good afternoon, everyone. it is 11:00 a.m. out west, 2:00 p.m. in the east with this country in the grips of the worst public health crisis in more than a century. it's government is unable to offer any relief to it's citizens. right now covid-19 is killing more than 2500 americans every day according to the seven-day moving average. nearly 120,000 americans are currently hospitalized with the virus and more than 200,000 new cases are being reported every single day. congress approved spending for untilly a trillion dollars to help americans that lost their jobs and could lose their homes as a result of the pandemic, that help is on hold for now. this morning nancy pelosi

announcing the house would vote next wednesday on boosting the checks to $2,000. the republicans blocked a vote on that measure. democrats are only doing what president trump wants. >> bereave it or not democrats agree with the president. at least to the extent that we need to sign this bill now. >> 600 is certainly not enough for individuals who have been struggling these past seven months. >> as for the president he is at mar-a-lago. on his way out of town he followed through on his threat to veto the defense spending bill. he announced a new land of controversial pardons and communations including paul

manafort, roger stone, and kushner. let's go to our own josh lett letterman who is with me. josh let's begin with you. president trump asked for that bigger direct payment number to $2,000. democrats are simply trying to do that, has there been any reaction to far to the nat has been blocked by the house? >> no reax at all yet, ayman. and the white house is pointing to the fact that the bill has not even made it to the president's desk for him to veto or to sign because it is still going through the enrollment process. but it's not like the president and the white house don't know exactly what is in this bill, it is online for anyone that wants

to go read all 6,000 pages of it and it's not like the president is spending his time trying to hash out a new agreement with congress. i was thinking babt to about president obama, he was on vacation to hawaii, he averted a real crisis before he headed back to vacation. president trump threw a grenade into this situation and then skipped town. here in west palm beach the president just wrapped up a trip to his golf course and now he is back at mar-a-lago. >> to that point we can die sect all of the miss takes that happened along the way with the president negotiating this deal through his secretary of the treasury and then acting like he doesn't know what's in it and why it happened. let's talk about nancy pelosi.

releasing a statement that reads in part today house republicans cruelly deprived the american people of the $2,000 people that the president agreed to support. if the president is serious about the $2,000 direct payments he must call on house republicans to end their obstruction. does that appear to be her strategy here? >> i don't know what anyone's strategy is. this is embarrassing and there is no explanation or reason. the president wanted these checks. if he wanted them he could have gotten them in the negotiation but let's leave that in the past for a second. nancy pelosi tried through the house majority leader to get this through today. republicans blocked it. they said it was a stunt. i talked to roy brunt wilunt an of my colleagues. he is a republican on the leadership team. we said will you bring up $2,000

check if it made it's way from the house and i said would it get 60 votes? the threshold it would need, and he said no. so here is the deal. there se a bill in front of the president that his secretary of treasury negotiated. it didn't appear out of thin air. we as the american public and as reporters and analysts and all of that, we can't read the president's mind, but we -- members of congress have to be able to trust that his emissaries are adequately and accurately representing his new point or government doesn't work. and just one last thing here, let's put this in real terms. people will not get unemployment checks and the government will shut down on monday in the middle of the worst health

dpliesz our li crisis in our lifetime. >> we're going to talk about what that means. jake, i want you to go back for a moment you say it's a stunt. who is doing the stunt? is it president trump or is it the accusation that the democrats with the unanimous consent measure today? most people say it is probably president trump who is making this appear more theatrical with the way he backed off of it. >> i don't know if he understands because he is so infrequently engaged in it. i think what republicans are trying to say is if you apt vote, dloets it vane a real in-person vote. obviously democrats are going to say they're playing politics. but soon enough we're going to have, in the house of representatives, a floor vote on the $2,000 check so everyone can put their money where their mouth is on monday, the coming monday, the day that the government shuts down. i will not make a judgment about

who is playing politics and who is throwing this here. they're both stunts to be honest with you and there is way too much at stake for this nonsense to be going on on christmas eve leading to a government shut down. >> josh leathermletterman, thanr starting us off. the other big headline coming out of the past couple days has to be about all of these controversial pardons. what justification did the white house give for these new pardons, especially paul manafort. >> the white house statement that accompanies these pardon social security that paul manafort's stream is "worse than what many of the most violent criminals receive." he said that he is one of the most prominent victims of what is revealed to be the createst

witch hunt in american history. they say he faced injustices and was treated very unjustly echoing e words that they treated several times. remember they were very different cases. initially looking into rush shan meddling was there is basically hiding millions of dollars on behalf of the pro russian government of ukraine. but those are the justifications that the president gives and on the black water pardons that came a day earlier, the president sited the strong support, a number of members of congress saying they have been

