and more americans are hospitalized this morning than ever before. more than 247,000 new cases were reported yesterday. that breaks another record. in just hours, an fda advisory panel will review moderna's vaccine, meaning we could have a second vaccine authorized within days. and then overnight, there was this surprising development about pfizer's vaccine. medical workers say they are able to get more doses out of each vial than expected. so we'll have more on what that means in a moment. >> palace breaking this morning, french president emmanuel macron has tested positive for coronavirus. we are told he has experienced symptoms. his office says he will isolate for seven days now. the white house confirms that vice president mike pence plans to get vaccinated on camera tomorrow morning. this will happen live so that the world, america can see the example that he is setting. and cnn has learned that president-elect joe biden will get the vaccine next week, also

in public so people can see it happening. >> joining us now, cnn chief medical correspondent, dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, great to see you, but what horrible, horrible news we're waking up to. 3,656 deaths reported yesterday. i don't know. i know you've been warning us, but that's higher, i think, than we thought. you know, we all had this in our head like, oh, gosh, we should get to 3,000 a day. suddenly, it's up to 3,656. >> yeah. yeah. no, i mean, it's tough to look at these numbers. and i'm glad that we talk about them, because people need to understand how awful and how difficult the situation has been and may become. when we look at these models, because i was with you on this, alisyn. you kind of hope that the numbers are going to come down at some point and there's no specific reason or mitigation measure that would make that happen. when you look at the models, the numbers that we've been constantly talking about have been sort of the scenario based

on all of these triggers that go into effect. if you look at the imhe model, they basically said, when you get to 8 in a million people dying in this country every day, which is around 24 to 2,500 people dying, that basically most states at that point would start to put in significant mission measures. mask mandates, public gathering reductions, certain business closures, things like that. that was the expectation. they said that would happen. and it's not happening. so when we start to look at these numbers now, we get to start understanding that we may be dealing with the more worst-case scenario. and if you look at the worst-case scenario, they're saying over 5,000 people dying for day in some of those scenarios, if those mitigation measures weren't put in place. i wrote an article about this. the body. if it's starting to have significant disease or trauma, it will put its own reflexive,

protective measures in place. it compensates. decompensating is when you're not doing that. the country is not compensating right now for what is happening. and that is why these numbers continue to go up. so we really don't know how significant it's going to be. how long it's going to -- where the plateau is going to happen at the peak and how long that plateau is going to last. so we're trying to figure that out, but it's hard. if the country doesn't respond. >> look, sanjay, you grimaced when you said 5,000 deaths a day. i understand why, but it really is very plausible at this point, when you see the hospitalizations continue to ri rise. deaths are trailing indicator to hospitalizations. we see the hospitalizations rise and we can assume that deaths are going up and the cases are going up and the white house coronavirus task force overnight said the exact same thing you just said, which is that many states are not doing what they did in the summer to stop the surge. they're not instituting the measures you have to if you want

to turn this around. >> right. and you know, we went back and look looked at memorial day and july 4th and tried to basically see, what were the surges like then, what were the various forces? and if you go back and look, there were predictable surges after those holidays as more and more people aggregated together, but now most people who have been watching understand that that was different time of year. it was warmer, people could be outside. here, if we look at the thanksgiving surge and i think we're starting to really be in it now, it's obviously colder outside, so we don't have the mitigation measure of people being able to be outside. and you have another holiday now coming up, where more and more people are likely to get together. this is the sort of amplifying effect upon amplifying effect in the cold weather, which is, again, exactly what people have been warning about for some time. >> all right, well, i'll give you some good news, this morning, sanjay, if you need it, and some surprising news. doctors -- health care workers

