank you so much. megan, officials at l.a.x. are trying to give travelers some peace of mind, offering rapid tests at the airport. how does that work? >> reporter: andrea, that's exactly it, when you take a look at what's happening here, cases in california are reaching an all-time high, surging. hospital icus across the state are expected to be overrun in just three weeks. having this rapid testing location here at an airport is giving people the opportunity to know if they're positive or negative for coronavirus, before they even get to the gate, most certainly by the time they land at their destination.

here is how it works. they're asking folks to register on their phone. they know they'll be able to test a thousand people a day. when these travelers get here, they'll line up. you see these yellow circles on the ground here, they want to make sure folks are socially distant. when they arrive at the front, they're going to grab their test, swab their nose, give it back to the attendant. if you come back here, here is the big deal. this right here is the onsite lab. this gives them the ability to return the test results within an hour to three hours. this entire operation is expected to open up early next week, andrea. >> megan fitzgerald at l.a.x., thank you. dr. adajha, the medical unit says we are days away from seeing the effect of the thanksgiving travel and the family gatherings in the number of infections as well as hospitalizations. how much worse can this get between now and christmas? >> i think it's going to be some dark days ahead of us. we know we'll start to see

people who got infected at thanksgiving get tested around now and a couple of days later we'll start to see some hospitalizations. this is basically, as dr. fauci has said, a surge upon a surge, and it's only going to get worse. as pandemic fatigue sets in, as we still have problems with testing, we'll really be in for it. there are many hospitals, especially in rural and suburban areas, that are hitting the wall, without any ability to expand icu capacity, staffing issues. and i think it's something that's going to be very, very challenging to get through for the next several months until we have a vaccine. >> and speaking of vaccines, dr. adalja, i want to get your reaction. these comments from bill gates who was speaking with savannah guthrie on "today," he's been a leader on vaccine research, spending billions of dollars from the foundation. and he always stays away from politics as much as possible. but here is what he said about the way the administration has handled the response so far. >> would you have expected the u.s. to have done better in a pandemic? >> dramatically.

>> do you blame the president for that? >> i think the administration overall, as we do the post mortem, there will be a lot of things like confused messaging, lack of leadership, that will devolve on the executive branch. >> shaq brewster as well, i just want to thank all of you, but first, dr. adalja, your reaction to what bill gates said. >> i agree with what bill gates said. this really is something none of us thought the u.s. government would falter so badly on. many of us early on thought we would be able scale up testing, prepare hospitals, have adequate ppe. i do think it falls to the administration. there was february and march when the wrong actions were taken and we ended up in a situation that was completely preventible if we would have

actually tested, traced, and isolated in january, february, and march. we gave this virus a head start and added fuel with misinformation and lies coming from the president about this virus. we have no one to blame but ourselves for how bad this has been. >> shaq, is that the view from where you are in indiana? because that is such a red skate. are people beginning to recognize the lack of federal response? >> it's not so much about the federal response from what i'm hearing, but people are saying that there's still that doubt that you hear from regular people here in indiana. one thing that billy told me, the vice president, you go out and go to an area,where we are now, at the beginning of this pandemic, that's not where testing was getting out there. there are still conversations about washing hands and wearing masks, there are still doubts about the treatments the hospital is handing out. there is still some doubt that doctors have to overcome.

>> that's exactly the point, the lack of modeling, the lack of leadership from washington which changed people's attitudes and people are suspicious of what they're hearing and there's a lot of -- a lot of work that has to be done before people are going to accept it. shaq brewster, megan fitzgerald, and dr. adalja, thanks to all of you. there could be some movement though on the long-delayed covid relief package after democratic leaders nancy pelosi and chuck schumer endorsed the smaller bipartisan proposal. now senate majority leader mitch mcconnell hinted at progress but maybe not so much. nbc's garrett haake is on capitol hill. what are you hearing, garrett, the reaction to the signal from the majority leader? >> reporter: it's a confusing situation, andrea. it's the holiday break, all of these lawmakers want to go home and they want to pass something, that's the key difference between this and the other false starts in this process. everybody involved, the biden administration in waiting, the

