and a week of uninterrupted recording. all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determination. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. if it's tuesday, a literal and figurative shot in the arm in the fight against the coronavirus. the first vaccines are now being administered in the uk. while here at home, president-elect biden is set to announce his health leadership team this hour. as president trump prepares to hold a white house summit on the vaccine amid new questions of how many vaccine doses will be

available and when. and cabinet concerns. president-elect biden plans to announce lloyd austin. but his military background has some top democrats concerned. ♪ welcome to tuesday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd on a busy and historic bay in the battle against the coronavirus. december 8th will be known as the day we got the first shots in the western world. the very first vaccines were administered in the uk. hopefully it's kicking off the beginning of a long end to what has been a long pandemic. here at home later this hour, president-elect joe biden will introduce the health team he hopes will oversee his administration's response to the pandemic. that announcement will come at nearly the same time the white

house hosts what it is calling a vaccine summit which appears to be designed for president trump simply to take a victory lap and try to claim credit for the coronavirus vaccine himself. the president is also expected to sign an executive order that's pretty meaningless. it's a symbolic attempt to show that he'll be prioritizing american access to the covid-19 vaccines over and above any foreigners. but moncef slaoui, the chief science adviser for "operation warp speed" doesn't know anything about this executive order and there are questions about the logistics involved in distributing the vaccine and new concerns about when doses will be available. according to "the washington post," pfizer has told the trump administration it cannot supply an additional 100 million doses of vaccines until late june or july because other countries have already bought most of its supply. "the new york times" is reporting that the administration passed on a chance to secure more of the pfizer vaccine. the report essentially confirmed this morning by the former fda commissioner and current pfizer

board member scott gottlieb. >> pfizer did offer an additional allotment coming out of that plant. basically the second quarter allotment to the united states government multiple times. and as recently as after the interim data came out and we knew this vaccine looked to be effective. i think they are betting that more than one vaccine is going to get authorized and there will be more vaccines on the market and that perhaps could be why they didn't take up that 100 million option which wouldn't have required them necessarily to front money. >> and the virus numbers keep getting worse. more than 102,000 americans are currently hospitalized due to the virus. that is another record. hospitals nationwide from california to maryland and new mexico all are currently overwhelmed right now. discussions about rationing care are happening in some places. we've seen some hospital systems postpone or cancel elective surgeries. and look at this. the seven-day moving average now shows that more than 2,000

people a day are dying. right now, it's over 2,300 people are dying every day from this virus in this country. and we're on track to report more cases going back to november 4th, the day after election day. richard engel is in england. peter alexander is at the white house. mike memoli is as joe biden's headquarters essentially in wilmington, delaware. let's start in covington, england with richard engel. the first vaccines we're seeing. we know the uk basically about a week or two ahead of the fda's timeline in approval of the pfizer vaccine. how many doses are they going to be able to inject this month and what's their timeline to get the uk population inoculated? >> so we've just asked the nhs

how many they gave out today. and they would only say thousands. it doesn't seem to be in the high thousands at this hospital which is a major hospital. that's where the first dose was given this morning to patient "a." they only gave 100 out today. and they say that next week, once they have the system rolling a bit better, they want to push that up to 400 a day. so we're not talking about massive, massive numbers. i spoke to several community representatives here, the people who are responsible to get this vaccine out to local care homes and to everything from trash collection to the fire department. and they are really banking on the next round of vaccines. the way this one, the pfizer vaccine is working, it needs these ultra cold temperatures, which means they are bringing the patients to the hospitals, not breaking up the vaccine packaging and sending them out

to the patients wherever they may be. and just today, just a short while ago there was a report on sky news that the -- that first of all, the oxford astrazeneca vaccine has been peer reviewed positively and that vaccine could be out to the market here in the uk in a matter of weeks. now the oxford astrazeneca is also a two-dose vaccine but doesn't need to be kept in these ultra cold temperatures. more like a fridge temperature. so it will be much, much easier for this country to deal with. so today was an important day. it was an important step. they keep saying this is the beginning of the end, the start of a new phase of the pandemic. but it was not like they were lining up around the corner here with needles in their arm giving these to tens of thousands of people. it was slow. deliberate. it was successful. but it was not a mass inoculation campaign.

