kathleen sebelius, thank you for joining me again, former health and human services secretary. thank you for your time. >>> coming up next here tonight, one woman's remarkable story, a story that represents many people in this country who have been overlooked for too long. stay with us. overlooked for tog stay with us heart failure causes nearly two hospitalizations every minute. understanding how to talk to your doctor about treatment options is key. today, we are redefining how we do things. we find new ways of speaking, so you're never out of touch. it's seeing someone's face that comforts us, no matter where. when those around us know us, they can show us just how much they care. the first steps of checking in, the smallest moments can end up being everything. there's resources that can inform us, and that spark can make a difference. when we use it to improve things, then that change can last within us. when we understand what's possible, we won't settle for less. the best thing we can be is striving to be at our best. managing heart failure starts now with understanding.

collegiate sebeli kathleen sebelius, the former health and human services secretary.ming up next here tonight, one woman's remarkable story, a story that represents many people in this country who have been overlooked for too long. stay with us. stay with us to be honest...a little dust? it never bothered me. until i found out what it actually was. dust mite droppings? ewww. dead skin cells? gross! so now, i grab my swiffer heavy duty sweeper and dusters. dusters extends to 6 feet to reach way up high... to grab, trap and lock away gross dust. nice! for dust on my floors, i switch to sweeper. the heavy duty cloths reach deep in grooves to grab, trap and lock dust bunnies... no matter where they hide. no more heebie jeebies. phhhhew. glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. but we can still help protect each other this flu season by getting vaccinated. if you're 65 or older, get the superior flu protection of fluzone high-dose quadrivalent. it's the only 65+ flu vaccine with four times the standard dose. and it's free with medicare part b. fluzone high-dose quad

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let's discuss, now, with former hhs secretary, kathleen sebelius. retary sebelius, nice to see you. thank you for your time, in advance. >> thank you. >> bottom line, will this delay and lack of coordination cost lives? >> well, what's going on at hhs and basically throughout the government is shocking, and totally unprecedented. a transition should be an easy transfer of power to make sure that the incoming team doesn't drop the ball. that all the americans get the services they deserve and need for their daily lives. but we're in the midst of a pandemic, and i don't think there's any question that any delay in transferring information that could help the biden team plan for the future is, potentially, going to cost lives. we are -- we are in a total crisis. and we have a president who has not mentioned this. petulant president, who only talks about his own, made-up grievances, and vote recounts. he cannot acknowledge the fact that the virus is raging. he can't acknowledge the fact that it's totally out of control. will not talk to the american publ

joining us, kathleen sebelius and david gergen. sebelius, with all the scenarios you went through while preparing for a possible pandemic, was there ever a time that you talked through the possibility of almost an entire political party fighting the science and fighting you on public health measures that would be needed to deal with a possible pandemic? >> erica, none of us ever contemplated this scenario. the president never contemplated this scenario. never in the history of the united states have been see a public health crisis be politicized the way this one was. i go back to april when the cdc put out very clear step-by-step guidelines. the cdc was asked and did follow through with a step-by-step here's what you do to protect the health system. here's what the positivity rate should be, here's how much testing should be in place, what the contact tracers should look like. the number one goal was to keep americans safe and secure. the following day the president of the united states chose to begin attacking governors, demanding

kathleen sebelius joins us.ou saw what was going on, how do you interpret what we heard in the oral arguments? >> wolf, thanks for having me. i think once again, the solicitor general when i was the secretary was in court today defending the constitutionality of the affordable care act. and i think the questions from a number of justices, roberts and kavanaugh particularly, shows that they're skeptical that the entire law should be struck down. even if a portion of it is found to be unconstitutional. they seem to feel that that was a bridge way too far. and that would certainly come as a relief to the over 20 million people who rely on the affordable care act for their health care, as well as expanded medicaid. >> as you point out, john roberts said it's not our job to strike down the entire law. justice kavanaugh said he tends to agree that even if some parts are invalidated, others would stand. when you heard that, did you breathe a sigh of relief? >> well, i know enough about the court to know nothing is over

