that is just outrageous. more than 100,000 people are hospitalized this morning. that's an all-time high. more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases were reported overnight. every reason to believe that the number of deaths will keep going up. the director of the cdc warns that the next three months will, quote, be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation. >> what is president trump doing? well, he devoted almost an hour of his wednesday to producing and starring in a propaganda video, filled with flagrant lies about the election, and going after anyone who contradicts him, including attorney general bill barr, who "the washington post" reports president trump is considering firing. as for public health, the white house is actively ignoring the cdc's coronavirus guidelines and planning a series of holiday parties with voluntary masks and social distancing. meanwhile, secretary of state mike pompeo is inviting 900 people to the state department

for a celebratory christmas party. >> we begin with the deadly pandemic. joining us now is cnn chief medical correspondent, dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, this is madness. this is madness. long ago, president trump gave up trying to protect the public health of americans. now he's actually endangering his friends and supporters by these christmas parties that they're having with voluntary masks and social distancing. >> and we've shown so many times the aftermath of these events. we showed the aftermath of the rallies, showed the aftermath of the holiday parties. the first time most americans heard the term superspreader event was in conjunction with a white house rose garden ceremony. i mean, it's -- it is maddening. we're having the same conversations now that we were having back in march and april and things are much worse. things are worse because it's colder outside. people realize that, so people are huddling inside. but back in march, we had a

period of time for at least a couple of weeks, where there was some sort of national stay-at-home at least recommendations, even if they weren't applied evenly across the country, they existed. we don't have that right now. we don't have mask mandates, we don't have stay-at-home orders. ohio and california are considering them at this point. what we have is an ambulent system that is on the breaking point. can you imagine calling 911 and them saying, we can't help you right now. and even if we could, there are not enough hospital beds in your region. and we may not be able to ship you to another part of the state because the entire country so dramatically affected by this. so, yeah, it is madness. and you try to keep an optimistic tone here and there are things to be optimistic about with regard to the vaccines, but things are going to get worse. they're as bad as they've ever been today versus any other point in this pandemic.

>> i'll show people why they're going to get worse, just so people can see. if you overlay the shape of the daily deaths reported graphic over daily hospitalizations, what you see is they track largely together. and so that line on top is the hospitalization line. that blue line, and right under it is deaths reported. the daily deaths reported is going to go up. we just broke an all-time record, which is horrifying and infuriating, frankly, sanjay. that's today, but there's every reason to think that what's going to happen over the next three weeks isn't just awful, but i'm talking historically catastrophic. i'm talking 1918 levels of pain for the next month and a half or so until the vaccine comes into play. >> i have been following that and tracking exactly what you said very closely, john. to sort of see, where are we in this country as compared to what we -- you know, widely consider as the worst public health disaster in the history of the world 100 years ago, or at least the last few hundred years and

we're three times the population that we were back then. but we also have better hospitalizations, icus, therapeutics, an ambulance system. and despite that, if you look at the numbers, we are tracking just as badly as back then. which speaks to the fact that no matter how good we get scientifically, in terms of these therapeutics and all of the wonderful things that medicine can do, despite all of that, human behavior is still sabotaging us. that is what's leading to this. and if you look at the proportion of deaths now compared to cases, it is better now than it was back in march. when we were still trying to figure this thing out. like, what exactly is this quchl but even despite that, because the absolute numbers are so high on a daily basis, the number of people who are becoming newly infected on a daily basis is so high, it hardly matters, just as you say, because the number of deaths, the death rate is going

to be still unacceptably high. and at some point, we're going to peak. i was looking at the models last night. the projected peak keeps moving, but some time in january, the issue really is that we may stay there and just plateau at that unacceptably high level for that long period of time. and i think that that's the real concern now. the actions we take at this point could bring that peak down more quickly. it's probably not going to avoid that peak or blunt that peak at this point, because it's just too fast moving. the exponential growth is too high. and also, you know, ambulance systems breaking, 90% of hospitals now at capacity around the country. where do you go? when it was primarily in the northeast back in the spring, you did at least say, bell, the rest of the country is not as affected. you could send patients out of the region. it's bad, but we have all of these sort of escape hatches. if the entire country is on