>> and richard, who got inoculated today? how are they prioritizing? obviously, the first person was a 91-year-old woman. that tells you they're obviously going to prioritize the most vulnerable. what about health care workers? >> so because of the logistics involved here, i was just saying she's 90. she'll be 91 next week. and that was part of it, she's very excited for her birthday and for christmas. the way they are rolling out the logistically, because they want to keep the vaccines in this ultra cold storage which means in about 70 different hospitals around the country, including this one, they were bringing people in. so that means people who are over 80, who are vulnerable, or otherwise have compromising health conditions. or people who are already in the hospital or already working in the hospital. so all the people given the vaccine today were those considered at risk or who --

those who care for at-risk, but people who are able to come to the hospital. and the key difference will be pushing out the vaccine to the people where they need it, either in their care homes or in their own private homes in some cases. they are going to -- they say they are going to be doing that with the -- with this vaccine, with the pfizer vaccine starting over the next two weeks. but once they have a vaccine that is easier to deal with, that campaign will be vastly expanded. moving it out to many more. >> richard engel getting us started. all right. richard, thank you. let me move over to the white house. that's where we find peter alexander. this vaccine summit today, what part of this summit. i've read the background. it looks like there are things the white house should be doing, giving the public a sense of how they're going to go about

prioritizing who gets the vaccine. but the president's role in this executive order, that all looks like it's some made-up stuff, this executive order. what is he signing? >> it does sound like today's focus is as much about personal, political legacy for the president to sort of take that victory larngs cep, celebrating victory of a vaccine, even though it's communicated by a person who has downplayed the severity of this pandemic from the beginning. as it relates to the executive order, the president is going to be signing something. what we can't say is whether this is anything more than symbolic today. as you noted, this is really an effort to communicate in the words of a senior administration official, reaffirmation of the president's commitment to america first and that it's prioritizing vaccines will go to the americans before the u.s. is to help other countries here. but a backdrop here is new reporting, and you played that important clip from scott gottlieb, the former fda commissioner under president trump, also a board member on

pfizer saying that on multiple occasions the trump administration passed up the opportunity to purchase additional doses of the pfizer vaccine, even according to gottlieb after there were preliminary results showing real promise for that. so the u.s. would wind up buying 100 million vaccines which means it's enough to vaccinate 50 million people because every person needs to get two shots with the pfizer vaccine. the eu, the european union for its part got 200 million vaccines and pfizer has said it may not be until july until they can provide additional doses to the united states. so even as the president will make this statement prioritizing america first as it relates to the vaccine and its distribution, the decision not to purchase additional dosages from pfizer really is putting some countries in other parts of the world ahead of the united states. >> peter, do we have an idea of how many companies, though, we have committed to buy 100 million doses from?

we've done that with moderna. we did it with pfizer. did we do it with johnson & johnson, astrazeneca? do we have the complete list of how many of these trials that we've invested in already? >> well, we heard from alex azar, the hhs, health and human services secretary in a conversation with lester holt yesterday where he talked about these agreements with multiple companies. he appeared to be referring to five or six which would mean as many as 500 million total. to be clear, there's only two where the real focus is. to give you a sense, here's the way to view it. according to "operation warp speed," they should have about 20 million people that they can vaccinate by the -- enough vaccines to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of december. 30 million in january. 50 million in february, which is 100 million total. the question is, what happens after that? and it's really not clear whether the u.s. has exercised its option with moderna. with pfizer they haven't or they're still negotiating if so. johnson & johnson.

