one of the reporters on the byline is david sanger, who is also a national security analyst. s good to see you. what, exactly, was president trump asking his senior advisers to provide him when it comes to iran? >> well, anderson, thanks for having me on. you know, last week, the international inspectors reported that iran had made some significant but modest progress in accumulating nuclear material. this would be the last report during president trump's presidency. and he heard about this report, and it was around then that he asked his advisers what options he might have, presumably, against the site that's the one major, nuclear site where iran produces nuclear material. now, he's had these options in front of him, both, before and after he pulled out of the iran nuclear deal in 2018. so, obviously, in asking this question, this is his one, last moment to consider whether to take action. whether, it would be military or cyber. >> and you report after secretary of state pompeo and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general milley, described the potential risk of escalat

david sanger, excellent reporting. up, troubling fallout from the pandemic. millions of americans suffering as food insecurity here in the united states of america. it is growing at an alarming rate. [♪] every time you touch a surface, bacteria is left behind. now, consider how many times your family touches the surfaces in your home in 24 hours. try microban 24. spray on hard surfaces to kill 99.9% of viruses and bacteria initially, including the virus that causes covid-19. once dry, microban forms a bacteria shield that keeps killing bacteria for 24 hours, even after multiple touches. try microban 24. this has been medifacts for microban 24. d'shea: i live in south jamaica, born and raised. i'm a doordasher, i'm a momma with a special needs child, she is the love of my life. doordash provides so much flexibility. if something happens with her, where i need to be home, i can just log out and just say "okay, my family needs me." i don't have to answer to nobody. i don't want to be nobody's employee. i do what i want, i

joining me now is national analyst david sanger. thanks for being with us tonight.f this to iran's nuclear all businesses? >> well, it's a significant blow. because this is a skypetist who led the entire operation for about two decades. and he was named by prime minister netanyahu two years ago as the leader of a really vast program and he appeared to have been behind much of the work done in the early 2000s on the design of a warhead. that program was formally abandoned in 2003, but there is some evidence that it continued in his laboratories ever since. the big question is, is this truly a long-term setback? or are the iranians going to bounce back the way they bounced back from the israel-american attacks ten years ago and from the explosion over the summer of another one of the facilities also an explosion attributed to israel? >> and you where i in a new piece that this alleged assassination complicates the incoming biden administration's plan to re-engage with iran. walk us through why that is? >> well, the biden administration has been very clear that it beli

. >> david sanger joins me from washington, cnn political analyst, national security correspondent for "the new york times." david, wonderful to see you. you wrote in the "new york times" just in the last few days that the language in the legal challenges we've seen to these election results are unparalleled in american history. are we seeing a very audacious use of political force here? or is this just a fruitless last gasp by the outgoing president? >> well, it is an audacious use of political force that is looking increasingly like it will be a fruitless last gasp. we shouldn't forget here, robyn, how unusual this is for the american system. and in that same article, i compared it to the most recent time that a presidential election was thrown to the house of representatives, to congress. that was 1876. even in that case, there was real dispute that everybody agreed was a real dispute about the outcome of the vote in three states. what's remarkable here is there is no real dispute about the outcome. they've done audits and recounts, and they've all come out within a few votes of whe

david sanger had an article, same day, russia, russia, russia, russia. so they were both, both fed from the same trough and, and the russians were simply repeating what was obvious to everyone. and which, by the way, julian has signed himself, had said namely that this was a big distraction from the, from the e-mails, the showing that hillary had really stolen the nomination from bernie sanders. and after the election, of course, it was an excuse to explain why hillary lost and not incidentally to make sure that the mickey matt had a really potent enemy to build their arms shell. their arms justify the military pick francis, which are unconscionable in our society. you know, and james, even in the interesting thing too, is that there was, is this demand by the powers that be pretty clean. the deep state is that it turns, you know, trump with friend teach and change direction or nuance things. i mean, while he's the president of the united states, but they drew the line and said the president will not be able to do this and invented a hoax against him. th

david sanger, national security analyst and reporter for "the new york times." you've got remarkable reporting we'll get to in just a minute. first, though, errol, the biden team is getting briefed today by national security experts who aren't part of the administration because the administration won't cooperation with the transition. at what point are republicans do you think going to move beyond this mealy mouthed profiles in cowardice language and just say joe biden is the president elect and deserves a real transition. >> republican leadership has made clear that day is never going to come, john. they are not going to do anything they are not forced to do or given permission to do by donald trump himself. the biden team is thinking about making a popular mobilization strategy the way that they put pressure on the white house to do what they should are done days ago, if not weeks. the idea being that the general public can put pressure both on republican leaders, good luck with that, but more directly on the white house itself to do what's in the public inter