fire, what is the escape hatch? it's becoming increasingly hard to find one. >> and sanjay, so many of us still do look to our leaders, of course, for guidance and so the significance of l.a. mayor garcetti spelling it out for people. so here is what he just told the people of los angeles. >> my message couldn't be simpler. it's time to henker down. it's time to cancel everything. and if it isn't essential, don't do it. don't meet up with others outside your household, don't host a gatherering, don't attend a gathering. and following our targeted safer at home order, if you're able to stay home, stay home. >> guidelines are so helpful. because i think that people are so con fouad. is the positivity rate in my state really bad? what about my county? how about my town? so do you think it's time for other leaders to say something like that, as well? >> this has become such a --

like everything else, such a politically charged issue. the issue of trying to advocate for some sort of stay-at-home or lockdown type of order. the answer is "yes." my answer is "yes." i know that a lot of people, you know, they hedge on this. but there's two realities here. one is that it really will no longer be our decision at some point. we keep acting as if we have control over this. the virus has control over this in terms of what the hospitalizations would allow. if you simply have no more hospital beds or an ambulance can't come pick someone up to take them away who is having a hard time breathing, the answer is clear. you have to do these circuit breaker type of stops so the virus starts to slow down and comes to a more manageable level. but the other thing to keep in mind is a lot of people may say, look, this isn't affecting me. we're good. if hospitals and things like that are overwhelmed, it's not just coronavirus patients that are going to be affected. it's all the elective

operations, it's people who come in with heart problems, with stroke problems, with cancer, you know, all of these other things start to get affected. we start to crumble from a health care kind of standpoint. the hospitalizations, i think, as we've said now for a few months on your program are the truest and most consistent measure of what's going on here. and it's the most relatable for people. we are so used to being able to being able to pick up the phone and call 911, be relatively assured there's a hospital bed, icu bed, therapeutics that we might need. this is the united states and yet we are going to take this country, i think, from a health care standpoint to a breaking point at this point. and again, guys, we've been talking about this for months. you know me. i try not to get too hyperbolic. this is really worrisome. it has been for some time, but now there's some really objective problems that everybody in the country may start to feel. >> michael osterholm will be with us, sanjay, later in the show, and says we are at a case cliff. at the cliff right now and maybe

even have gone over it in the next few days. you bring up eric garcetti, it's a huge sacrifice he's asking for, but it's not everything. retail stores are still open. there's a lot of offices still open. movie, television production, it's still happening. he's just asking people to make sensible decisions. and when you look around the world, you see it works. you see what's happened in these europe countries, where they've instituted measures like this for short periods of time and it breaks the rise. israel has done it three times. they keep having to do it, but the country is willing to do it by and large. and when they do it, it just stops that incredibly fast rise in cases and hospitalizations. >> they call them these circuit breaker sort of lockdowns. let's just get ahold of it for, as you say, a short period of time. and it's really these five primary locations that is where 80% of viral transmission is

happening in our societies. restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, and houses of worship. as you say, most of society, much of society, i should say, can still say open, zpand still function as long as people wear masks and things like that. it doesn't need to go into a complete lockdown like we saw in wuhan at the beginning of this pandemic. but we're not even doing that. and as a result, these numbers will continue to grow. i can't even get these numbers out of my mouth. because when dr. robert redfield was saying, we're entering the worst three months, 1,500 to 2,000 people may be dying every day, that was just a few days ago, he said that. and we've surpassed 3,000 now. so as bad as it was, and as dire as he sounded within a few short days, it's gotten even worse. >> sanjay, i want to read you something here, because the cdc ensemble just put out a new forecast of their projected deaths by december 26th, which is, what, three weeks from now. they say the projected deaths