troubled during the trial that the prosecutors were not fully sharing the evidence. >> pete williams in washington dc. pete, thank you, i appreciate it. >> with me now is andrew weissman. a senior member and a fbi general council jake sherman, this is how they characterized these pardons, on the same day, it will be particularly stinging for their team. i'm curious to get what is the reaction to the pardons that you witnessed? >> i put sfwheem two different buckets. i think that the first story has

to do with asking your viewers to put aside the personality for president trump. ask yourselves if you're giving pardons to people would you pick construct politicians, the single largest health care fraud defendant ever. are those the people that you would pardon? would you have a process to try to find the people most meritorius for a pardon. that is step one. it is just simply outrageous and a real flouting of the rule of law and turns us into an autocracy. the second thing is that the pardons that were late to the president's own wrong doing is that many that grew out of the special council investigation,

some of the investigations that pete just talked about are tissue thin or false. the president said these crimes happened long before i met him. that is not true either, but he says thee are cr these are crim brought to the special council. lobbying for a foreign government and legally he tampered with witnesses while he was out on bail. a whole series of crimes that he was found guilty of by a jury or he pleaded to meaning he admit it'd from his own mouth. this has nonto do -- nothing to

do with this. the final part where he dangled the pardons, this is carrying out on that promise and that and i was supposed to deliver the pardon, and that is what we're seeing today. >> i do want to get jake's take on this, certainly the reaction, the president's party and the democrats, we expect democrats to have outrage over the pardons but the outrage for republicans has been pretty muted with the exception of ben sass who said this is rothen to the core. when you look at the broader reaction that doesn't exist, what is that silence telling us? >> when we talk to roy bluount,

he said he doesn't usually weigh in on these things because they don't have the power to pardon who they like. you have seen some republicans and local officials come out and we have not even talked about duncan hunter and steve stockton. i think he was accused and i think plead guilty. don't quite remember. he was basically leaving on his campaign account. giving him money that was give ton him to run his campaign and living on it. this is not a deep state conspiracy. these are the crimes that he conceded that he committed. this is a shirts and skins exercise. they're choosing again on this case to be with him. >> holidays is always the time for a little reflection. i pose this restorically about the mueller team.

any reflection or regreat about the mueller investigation not asking president trump, not going after president trump in a more determative way that could have altered what we're seeing now with these pardons in. >> i have reflected on that. i wrote a book that talked about some key decisions about whether or not we should have concluded in our report whether or not he committed obstruction of justice and i thought we should have for a variety of reasons whether or not we should have called the president into the grand jury when he outright refused to sit for an interview and again i thought that we should have. we don't know whether it it would have changed the outcome of where we are today, but i don't think that's the right question. the question is was it our obligation, were there could arguments for doing it?

there was good arguments for what we did, but like any investigation there was disaagreements for investigations and how we should proceed. >> i appreciate your candor and honesty there. be well and happy holidays to both of you. still ahead, we'll have more on what one top republican congressional aide quoted by politico called a complete cluster -- you can figure out what the rest thoof is. and the untold story of covid-19s impact on children. how it left some without parents. first, yet another mutant form of coronavirus has emerged. this one in nye jeer ya. nigeria. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose.

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right now people around the country are gearing up with coronavirus cases soaring across the country. experts are warning people not to gather with family or friends. many are getting tested hoping that lowers the chance of infecting loved ones. how many people are in the line guesting tested there? >> considering it is christmas eve there was a big surge of

people getting tested. you nailed it where you said that despite the warnings for medical professionals to not engage, people say they are still going to gather. they conceive that this will not be the same level of celebration, it will not be the same size dinner, but they plan to come see them still, we see this ahead of investigate and christmas as well. but the spoke to the medical director of the facility. people have to pay out, and they are warned about relying touch on that test. here is what she said. >> i hope that people are smart about it. a positive test is more indicative than a negative.

a negative is still like you should probably quarantine if you have symptoms. >> so watching hands, social distancing. >> stay warm, my friend, thank you. i want to wring in our former obama white house contributor and msnbc contributor. dr. patel, a big question on everyone's mind, can you explain to our viewers how you can still spread covid-19 even half a negative test result. i know it is something that comes up with the issue of vaccinations. you can be vaccinated, protect yourself, and still spread the virus potentially. >> yes, happy holidays to all. testing tells you what your status is in that very moment.