are getting more of the vaccine out of each vial than they expected. they thought they would have five doses in each vial. and after they've vaccinated five people, they realize, oh, we have another dose or two left in here. so it sounds like they'll be able to vaccinate more people this round than we thought. >> this is really interesting. and i was just talking to pharmacists rights before i came on the program about this. it seems true, first of all, that these vials are supposed to contain five doses. many of them contain more than five doses. a couple of interesting things sort of popped out. one is that they did notice this in the uk, as well. the same pfizer vaccine that was being distributed over there, they did notice it, didn't quite know what to do with it at that point. there was no specific guidance. so what do we do with this extra fluid that's sitting in the bottom of the bottle here. it's 0.3 milliliters per dose. so five doses would be a certain

amount of fluid. they had more than that in certain instances. didn't know what to do with it. started seeing the same thing here in the united states. the pharmacists say oftentimes when they do what's called the fill and finish, they will put a little extra in, because there's an anticipated a lot of waste as you're drawing it up in the syringe, a certain amount of spillage, so all of these things, they sort of take into account. again, according to this pharmacist, and that's why you may get a little extra dose. but the second part of the equation is, okay, now we're putting in six doses, let's say, instead of five. are we going to get six doses for the second shot, or are we going to potentially be behind over there? they were trying to take that into consideration, as well. there are lots of different factors. quite an interesting story when you put it all together. but the bottom line is exactly what you said, we may have 20% more dosing. so instead of 100 million, potentially, pfizer doses, there could be 120 million, which there's a huge demand, not

enough supply. that is great news. >> it's statistically significant. and i think we all had the same reaction when we read it this morning saying, huh, that's something. it really is something. sanjay, we want to be as transparent as possible about the vaccine and about what's happening to people when they take it. and by and large, it has been incredibly safe, it has gone very smoothly. there have been a very small number of what's called adverse ra reactions, including this one that got some press yesterday in alaska, maybe more than one, where people ended up with a flush feeling, shortness of breath, evaluated heart rate, developed rash. i want you to explain to people what exactly this means and what they should take away from this. again, we're being as transparent as they can be. we don't want people to think we're hiding adverse reactions, but don't want to overplay it, either. >> absolutely. and i'm glad you frame it that way, because when we first heard about this in the uk, we wanted to give all the details of

specifically what happened there. and we are all seeing this together, learning together about what's happening. so there seems to have been now two allergic reactions in alaska. one you sort of mentioned. there was someone who developed flushing of the skin within about ten minutes after receiving the vaccine, received some benadryl at that point, helped a little bit at that point, not enough. person had some tightness in the chest, some shortness of breath. got epinephrine, ended up getting epinephrine in a drip form, and eventually recovered. but it was a significant allergic reaction, an anaphylactic-type reaction. another person now, i think this was originally reported by "the new york times," had an allergic reaction as well. but didn't sound like anaphylactic-type flack tick reaction. had scratchy throat, some puffiness of the eyes, seemed to respond to benadryl and i think some pepcid, but not something that was a true anaphylaxis. but you're right.

we need to keep very close tabs on what these reactions are. and the -- there's this adverse event reporting system, which is in place and people need to be reporting things like this. so far, it is interesting, when we've heard about these reactions, both were in the uk, at the same place, and now two here in the united states in alaska. so, i think that's something investigators are going to look at, as well. i don't know what that means, why it was there and not other places, but there's been tens of thousands now of these vaccines given around the country. we've not heard of those other adverse events. so people need to obviously be reporting those and investigators need to figure out, what is it about the vaccine that may be causing the allergy? is there some particular ingredient people are starting to speculate on what that is. i'm not even going to say it, because it's all speculation at this point. but investigators will probably start looking at what that potentialing ing agrravant is i

vaccine that's causing these sort of reactions. it is very manageable. i want to say that. these reactions seem very manageable and even with other vaccines, there's 1 in a million anaphylactic or severe allergic reactions. you have 350 million people, you're going to expect hundreds of these, ultimately. we don't hear about them or typically report on them, but now we'll report on everything, just like you said. >> very manageable, i think, as you said, the key words here. thank you very much for explaining that so well, sanjay. appreciate it. >> you got it. thank you. developing this morning, there's a lot of snow out there, especially here in the northeast. more snow in some cities than they received all of last winter. cnn meteorologist derek van dam live in boston to get a sense of how things are going, derek. what do you see? >> reporter: yeah, we've got a nice clip of snow coming down right now. the mayor of boston, marty walsh, he declared a snow emergency late last night. and that meant that people needed to talk their cars off the road. no parking overnight on some of these streets, but you can see,

