Christmas. That cannot come soon enough with the u. S. Now bracing for a super surge after the thanksgiving holiday. And what it means for december given november has been the worst month yet for covid cases. What you need to know if you did travel this weekend. Also happening today, for the first time in the world of politics, the president elect and his v. P. Elect havent to get their first classified president ial daily briefing. The biden Team Staffing up, and within just the last hour, launching the ainaugural committee. What that might look like. To start off this morning, some brock in miami, Jacob Soboroff in los angeles, and dr. Natalie azar joining auz well. Sam, promising news on the vaccine front. After this Holiday Weekend things could get worse before they get better. No question about it. 93,000 hospital covid hospitalizations. Thats a record. Thanksgiving travel is not going to help with that. You talked about moderna, the second Pharmaceutical Company to be submitting the vaccine for emergency fda approval. The numbers are outstanding. 94. 1 efficacy rate. 100 effective at preventing serious symptoms from developing. Were not talking about a small sample size. The phase three Clinical Trial involved of the group 11 contracted covid19. None of them getting serious symptoms. That is just remarkable. But we are weeks away from seeing approval from the fda. Most likely middle of december to late december. The thanksgiving day numbers are alarming. 1. 176 million travelers on sunday. Its lower than the year before, but 3. 5 million travelers over a fourday span, knowing the infection rates, the Community Spread thats going on, thats harrowing. Something else to point out, over my shoulder in miami gardens, you see cars over there. Those are people getting tested. Normally when testing demand is high, there are lines down the block, wrapping around. Right now that is not the case. People should be getting tested if theyre returning from thanksgiving. Thats an interesting point. And interesting visual behind you. Jacob, let me go to you. Once any vaccine is approved, the next thing thats got to happen is the distribution. There are some hurdles there. Youre at a Medical Center in l. A. Getting ready to distribute the vaccines as soon as they get the green light for that. Right . Yeah. Thats right. Its a bleak situation, quite frankly in l. A. One out of every 145 people in the county, 12 Million People live here, have the coronavirus. Inside this hospital, they are seeing that surge as well. Saturday there were 7400 new hospitalizations. That broke a record in california. 28 00 of them here in the county of los angeles. And so inside this hospital, they have got these advanced. I think we have footage of it. Cold storage. When i say cold storage, i mean ultra cold for the Pfizer Vaccine in particular. 85 degrees celsius, 121 degrees below zero, they can hold in the freezers up to 200,000 doses of the vaccine. While 2 00,000 dont sound like a lot, it will be important for the fontline workers here. The Elderly Population in the county of los angeles. Everybody thats slated to get that vaccine first as soon as that emergency use authorization goes through. And i should note, were under another stay at home order here in los angeles. You cannot gather with people outside your own immediate family in the county of los angeles starting today. Jacob and sam, thank you. Dr. Sazar, we talked about a bleak situation not just where he is but in so many places around the country. Modernas ceo is talking about what might help. He was on cnbc. I want to play with the moderna yeah had to say. Its highly possible between the 17th and christmas, the product is approved. It means we would be able to ship products as soon as we get approval. We have worked closely. And as we said, we should have up to 20 million doses by the end of the year. So does this news now out of moderna change the timeline for when this vaccine might get widely distributed to folks . Well, not necessarily. Remember, so on december 17th moderna is going to present their case to the independent Advisory Committee of the fda. If they grant the eua, there could be a 24 to 48 hour turn around time. Its only 10 million individuals as it is a twoshot series. In comparison we know fooizer is presenting their data on december 10th and have enough for 20 Million People so far. I just want to add there are 20 Million Health care workers in this country. There are over 50 Million People over the age of 65. Over 100 Million People with chronic conditions. And 60 to 80 Million People considered essential workers. So i do anticipate that americans will be getting vaccinated probably by christmas time. But it will still just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting the entire population where we need it to be. We talked about it. We heard sam lay out thanksgiving weekend. Here we are on the monday after. Millions of americans decided to get on a plane and fly despite advice from health officials. One of our people got a push from rhode island saying hospitals are out of room. Thats before seeing a post holiday surge. Is this going to potentially get worse before we hit that christmas timeline youre talking about . I think were all concerned