none of that is really clear at this point. what we do know from the administration is they insist that by the spring or summer, they say the second quarter of 2021, they say all americans who want to get this vaccine will be able to get it. >> well, that's an administration telling you things about a time that they will not be in charge anymore. >> right. >> so easy to say perhaps from the perch that they are in as they wind down. peter alexander at the white house, thank you very much. which brings me to mike memoli who is covering the team that will be in charge in the second quarter of 2021, of vaccine distribution. we'll get the health roll-out today. what's interesting about this. it looks like they're playing a little extra defense and trying to sell a little harder xavier becer becerra's credentials to be hhs secretary. the entire democratic party was

enlisted. people making cases that don't normally put out statements like that. biden team a little worried about this? >> well, chuck, i think you are certainly seeing on the one hand the biden team always happy when republicans are talking about whether or not they'll support a biden nominee because it means on some level they have to acknowledge that biden is going to be the president, something that most of them have not. but you're absolutely right that we're seeing a mobilization of democrats behind this nomination on a number of fronts, hitting what has really been one of the themes of most of these roll-outs that we're going to see later in this hour and seen in the past weeks which is to highlight, yes, the credentials for the job at hand and most of these cases in the cabinet level, they have been deputies at the very agencies where they will now be in charge. but also the personal stories. and what has been clear, especially over the last week is that the conversation has turned towards the importance of diversity in the cabinet. so xavier becerra as the first

latino to be hhs secretary brings something you'll hear the president-elect emphasize today along with dr. smith who is going to be leading the covid equity board. the disproportionate impacts this is having on black and brown communities. in terms of today and what we're seeing is the biden team as i've been talking to them, it seems to actually be leaning into this split screen moment today. they like the idea of emphasizing the fact that as biden has said repeatedly over the last few weeks, help is on the way. you'll remember the conversations we were having around the delay in transition and biden team initially saying they were patient that they had planned for some sort of delay. the president not accepting reality initially. what pushed them from patients into very real frustration was ironically the progress towards a vaccine and the rapidly deteriorating covid situation in the country. the sense that very important decisions needed to be made right now about the readying for

the distribution of this vaccine that they were not at the table for. and the fact that they're not having a meeting with the "operation warp speed" leaders, moncef slaoui saying that meeting will be on thursday, i think is also of concern to them. so expect to hear the president-elect and his team highlight that later today. >> so later in this show, mike, we'll deal with the sort of dust-up that some -- the frustration some democrats have that joe biden is going to name a retired general who wouldn't necessarily -- who would need a waiver in order to meet the civilian requirements to be defense secretary. so i don't want to delve into that, but the biggest opening on the cabinet right now appears to be attorney general and appears to be we have some reporting indicating that former senator doug jones or he's still technically a sitting senator, until january 3rd, but that doug jones is the leading candidate now for ag? what are other constituency groups going to think of that

decision? >> well, what doug jones brings to this is in part what we've been hearing from the biden team about the lloyd austin nomination. when biden is considering some of these choices and he has, you know, a lot of favorites for each of them, that tiebreaker is often the personal relationship that you have. and austin's case, biden worked extremely closely with him as he was overseeing the obama administration drawdown in iraq and that was something that his team is playing up today. with doug jones, they've known each other more than 40 years. he was a staff or the judiciary committee when biden was a senator. he worked and helped promote his campaigns in '88 and '08, biden helping him get elected to the senate in the first place. no sooner than are these actual nominations announced, then i've -- talking to a democrat yesterday who has been speaking with members of the transition team. there's a degree of frustration. every time you pick somebody, it changes the calculus for the other picks next in row. so it's hard not to look at doug

jones, you know, the choice of lloyd austin, biden getting a meeting with civil rights groups today, that it opens the door for jones as a nominee. but we also should highlight the real credentials jones brings. he was attorney general for the district of alabama and made a difficult decision to take on the prosecution of that 16th street baptist church bombing. prosecuted two klansman successfully. that's given him a degree of credibility with civil rights groups that maybe another white candidate wouldn't bring to the table as necessarily. >> i have to say, mike, good reporting on sort of the biden touch here. if it is doug jones, look at the big four. if you look at that big four, blinken, yellen, jones and austin, the one thing all four have in common is that personal relationship with joe biden. >> absolutely. >> that does say a lot there. as i like to say elections have consequences. primary elections have consequences. peter alexander and mike

memoli, thank you both for getting us started with the outgoing and incoming administrations. more on the fda calling the pfizer vaccine safe and effective as another vaccine's results appear possibly less promising. later, the push for covid relief on capitol hill. how soon could lawmakers strike a deal that could help millions of americans cope before the end of this calendar year. and will it be enough to help americans who are hurting? at fidelity, you get personalized wealth planning and unmatched overall value.