trump administration, republicans and democrats on the hill, all say they want to do something now in the lame duck period. that's pushing people forward. but whether we should be confident or not based on that bipartisan framework depends on who you ask and when you ask them. this is mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer back to back on the senate floor earlier today. >> so compromise is within reach. we know where we agree. we can do this. let me say it again. we can do this. and we need to do this. so let's be about actually making a law. >> the republican leader came to the floor this morning to say compromise is within reach, his words. before reiterating a long list of republican demands and blaming the democrats for everything. once again, the republican leader argued that the senate should pass only what

republicans approve of. >> reporter: andrea, as i'm standing here, i'm looking at a pool note from our colleague kristen welker who is in the oval office with the president who apparently indicated he would support a covid deal. this matters because mitch mcconnell has been saying all along that his much smaller package that he has put out there to republicans to review is because that's what the president would support and that's what he wants to do, essentially reverse engineering a bill by getting what the president will support and then passing it through both houses. if the president is willing to go bigger, that might pull some of the republican conference along with him, and here we are, off into this negotiating process now with just a little over a week to go until that deadline. >> and of course we don't know which deal or what parts of the compromise he's willing to support. >> reporter: as is often the case with this president. >> exactly. garrett, thanks for staying on it. i know you'll bring any more news back to us. meanwhile, building confidence.

three former presidents offering to take the covid vaccine on camera. dr. anthony fauci joining us this hour on the unprecedented effort to vaccinate millions of americans and persuade them to take the vaccine. but first, barr on the line. could attorney general william barr be on his way out? is the rift between barr and the president deepening over the election fraud issue? stay with us, you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. msnbc. tired of overpaying for your prescriptions? try optum perks. it's a new way to save up to 80%. and everyone can do it. it's from optum, a health care company that's trusted by millions of people. you don't have to sign up for anything. just go to optumperks.com. and get a coupon to use at your pharmacy. that's it. i opted in. i opted in. you can, too. opt in and save big today. ♪ oh, oh, (announcer)®! ♪ once-weekly ozempic® is helping you can, too. many people with type 2 diabetes like emily

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president trump's unrestrained fury over his defeat boiled over yesterday in an extraordinary 46-minute video complaint encompass all of his bitter tweets, performed without journalists present, instead using the military-provided white house television production unit. directing his anger at democrats, the media, and some prominent republicans including his own attorney general bill barr. our nbc white house team reporting that the president has not ruled out firing the

attorney general that he spent years praising after mr. barr told the associated press there is no evidence at this point that supports mr. trump's false claims of widespread election fraud. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-host kristen welker and "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker. kristen, you were just in with the president when he was giving a medal of freedom award to lou holtz. we're about to hear the tape, the q&a, you asked him a number of questions, i don't want to interrupt you just to set the stage. he took questions at the end of that ceremony, and i think you were asking him about the attorney general as well and whether or not the attorney general is going to be fired, correct? >> that's right, andrea. i asked him first of all why not concede now, given the remarks by attorney general bill barr, that he has not seen fraud, he has not seen anything that would indicate the election results

should be overturned. and the president said that, well, quite frankly, he believes the attorney general hasn't looked at the matter and that he's disappointed in that. i then followed up with him and said, mr. president, do you have confidence in your attorney general? there was a long pause, andrea, and so i think our viewers should look for that in the audit. then he said, "ask me in a few weeks," andrea. >> and here is what the audio sounds and looks like. >> reporter: mr. president, mitch mcconnell says covid relief may be in sight. will you support this bill? >> i will and i think they're getting very close, absolutely. >> reporter: mr. president, can i ask you to respond to the comments by your attorney general who indicated that he has not seen at this point any evidence of fraud enough to overturn the election results? given that, why is now not the time to concede? >> he hasn't done anything. he hasn't looked. when he looks he'll see the kind of evidence that right now you're seeing in the georgia