will be between 303,000 and 329,000. up to 329,000 deaths by the day after christmas. that's, you know, another 55, 60,000 deaths in three weeks, is what the cdc is now forecasting. >> right. i mean, you know, if we're at 3,000 now and it's going to hover around this sort of number, you know, the math is sort of, it's awful to do, but, you know, you talk about three weeks, another 50, 60,000 people dying. i don't know where this peaks at this point. i mean, this is starting to defy the models, even the aggressive ones in terms of how bad things could get. i will say, when you look at even the cdc models and the ihme models, they do count on these certain mandates and these states saying in place. 40 states having some sort of mandates. you know ali khan was talking about this earlier, i think there's 13 states or so that have mask mandates of some sort.

seven states that have, you know, reliable business sort of mitigation or closure in place. if we don't even maintain those mandates, the numbers that we hear, as awful as they are, could be even higher. there's always worst-case probation projections with these models, and we hardly ever present those worst-case models. what we are presenting to you is the middle of the road sort of model. it could be better if we actually started to employ mask mandates and talk about those five locations, restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, houses of worship, for example, or it could be a lot worse, as well. and right now, i'm in the sure where we're headed. it's very disheartening to hear they're still having these parties at the white house, not just because it's the white house, because then i get a hundred e-mails from people saying, hey, how bad is it, really? we're thinking about having a bnch bunch of relatives over for the holidays, it's going to be okay,

right? and i have to be the guy who says, no, it's not. i enjoy a great holiday party as much as the next guy, but this is not the year to do that. we saw what happened in canada. canada's an example. october 12th was their thanksgiving. we saw within a couple of weeks after that that the numbers really started to go up. and in fact, the case numbers doubled a few weeks after their thanksgiving. we've got to look around the world and get some clues as to what might happen here after our holidays. >> listen, sanjay, we appreciate you. someone's got to level with the american people. we appreciate it. >> and you'll be back next hour to answer viewer questions. which we also really appreciate. >> quick programming note, join anderson and dr. sanjay gupta tomorrow night for a new cnn coronavirus town hall. get your questions answered about the coronavirus and the vaccine. that's at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. so all the lies coming from the president, all just the outer space lies coming from his

supporters, are they now backfiring on republicans in georgia? pro-trump lawyers literally telling georgians not to vote now in the january runoffs. we will speak to the election official who has begged the president to stop doing this, next. ♪ limu emu and doug. and if we win, we get to tell you how liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need. isn't that what you just did? service! ♪ stand back, i'm gonna show ya ♪ ♪ how doug and limu roll, ya ♪

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president trump heads to georgia on saturday to campaign for republican senators facing runoff elections. but yesterday, two pro-trump lawyers told georgians not to vote. >> i think i would encourage all georgians to make it known that you will not vote at all until your vote is secure. >> they have not earned your vote. don't you give it to them. why would you go back and vote in another rigged election, for god's sakes! >> joining us now, georgia's election implementation manager, gabriel sterling. he's a republican who issued an impassioned plea to president trump this week to stop pushing false election claims and to condemn violent threats. mr. sterling, thank you very

much for being here. what are they doing? what are lin wood and sidney powell doing? >> who the heck knows. i mean, it's looney tunes. it's -- the president's literally coming to georgia to campaign for the same two senators that his former lawyers were filing lawsuits to contest the election, with the same claims that the president made in his very long 46-minute video yesterday, that have already been debunked. i'm speechless. that's the best i've got right now. >> yep. did you know lin wood before this? >> not really. of course, if you're in atlanta, you know of lin wood. he actually did live about 0.6 miles that way, not that far from where my house is now. but i never had to deal with him directly. i saw the movie about the olympic bombing, that's about as close as i ever got to see lin wood. >> because he brought you up personally. here's what they said yesterday. >> they have fought so hard to