you can take a test, be negative, and assume it is a high quality test, that pcr, the gold standard, and you can literally just hours later have enough of that high rus that developed. what you really have to do is quarantine yourself for 14 days. you have to get tested on the front and back and just from the people that i'm talking to -- >> yeah, how considered are you about all of these travelers on top of the current thanksgiving surge that we're still in the middle of. >> it is incredibly concerning. not everyone in the country feels the way that some of the hot spots do. tennessee, southern california.

you're seeing people say it's not so bad. i think that serch over everyon overblowing this. the virus doesn't know boundaries, so one personal traveling comes into contact with someone who comes home and spreads it unintentionally including someone with a chronic condition. they land in the hospital and the hospital has no capacity. and i think it is incredibly critical to remind people that you cannot test out of covid. you really just have to take the kre indications to stay as low risk as possible. >> let me ask you about some headlines coming out. we learned about a new strain in nigeria today. this is the third one that we have learned about in a week.

explain to us what is going on here. how concerned should we be about these mutations, if you will, and do we have any reason to believe they are probably already here in the united states? >> yeah, great question. so as far as the u.s. variant goes we don't think it is licked to severe disease. it looks highly transmissble. and it looks like it is probably in the united states. not because we have samples of it it, but because that is what we have seen since march. the other strains you were talking about in south africa, nigeria and likely other strains that will crop up in the next several weeks, they are having their cases going up, and it's not the same variant, but they have mutations to the spike pro

teen that might make is easier to transmit. i am scared that we are facing a surge. on top of thif there is a mutatn that of course causes me concern. here is why i'm not as worried the vaccines we have should be able to cover a number of the mutations. making sure that the vaccines work and making sure we can move the technology as best as we need to. everyone needs to take caution no matter where you live because the virus is serious. >> thank you so much for your time, happy holidays to you and your family the deal is done.

just days remaining before the deadline, a hard brexit agreement, let's bring in matt bradley. he is live in paris with more reaction on this story. matt, good to have you with us what can you tell us about this deal. this was the deal that was negotiated four years ago by teresa may, now it is back to swear one. in the end that is the reality it has to live with. >> in the end people were pretty happy with this deal. he was up all night negotiating. he comes out and this gives him back the promises that he made 4.5 years ago and he started this drama that lasted for some long.

here is what boris johnson had to say about this deal. >> this deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what is sometimes been a difficult relationship. we will be your friend, your ally, your supporter. >> it is appropriate that boris johnson himself gets to declare victory since he was the one that really was behind the engine for the push for brexit and it is appropriate that it would come right now not just because it is christmas eve but there is trucks lined up on either side trying to get into britain. they cut off britain because of the coronavirus. that is really an interesting preview of the worst case scenario. that may be one of the reasons why they are all welcoming this deal.

it is such a good deal, it maintains the free trade between britain and the european union but it is any deal at all and it end this is drama and finally brings brexit to a close. a lot of people in great britain. the only fame they have left, two brothers or fanned ph covid, fighting to stay together. >> i'm not a kid anywhere and i knew i would be taking care of my brother. >> covid relief on the line and the threat of a fourth government shut down looms large. lawmakers have no you is next aft clue what is next as the president arrives in mar-a-lago. president arrives in mar-a-lago. bacteria

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maybe not yet, but if we stopped the noise... it could come even now. godaddy. start now. it doesn't make sense to blow everything up, and her people and all of the pieces of length that are so critical. >> we should be focuses on where we agree. $900 billion of relief needs to go out to the people today. we have been working around the clock to get it done. >> today lawmakers from both parties are fighting hard to get covid relief past the president. one way or the other the consequences of not getting a bill are dire.

on saturday unemployment benefits run out for free lancers and gig workers. expect to see the number of them skyrock skyrocket. these are just some of the biggest concerns. joining me now, associates editor, i need to have you with us. a republican aide on the hill, it is a complete lusture, i'm n cluster, i'm not going to say the explative. perhaps the president to stick with this bill as it is and get something done in the new year with a new administration. is there enough support to make this veto proof? >> you know there is possibly enough to make it veto proof or have a overright.