senate. they're going through hearings right now in georgia and they're finding tremendous volumes. so they haven't looked very hard, which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it's massive fraud, uh, whether you go to wisconsin, where we just filed a case, or michigan, or if you look at what's happening in georgia as an example, or pennsylvania, uh, if you look at, uh, nevada, which is moving along very rapidly, or arizona, you saw those numbers come out yesterday, we found massive fraud. and in other states also. this is a -- probably the most fraudulent election that anyone's ever seen. >> reporter: do you still have confidence in bill barr. >> uh, ask me that in a number of weeks from now. they should be looking at all of this fraud. this is not civil. he thought it was civil. this is not civil. this is criminal stuff. this is very bad criminal stuff. so i just say this. we went through an election. at 10:00 everybody said that was an easy victory for trump.

all of a sudden the votes started disappearing miraculously, disappearing. we found much of it. but we found far more votes than we need in almost all of these states and i think i can say in all of these states, far more votes than we need to win in every one of them. and i want to just thank my team because my team is doing an unbelievable job. and more importantly i want to thank the 74 million plus people that voted, which was the largest amount of people that a sitting president has ever had. 74 million plus. and because the level of -- of -- of loyalty, i've never seen anything like it. all over the country, they know it was a fixed election. it was a rigged election. they know it. and i appreciate their support. thank you all very much. >> kristen, great job getting the president to answer those questions. you're right, the signal about bill barr, and then the pressure

that he's putting on bill barr at the justice department, inappropriately, to investigate something where they have presented no evidence that has persuaded a single judge. there have been 41 cases, more than 24 have either been dismissed or withdrawn, and they've acknowledged in court that there is no fraud, they didn't present a single piece of evidence of so-called fraud. in any of these cases. and the so-called hearings that are being held around the country have so far been in hotels and other locations, they have not been real hearings, they're just partisan -- partisan meetings with rudy giuliani and some of the other lawyers, kristen. >> that's right, andrea. and i think that fact check is so important. we went to follow up with president trump and you saw him leave the room, a number of my colleagues and i tried to get followups to him. but you're right, so far there has been no fraud proven in court. and one of the things i wanted to ask was the fact that one of his top allies, lindsey graham, was in the room, and of course lindsey graham said, you need to

show us the evidence, because you have not yet presented any evidence. that happened overnight. and so you increasingly have a number of republicans who are saying, this cannot continue, that if there is no evidence and if these results have been certified in various battleground states, there's really not a path for the president to continue this fight. again, though, andrea, quite notable that you heard the president really pause there for a period of time before saying, "ask me again in a few weeks," about whether or not he has confidence in his attorney general. we know he is not ruling out the possibility of firing him because he's quite frustrated that he's broken with him on this public messaging on the election without providing any evidence that there's been anything untoward that happened, andrea. >> and peter baker, that extraordinary 46-minute video they put out last night on facebook live with all of those same false claims, we're not going to repeat it, we only showed you this because it was

immediate and kristen was trying to pin him down and we saw some real news being made in terms of his response on bill barr, but peter, the white house communications agency, that military organization in the white house that records everything that the president does, they put that out, obviously on the president's orders, in this facebook live performance yesterday. it was just a collection of all of his false claims that he's been tweeting about for weeks. >> well, you see a president clearly anxious, angry, desperate, flailing, lashing out at his -- not only his enemies but his own courtiers who are throwing out fantasy claims that are backed up by nothing. he's creating a narrative to explain the fact that he lost. and he has demonstrated repeatedly over four years and even before four years, that he believes that repetition overcomes fact checking, no

matter how many times we say wait, that's not true, there's no backing for that, there's no evidence of that whatsoever, no matter how many times the courts say that, no matter how many times the election officials say that, no matter how many times republican officials at the state and local level say that, he simply repeats it because he has learned over time that if you repeat something often enough, a lot of people will believe it. and the question is whether he even believes it. he might at this point, it's not really very clear. but he's creating a narrative that explains away the fact that he lost because he doesn't accept that he lost, he doesn't like the term "loser" and instead wants to go out of office with the argument that he was simply robbed and therefore, you know, can go down in history as somebody who stood up against supposed corruption. >> and peter, you know, finally, what do you see happening with bill barr? is he actually going to fire the attorney general 48 days from the end of his term? >> well, to listen to kristen's