get rid of president trump and tried every dirty, nasty, evil, illegal trick in the book to do it. yeah, it is pure evil. >> you listen up, gabriel! you're not going to sell our votes to china. >> you listen up, gabriel. what does that mean?! >> i heard about -- again, who knows! i mean, it's -- as i said in one of the conferences today, this all comes out of fever dreams. there's just no basis in any reality whatsoever, but there are people who are emotionally tied to the president and the president is taking advantage of that and one of the other things is, people like lin wood and sidney powell are taking advantage of people who are not understanding the ins and outs of a relatively complex system of how elections work, but the reality is that sidney powell's main claims is that these

dominion voting machines flip votes. we literally did a hand tally and it was 0.105% off, and 0.009% of the margin. showing the machines scanned exactly what the ballots that every voter cast said. i mean, but she's continuing to stick with it. at that same rally, someone asked her about the hand recount, and they said, i'm lying. i'm just lying to people. and i really have a problem with somebody like lin wood who hasn't voted in a republican primary in 2004 telling republicans, don't vote for the republican senate candidates. it's maddening. i can't even begin to put words to it. >> if this were a science fiction movie, you would almost think that they were democratic operatives looking to depress the republican vote. but they're not! they're supporters, ardent supporters of president trump and republicans. do you think that the upshot of all of this is that it will

depress the vote in georgia? >> at this point, there's no way that it can't. the unfortunate part was the president put everybody in this position when he went to senators loeffler and perdue and basically said, you need to call for secretary raffensperger to resign, my boss, for no apparent reason, and they said, because of failures in the vote and a lack of transparency. alisyn, as you know, we were having two press conferences a day and putting out hourly press releases on what was going on with the count. i don't know how much more transparent we could be. we did a hand recount to verify the outcome. we're talking about the most secure election in the history of the state of georgia in the history of the united states. >> so there are statements that will depress the vote, we think. then there are statements that threaten the lives of election officials. i don't know if you heard the president's lawyer, joe degenova, go after chris krebs. did you hear what he said on a radio show? >> if you're -- in my quote/unquote impassioned plea from the other day, the first thing i talked about was a

former u.s. attorney, joe degenova, talking about having chris krebs, a patriot who ran a cyber and infrastructure security agencies to be shot. that was what i opened with. but what brought me to that day, yeah, that was bad, but chris took a big high-profile job, tyke a high-profile job, there was a 20-something tech who was working for dominion voting systems who was innocently doing his job and some of these conspiracy guys were videotaping him and adding commentary about stuff that they didn't understand or didn't care to understand, saying he was manipulating votes. he was moving one report from one machine to another machine. normal processing stuff. and they put that out there and then within a few minutes, there were people putting gifs of nooses saying, may god have mercy on your soul and this kid had a unique name and they put his name out there and his family started getting harassed. that was the straw that broke the camel's back, because this

kid just took a regular job like the hundreds of thousands of other election workers around this country who were just doing their job diligently and well. and they don't deserve it. >> yeah. neither do you. neither does chris krebs. just because you took a high-profile job doesn't mean you have to get death threats and your family has to get death threats. so what do you say to joe degenova? >> dude, you know what the heck you're doing. knock it off. i don't have any easier way to say that. he said he was joking. is this in any kind of an environment where a joke like that can go over? no, it's not. >> and then there's michael flynn, the former national security adviser who president trump just pardoned, who is calling for martial law to be invoked, so that they can hold a new election. your thoughts? >> we have a constitution. every person who works in the government and has been elected to government swears an oath to that constitution. this was the most secure

election in the history of the united states in 2020. because of all the efforts of hundreds of thousands of men and women across this country. to then say, no, no, we're going to throw the whole thing out and start over under martial law, i will say this, if they had another election, i have a pretty good feeling what the outcome would be. but they don't do that in this country. the electorate electors will v december 14th and joe biden will be the president-elect officially. >> gabriel, you seem to be maintaining your sanity somehow despite all of this. >> thanks, alisyn. i cover it well, i guess, at this point. >> we appreciate you speaking out and all of your words and your time this morning. >> thanks, have a great day. >> you too. a programming note, you can watch the georgia senate debate between senator kelly loeffler and reverend raphael warnock sunday night at 7:00 p.m. here on cnn. it was the deadliest day of the pandemic yesterday, but the