but the problem is when it comes down to it there are some but you're right, you're seeing republicans in the house and senate basically publicly and privately plead with the president so sign off on this bill and to literally sign the bill before monday night. >> tell us more about the sources you're speaking to. you say some rank and file republicans aired their grechbss complaining that trump threw them under the besz. they called it an eggheaded socialist idea. but is there any sign that the gop is ready to break from from the president on this? >> that is a great question. we have been asking for four years. we have seen the last few weeks that republicans have started to break with the president on a environment of things. you saw the president get angry that some of them broke with him

on the election results. so you know it is possible. what has been so frustrating about this particular bill is that it has taken months and months to get to this point. and the president had a representative there negotiating and that is the treasury secretary, who was there the entire time. and he signed off on, you know, exactly what the president is now complaining about. he signed off on these checks and now the president is saying they should be $2,000. where was the treasury secretary when the is time to negotiate and say that the president is going to sign it. there is still so many members of congress that say maybe we should not trust anyone else in congress. >> i can only imagine what steve mnuchin has been thinking since the president through his negotiates under the bus.

g.o.p. senators and candidates put in a big race there. they have been campaigning in support of the $600 in this bill bhap are you hearing about concerns in georgia on that front? >> some people have been really concerned and upset that he has not made georgia the full focus. this is something that he can leave office with saying look, i helped keep the republicans in charge of the senate. as you know these two seats are critically important for the republicans and the senate to keep control. so they want all of his attention on that and they just feel like he has not been there. both because he is preoccupied with the election and also now because he has broken with his party on this bill. >> anita ku many,mar, thank you your time this afternoon. i want to bring in frank palone

into the conversation. thank you for spending some of your time with us this afternoon. the big question as you know, millions of americans want to know where do you go from here? is there any way to get this legislation passed through before deadlines and millions of americans run out of money, get evicted, happens. >> we certainly would want to do that. i mean one option, and we're going to vote on monday, is to simply add the extra money to bring it up to the $2,000 per person that the president asked for. democrats have been asking for a long time that this cash or this direct cash allotment to individuals be increased. it is a little shocking that the president, you know, agreed to the 600 when the democrats would like to have seen a lot more. so we're going to vote on that on monday. whether or not that leads to his actual signing of the very important end of year package,

this covid package that is still unclear, really there are a lot of good things in this package that need to move forward. >> so when this is all said and done are you ultimately encouraged or annoyed by what president trump has done in this 11th hour demand? >> i'm annoyed. there are a lot of good things in this package. one of the things i wanted to talk about is the prohibition on surprise billing. they will get them, they go to the emergency room and they don't realize that the doctor is not in their insurance plan so they get a huge bill, thousands of dollars. or they have a surgery and they find out that the radiologist is not in their insurance plan. so we try to eliminate the surprise bills saying the insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals have to figure it out. you don't get this bill and pay all of this money out of pocket. this is a big win for consumers. that would also be knocked out

if this bill doesn't get passed. so there are many thing that's are very important. a lot of money to crush the covid virus to distribute the vaccine, to do more testing and contact tracing that still needs to be done into it would really be a shame if we did not move forward on this bill. if we could get the extra money, that is fine, but to have this bill veto'd and not have a practice that including help for the unemployed, that helps small businesses, that helps education, this would be a real tra tragedy. we worked so hard on it. >> also if i can, congressman, i want to get your reaction to this two-day spree of presidential pardons including criminals tied to the mueller probe. convicted war criminals, what do you make of it? >> it is just an example for the last four years president trump has only been concerned about

himself, his family, and his friends in is the ultimate example of it. you pardon people who have been convict convicted, who pleaded guilty, they served time, they belong in jail, they are your friends, they help you with your business, but you know it is -- your family, you know, it is just another indication that this president is just out for himself. and that is what he has been about for the last four years. it is really a tragedy. i don't think it should be allowed. i think we should reform the pardon process and not allow a president to do everything for his own self interests. >> one more question to incoming congress and administrations. thank you for your time, happy holidays to you and the family. >> you too, thank you. coming up, why millions of packages sent via the postal service may not make it on time. and the toll on families has

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are the lives and fstories f people and many of them are stories with young children. how some families have been reshaped by this tragedy. >> it is hard to know how many people have been who fanned by the pandemic. we found youm people barly out of childhood themselves that are catapulted into adulthood and are taking care of their siblings. >> i knew i would be the one taking care of my brother. >> his brother is awe tis tis and was living with their mother

in a shelter. when she died of covid, he took charge. >> did you adopt him? >> yes, we have been in foster care before and i knew i didn't want him to go back. >> free support services for children in foster care frefred him to a lawyer that helped him get custody of ej. >> he would experience the holiday season apart from his brother, the only family he really has left. >> eight children have been placed in foster care because their participants died from covid. with hundreds of thousands dead, many are left without.

two sisters are now scaring for their brother after their father died of covid. >> he was our only parent. our mom passed away six years ago. he raised us to be caring people and not to be selfish. that if someone else needs help you help them. >> outside of detroit, iraqi immigrant getting help from a family friend caring for his 19 and 14-year-old sisters after both parents died of the virus. >> i miss everything about my parents. everything. >> several area businesses along with local police are helping the family with christmas gifts and decorations. back in new york these brothers have a renewed commitment to each other sdplp are you .