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welcome back. the fda is set to meet on thursday to discuss pfizer's covid vaccine which has already been approved and is being administered in the uk. the vaccine dose requires two doses to be given three weeks apart, the fda released documents today that suggest that it could be somewhat effective after just a single dose. about 52% effective. and researchers reviewing the oxford astrazeneca vaccine report it's safe and effective.

it had its late stage trial results reviewed and published in a medical journal. we may be looking at a 70% protection rate on that. joining us is dr. kavita patel, former obama white house policy director and an msnbc medical contributor. basically she, hopefully can answer every one of your questions out there. i know she'll answer all of mine. good to see you. explain first dose, second dose. good news with pfizer, a 52%, i guess, coverage or effectiveness after the first dose gets up to 95% after the second dose but having something after the first dose, i mean, it seems pretty -- why is that so important and is that surprising? >> yeah, you know, chuck, there's so much about this that's surprising. number one, i got to commend pfizer for recruiting an incredibly diverse research population, including people --

and then, chuck, it's also important to state that the first -- the response after the first dose really tells us that we can -- immune response almost immediately after that first dose. but you need that second dose. full efficacy. that 95% can be a very confusing statistic. what that tells us is that you -- if you get the vaccine, you have a 95% relative risk reduction of getting -- compared to unvaccinated people. what that also really means. bad news. i love giving good news. -- >> dr. patel, i have to pause you there. your audio is cutting in and

out. so why don't we -- we're going to sneak in a break. let's see if we can see if we can fix your audio because you have too many things i couldn't wait to hear what you said and then we lost your audio. let's see if we can fix that and get that back. let's do that. let me sneak in a break. we're expecting president-elect biden to roll out his team of health advisers in a few minutes. we also want to get into his decision to nominate lloyd austin as defense secretary. that's creating a new controversy among democrats. let's sneak in this quick break and see if we can fix dr. patel's audio. detergent. they have 3 super powered ingredients that fight stink oxi boost febreze odor remover and concentrated detergent. try gain flings and smell the difference.

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by the lindt master chocolatier. we're back. let's try this again. dr. patel, literally, as you told us the good news, you said, and now for the bad news. audio cut off. see if you can pick up your thought from there. >> i'm sorry for that. and here's the bad news with a vaccine. even despite the headlines of its high effectiveness rate is that we -- given the fact we're seeing 200,000 cases of coronavirus a day and that's an underestimate, even with a highly effective vaccine, we are still going to see potentially tens of millions more cases over the next six months with tens of thousands more deaths unless we can really do something aggressive to kind of contain this. and the analogy i love brilliantly put by someone smarter than me at yale public health school is you can't take a fire hose and put out a wildfire. we have a fire hose in highly

effective vaccines. we've got a wildfire. >> what about the issue of when will we know for sure either way as a vaccinated person a potential spreader of the virus? >> yeah, that's a great question. we have -- remember, the fda is requiring at least data from two months follow-up which we have in that fda packet. but also in that packet is the intention for years of follow up and that evidence of transmissibility is what we're going to continue to watch for, which is why any of the health care workers, including myself that are in this early set of people getting the vaccine, we are going to continue to take precautions, wear masks, et cetera, for the exact reason you mentioned. and i think what's also critical is what we don't know. i think we're going to have to be really humble, reminder, this is an emergency authorization. remember, we had that with hydroxychloroquine.

it got taken away. i do not think we're talking about the same issues. think of it as a temporary permit for certain populations. there are populations for which we still don't have answers, like children under 12, pregnant women and other people with certain chronic comorbidities. >> let's talk about this timeline here. so we know about the mistake in i think one administration official is admitting it was a mistake not to take pfizer up on its offer when they had a chance. astrazeneca, we bought 300 million doses of those. it looks like to be a 70% effectiveness rate. is that -- i assume that's a vaccine you'd still want to see distributed fairly widely as well as soon as possible. so if we are -- if we have, you know, half the population inoculated at 90% to 95% and half the population at 70%, how long before we get to a form of herd immunity?