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the united states just set a record for coronavirus deaths reported in one day. more deaths reported here in one day, 3,157 than japan has registered the entire pandemic. and i keep repeating this, because it's outrageous and infuriating. and while it's happening, the president, what is he doing? he's trying to overturn the election in public, literally trying to undermine democracy. joining us now, cnn political correspondent, abby phillip. also with us, natasha allford, vice president of digital content and correspondent for grio. zpst n and it's not just the president in this completely deranged, detached from reality 45-minute string of lies he posted on

facebook. the president is doing it and his lawyers are saying these outrageous things in georgia. and then there's michael flynn, national security adviser, former, nthat he just pardoned, is out there publicizing this claim and this entire and this push for martial law. michael flynn is putting this out on twitter, calling for martial law, so there can be a revote here. it's just unbelievable that we're seeing this from the president of the united states. your view? >> unbelievable, unhinged. all of this is really an embarrassment to the president and it makes you wonder why he doesn't have more people around him who are at least attempting to protect him from this kind of thing. who sat around at the white house and said, yes, mr. president, 46 minutes in the white house, you know, in your official, your official offices about this kind of nonsense, with these charts that he claimed to show statistical

anomalies, which i'm pretty sure people in the white house have no idea what that even is supposed to mean. this is beyond the point at which, you know, i think it's -- you know, it's beyond any kind of reasonable action on the white house's part. and i think it's time now for people to come to the president and be clear about the fact that he has to stop doing this. if only for their own political survival. they've got to get voters out in georgia on january 5th. and those voters are getting all kinds of crazy mixed messages s and then the president will go this weekend and urge them to get out and vote. who are they supposed to believe? >> and the gift you get for being an ardent president trump supporter or friend is a super spreader event at the white house. they're planning all sorts of christmas parties. your parting gift will be exposure, possibly, to coronavirus, as chris christie had from a different super spreader event.

and spent time in the hospital. as herman cain had from a rally and died. this is what they're planning. it's beyond -- it's -- it's sick. i mean, it's sick that they're now exposing their friends in this reckless way to this. >> it's a slap in the face to all americans. i'm thinking about more than 274,000 americans who have died. we have people who have family members who are fighting for their lives right now in the hospital. we have americans who made sacrifices. this thanksgiving, who didn't see family, who missed these precious moments. and from the top down, we're not getting leadership on this. it's completely embarrassing. but i think it also reflects that from the very beginning of this pandemic, we have been getting mixed messages and that only extended this endless year. you know, the pain that we've gone through, because people were confused about what to do.

and, you know, the fact that mike pompeo has any role in this, i mean, this is the same person who joked about a second trump term. he's just a joke when you think about the fact that he is even a part of all of this happening. and we know that the guest list reaches the hundreds. we've been told that people will social distance. we all know what happens at a party, people will be hugging and kissing. so, yes, another superspreader event. but people are exercising their freedom of choice and putting themselves in these situations. i'm just thinking about the fact that, you know, the press secretary defends this holiday party by taking a dig at black lives matter activists. saying, you know, well, if you can loot a store or burn down a building, then we can have a holiday party. well, you know, that's a misrepresentation of the actual black lives matter protesters. is they're fighting for the end of the murder of black people,

not to you know, have champagne and dip fondue. two very different things and again a total lack of leadership. >> abby, it strikes me, there are 50-plus days left, so how concerned should people be that there are 50 days left where the president has nuclear codes, where he's trying to undermine democracy, overturn the election, and hold superspreader events at the white house. you say someone needs to go talk to him. who? who at this point? >> look, i think it seems pretty clear that white house aides have taken a step back. they are not engaged in trying to convince the president one way or another. and even if they were, the president is going to listen to who he wants to listen to. and you have people like the press secretary, kayleigh mcenany, auditioning for her post-white house job by appearing on cable news every night to spout this kind of nonsense. it doesn't make any sense, but it seems like people within the white house are already planning for the future. i've already said that i think