about that. And were going to see that typical twoweek lag after the travel when hospitalizations will increase, and then unfortunately, shortly thereafter, we are going to see an increase in the number of deaths, and hallie, while there has been no formal recommendation from cdc to quarantine after travel unless you know you were exposed to somebody with covid19, that doesnt mean were telling people to go back to regular activity. Were wanting people to follow the strict guidelines in terms of mask wearing, keeping their distance. If you can, we want you to get tested anywhere from about four to five to up to ten days after you travel. It takes about that long to get after exposure for your test to become positive. And also, reduce what we would call maybe unnecessary activities. Stay at home a little bit more if you can. Perhaps youre not going out to the gym, restaurants and that kind of thing at least for the first week after you come back to decrease the risk of transmitting to somebody else unknowingly. And as you say, doctor, assume youve been exposed. Act like you might have been exposed and take proper precautions moving forward. Exactly. Dr. Birx yesterday said we should all behave as though we were exposed. Doctor, thank you. Were going to talk more about covid later in the show. This morning something is happening that joe biden and Kamala Harris have been waiting for for the last couple of weeks. Theyre getting ready to receive their first president ial level classified intel briefing. Joe biden spent sunday night at the Doctors Office after twisting his ankle playing with his dog. Youre looking at video of him coming out of the office. Bidens doctor says after a ct scan, he ended up with hairline fractures in his right foot. Hell be in a boot for a while. President trump tweeting get well soon. Ali, talk to us. Theres a lot of moving pieces with the biden transition. You have the brief later today. The biden team rolling out economic staffers and the inaugural committee. What can you tell us . Reporter inaugural committee, economic staffers and a slate of communications staffers announced. All the picks meant to reflect the diversity promise this team made on early on where they said they were going to put together a cabinet and a white house staff that looked like america. And so as we move forward into this point of reflective democracy, well look at some of the people we had been hearing about for economic roles but now we know are going to be filling out the seats and are going to be up in many cases for confirmation battles ahead. The first time on the list is someone weve been hearing about for a while, janet yellen, former fed chair under obama. Put up as treasury secretary. Many of the picks youll notice a theme here. Theyre trail blazing. Janet yellen would be the first woman to be at the head of the Treasury Department in the more than 200year history. Nira tanden, going to be nominated today for the office of management and budget. She would be historic if confirmed because she would be the first woman of color in that post and the first south Asian American to lead the omb. Big if there. Were hearing a lot about her potential confirmation battle because of republicans saying that she has said a lot of bad things about republican senators who are now going to be in the position of saying whether or not she gets this job. Cecilia rouse, another woman nominated today. Chair of the counsel of economic advisers. The First American to be in that role. The deputy secretary of the treasury, the first African American person to sit in that seat. And then were hearing about two other economic advisers, heather buche and. Be burnstein has been an economic adviser. Theres a lot happening. And were learning more about what the inaugural the going to look like. We knew it was going to look different. The ceo of this effort now Just Announced this morning as theyre putting out a website, a twitter, all the things that make it official online. The ceo of this effort, though, saying this is going to look different amid the pandemic. But we will honor the american inaugural traditions and engage americans across the country. So unclear whether that looks a little bit like something out of the dnc, maybe well see something socially distanced, but different is the name of the game when were talking about what were looking for come january 20th in washington d. C. And theres a lot of question marks still in the word. Weve covered inaugurations past. Is it going to be on the mall, all those people crowded on to the east front . Probably not. Social distancing . Theres question marks around what different looks like. Meantime, President Trump is starting off this week a lot like he started off the last couple weeks, continuing to push false conspiracy theories about election fraud. That is this morning even after his former top Cyber Security official said no, no, on 60 minutes. Yeah. Thats right. But thats not stopping the president. He has been hes on twitter today. Yesterday in an interview with fox news, on thanksgiving, speaking to reporters. Hes just continuing to lob these unfounded allegations of fraud and conspiracy theories. And it comes as hes had a number of setbacks including in recent