>> yeah, that's a great question. remember, the plus on astrazeneca is the ability to store it at refrigerator temperatures, and the lower cost, which makes it really appealing on a global basis. but to your point, chuck, we're really -- that 95% efficacy rate was unheard of. nobody could have believed it unless we saw the data that we're seeing today. and so a 70% efficacy rate is nothing to sneeze at. remember, the fda has a bar for even the consideration of at least 50. so we know that 70% -- that's pretty good. i would take that vaccine if the safety data holds up. so i do think that we're talking about just making sure that a majority of americans receive some form of vaccine all the while we still have to do the masks and precautions because, chuck, we don't know exactly who is vaccinated, who is not and we can't take the risk of infecting people or getting infected until we bu

we build up that immunity. >> what's the realistic time frame before kids under 18 get vaccinated? are we looking at the third quarter? >> yes, we are. we've seen the manufacturers that we've all been talking about have been putting into place in different countries, including the united states. asking for that age limit to be decreased. we've never seen a messenger rna vaccine being used in children. it's never been done in humans for a viral vaccine. these are a lot of firsts, and we want to be careful. what this means, if i had to crystal ball, which i hate doing, we can see schools opening safely but we're also going to have to still have robust testing, something you and i talk about a lot and a way to make sure that children are still protected in the event that we can, you know, adults can give it to children and children can give it to other children. >> all right. still a lot of questions to be answered, but at least i can hear the excitement in your voice, dr. patel. the data is there.

the vaccine is there. it's like -- it's still a lot of work to do, but i'll be honest. your enthusiasm makes me optimistic, so thank you for that. >> chuck, this is a moment in history. it's not perfect. we have a lot of work to do, but we really should be proud of where science has brought us. and it almost brings me to tears because i never thought we could see something like this, and the data is there, and it's so promising. yes, i am happy. >> you know, it's a reminder, sometimes we have to put our backs against the wall but whenever it is, humankind is something else at times. dr. patel, thank you. turning to the question of coronavirus relief from congress. despite a self-imposed deadline of yesterday, we're still waiting to see the text of the bipartisan covid relief bill. joe manchin said to expect sections of the bill to be released today but not the full text as they hash out liability protections and funding for state and local governments. republican senator josh hawley

told nbc news last night he personally urged the president to veto any bill that does not include direct stimulus checks, putting him essentially in the same place as bernie sanders. >> i urged him to veto any bill. for my part, the reason i brought this topic up, i said, i want you to know, for me i'm going to vote no on covid relief that doesn't have direct payments. i am continuing to be flummoxed why there aren't. it's the most useful, helpful and popular aspect. >> joining me to talk covid relief is democratic senator jeff merkley of oregon. good to see you. so where are we, and it does seem as if the three sticking points are, is there any room to see direct checks brought back in? state and local government, is that $160 billion still in there? and then i guess the final issue is the liability protections. what can you tell us? >> that's right.

so the -- we do not have a complete plan yet. we do not have any details of any of the plan. of course, there's always the concern that a bill will be brought to us and that will be asked to vote on it within a few hours in which case in will be all sorts of special favors stuck into it that we'll discover days later without the media or all of us having a chance to discover them. i find myself agreeing with josh hawley as does bernie sanders, as does a number of us that this should have the $1200 payments, individual payments. also that the unemployment insurance should be increased. and i must say that the idea that you're going to say negligence doesn't matter for companies that deliberately knew that they were exposing their workers or their customers to high risk is completely unacceptable. so there's a real effort to massage that and make sure that legitimate claims have a chance to be heard. >> all right. let's start with the direct