that people really do need to be prepared for this transition to be very tumultuous. and that means, because the president is going to be trying to do as much as he can in the limited amount of time that he can. it's going to be pardons, it's going to be a lot of executive activity at the agency level. and it's going to be a lot of wild allegations from the president's own mouth and twitter feed. so that is not going to slow down. i do think, also, that, you know, we've already seen the ways in which, you know, the president is going to try to do what he can do in the last few days of his administration. but the thing about executive actions is that once there is a new president, some of this stuff can actually be undone. so there might be a sort of limited timeline for some of these activities, even if the president tries to do some extreme things in the next 50 days. >> natasha, just thinking pant what president-elect joe biden has to contend with, when he gets this brass ring that he's

wanted his hole life of the presidency, and now he has this horrible pandemic, this economic devastation. and trying to -- i mean, he's already signaling, undo some of the things that president trump has done. and so, you know, where are we with that? and his cabinet picks have already gotten some criticism, i guess, some people think that it's maybe not diverse enough. it's hard to know how much stock to put in that, while all of this other deadly stuff is happenin happening. >> yes, i think president-elect joe biden has been handed a tall order. and fortunately, he's in good company, right? president barack obama was also handed a terrible situation and many people think in part that's part of why he was able to win. the moment called for his leadership at the time. and so the moment calls right now for a leadership who can rise above the drama, rise above the chaos, communicate really

clearly to the american people what they need to do to save lives. reduce harm, and you know, just generally focus on what's best for the american people. i think, as we've pointed out, president trump's actions are very self-centered. you know, the virus is raging and he's more focused on, you know, proving that the election was stolen from him. and we know he's going down to georgia and he's supposed to be advocating for loeffler and perdue, but in many ways, this is about himself. this is about 2024, which he just, you know, at another holiday party said that he was going to come back. so, i think this says a lot about what we've had over the past four years and what we're going to see afterwards, but president-elect joe biden and vice president-elect kamala harris have to keep their eyes on the prize and help the american people to move forward, even as we have this flailing president who wants all the attention on him.

>> natasha, abby, thank you both very much. great to see you this morning. president-elect joe biden and vice president-elect kamala harris will join jake tapper that are ffor their first joint interview since their election victory. this will be interesting. tune in for the special event tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, only on cnn. president trump has long said he supports the troops, so why is he negotiates with soldier's pay? a reality check, next. introducing voltaren arthritis pain gel. the first full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel... available over the counter. voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. voltaren. the joy of movement. keeping your oysters busihas you swamped.

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president trump often claims he's a huge supporter of the military, so why is messing with their paychecks? john avlon is here with a reality check. hi, john. >> hi, ali. what would be the worst way for president trump to close out 2020?

other than trying to overturn an election and presiding over the deadliest stage of a pandemic he downplayed? well, how about playing politics with funding for our troops? because, yep, that's happening. the man who's been basically mia for a job he's fighting to keep after the american people fired him suddenly seems super engaged around a specific policy. so you know it's almost certainly about personal revenge, right? nailed it. for nearly 60 years, the national defense thoorkact has with bipartisan support. this year, $740 billion for things like weapons systems and troop levels and a 3% increase in military pay. but trump, who loves to brag that nobody loves the military more than me, is threatening to veto the whole bill unless a provision is tacked on to kill section 230 of the communications act. what's that, you ask? well, it's an important but slightly obscure law that says that internet platforms like twitter and facebook can't be held legally responsible for things their users post.