days in our home state of pennsylvania where judges there rejected the president and some of his republican allies attempts to try to overturn the results of the election, and some scathing opinions including from a judge that the president had nominated himself. A republican. And so now youre seeing the president s personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, headed down to arizona according to our own Kristen Welker who spoke with him. Hes at a hearing that not really a hearing, its a meeting, in a conference in a Hotel Ballroom similar to the one we saw in gettysburg. It comes as theres people out there who are experts on this saying none of this is true. Lets listen to what some of chris krebs had to say. Theres no foreign power that is flipping votes. Theres no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election. Reporter now, the president saying that hes going to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Hes also expressing doubt he can achieve that. And at the same time, hallie, in that interview with mox news, he was saying despite everything, in the end he will continue to believe what he believes now. His mind is not going to change. Carol lee live for us there at the white house. Its raining as hard it is in delaware where ali was. Thank you to you ladies. Appreciate it. More ahead on the fight to confirm joe bidens cabinet picks with a live report from the hill. What that could mean and why it might get messy. And live at the Supreme Court next. Right now justices are hearing arguments on the president s plan to keep undocumented immigrants out of the census. Why it means some states could give up a seat or two in congress if the administration gets what it wants. And workers at nearly 700 Nursing Homes in the chicago area on strike this morning. Just as the state is reporting some of the biggest covid increases in the country. Were live on the ground in illinois where more than half the states covid deaths have come from those Nursing Homes. Well be back. Ack. Its been a tough year. And now with q4 wrapping up, the north pole has to be feeling the heat. Its okay santa. Lets workflow it. Workflow it. . With the now platform, we can catch problems, before customers even know theyre problems. Wait. A hose . What kid wants a hose . fireman . Says hose. It says horse not a hose cedric get over here now our people can collaborate across silos, from across the globe. So hows the new place . Its a 4 bed, 2. 5 bath igloo. Its great yeah, but you have to live in the south pole. Sir. Wait, are you sure . Yes, were that productive now. You hear that . the kids get twice the presents about time 2020 gave us some good news. Whatever your business is facing. Lets workflow it. Servicenow. Oh my gosh you made it oh shoes i thought yall got lost or something. Did you put some ah, kale in the greens . Oh thank you we didnt forget about you welcome to the family. Thank you. Wooooow. I love it laughter thank you dad so right now the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case about President Trumps census plan. That is a live look at the building. But the virtual hearing is beginning a couple minutes ago. If your eyes are glazing over at the mention of the census, theres a lot at stake. Multiple states could lose states in the house of representatives and lose millions of dollars in federal money depending on how this plays outs. The Trump Administration making the case for excludeing undocumented immigrants from the census count. It also means alabama, minnesota and ohio could each keep a house seat they would otherwise lose according to an analysis by Pugh Research center. Julia ainsley is covering it for us. Why does this matter for peoples daytoday lives . It matters, because even know joe biden is sworn in on january 20th, President Trump will deliver the results of the census on december 31st. He is still in charge of the results of this census. That we only get every ten years. It dictates the number of houses, number of congressional representation each state gets and those states that are immigrant heavy are now arguing the president is punishing them by trying to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census. What well watch for today is whether or not this justice, this Supreme Court bench, is now more conservative, now that weve put more conservatives on the bench after the passing of ruth bader ginsburg, whether they see this argument differently. This is the second time theyve had this question about citizenship in the census put to them in the last year. Already in september of 2019 they said the way the Trump Administration went about this was procedurally wrong to try to scrub undocumented immigrants from the census. Now the question today is whether or not this is really based on the way the Trump Administration is trying to do this. Can they come up with two different census . Thats the way theyve now tried to propose this. Where theres one that includes undocumented immigrants, one that does not, and then the president has the choice of which one to present to congress. Im going to be paying attention to their arguments. And especially the questions that the justices ask around a whole number of persons. That is the way the constitution