checks. this would increase the cost of this bill substantially, which then could put it in danger of not being able to pass. what's the balance here, do you think, that's realistic? >> well, the cost of the bill right now is only about $350 billion. it's pulling other funds from existing bills, which we still don't know exactly where those are being taken from. so 350 is about 1/8 of what the heroes act was that passed the house seven months ago. there's plenty of room to add additional resources to this bill. my concern is that mitch mcconnell is already embarking on a deep sabotage of the incoming administration and the economy at the expense of ordinary americans. that he is saying now that there's a democratic president, we're going to make sure that times are hard. and i just -- this is the worst possible philosophy to have for a leader of the senate. it hurts americans.

we should be in problem-solving mode, not political mode. americans are dying, they're sick. they'll have long-term consequences. they're unemployed. they need help. >> senator mitch mcconnell has been an impediment to you and some others and to many democrats for a time now. but he's still going to be there. what's the attitude of, take what you can get now, which seems to be what joe biden is asking you guys to do. we know you're not happy. take whatever you can get now because he's going to come back and demand more. are you comfortable with that strategy? >> well, the problem is, it's a hope without a foundation. because if the republicans do control the senate, you'll still have mitch mcconnell. you'll still have maximum obstruction, and you still need the senate republicans to be able to pass a bill. so, really, what we're trying to push for is, say, put this bill on the floor, allow amendments by simple majority to relevant

topics, on relevant topics. so accountability before the american people. should we increase state and local government? should $300 go to $400 or $500 for weekly unemployment checks? let's have votes on these issues. both so that we can examine where we stand as a senate, not where mitch mcconnell stands or a couple senators stand. where do we stand as a senate and so we have accountability for addressing this crisis. i think the result would be a much, much better bill. >> i'm curious. the bill that got floated by manchin and cassidy, that bipartisan group, that adds up to $908 billion. i know some of it is funds that are being reallocated, not new money. if that's the only thing you can get, do you vote for that or do you vote against it hoping that it brings everybody back to the table? >> you know, i will wrestle with that quite frankly. i hope i've joined bernie and

others in a letter saying, colleagues, let's do better than this. let's do the $1200. let's do better on state and local government. let's have a full senate debate. and when that doesn't happen i'll have to take a decision based on what's in front of us. but we don't have the bill yet. we don't know the details or what the final number will be on state and local government. we don't know whether negligence will now become a fully legal ability to abuse your employees and your customers. so there's a lot to know before i can answer it how i'll vote on this bill but i'd sure like to see it fully debated and an opportunity to amend on the senate floor. >> one last question because you were a state executive office holder, i believe. i think you were elected secretary of state -- >> i was speaker, yes. >> excuse me. head of state government on the legislative side. what happens to oregon, just oregon. tell me about oregon, if you don't get this money, this extra money for your state and local

coffers up there? >> they are in the middle of a budget crisis right now. they are looking at the main things the state funds which are public safety and transportation and health care. and trying to figure out where they can possibly cut to do the least damage. but those are very, very tough choices in that set of issues. we're also very, very concerned about our rural health infrastructure, our rural hospitals, our rural clinics and how those will survive. local counties are not collecting property taxes in the same way. the state is not collecting income tax revenue in the same way as they've diminished dramatically. there's a lot of hurt to go all around. >> senator jeff merkley, democrat from oregon, as i said, a veteran of oregon government as well, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> thank you, chuck. take care. >> thank you. up next, as we await for president biden to unveil his health team we'll be talking