exchange with him, it's really interesting, the question seemed to imply -- the answer at least seemed to imply that he was laying out conditions for bill barr, we'll see what he does in the next few weeks, in effect, if he does what i want him to do, if he turns around and supports my false claims, seems to be the message he's laying out there. bill barr has nothing to lose, if he gets fired 40-some days before, he's going to lose his job anyway, it doesn't seem to be a big cost and may in fact help him reputationally. bill barr has enabled and supported this president on a number of his conspiratorial views of the world and his preferences on how to handle cases involving his friends like michael flynn and roger stone. obviously this is a step too far for the attorney general to back up what are clearly false and unsubstantiated claims of fraud,

that's one place that bill barr has made clear he's not going to go. >> to say nothing of bill barr's effort in successfully p prebutting the mueller report and twisting reception of the mueller report by falsely claiming that it completely cleared the president. peter baker, thank you very much, kristen welker, as always, thank you, great effort in there. and meanwhile, pushed to the limits. hospitals say they don't have the resources to take care of all the covid patients who need their help. is this just the beginning of what we're going to see this winter? dr. anthony fauci joins me next. stay with us. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. nbc. ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away.

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post-thanksgiving effects yet of holiday travel and gatherings yet. we should be seeing its effect in cases next week, hospitalizations i guess the following week. the cdc is forecasting at this rate we'll see almost 20,000 covid deaths christmas week. should people now cancel their travel plans for christmas? >> i think they're going to have to make individual decisions, but i think we need to have as a nation, seriously consider the things that we in the public health arena have been talking about of minimizing travel to the extent possible. sometimes it's absolutely necessary. but to the extent possible, don't travel, don't congregate together. i know how difficult that is, we all have a strong degree of empathy knowing -- and myself included, about wanting to be with your family, wanting to have a large christmas dinner with family and friends over. right now that just should not be done, to the best of our capabilities we should avoid

travel and avoid congregate settings. we're going to have, as i mentioned a couple of days ago, a surge superimposed upon a surge, because we already have that sharp incline that we discussed, andrea, the last time i was on your show. we still have not yet seen what will likely be another blip of a surge following the travel and the congregating during thanksgiving. now we're entering, approaching the christmas season. the effect of thanksgiving is going to be realized two weeks from now, literally as we're getting into the traveling season for christmas and hanukkah. so that's a recipe for some serious -- you know, as the cdc said, you know, and i have to agree with them, we're in for a very, very difficult couple of months of december and january. having said that, rather than just throw our hands up in despair, there are things that we can do -- >> yes, what can we do?

>> there are, we don't have to shut down the entire country, but there are four or five fundamental public health things we all can do. again and again, over and over again, universal wearing of masks, avoiding close contacts, avoid congregate settings or crowds, particularly indoors, particularly when people are not wearing masks. that is a recipe for a real problem. if we could just do that, we don't have to lock down the economy over christmas and over hanukkah, but we can do some fundamental public health measures that will make a difference, because when you compare countries or states or cities, one that does it, one that doesn't, there is a big difference. you can blunt some of that. in addition, as i've said many times, and it's quite true, that help is on the way. we're going to be giving vaccines towards the middle and

end of december, more in january, more in february. if we can just hang on and do those fundamental public health measures to try and blunt some of these surges, ultimately we can get out of this. it isn't all despair, because we have public health measures that can help us and we have a vaccine on the way. to me, that should be a motivation to double down even more and say, as difficult as it is, both from a personal and an economic standpoint, to not shut down, but to dampen the kind of interactions that you would have over the holiday, it will make a difference. it definitely will make a difference. >> that raises a number of questions, because our correspondents around the country are showing us people not wearing masks in many places, not believing. the damage has been done in terms of the bad modeling from washington, frankly, not from you, obviously, and your colleagues. nbc news has obtained a copy of