kathleen sebelius served as secretary of health and human services during the obama administration, and she joins me now. i've been hearing more and more whether it's in the green bury area of wisconsin or el paso texas or in kansas, staffing shortages are the real crunch, sort of supply issue right now. >> i think that's right, chris. staffing is critical because the limited number of icus in rural hospitals is already a shortage. then you don't have trained personnel. the reason that the death rate has gone down fortunately with the number of cases is that you have people who are experts at dealing with very sick patients, and they've learned some things along the way. they've learned some things in these last eight months. if you don't have icu available, if you don't have the right equipment and you don't have the right personnel, that's just not going to happen. in kansas, it took us six months to get to the first 500 deaths, and that's 500 too many. it took six weeks to get to the second 500 deaths, and that's a terrifying trajectory. we are part of the country where we're in the

joining me, kathleen sebelius.is election is that it has taken our focus off coronavirus. and the tragedy of the nonsense of the trump campaign continuing its rallies is he's not focused on coronavirus. joe biden is going to announce his task force tomorrow. what can and should they do? >> joe biden has been advised by a team of experts all during the campaign and has listened to them. those experts will be available to the american public on a regular basis. that's really helpful. you'll also see the president-elect not contradict what the science is saying but trying to reenforce what we know to be the steps. until we get a safe and effective vaccine, we have a limited set of tools. i think that's where the biden administration will begin to focus. we have to ramp up testing. we are not doing nearly enough in spite of what donald trump has continued to say. we have to have a much more consistent policy around that. we know this virus doesn't know borders, doesn't know red states or blue states and is now ravaging

joining us the former secretary of health and human services during the obama administration kathleen sebelius. what's it like to wake up to that news that we have this second vaccine showing more than 94% effective rate? >> well, it's very good news and i think it will give a lift to americans to know that there are safe and effective vaccines on the way. there's no question that operation warped speed has been a great success, getting to the point in a very rapid period of time, of manufacturing a vaccine and we just hope that the safety results bear out what the early results from pfizer and now moderna are. the terrible news is nothing else has worked at all and the federal government has stepped away from every other piece of the puzzle and is now blocking what could be a smooth transition in a very, very dangerous period of time. >> i want to focus on both things you just said there. first you said operation warped speed has been very successful. how much credit do you give to the trump administration now for this vaccine development? >> i give a lot of credit to the trump administration

hs director kathleen sebelius regarded in the health sector, trump was right to put financial muscleis to get the government and private sector working. she give as lot of credit to the trump administration. she says they were wrong in other ways but this made a huge difference. so, let me back up. why politicize this? >> that is the thing. i think, elizabeth that this is the signature achievement of this administration, get this vaccine so fast. in february, we saw, actually, a fact check from "the washington post that admonished president trump for saying we would have a vaccine around this time. even dr. fauci, again, this isn't a criticism because this is unprecedented virus but he had said late february, it would take anywhere from a year, year to year-and-a-half. we're talking about march of 2021, somewhere around september 2021 to be at the stage that we are now, where you could have the military getting doses as early as this month, front line workers getting it as early as next month this sun precedented. the blind partisans get out of the way, give president and this admini

and kathleen sebelius, former hhs secretary to president obama, said that effectively the biden administration would be operating in the dark and that it's very dangerous, andrea. >> and kristen, what is the level of frustration among the biden team? >> reporter: i think you're seeing it increase by the day. and i think you saw that on display yesterday when president-elect biden spoke and he said that the lack of communication could cost lives, in response to a question from our own geoff bennett. and so the president-elect is really trying to turn up the pressure on president trump to, if not concede this race, at least allow his gsa to ascertain the election results so that he can start to get national security briefings and briefings on covid as well. and andrea, one more thing overnight, it's worth noting, the team is reporting, carol lee, mike memoli and myself, that biden, despite pressure from democrats to do so, is not inclined to have his presidency overshadowed by investigations into president trump, his predecessor, so a little window into the president-elect as he prepares to take

former hhs secretary kathleen sebelius. >> the lack of communication will mean that they're really operatingmer officials say the lack of coordination could raise the risk of sending mixed or misleading messages to foreign partners the biggest concern, national security, with an estimated 150 openings that will need to be filled a slow transition might delay the necessary background checks for those staffers new pressure building now on the president from even his former chief of staff to allow president-elect biden to receive a critical daily briefing that lays out potential threats >> there's no reason not to be giving former vice president biden and senator harris the intelligence briefings that any incoming president and vice president would have. >> reporter: with the justice department transition, similar concerns one person close to the process pointing to fears the incoming doj team could get blindsided last minute with a major arrest or announcement. now former first lady michelle obama is calling out president trump for not respecting the results of the election and calling on him