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welcome back. president-elect joe biden's choice to lead the pentagon is creating the first real cabinet pick controversy within his own party. the reason? the secretary of defense is supposed to be a civilian position. someone who has been out of the military for at least seven years. nbc news reports biden selected retired four-star army general lloyd austin as his pick for secretary of defense. austin retired in 2016 which means he'd need a waiver from congress to serve in that. mattis was only the second person ever to get such waiver. already michigan democratic congresswoman alyssa slotkin, a former dod official herself said choosing another recently retired general are in a role that's designed for civilian just feels off. and the top democratic senator on the armed services committee,

rhode island's jack reed told reporters this afternoon that it comes down to the quality of the nominee, but the preference would be for someone not recently retired. joining me is jim goldby, from the clements center. also a former special adviser to both former vice president joe biden and current vice president mike pence. he is calling for a return of civilian leadership at the pentagon. thanks for coming on. i heard somebody make the case to me about civilian leadership and this need for this and just using the mattis example, which would work with austin, is that it really actually undermines the active military because the chief military adviser, the chairman of the joint chiefs, is suddenly competing with a retired four-star when it comes to having the ear of the president for military advice. and that, to me, was just one example of many of the potential conflicts this creates. explain your concerns, mr.

goldbee. >> thanks for having me on, chuck. i think you're right. there are a number of different concerns that dated back really to at least 1947 when the national security act deliberately set up both secretary of defense as an explicitly civilian position and a chairman of the joint chiefs as the president's senior military adviser. so those roles, by design, were intended to be different with different purposes. the president should actually want a civilian political leader in the role of secretary of defense. somebody who can go out and advocate the political reasons for his policies who can defend him in difficult partisan battles on controversial issues. what we often have when we have cases like either secretary mattis or secretary marshall almost seven decades ago is a situation where you have military officers who are a little bit too close to some of those who are still on active duty and they have a much harder time running the pentagon

without relying on other military officers or without creating unnecessary friction than a civilian who came in with the backing both of the constitutional principles and the law would have. >> right. the issue of trying to even reform the place sometimes, and i guess you could argue it could go both ways. either somebody feels as if they can't say no to their former commanding officer who happens to be secretary of defense or they feel as if they can't deliver bad news so there's that end of things. or i guess you could look at it from the other way in that a former, what you said, former military officer is going to be maybe too conciliatory to the uniformed aspects of things. what do you know about general austin that maybe gives you either hope that he knows those pitfalls and could avoid it? i have had people tell me that

secretary mattis did not avoid those pitfalls as well as he could have. >> yeah, i think one of the questions here is during secretary mattis' tenure, one of the things we saw that may have been unique to the trump administration, was a real hollowing out of civilian experience among political appointees in the office of the secretary of defense. now with secretary mattis, for good reason, often leaned in to bringing in either his own military colleagues who were easier to get into those positions or he relied heavily on former chairman, general joe dunford, another former marine he was very close with. in that case, we saw a trend away from civilian leadership and much more reliance on military officers in the pentagon. now with general austin, it's a little bit less clear what approach he'll take. we do know some things like general milley oversaw his retirement ceremony and he's still close to many officers on active duty. one would hope he'd learn from

secretary mattis' past example that he would come in with the goal of trying to rebuild the office of secretary of defense with strong civilian appointees and he would re-establish some of those normal processes that are necessary for essential civilian oversight of the military. >> this -- i'm going to -- i don't want to -- i'm not going to put up this last question to you but i'm going to put up this graphic. this is the third straight democratic administration that has attempted to either appoint a republican or former general as defense secretary. i want to put up this graphic. bill clinton had a former republican senator as defense secretary for four years. bill cohen. barack obama kept a holdover in bob gates who was a republican appointee. chuck hagel. he had two democrats, panetta and carter. and les aspen. jim golby, i appreciate you

coming on and a terrific op-ed in "the new york times." >> thank you. still ahead -- we're going to look at how one u.s. city is working to help economically struggling families put some food on the table.