well, some people didn't listen. they got snowed in. we are measuring anywhere between 9 to 10 inches. the plows are out in full force here. but there's a concern that the national weather service keeps talking about, and it is this flash freeze potential. often along the new england coastline where i'm located here, by the north end of boston, we get these warm noses of temperatures, where they flirt around 32 degrees. that's why we have these huge snowflakes falling from the sky right now. and with the temperature so close to the freezing mark, understand the cold air ushers in behind the nor'easter, it will freeze on the ground. we're talking about a 10-degree temperature drop within the next two to three hours. just in time for the morning rush, these roads will get extremely icy. but on the flip side of this, of course, children loving this. they are outside making snow angels, snow forts, and snowball fights. we're in paul revere parkway here on the north end of boston, and you can see just how beautiful of a sight it is. a real-life snow globe here. and the conditions, of course, are going to deteriorate for at

least the next six hours, because winds gusting 60 miles an hour on the backside of the storm, once that cold air rushes in. that means power outages and more flight delays. already 600 flight delays coming in skpoand out of the east coas cities. it is beautiful here, but of course we are needing these plows to do their work this morning so we can get on with our business. back to you. >> boston always looks prettiest in the snow. derek. >> reporter: agree. >> enjoy the north end. the restaurants not open anyway, but just know that they're great. if you had an opportunity to eat, they would be great. thanks so much for being there. >> reporter: i'm eyeing a coffee shop. thanks. >> it looks particularly patriot from a warm studio, i find. by the way, it was not just the snow, chad, it was the wind! i mean, this morning at 4:30 a.m., it was crazy out there, how windy it was. >> and you could hear the sleet bouncing off the windows. you know, some of these snowflakes turned into little sleet balls.

that's why they didn't pile up quite as much for new york city. but binghamton new york is beautiful in the snow. we just can't find it this morning. 41 inches now. the updated number for binghamton, just in the past half hour. so it is still snowing. it is snowing hard in places. upstate new york, skchenectady, east glenville, new york, you scored a touchdown. six inches of snow in the past one hour. here's a hshot from albany, one of our local affiliates out there. yeah, dumping. i've never really heard of 6 inches of snow in one hour, but they proved it. i saw the ruler. i saw the two rulers, one after another on the internet, so here comes the snow. up for portland into boston. another probably six to ten hours of snow for you and that will be the case, piling up another possible foot of snow for parts of vermont, new hampshire, maine, and even into boston. this is what the forecast radar is going to look like.

finally by 8:00, it is gone, but not before another foot of snow coming down there. we'll know more about central park here probably closer to 8:00, but i'm guessing that 6.5 will turn into 8 inches of snow, because we have now snowed for about six hours since the last report. >> after all of this technology, chad, we still just use our rulers, we reporters, when we go out there and they work really well. chad, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. so there were a record number of people who died, americans, from coronavirus yesterday. president trump remains silent on this. instead, he's putting his energy into considering a flurry of pardons. cnn's new reporting on this, next. it's been a tough year. and now with q4 wrapping up, the north pole has to be feeling the heat. it's okay santa, let's workflow it. workflow it...? -uh-huh. just picture it... with the now platform, we'll have the company you always imagined. efficient, productive, seamless.