key difference between platforms and publishers. now, there's plenty of room for debate around section 230. it's one of the few issues that biden and trump actually agree on, but for very different reasons. biden wants it repealed because it's been used to excuse the spread of disinformation. trump wants it repealed because he believes that recent efforts to crack down on that disinformation amount to censorship of conservatives. and he's particularly ticked off because twitter keeps flagging his posts as misleading, because they are. this tells you a lot about the differences between the two parties, but there shouldn't be any debate about whether the section of 230 should be tied to funding the u.s. military, because they've got absolutely nothing to do with each other. that's why republicans are actually pushing back on president trump this time, so you know it's serious. but there's also a second issue that trump's got with the bill. it contains something he's been fighting tooth and nail to stop. renaming ten military bases that are named after confederate

generals. yes, the pentagon finally decided that it's time to stop honoring soldiers that took up arms against our country to defend slavery. but trump wants to defend that confederate legacy. beyond the dog whistle mask r d masquerading, it came under the guise of something called the lost cause. basically, a refusal to admit defeat. so they created an alternate reality, telling themselves the war was about state's rights, not slavery. they said they were rebels, fighting for constitutional liberty, while using intimidation tactics to deny majority rule. which meant trying to disenfranchise black voters in the south and white supremacist reasserted through segregation for more than a century. it's a retirement that lost causes end badly for everybody, and that includes in a different version, president trump. it's important to admit defeat. agree on facts and basic fairness, so the nation can move forward and try to form a more

perfect union, together. and that's your reality check. >> ah, yes, the alternative facts and narratives. it's interesting to know that history -- >> it never ends well. >> it never ends well and how long they've been trying this. thank you very much, john. all right. we'll get the latest jobs report in the next hour, so what will congress do? ♪ ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment.

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a tense exchange at a house hearing on coronavirus relief. california congresswoman katie porter challenging treasury secretary steve mnuchin over his move to essentially put hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding out of reach from the incoming biden administration. >> i'm reading aloud now from section 4027 of the c.a.r.e.s. act. on or after january 1, 2026, any funds that are remaining

shall be transferred to the general fund. in other words, sent whack to the treasury. secretary mnuchin, is it currently the year 2026, yes or no? >> of course it's not 2026. how ridiculous to ask me that question and waste our time. >> well, secretary mnuchin, i think it's ridiculous that you're play acting to be a lawyer. secretary mnuchin, are you, in fact, a lawyer? >> i do not have a legal degree. i have lawyers that report to me. >> and you're claiming falsely in my opinion, that that is what the law says and you've gotten into a disagreement with someone who is actually a lawyer -- >> are you a lawyer? >> she is, in fact, a lawyer. joining me now is former acting labor secretary during the obama administration seth harris, he is an adviser to the biden transition team. secretary, thanks so much for being with us. look, that exchange happened yesterday, it had to do with the last coronavirus relief bill. where we are today is probably more important to where we're going forward which is discussion over a new relief

bill. before i talk about some new developments in that i just want from you in a simple one-sentence explanation, how dire is the economic situation facing americans this morning? >> for millions of americans it's desperate. we have tens of thousands of americans waiting in food lines in order to be able to feed their families, we have 20 million americans collecting unemployment benefits, we're going to have another million americans identified as having filed unemployment claims last week. we have 10 million fewer jobs today than we had back in february. for many, many, many working families the situation is desperate, congress needs to act immediately to help those families and help the economy to recover. >> all right. i wanted you to lay it out so people know what's happening as congress is now perhaps further along in discussing a relief bill. this bipartisan group of senators and house members put forward a $908 billion proposal,

it includes an extension of unemployment benefits, it includes aid to state and local governments, it includes pandemic emergency unemployment offers there. what happened overnight was that senate minority leader chuck schumer and nancy pelosi came out in support of this and said they would support this bipartisan measure. joe biden, the president-elect, has spoken favorably, says it's a start. how much would this make a difference? >> it would make an important difference, but as the president-elect said, it's a start. the best deal right now is the deal that we can get and these problem solving members of the senate and of the house have laid out a compromised proposal, there is something in it for everybody to like, there's something in it for everybody to hate. that's how you get to a compromise. so we need a deal so we can get the money flowing for small businesses, for unemployed workers, for food insecure