the latest white house coronavirus task force guidance. it says, all public health officials must alert the population directly, basically telling them to go rogue. is this because it's been a failure at the federal level? >> what it's saying is what i'm doing with you now, andrea, is appealing to the american public to please realize, this is real. this is not fake. this is not hoax. this is real. the numbers that you said are real numbers. literally every day another record is broken. you have 200,000 cases a day. you have between 2 and 3,000 deaths. and we're well over 100,000 hospitalizations. that's real stuff. that leads to difficulties that are described every single day with deaths and hospitalizations. and the thing that's so

frustrating is that we can do something about that to blunt it. and when you see on tv or in the newspapers people gathering indoors, in congregate settings, without masks, it's -- you have to say to yourself, what is going on here? what are they not seeing? >> well, what they are seeing is that the white house is already hosting indoor holiday parties. they're planning at least 20 parties. the secretary of state, mike pompeo, is holding receptions including for as many as 900 people at the state department, indoors. washington, d.c. has a limit of no more than ten people indoors. but they are using an exemption of federal property. isn't that a terrible example? >> well, you know andrea, it goes beyond that. i mean, i don't want to pick out any one particular thing except to say that when you talk about the risk and the danger of indoor congregate settings without a mask, it doesn't matter where you are, who you are, what your position is,

that's a very risky situation. no doubt about it. >> we've already seen super spreading of course from other white house events, i know you've spoken out about that. hospitals are reaching capacity around the country, these numbers are horrendous. some are already at capacity. they're running into a critical shortage of doctors and nurses. unlike last spring, medical personnel can't be spared to go from one hot zone to another because the whole country is a hot zone. what is the solution to that? >> andrea, i think that's something that people really need to take a deep breath and look at that, particularly those who are denying that this is not a crisis situation. throughout several areas of the country, not all, albeit, not all, but in several areas of the country, the system is really being stretched. i know because we speak to these people on the phone. i get to them in the evenings. during the day they call me up. they say they're at that brink,

at that cusp. if we continue to have the acceleration of cases, they are going to run out of beds and they're going to run out of personnel. and even if they don't run out of beds or personnel, the stress on these people, day in and day out, it's very, very difficult. i mean, this is something we really need to look at it and say, let's put all of these differences aside, all of the politicization, all of the denial. we as a country are in a very, very difficult if not crisis situation when it comes to the explosion of cases. and the frustrating thing, as i say over and over again, is we can do something about it and it's not that difficult to do. the first thing is don't ignore it. as i've always said, you've got to own the fact that you have a problem. you can't fix a problem if you don't own the fact that you have a problem. that's what we've got to do

first. realize we have an issue that we need to deal with. >> you've got a situation where the head of the fda, dr. hahn, has already been called to the white house twice this week that we know of and is reportedly being pressured to speed up vaccine approvals. do you have concerns about that, concerns that he might be fired? >> you know, i don't -- i can't comment on that. i don't think that's going to happen. i think what you've seen is in some respects appropriately, the white house was just trying to find out just where we are in the process. so i don't want to make too much of that. i have great confidence in the career scientists at the fda. i know these people. they're my colleagues. they've been doing this for years. they're trying their best, they're moving as quickly as they possibly can. >> warp speed had briefing documents to the governors indicating that doses could be delivered to the states by december 15. is that a hard date?

how long after delivery can vaccines actually get into the first recipients' arms? >> well, the reason why we had the meeting on tuesday, i believe, where the acip together with the cdc got together to try to make the prioritization, was to facilitate, andrea, exactly what you're talking about. so once those doses get there and the decision is made to distribute them, literally it could be done almost immediately. and that's the reason why the locations. and then the final decision, as we all know, even though there are recommendations from the cdc and the acip, the final decisions, and the implementation, rests with the state and local authorities. and they're gearing up right now to hit the ground running. as soon as that eua gets approved and you can get the vaccines distributed, you're going to see them distributed almost immediately. >> do you know how long after