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this morning, the united states in the midst of the deadliest phase of the coronavirus pandemic. and despite the crisis, president trump is focused on something else. potential pardons in denying his election loss. trump has reportedly even told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the white house on inauguration day. one of his advisers tells cnn,

quote, he's throwing an f'ing temper tantrum. he's going to leave. he's just lashing out. joining us now, cnn political correspondent, abby phillip, and cnn political analyst, david gregory. abby, pardons seem to be where his mind is, not the 3,600 new deaths reported overnight. >> reporter: that's right. and in addition to pardons, of course, the election. but, i think, the thing about pardons is that president trump, for years, has viewed the pardon power as one of the things that he relishes the most about the job. and you can see why. he's the only person who has the ability to do it. and there's nothing anybody else can do about it. he can really wield it however he wants. and i think that we can expect that he will do that. there have been some pardons of people, you know, in the vein of, you know, alice johnson, a grandmother who was jailed for a nonviolent crime years ago, and who has become kind of the face

of criminal justice reform. and i think we may -- we may see some more of those, but underlying those, i think you'll see a lot of political allies of the president's, conservatives and others who the president believes for whatever reason had been wronged by the criminal justice system, i think you will see a slew of those pardons, because the president likes the idea that he can push back on the justice system and he alone can do that. no one else has that power. and no one else can do anything about it. >> yes, in fact, david, that is our cnn reporting. that the phone lines at the white house are clogged from president trump's friends, his former business associates, all wanting a pardon. sometimes, a sort of preemptive, i guess, pardon. and he, you know, because he is a norm breaker and doesn't go through the proper channels really of anything. there's a system set up for pardons, whereby you can vet these requests through the department of justice. he's not doing that. he is taking some of these calls

personally, sometimes jared kushner is. and so, it's hard to know how many pardons we should expect in the next 35 days. >> yeah, i mean, i don't know where the limits would be. and it's interesting that bill barr got out of the justice department before that full controversy hit, because there's always controversy around pardons or lobbying for pardons at the end of the administration, no matter who the president is, but as abby says quite well, this president doesn't have any restraints and jared kushner inside the white house, i think, even more important than the justice department reviews, is going to be an important gatekeeper for these. >> david, it's interesting now what's happening inside the biden transition. they have made a number of cabinet announcements, but there's a big one that's still hanging out there. and that's attorney general. you know, one of the big four positions. and cnn's reporting now is that it's down to two men, and it is men, they say, alabama senator doug jones, who was a close

friend, or a longtime friend of the biden's, and then judge merrick garland, who was barack obama's nominee to fill a supreme court vacancy and is on the court of appeals. the complicating factor, or one of the complicating factors, david, now does appear to be the investigation into hunter biden, which hunter biden has acknowledged. the reason being the doug jones relationship with the biden family. biden may feel that it may not look good if he puts a friend in the justice department. how do you see this playing out? >> i think it's very interesting, the fact that this pick has taken so long. and there are, you know, there are different considerations. you know, we tend to mock president trump saying, you know, i want my eric holder, which is his way of saying, you know, i want somebody who in his mind would protect him. even though the attorney general is independent here, with the hunter biden investigation, there are republicans who are going to look very carefully to make sure that there'll be some independents there and the

matter that will be handled free of political interference. and yet, the president-elect wants somebody with whom he's comfortable, who will have independence, but at some level, allies of the president-elect are going to want to make sure that this is somebody who is going to watch his back a little bit, too. that's just the reality of these moves. in merrick garland, who, you know, as i've said before, i know well, who married my wife and me, actually, it's not only the issue of can he be replaced on the d.c. circuit, which is the highest court of appeals, it's the feeder into the supreme court. that's a consideration. beyond that, i think biden is looking at who gets through a closely divided senate and in merrick garland, you have someone who sailed through confirmation before, who has a lot of political support and is seen as moderate in that regard, and has deep assistance going back to prosecuting the

prosecution of the oklahoma city bombings. >> while all of this is happening, there has been a massive security, cybersecurity breach on the united states, on the government. on the most sensitive and vital systems and networks in our government. tom bossert, former homeland security aid, adviser, wrote a piece about this in "the new york times." and he's just trying to, it sounds like, grab the president and the white house and congress and anybody who will listen by the shoulders and shake them and say, it is impossible to overstate the magnitude of this. he writes, the logistical collusion -- sorry, the logical collusion is that we must act as if the russian government has control of all the networks that it has penetrated, but it is unclear what the russians intend to do next. the access the russians now enjoy could be used for far more than simply spying. i mean, i don't know if my imagination is good enough to understand what happens next. >> yeah, i mean, it does raise a lot of very serious questions