says people should be counted. Does that include undocumented immigrants or citizens . Thats what ill be paying attention to today. And i know were only a couple minutes into this thing. You havent heard anything yet so far that could give you any tea leaf reading insight into that. Right . Im not, but i know we also have Pete Williams listening in while im talking to you. As soon as we have some tea leaves, im sure well be able to bring them on air. Sounds good. Julia, thank you. I appreciate you being with us. Up next, bill de blasio set to update reporters on the coronavirus. Thats a day after announcing they will restart in person classing for the youngest students. Emily oser, all over the data behind kids in schools joins us for that. Plus the longterm effect of so many kiparents pulling their kids out of Public Schools altogether. A scientist was assassinated friday claiming the remotes weapons were from israel. Before the service in tehran the countrys leaders condemned the attack and promised retaliation on multiple fronts. The Iranian Parliament is reviewing a bill that would prevent further inspections by the International Atomic energy agency. Nbc news has not confirmed details of the assassination. Tin 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. Youre learning how to create spreadsheets, documents, forms and surveys. Im thinking i can become more marketable. 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So try making it smaller, and youll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette. I got it all from you im always pushing through i know well make it to the finish line i know youre waiting on the other side im like you ondemand glucose monitoring. Because theyre always on. Another lifechanging technology from abbott. So you dont wait for life. You live it. A happening live right now, new york mayor has just taken the microphone. You can see him on the left side of your screen talking to reporters after announcing his decision to send younger students back to inPerson Learning next week. In the countrys Biggest School system. Its something other School Districts are trying to figure out, how to make it safe for kids and teachers. Were also following chicago. Nursing home and longterm care workers are hitting their second week on strike with a scary situation in those facilities. More than 6,000 covid deaths in illinois happened in Nursing Homes. Almost half of all the deaths from coronavirus reported in the state by the department of health. Now some of the nursing home workers say theyre not getting paid fairly and not getting enough ppe. In the maddon, give the workers what they deserve, and put the residents first. Put the workers first. For once, put other things first than your profit and greed. Lets bring in Valerie Castro on the ground. Explain the frustration of workers youre talking to and what the Health Care Companies that run these facilities have to say. Reporter good morning, hallie. In this case were talking about infin si health Care Management. That is a company that owns 11 longterm care facilities across the state, including the one were standing in front of this morning. 700 infinity workers have been on strike since last monday. Theyre rallying again. They say their contract expired in late may. Theyve been trying to negotiate a new one since june. They say the company has not been able to commit a starting wage of 15 or commit to pandemic pay, and they say they dont have adequate ppe. They have been rallying every day since they went on strike last monday. We asked them about some of their demands. Heres what they had to say. We are looking for living wages. Proper ppe. We need for them to stop shortstaffing us. They were able to bring agency in. When were shortstaffed, if you were able to bring in agency for us being on strike, you need to bring them in when were shortstaffed. There shouldnt be any excuse for that. And they mention that substitute workers have been brought in to take their place during the strike. Again, theyre concerned about the residents. They feel the substitute workers arent adequate enough. We did reach out to Infinity HealthCare Management numerous times over the weekend and again this morning. But have had no response. Valerie live us us in thank you. New york were talking about covid in schools. I want to bring in a professor of economics at brown university. Shes also behind the website covid explained that is an invaluable resource to so many parents i know to help parents make decisions about sending their kids to school. Its great to have you. Thank you. I have to be honest, as soon as i saw i saw the mayors announcement in new york over the weekend with headlines about schools and kids. I thought we have to get emily on the show. You know this data well. You broke your twitter break which i respect to come onto react about this. You like some things about this new york plan the mayor is doing. Why . I think that actually this plan is really driven by the science. Hes focusing on younger kids who we know are the lowest risk and we know benefit the most from face to face inPerson Schooling and hes emphasizing the mitigations. Everybody Wearing Masks all the time. Theyre doing additional testing. Theyre doing some