workers, especially for local and state governments that are desperate straights because their revenues have gone down, their costs have gone up due to the covid-19 pandemic so they're laying off cops and firefighters and teachers and nurses and doctors because they simply don't have the money. we need to get the money moving now so that we can begin the process of recovery. this is the beginning not the end of that process, but we have to get started. we've been sitting in the mud not moving for months and months and months and months because of the campaign, now is the time to act. >> so, again, as i said, it was a bipartisan group of members of both the senate and house who put together this plan. democratic leaders came out supportive of it last night. the one thing had a hasn't happened is mitch mcconnell hasn't come out and said anything about t not directly. he's put together his own proposal which is much less, about $500 billion, if that. what would you say to mitch mcconnell? >> pass the bill, senator. we need a bill, the american

people are suffering. this is really a test for senator mcconnell about whether he is going to spend the next four years obstructing all the things that the american people voted for in 2020 or if he's going to find some way to live up to his principles but still compromise with the incoming administration. he can send a signal early on that he understands that his responsibility is to govern not merely to be a political leader. so this is a big priority test for him. it's also a test for the members of the republican caucus to put pressure on him to move forward. if they want to be obstructionists, if that's their place in history, they've demonstrated that they can do that. my hope is that they're going to worry more about the american people than about their own political standing. >> one thing i should have added that's also interesting is beyond the senators who are part of the group who put this plan together there have been a number of republican senators who came out overnight in support of it. it almost definitely has the votes in the senate to pass on a simple majority, whether

mcconnell gets behind it or not is a separate thing. i am curious what you think -- or where you think the economy will be six months from now because there are a lot of economists now saying that as dire as the situation is now, the outlook for next summer and beyond is pretty good. >> i think that is unduly optimistic and people are looking at the changes in the numbers rather than the numbers themselves. if we get the kind of job growth that we have seen over the last three or four months, it will take us one and a half years to get back to where we were in february, and that discounts the job growth we would have had if we did not have a pandemic. i don't think the recovery is going to happen quickly. now, the news of the vaccine is extremely encouraging and once that vaccine starts getting out and we get tens of millions of americans vaccinated against the coronavirus, that's plainly going to make a difference both in the mind-set of americans but

also in their willingness to do business with one another and get the economy moving again. there is a lot of pent up demand in the economy. but that's going to take months and months and months and months. i don't expect us to get back to anything like a semblance of normality until the fourth quarter of 2021, even if the vaccine distribution is immensely successful. >> seth harris, as always, thanks so much for being with us and helping us understand where we are and so people realize, again, there's more optimism than there has been for a stimulus relief package, doesn't mean it's a done deal. we will see if congress mansions to do it in the next few weeks. >> thanks, john. "new day" continues right now. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "new day." we begin with breaking news. more people were reported dead from coronavirus in the united states yesterday than any day ever before. more than 2,800 americans died in just the last 24 hours.

and this morning more than 100,000 people are hospitalized. that's also an all time high. more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases were reported yesterday and that means that the wave is about to get worse. how much worse? well, the cdc now projects that the u.s. will add 60,000 more coronavirus deaths by the day after christmas. listen to the cdc director. >> the reality is december and january and february are going to be rough times. i actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation. largely because of the stress that it's going to put on our health care system. >> the most difficult period in our history. to be clear, the u.s. reported more deaths yesterday than japan has suffered the entire pandemic. we did it in just one day. faced with the worst health crisis in the history of the nation, what is the president

doing? he's trying to overturn the election in public. a string of lies about the election he lost largely to raise money, raise cash for a fund that he can use to fly around the country and throw parties at mar-a-lago. he is detached from both reality and democracy all at once. while americans die in record numbers. joining us now is michael osterholm the director for the center for infectious disease research and policy at the university of minnesota and a member of president-elect biden's coronavirus task force. your reaction to the news this morning. a record number of deaths reported in one day in the united states. >> thank you very much for having me, john. you know, my sense is that we may one day look back and say i wish it was back to 2,600 deaths a day. that's the issue we have to bring forward to the american public right now. this is a very, very difficult and dangerous time and if we don't change our ways this will not be the top of the