about, frankly, how it even happened in the first place, considering that we had a lot of notice that the russians were trying to gain access to our systems and that they were being very aggressive on this front. and we were, frankly, assured by senior members of the administration that they were on guard, looking for this. and yet it still happened. but i think what's also the most alarming is that the silence coming from this administration has been very telling. and it seems that it's because the president continues to really not want to talk about russia as a bad actor. really not want to address any of these kind of very serious cybersecurity threats that the country faces, because he's focused on a lot of other things, including his false claims about the election. but this is also a problem that's going to persist into the biden administration.

and you know, i think it just illustrates, between the 2016 election and today, that the u.s. seems to remain behind the eight ball in protecting itself from these kind of incursions. and there needs to be some real attention paid to that. the problem is, over the last four years, this issue has only become more politicized, not less. and on capitol hill, in the senate, you're seeing some of these committees that are usually charged with looking at these in a bipartisan fashion, fracturing into basically a partisan mess. so at some point, everyone needs to have a wake-up call and realize that as tom boss earert says, we don't know what russia is going to do with this information, but the possibilities are pretty scary. >> i've got to say, this is not funny at all. but you want to hear something kind of funny? vladimir putin in his marathon press conference, which is still going on, as far as we know, was just asked if he thought donald trump might be granted asylum in russia once he leaves office and

putin sort of laughed it off and said, half jokingly, we are told, there's no need for trump to seek a job in russia, he said. almost 50% of the population voted for him and basically putin said, he'll be fine where he is. so be that as it may. david, to abby's point, this is clearly something that people need to focus on here in the united states. you would think that the key committees in congress would be laser focused on this. like, say, the senate homeland security committee. but, no, senator ron johnson yesterday, instead of focusing on this, a giant hack, which affects all kind of agencies and maybe millions of americans, focused on these outlandish allegations of election fraud instead. what does that tell you? >> that it's not on the up and up. you know, i mean, this is not on the level. tennis political theater of its worst kind. it's hardly unprecedented. we've seen a lot of political theater in washington and on the hill. but it is just an amazing

dereliction of duty. it's not a serious effort that the homeland security committee is engaged. and other members of the committee won't even participate. this is just a bold attempt to shore up some political supporter on trump's coattails and nurse the grievance that trump is going nursing in his political compile. these are, as abby says, really important concerns about our infrastructure, about hardening targets for russians and the chinese and others, who would do us harm in ways that are very, very much in keeping with the 21st century. i do expect a biden administration to take a hard line on russia, which wouldn't be that difficult, after the past four years. certainly, turkrhetorically, bu then in critical areas, especially with our national security apparatus being targeted by russians. >> abby, david, thank you both very much.

also developing this morning, an important update on a story we first told you about two weeks ago. this involves legislation to give federal judges the power to take down internet and social media posts that contain their own personal information, like their social security numbers and their addresses. politico reports the bill has been sidelined after senator rand paul insisted that it had to give similar protections to members of congress before he would pass this one. the measure is named in memory of the 20-year-old son of judge esther salas. he was murdered by a disgruntled man that showed up at the judge's front door with a gun. i spoke with judge salas earlier this month. >> i had one child. one child. and he has been taken from me. my husband of 25 years was almost taken from me. i am not exaggerating when i

tell you that these, these tragedies are going to happen again if we don't act and we don't act now. >> it was too late for judge salas' family, but she was trying to protect other federal judges' families from going through the heartache that she has gone through. we will stay on this story and judge see what happens next. meanwhile, as the united states again marks a record death toll, we're hearing one woman's remarkable battle, a teacher who worked with students up until her final breath. when i was laid off... ...it was absolutely terrifying. i felt like i was just fighting an uphill battle in my career. as a little kid i knew that i wanted to work with computers. ♪ so when i heard about the applied digital skills courses, that definitely appealed to me. you're learning how to create spreadsheets, documents, forms and surveys. i'm thinking i can become more marketable.