distancing. The other thing hes prepping, and schools have been struggling with this complicated hybrid plan. Because not everyone has opted to come back, the school is effectively dedense if ied just by the option to optd in and out. I think its going to be possible to keep that sort of additional distancing while making the school sj easier for teachers and administrators to match. The weekly testing component is interesting. The idea kids are tested on a regular basis. Good plan, good idea in your view . I think it is really important that we get this testing in for teachers because this is a Higher Risk Group and were more likely to find cases there. I also think that we have a lot of work to do to increase trust for both parents and teachers. And this kind of thing, these kind of testing options, i think thats a huge weight in terms of trust. For me, thats the most important. When you step back and look at schools, theres been number crunching that looks at enrollment in Public Schools. It is down, and for people who can afford private school, applications are going up. And i wonder in your view what the longterm impact of that might be . What does this say about Public School offerings . Yeah. I think we may see that trend continue. Theres been a lot of frustration. Ive heard from people. They thought okay, it will be until october. Now theyre saying im not seeing things changing, im putting my kids in private school in january. I think it remains to be seen if thats a longterm view or just something for this school year, but its certainly changed how people are thinking about schooling. Particularly since a lot of private schools even Catholic Schools are in person. Dr. Fauci was talking about the schools over the weekend. I want to play for you a little bit of what he had to say enkabslating whenkabs kapslating what i think is the attitude from a lot of Public Health officials. Close the bars and keep the schools open. You dont have one size fits all, but as i said in the past and as you accurately quoted me, the default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school and get them back to school. He points out, its not a onesize fits all. Its individualized to the district and the kids and the communities. Do you think, though, that given where we are in this spectrum, given the moment that were in in this pandemic, more schools will look to reopen . Is that some of the things youre seeing as far as it comes to in Person Learning versus the hybrid approach . Yeah. I think we will see more of that. In part because i think many of the places closed are in fairly low risk areas or at least lower risk than the average in the country. So an odd aspect is many of the places open more are in precisely these places in the upper midwest that have had the worst experience the in the last couple months. I think as we see places like boston, baltimore, san francisco, i am hoping well see more push to open there, particularly as new york doesnt. Because new york has a lot of the same kinds of complications that the other large urban districts have. If they can show a way into doing it, i think there may be more progress and more push in other areas to do the same. You put together this mitigation dashboard that shows some of the precautions that schools can take to make sure kids and teachers are safe. If youre a parent, because thats the bottom line, if youre a bottom who has the choice to not keep your kid in Public School, what are you looking at . What do you need to know to make that decision for your family . I think in terms of Public Health risks, i think the biggest things in schools that is important is masking. And so i think you want to think about whatever in Person School youre going to send your kid to, there should be some masking. And i think thats important, actually, just as important, probably more important for teachers than for students. I also think a big factor for students is how is this going for your kid in terms of Remote Learning . There are some kids that Remote Learning is more complicated than for others. Thats a big piece. Thank you for being with us this morning, announcing this morning that you have a new book coming out soon. I know a lot of folks will be excited to read that. Professor, thank you for being with us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Up next, President Trump has kept up his made up voter fraud claims largely to the silence of most other republican leaders. So will they come to regret that next month . Why those chickens could come home to roost when it comes to the Georgia Senate runoff. And a top gop senator saying president elect bidens pick to head the office of management and budget has no chance of being confirmed. Really . Were live on capitol hill next. First, it was just weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago that Melania Trump created a controversy after she was heard questioning in harsh terms on a tape about who cared about Christmas Decorations at the white house according to leaked audio from and of her friends and former advisers. For anyone who enjoys it, the first lady is enjoying her last crack at making the place festive for the holiday season. This just in. Ornaments, stockings, holiday. Plenty of it. All of it. Decking out the halls. Were at e need to silence our phone. Who knows where that button is . I dont have silent. Everyone does right up here. It happens to all of us. We buy a new home, and we turn into our parents. What i do is help new homeowners overcome this. What is that, an adjustable spanner . Good choice, steve. 