. >> so we have david sanger with his reporting that the president was asking military and national security leaders about options of military strike on iran as major nuclear facility. david reported that the military and the advisers there not too hot on this idea at all. why? >> well, i think it fair to say the pentagon is not looking to start another war to begin with. but let's look at the map and what's really at stake here. this is a place inside central iran. they are building an underground sentra fuj facility. you are talking about manned bombers, pilots in the air flying deep into iranian airspace, repeated bombing strikes and that will be as a starting point very, very tough to get into that heavily defe defended air space. our sources are telling us is how iran might retalliateretali. ran has been 3,000 ballistic missile that they could fire in retaliation all over the middle east and really put u.s. troops in the region at risk. alisyn. >> barbara, thank you very much for that reporting obviously come back to us with anything else. the reporting of president donald trump's troop

us now cnn political correspondent abby phillip and cnn political and national security analyst david sanger. abby, i want to start with the news that matters, frankly, which is what the presidential transition is doing. things that will have an impact over the next several months and that's joe biden naming ron klain as his white house chief of staff. what message does this send and what kind of person is ron klain? >> well, first of all, the relationship between joe biden and ron klain goes back decades and i think that is the first message that it sends which is that this is a person, joe biden, who coming into office will have at his disposal just among the deepest benches i think of any president in recent history because he, himself, has been in government for so long and has had these relationships, but i think secondly ron klain is someone who led the ebola response for the obama administration and also was among the first to ring the alarm about this coronavirus pandemic, and he has been an adviser to joe biden on this issue throughout this process. it signals that biden understands

. >> david sanger, always good to speak to you and get your perspective, thankses so much. >> always great to be with you. >>> more breaking news. yet another prominent republican has tested positive for coronavirus. senator kelly leffler of georgia is in the midst of a heated runoff election that could determine the balance of power in the u.s. senate. she tested positive friday. another test saturday came back as inconclusive. she was with vice president mike pence at campaign events on friday, along with the other republican senator from georgia, david purdue. loeffler's office says she does not have symptoms and is quarantining until tests are conclusive one way or the other. no word if mr. pence or mr. purdue will do the same. >>> fresh signs of a worsening pandemic in the u.s. we'll take you to pennsylvania as it sees long, long lines for testing and smashes past records. >>> also, it's exactly what many u.s. health officials warned people not to do. why some travelers say they're okay to fly home for the holiday. ♪ ♪ i see you looking (uh) ♪ i see you looking (na, na, na) ♪ ♪

. >> michael, you were quoted today in "the new york times," really good piece analysis by david sangerthe sort of specter of a botched presidential election that we had back in the 19th century, reconstruction era, the dispute over three states where there wasn't a clear outcome and there was an effort to usurp power. on the one hand, i find that sort of comforting as a historical analog, but that was also an absolute catastrophe for the country. >> of course it was. it was resolved by congress and it was resolved in the most ugly, horrible compromise that we can think of, and that is the republicans said if you let our guy, hayes, become president, we'll take federal troops out of the south, we'll stop reconstruction, you can impose racist governments in every state in the south, jim crow laws, and the result was horrible things in the south and elsewhere in this country. compromises are not necessarily great. and the other thing i'm worry about is i think what donald trump is doing is grasping at straws, trying somehow to rescue himself, although he's resoundingly lost this election.

us now cnn political correspondent abby phillip and cnn political and national security analyst david sangerwith the news that matters, frankly, which is what the presidential transition is doing. things that will have an impact over the next several months

joining me right now is david sanger, a national security correspondent for the new york times. see you, david. you've had great reporting we've discussed before about how russian intelligence uses donald trump's own words. they don't even have to make anything up themselves to put misinformation out there and dry to interfere. when i saw this video, i wondered this very thing, david. >> well, could be. i mean, we'll have to see whether or not that video gets repeated today on rt and through their facebook channels and other places. but a few things have changed in this cycle, kate. we're not seeing the kind of direct effort that they tried in 2016 to fake american personas, to create somebody on facebook that you think is your neighbor and so forth. instead, they have been taking president trump's own words, particularly about mail-in ballots, repeating those, amplifying them and trying to get that more into the mainstream conversation and hoping it will come out of the mouths of more and more americans, making it easier to do this channel without being blocked inspect on the d