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instead of celebrating the holidays, a family in new mexico is planning a funeral. philomena bullone was only 43 years old when she passed away last friday after an intense battle with coronavirus. the third grade teacher spent her last few days teaching virtual lessons while wearing an

oxygen mask. her students and family are now grieving. joining us now is philomena's broth brother. tell us about your sister and why teaching was so important to her. >> thank you, alisyn. it's an honor being on cnn. my wife and i wake to your morning show and we sleep with cnn, so it's an honor being here. before i say anything, first, i want to acknowledge that over 300,000 people that we have lost, we have lost so many people, special people. to the family and friends who have lost loved ones, my heart and prayers for comfort go out to each and every one of you. i would also like to read a quick message from my beautiful sister, philona, who spoke so eloquently in delivering a message of thankfulness.

we are extremely overwhelmed by your generosity, your love, and sentiment that have been given to our beautiful philomena. words cannot express how thankful we are for each one of you. philomena touched many, many lives. it's amazing and only gives us more encouragement to carry on philomena's legacy of joy, her love for family and friends, and her contagious fun spirit. she will always be remembered. and i apologize, i -- >> that's so beautiful. >> thank you. i apologize, i'm trying to hold it together for my sister. she would want me to be strong. she always left the house saying, don't worry about her. and i'm at peace knowing that she's in a better place. but i would like to apologize to you for not -- for forgetting your opening question. would you please ask again. >> yeah, phil. it's an honor for us to be able to talk to someone as generous

as you and as kind and that you're thinking about other families as you are in the middle of this raw grief. and we appreciate everything that you've said for us and for other families. and we just want to be able to recognize that your sister, how many lives she touched. she really wanted to go into teaching. it was so important to her. it was her bliss. and why was that? what motivated her? >> our foundation, our belone family foundation is in christ, jesus. our father in heaven has asked that we each give compassion, empathy, and display sympathy to help others. we love you and we strive to love each and every one as we should, regardless of race, who you love, who you worship.

everyone is equal to us. so we always have strived and committed our lives in service to others, through not only our generosity, but through a commitment to help one another in times of need. that legacy was passed on from my late great grandfather, harry belone sr. and his beautiful wife, lorraine. and also, my grandmother, katherine davis, who spread that love and faith to my mother and grandfather. and you know, philomena was here to serve. we believe through god's grace, we are given many gifts. philomena's gift was teaching. >> and even after she got sick, she still wanted to teach, even after she was so sick that she was wearing an oxygen mask. how did that work?

how was she able to do that? >> philomena was great at making everything work. anytime you would go into her home, she would invite you with open arms. it was better than staying in a five-star hotel. she treated everyone with love and compassion. how she made it work? she was a fighter. she fought the good fight and she referred to her students as her children. when she would call, she would always mention one of her special students. and that gave her life, that gave her focus. and that took away all the pain that she focused in the world and it was her life's calling. so when she was in the hospital, the first time, she wanted to go home, because her calling was to serve others. that was always her calling. that was her life's legacy. so she found courage to leave the hospital and continue to work virtually, to help students in need at ft. wingate

elementary. >> we're looking at pictures of her from her teaching days. one is of halloween. she's obviously dressed up, i think it has a penguin, and she's at a dance there. there she is on halloween. and so, have you heard from her students since she died? >> i've seen -- my mother shared cards and words expressed in those cards of what philomena's has done and how she has affected their lives. i've seen posts from many family members, expressing condolences and thanking philomena's for teaching their kids. so she definitely impacted their lives. i can speak on -- from personal experience, that i share two