the second doses of a pfizer vaccine or moderna are given before they take full effect, how long does it take? is it a matter of weeks? >> it's interesting, andrea, you're going to see some beneficial effect even after the first dose. after the second dose, likely by seven to ten days after the second dose, you'll be at full strength of response. it might even get a little bit better thereafter. but in general, when you get seven to ten days after that second dose, you're good. reminding you why it's important to get vaccinated, because there will be some degree of protection even after the first dose. >> and what about children? pfizer began testing children in the u.s. as young as 12 in october. moderna says it's going to be beginning testing children 12 to 17, adolescents, in january. when comfortable expect results from those tests, and if no problems, when will we see children being included in vaccinations?

>> well, the point that you made about the january time frame for testing children, probably a few months thereafter. you won't have to go through the extensive tens of thousands of people in a trial, because what happens when you're dealing with children, the rationale for waiting as a solid rationale, because we know from experience that children are vulnerable. they're not just little adults. they are children who have a certain degree of immune logical response that's a bit different. so what you want to do is make sure because of their vulnerability that you have a product that you've already shown is safe and efficacious in an adult population. we're virtually there right now, maybe another month or so of doing whatever it takes to get the trials going. then what will happen is that we'll start trials let's say in january. and you don't need to show the full efficacy, you can do what's

called bridging. you do a phase i or phase ii-a trial in the children, you show that the vaccine is safe in a few thousand. you don't need 30, 40,000, just in a couple of thousand kids, to show that it's safe and that it induces the kind of response that's comparable to the response these protecting the adults, because you've already shown that it works in adults, which we do know, it's 94, 95% efficacious. once you do that, you can bridge the two studies and say the children can then start getting vaccinated for efficacy a few months thereafter. so i would imagine, if we start in january, a couple to three months after that, we likely would have vaccine that will be beginning to be given to the children. >> and how young -- at some point would toddlers, even infants be vaccinated? >> you do it in a graded way,

andrea. you don't immediately jump to a toddler. you start off let's say at 12 and then you work your way down to a younger group and then a younger group. because, again, the more you get younger and younger, the more vulnerable you are. and that's a tried and true way of doing it. you de-escalate it down. >> former presidents obama, bush, and clinton have now all said they're going to take the vaccine on camera, publicly, trying to reassure people of its safety. but almost 60% of americans in some recent polls, including many of the most highly vulnerable minorities, are very reluctant, afraid. what if not enough people take the vaccine? >> that would be a very serious situation, because we have a tool now, we're fortunate enough to have a highly efficacious vaccine. unprecedented, i would not have predicted that it was going to be this efficacious. it's almost at the level of

measles which is the gold standard of efficaciousness, of efficacy and effectiveness of a vaccine. 97 to 98%. when you get to 94 to 95, you're almost there. but there are two ingredients to an effective program. one is an efficacious vaccine. and the other is high uptake of the vaccine. so we have a challenge in front of us, because, you know, the surveys that you are quoting are correct. we need to engage the community and convince them of the truth. and the truth is that as quickly as we went, safety was not compromised and scientific integrity was not compromised. the efficacy and the safety has been proven. it has been shown and agreed upon by independent bodies that are beholden not to the government nor to the company. it's been gone through multiple advisory committees that have agreed that it's safe and

effective. when that occurs, and the fda deems a vaccine or vaccines to be safe and effective, i can tell you, i will be thoroughly convinced of that and i would not hesitate for a moment when my turn comes up to get vaccinated and to have my family vaccinate. vaccinated. >> should health care workers be required to take the vaccine by their employers? >> you know, there's precedent for that, andrea. i can give you one example right now, with influenza, i'm a physician, i see patients at the clinical center. if i don't take the influenza vaccine every year, i'm not allowed to take care of patients. and the hospitals have that prerogative to do that. and i think it's a good thing. i don't think it should be centrally mandated. but individual groups, be they hospitals or some organizations, certainly have the prerogative to say, if you're going to work in our environment, you need to be vaccinated. we do it with influenza, with