>> they said that we would most like i will be together for the rest of our lives. i would not leave him alone for anything in the world. >> do you feel your big brother is going to be with you always? >> nothing will separate us. nothing. >> a sacred promise forged and lost facing the future alone, together. >> for many, the new year will bring new beginnings starting with a larger apartment they're scheduled to move into. >> thank you for that touching report. high demand and unprecedented delayed. how the pandemic is pushing the post office to the very brink ahead of christmas. tmas ♪

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the only thing a disastersafer can't destroy is hope. donate now at redcross.org it's crunch time for people wondering if their last gift will make it under the tree. online shopping soared this holiday season partially because of the pandemic. but millions of christmas presents might arrive late this year because of the postal service. nbc's kathy park is at a post office here in new york city. good to talk to you. is it just a waiting game now pretty much? >> reporter: hey, happy holidays to you. yeah. it really is the waiting game at this point because it is christmas eve and it has been an unprecedented shipping season. the post will a service, fedex and ups have been pushed to the limit meaning millions of

packages may be arriving a bit late. on this christmas eve, u.s. shipping services are now on the final push. a tidal wave of package this is holiday season swamped their systems. roughly 3 billion. 30% more than this time last year as the pandemic drove more shoppers to buy online. for those who deliver for a living, it's been a rough nine months. >> when you add in the stress of the covid pandemic, going to work every day as front line essential workers since march. >> i think post will a workers are truly exhausted. >> reporter: the post office added tens of thousands of seasonal workers. extended overtime and expanded sunday deliveries. still, the pandemic hit their ranks hard. roughly 19,000 workers are out every day nationwide because of virus-related issues. competitors, ups and fedex have contracts with retailers. with the number of shipments

hitting the limit, the surplus spills over to the u.s. postal system. >> it ended up receiving 6 million packages a day more than what they could have planned for. >> reporter: for those who waited until the last minute, there are still options some of the retailers have partnered with food delivery companies so check individual websites. macy's and bloomingdale's are working with door dash. sephora and dick's sporting goods with insta-cart. for those waiting on delayed packages, here's another idea. >> they don't come, maybe cut out a picture of what the present is and give it to them that way in a little box. >> reporter: so if you are still shopping or shipping today, first of all, good luck to you. you do have a few options to consider. you may want to buy virtually and send someone an ecard and let them know the gift is on the way. and you also have same day

delivery options. amazon prime, ups and fedex, they're all offering the service. but it is only eligible in certain areas and there is a fee attached to it so you do want to look that up. >> hold. on i'm writing these tips down so i can have an excuse to why some of my presents -- no, i'm joking. you bring up a really good point and i thought it was worth mentioning, what you said there at the very end about the gift cards as a way to let people know, your gift is still going to make it. do we have any sense as to why the post will a service is ov overwhelm overwhelmed? >> reporter: yeah. they are saying that millions of packages have been mailed this year because obviously, online shipping was the way to go because of the pandemic. so obviously, that drove the surge. and then in addition to that, you had inclement weather, we just had a nor'easter and then vaccine rollout as well.

fedex and ups took bulk of the rollout and they were planning in advance. so they said there weren't any issues with the vaccine rollout but there were a lot of things being delivered all across the country more than ever before. >> all right. live from new york city, kathy, happy holidays to you. thank you so much for that. next hour, trump's convicted allies get pardoned. congress gets vetoed, and the american people could quite possibly get nothing. more on the chaos in washington, d.c. as the president vacations in mar-a-lago. and i'll be joined by congresswoman-elect marie newman, after this. t marie newman, after this so, you can have open window freshness... even with all the windows up. enjoy fresh, any time, with febreze. $$9.95? no way.? $9.95? that's impossible.

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i'm in new york in the midst of a pandemic that has devastated the country. president trump is spending this holiday in south florida, arriving late yesterday and then proceeding to announce another round of controversial pardons, including his former campaign chairman, paul manafort, and his long time confidante, roger stone. both key figures in the mueller investigation. and while congress can do little but react to news of those pardons, lawmakers must respond to the president's other major announcement this week. his threat to veto the covid relief bill they spent months negotiating. nancy pelosi announcing today that the house will vote monday on increasing direct payments