special teachers in my life. and i know that they will always share and remember philomena's for everything that she's taught them. so she's going to carry on with them for the rest of their lives. >> and even though we didn't know her, she and you have now touched our lives. so, phil, thank you very much for all of your compassion and for your generosity in sharing your sister with us this morning. philomena's seems like a really beautiful person. and we're really sorry for your loss. >> alisyn, may i say one thing before i leave. >> sure. >> i think my sister would like me to say this. her last wish was that we take care of her children, mila, deon -- her granddaughter, mila, her son, deon, mikhail, and keona. so we're there for them. so they have our continued love and support. but also, i want to end with my

thankfulness for health care workers. at this very moment, health care workers are on the front line battling covid-19. health care workers are putting themselves and their families at risk to help others during this pandemic. i would like to thank nurses, emts, technicians, pharmacists, doctors, and everyone who supports patient care who are fighting to save lives while continuing to care for patients who have other medical conditions. i understand that many of you provide the same care you would for family and are very tired, frustrated, and have to bear the burden of loss now and forever. there is nothing i can give you in honor of your commitment, courage, and compassion. i can simply say, i appreciate you and i am thankful for all that you do. >> we appreciate you, phil. and we honor you. and the memory of your, philomena. thank you so much for all of your words this morning.

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a legal dispute is brewing this morning over president trump's plans to try to live at mar-a-lago permanently after leaving the white house. one of his palm beach neighbors sent this letter to city officials, quote, to avoid an embarrassing situation for everyone and to give the president time to make other living arrangements in the area, we trust you will work with his team to remind them of the use agreement parameters. palm beach has many lovely estates for sale and surely he can find one that meets his needs. joining us now to discuss is doug aaronberg, the state attorney for palm beach florida.

thank you so much for being with us. the use disagreement this, so people know what we're talking about. when donald trump bought mar-a-lago in the early 'ot90s,e signed an agreement with palm beach where he agreed that no one, including donald trump, would stay at the club for more than seven days in a row or more than 21 days out of the year. why was that agreement made in the first place? >> thanks for having me on, john. this was part of a long-standing dispute with trump after he tried to subdivide this historic property of mar-a-lago. the town of palm beach was aghast at it, as were his neighbors, and so that led to this sort of settlement in 1993, where they allowed him to transform a private residence into the social club it is today, but they made sure he would not sell houses or rent the facility out or create a hotel there. it was all part of the deal. even in 1993, his lawyer testified before the town council to assure him that he would not be living on premises.

but, you know, as you know as for president trump, contracts and local rules are often seen as optional and not mandatory. >> he's clearly already in breach of that, correct? >> it looks like it. now, he may have some arguments on his side, like, for example, we don't know if there are some side deals or amendments that could create some ambiguity that would give him a leg to stand on in court. also, one thing we've learned from the trump presidency is he thrives on grievance politics. this would be no different. he would go into court, possibly, and say he was treated very unfairly by the town of palm beach, which has never tried to enforce this agreement in the past, even though everyone knew he's been spending more than 21 days at mar-a-lago every year. and he would say that the only reason why they are trying to enforce it now is because of politics. but john, make no mistake, this is not about politics, this is just part of a long-standing battle between residents and donald trump. he's been seen as a bull in a

china shop there and this battle is coming to a head on january 20th. >> you get the sense that officials down there were willing to look the other way for the four years of the but presidency is a different situation. so in theory what could happen to him and his plan, to be clear, is to move there. he has declared mar-a-lago his primary residence, he will stay there for more than seven days in a row and more than 21 days in a year. what could happen to him if he does do that? >> it seems that the town of palm beach didn't just allow him to stay there more than 21 days during his presidency, no one enforced the agreement before he became president. i don't think a lot of people at the town and city hall knew that this agreement existed and this limitation existed or if they knew that he didn't try to enforce this. so this has been a long-standing issue there. trump would have a case that, hey, they've waived their right to enforce it now. i think ultimately the town would win in court because,