health care providers. we do it with hepatitis vaccine with health care providers. >> do you agree with having a digital mobile app with vaccine travel certificates in order to be able to travel? that's something that airlines are pushing, especially for international travel. >> you know, i think that's something to consider. i don't want to get ahead of anybody. i'm sure there are going to be groups that are going to cogitate about that and get the pros and the cons. my opinion of that is not particularly relevant. i think that's something that's at least interesting enough to consider. i wouldn't make a determination about it right now. but i certainly think it could be considered. >> you have a virtual meeting with the biden transition team i believe today. >> yes. >> first of all, have you spoken with the president-elect? >> i have not yet spoken to the president-elect. i've spoken to members of his team, mostly ron klain. and i'm going to be meet virtually, as you said, talking about just substantive,

uncomplicated transition issues like vaccines and the state of the epidemic and things like that. i'm looking forward to it. it likely will be the first of a series of normal type transition undertaking. >> have you spoken with jeff zaointz who is reportedly going to be the covid czar? >> i spoke to jeff the other day in introduction to what's going to happen this afternoon. he called me up and said, i'm looking forward to talking with you and the triansition team. but nothing more substantive than that. >> have you worked with him before in his previous roles? >> oh, yeah. we've worked with the team that several of which were with the obama administration, particularly in the context of ebola. and that's how i got to work very closely with ron klain, because ron was the coordinator or the czar for ebola and did a

spectacular job with that. hopefully we can do the safely sort of thing with covid-19. >> would you expect to stay on in your current role or hope to? or another role? >> i don't think there's any "hope" to it. i've been in this job for 36 years, i've been in the same job through six administrations. i fully expect to be in this position. what contribution i will make in the new administration depends on the new administration. but i cannot imagine i'm not going to be involved in the covid-19 response. i mean, that would i think be unheard of, if that's the case. but we'll see. >> i think a lot of americans are certainly expecting and hoping that you would be. we thank you very much, always, for your patience in answering all of the questions. it's so helpful to everyone. thank you, dr. fauci. >> thank you, andrea, i always appreciate being on with you. thanks a lot. >> and for more on what dr.

fauci was just saying about keeping our children safe, joining me now is randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers which represents 1.7 million educators and school staff. randi, dr. fauci has always advocated for children to be in class, depending on the local situation. but in some jurisdictions, teachers have actually advocated not to return to school because they don't think there's been enough planning. where do you stand now? >> so we just put a blueprint out, andrea. i was glad to have listened to dr. fauci's interview with you. we think that new york city has created a model that's going to be replicatable after one tackles the covid surge in lots of places across the country. and we think, you know, as you know from me, from the times that i've been on, i've always thought that if we had the safeguards in place and the

testing, that we could reopen schools using those safeguards that dr. fauci has talked about. and i think what new york proved in september and october is that our youngest kids actually follow the rules. i wish adults would follow them as well as our youngest kids do. teachers have been heroic. and i do think that if we can plateau this surge, that we can get early grade elementary open and schools for special needs kids opened. i'm confident of that because of the new york city experiment. >> many school districts have reported significant drops in enrollment this fall. one study estimating as many as 3 million of the nation's most vulnerable children are missing their education. what can be done to help these students who have fallen through the cracks? >> this is -- you know, i mean, you know, it is incredibly frustrating that we are the only

country of the -- you know, of the nations that work together after the marshall plan, that did not planning, national resources, national guidance in terms of all of this. and so basically, you have, you know, districts going district by district trying to figure this out. it's outrageous and it's incredibly frustrating. what we can do, and, again, this is in the blueprint that i issued this week, what we can do is using schools, wrap services around, get guidance counselors in there and start actually finding kids, child by child. 16 million of our kids still do not have devices at home or the connectivity that they need, whether theyor remote, hybrid or in person.