welcome back. the coronavirus pandemic has pushed millions of americans into food insecurity. the food bank giant feeding america estimates nearly one in six people in this country could experience food insecurity by

the end of 2020, including nearly one in four children. for people struggling to buy groceries and feed their families, every little bit helps. here's the scene from miami earlier today where people started lining up yesterday to receive a $250 gift card to a local grocery store today. our own kerry sanders joins us from miami where that gift card program was taking place. tell us about this gift card giveaway and what -- where is it coming from and how effective is it? >> reporter: well, chuck, this is, perhaps, the most expedient way to get people the food they need and, quite frankly, the mood they need to eat. this is c.a.r.e.s. act money. let me step away from the food program and talk about the census we do every year. miami is one of those cities undercounted. that means it actually appears there are only about 450,000 residents in miami when there

are far more. because it was below that 500,000 designation, they didn't get the c.a.r.e.s. money directly, it went to the county and then the county distributed the money. while the county got the money back in april, miami recently got its $8.5 million. so, they decided, let's take $3.5 million and give it to the people who need food. normally they would go out and they would get food at a reduced cost and provide it to people. but they need to spend this money before december, and they want to get it out as fast as possible, so they said let's give gift cards. they chose publix, there are so many, and they said, this is the quickest way to get food into people's stomachs. the people who are lined up, who need this, they're not people who have been living on the edge before the pandemic. these are folks who find themselves running out of money they had in savings, money they set aside to get by on a daily

basis, but now nine months into the pandemic, they're finding themselves really relying on other people. they need this money desperately. let's listen to what one woman told us about getting this money to feed her family of four. >> we've been furloughed for nine months. >> reporter: you say we, who's that? >> my family. >> reporter: your husband unemployed, too? >> yes. >> reporter: it's all because of the pandemic? >> yes. >> reporter: how many children do you have at home? >> two. >> reporter: how do you feel about having to be here today? >> it's uncomfortable. it's not something i'm used to, but it is what it is. you have to do what you have to do. >> reporter: and the question she and others have, wow, this is really helpful, thank you very much, but what am i going to do in january? where's the food we're going to need to keep going going to come from, especially if we don't get our jobs back? and so many people are hopeful the vaccine is going to lead to reemployment. of course, that is a really big question mark right now.

>> i want to ask you. you laid out how convoluted this was and we could conduct the census. why didn't the county take this money and try to, basically, you know, buy bulk food and distribute the food? why did they do it this way and put the city of miami in this box where they had to hand out gift cards? >> reporter: that's a little local politics. the county did -- the county got $80 million and they did do much of what you're saying. we're talking about miami-dade county and then miami. you're from south florida and you understand that. you might be in your car and not sure what city or county you're in, but those who don't have cars -- we saw people who lined up on foot. no social distancing. a lot of complaints about that. when you talk about the m

matinations of how intergovernment politics work, sometimes it's not easy to say with the personalities, here's the money. there's been a shift at the top of miami-dade county in the most recent election, and the mayor of miami and the mayor of miami-dade county seem to have a better relationship. it may be that what happened will not happen again, assuming more federal money is distributed to the country and to the county right here. >> all right. kerry sanders in miami for us, thanks very much. with that, joe biden, i believe, is walking out and unveiling his health team. let's turn it over to him. >> as we near the end of one of the toughest years, we face as a nati nation. more than 285,000 dead americans because of covid-19, and counting. last week covid-19 was the number one cause of death in america. .

for black, latino and native americans were nearly three times as likely to die from it. covid-19 is a mass casualty. for family and friends left behind, there's a gaping hole in your heart that never be fully healed. as a country, we've been living with this pandemic for so long, we're at risk to becoming numb to its toll on all of us. we're resigned to feel there's nothing we can do. that we must accept death, pain and sorrow. we're in the midst of this deadly pandemic that's infected almost 15 million americans. 100 o at this very moment, what is the outgoing administration asking the supreme court to do in the united states supreme court?

to repeal the entirety of the affordable care act when we need it most. awe law that's on the front lines against the pandemic. protects more than 100 million americans who live with pre-existing conditions, which will increase now including those with lung scarring and heart damage as a consequence of covid-19. it provides coverage for more than 20 million americans who get the care they need if they're showing symptoms of covid-19. the law that fulfills our moral obligation here in america, health care is a right for all, not a privilege for a few. as all of you know, i know that out of our collective pain, we're going to find collective purpose to control the pandemic, to save lives and heal as a nation. today i'm pleased to announce a team that will do just that. a