after all, a contract is a contract and it's hard to fight city hall, but as far as the sanctions, the town could use code enforcement to impose fines against trump and the club. they could impose a lien on the club. they could go and sue him in court for breach of contract and they could even as a last resort try to revoke his occupational license that would end mar-a-lago as we know it. >> what's your sense of how far the neighbors are willing to push this and what we might see from decision-makers there? >> well, locally it's known that you don't want to mess around with the town of palm beach and their neighbors are very tough, they take their code enforcement seriously. it's a big reason why so many of the rich and famous move to palm beach. they value their tranquility and relative privacy there. it was like world war iii when they had a dispute ten years ago to open up the first ever starbucks in palm beach. it was a close vote. you would have thought they were trying to put a garbage dump in

the middle of worth avenue. you have people who have lots of resources just like trump does and they can be relentless. now, keep in mind this is not everyone in palm beach. trump does have his supporters there and this is a group of people who probably have had a long running dispute with trump, they don't want the commotion, they don't want the attention, they don't want the drama of having an ex-president return and the law, i think, is probably on their side. >> we've got about 15 seblngds left. if you had to bet this morning as to what would happen, where would you place your money? >> i would bet that trump and the town eventually settle. that this doesn't create years of litigation, but it will impede his ability to live at mar-a-lago permanently. all you have to know is that his helicopter pad that he use toss fly in and out on marine one is being removed as of january 20th because the city has demanded it and the city usually gets its way. >> thanks so much for being with us this morning. appreciate your time. >> thank you, john. so developing this morning,

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developing this morning, an alleged al shabaab operative is facing multiple terrorism-related charges in new york for allegedly taking part in a foiled 9/11-style attack. cnn's shimon prokupecz joins us with the details. >> reporter: this man was arrested back in july of 2019, alisyn, he was taken into custody in the philippines, he is a kenyan citizen and intelligence officials, u.s. and both international, were able to learn of this plot and they basically were able to take him into custody as a result and yesterday the new development is that he was indicted here in manhattan in federal court by the u.s. attorney's office. so some more details have come to light, specifically that one

of the things that this man he was trying to learn aviation and how to breach cockpit doors. investigators say they found that he was researching ways in which to breach cockpit doors. he was also learning how to fly planes. he was training at an aviation academy. he was research how to hijack planes. so perhaps not the smartest person in the way about -- in the ways in which he went about this, but certainly u.s. intelligence officials were able to learn of this and were able to take him into custody. now, there is a couple of significant things with this arrest. the fact that it is al shabaab, one of the things that we don't normally see them planning these kinds of attacks, certainly in the united states. so that certainly has u.s. officials concerned. al shabaab, of course, is a very known terrorist group, they have advertise to al qaeda and one of the things that al shabaab is most known for is for the 2013 mall attack, the west gate mall

attack, which killed 71 people. so of course all of this very concerning for u.s. officials. they were able to take him into custody in 2019. the other thing that they're trying to learn is if he was communicating with the senior officials within al shabaab and was this in any way directed by them or was this something that he thought of on his own as we see in some cases where they are radicalized and in this belief and so they want to carry out attack in the name of a terrorist organization, alisyn. >> very concerning is right. thank you very much for all of that reporting. and "new day" continues right now. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "new day." and the breaking news, records shattered overnight. 3,656 new coronavirus deaths reported. that is the highest number ever.

113,000 americans hospitalized, that is the highest number ever. nearly a quarter million new cases, that is the highest number ever. and the way we're going there is every reason to believe these numbers could still get even worse. in the meantime a key fda panel will consider moderna's application for manual use authorization of its coronavirus vaccine today. that does mean it could be just days before we do have a second vaccine available. >> and the highest profile person yet will get vaccinated tomorrow, vice president mike pence will reportedly get his shot on tv friday morning. president-elect biden plans to roll up his sleeve for the shot on tv next week. this morning we're learning about a disturbing internal push by a trump appointee to expose children and young adults to coronavirus in an attempt to reach herd immunity writing, quote, we want them infected, end quote. at the same time the numbers now show