so what we're going to need to do is actually have that kind of circle of resources around schools and find a way to find our kids. and then what we need to do, and i'm glad that the vaccine is on the horizon. i think after health care workers who we represent and they are completely exhausted as you have reported over and over again. we had 30 health care workers in one of our hospitals this week test positive for covid. and so after hospitals, i think we have schools that reopen. the vaccines should be available for teachers and, when safe, for kids. and then ultimately try to think about the summer as enrichment program where we can really call kids back in. so the second semester, through the summer, keep them safe, do the testing. ultimately get vaccines in and

really focus on instruction, instruction, instruction. >> and briefly, i want to quickly ask whether you've spoken to the transition team about playing a role or sharing your ideas? >> look, i have had a long -- when the education transition team called me, i moved heaven and earth to meet with them. we're going to meet with the covid task force next week, and, you know, we are sharing as many of our ideas as the biden team is willing to listen to. at the end of the day, the biden administration has to assure parents and educators that they are going to tackle covid, they're going to do the things that dr. fauci said. they're going to have free and available vaccines that are, you know, effective and that we're going to get the resources to reopen schools as effectively as possible. >> randi weingarten, thanks for

being with us. with two covid vaccines awaiting approval, united airlines is hoping to position doses for quick distribution. after getting position from the faa to carry five times the amount of dry ice normally allowed on planes. united is flying pfizer's vaccine which must be stored at ultra freezing temperatures from belgium to chicago. joining me is josh ernest, former white house press secretary to president obama. good to see you, josh. so united's role is to get the vaccines to the u.s. and then distribute it more widely from chicago? how is that going to work? >> it's really nice to see you, too. thanks for having me on the show. if you think back to the situation we faced in march where we saw international travel basically grind to a halt overnight, united airlines has the largest wide -- fleet of wide-body aircraft in the western hemisphere, of any airline. we looked for ways to put those

aircraft to work. we pivoted from filling those planes with people to filling them with cargo. and we've flown more than 8,000 cargo-only flights since march. and in the context of that work that we began reading about the reports of the vaccine's development over the summer and recognized there was going to be an incredible lift ahead to figure out from an engineering perspective, safety, logistic perspective how we could be a link in that chain of ensuring that that vaccine could be distributed here in the united states. and so we've been working with vaccinemakers all around the world to be that key link in bringing a vaccine from the place where they are developing it. here to the united states. so that the next logistical link in that chain can then have access to that vaccine supply and get it -- begin to get it distributed. >> now i know that you are completely devoted to ensuring passenger safety in this pandemic at the airport on board, but there was a report of a covid positive couple, they

tested positive at san francisco and they still boarded a flight, a united flight to hawaii, i believe. what can be done about that? >> well, andrea, i guess what i would say is we're doing everything that can be done about that. united was the first airline that i know of, probably the first airline in the world to ask all of our customers before they check in, this is a measure that we instituted back in the late spring, early summer, where we asked them to confirm a whole bunch of things. basically, have you tested positive for covid-19? have you been recently exposed to somebody who tested positive for covid-19? are you willing to wear a mask on the plane? you have to opt into all of those before you can check into your flight. so that's the first safeguard in place. and that is why, because that couple that you just mentioned lied in filling out that form, they've been banned from flying united airlines until we can investigate more about what happened. but it's also why, andrea, we pursued a layered approach to safety on board our aircraft. we have a very strict mask enforcement policy. not just on board the aircraft

but also inside the airports. we've overhauled our cleaning procedures, done everything we can to maximize social distancing on board. we board from back to front. we try to space out people on the jet bridge. we're doing everything that we can to ensure the safety of our -- of our customers. and that's why we were gratified by the u.s. military study that came out a few months ago that indicated that being on board an aircraft is just about the public safest indoor public space that you can be in. and that's because of all those measures in place and because of the air filtration on board an aircraft. >> josh earnest from united airlines, thank you so much. good to see you. >> nice to see you. thanks to all of you for being with us today. sdh that does it for today's "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online and on twitter. chuck todd is up next with "mtp

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welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. this country is being ravaged by the virus. and the president is raging against an election he lost. the u.s. just experienced its single deadliest day in the pandemic. nearly 2800 deaths reported yesterday alone.