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I feel hopeful about the future now. Hour, president elect joe biden announced his new economic team. Before he did that, there was resistance to one of the people on capitol hill. Neera tanden has, quote, no chance of getting confirmed should the republicans keep control of the senate. Its because of a history of disparaging comments about republican senators whose votes shell need. She has named ted cruz wheezel ted and compared Mitch Mcconnell to lord voldemort. Garrett, there was a tweet that pointed out a hypocrisy of republicans saying he said the many disparaging comments say by trump who has belittled people for their race, background or looks . Poor baby. Listen, i dont mean to be glib, but for the last four years weve heard many republicans they say dont have time to look at twitter when it comes to President Trump because they have jobs to do and policies to implement, and yet, that seems to be some of the basis for the opposition to neera tanden. Mean tweets are hardly a typical reason for which someone doesnt get confirmed to a cabinet level post, but tanden has been a political operator. She worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign and leads the senate for american progress. Shes not someone who has been previously senate confirmed. So if youre looking at the landscape of these appointees that weve seen from biden so far, here you see someone with a political background. Doesnt have a history of already being confirmed and someone who republicans find distasteful for mean tweets weve mentioned. She might become something of a sink for republicans who are angry about biden, dont like his policies, what have you, pick your issue, so go after. You see some of the other appointees out there, the National Security oriented picks, treasury secretary and so forth. Governing minded republicans want to make sure that even someone who is on the opposite party will have a team that allow the government to function early on. This may be one where they think they can go after somebody with fairly little consequence that they see as a partisan fighter. So bottom line, then, to get it sounds like the biden team should potentially rightfully be concerned about getting her through the confirmation process . I think thats right. And how many other conversations have we had on different topics that come to this point. Georgia is critical. You get to 350 50, its less of a concern. Yeah. Garrett haake who is clearly looking at the rundown and nows were about to talk to georgia right this second. Garrett, thank you for joining us live. Lets talk about the balance of power in senate. A couple things this morning. We learned that select mark kelly will be sworn in in about 48 hours this wednesday at noon. Arizona is expected to certify the Election Results in a few hours. With control of the senate on the line and the biden agenda, georgia is touching all these things were talking about in the world of politics. Two Senate Runoff races five weeks away. More and more concern among republicans that President Trumps claims that he constantly keeps repeating about this rigged election as he puts it, despite no evidence of that, could depress turnout and divide the party more. This weekend the president fuelled the flames by taking aim at the republican governor of the state. The governor has done nothing. Im ashamed i endorsed him. You talk about the gop tensions. Those were on display over the weekend when the rnc chair met with republicans. Listen to this back and forth. Work when its already decided . Its not decided. How do you know . If you lose your faith and you dont vote and people walk away, that will decide it. The problem is President Trump is insisting repeatedly the election was stolen from him. There you have the rnc saying something different. With us the a political reporter for the Atlanta Journal constitution. Its great to have you on the show. Welcome. Thanks for having me. So you and your Politics Team are writing about these five burning questions for Georgia Senate runoff. Theres a couple at the top of the list that i think are interesting i want to ask about. First is what role President Trump will play . We know hes headed there this weekend with a runoff rally basically for david perdue and Kelly Loeffler saturday. Yet, hes also going after other republicans in the state. The second question is about the idea of gop unity. How is it navigated if youre on the gop side looking to control senate when joe biden is the president . Its tricky for republicans. As were seeing even this morning, President Trump continues to attack Governor Kemp and secretary of state two republicans he endorsed in 2018 for not doing more to overturn the Election Results to joe biden won the state. Republicans here are very wary of an ttagonizing the president. They know they need his supporters in order for republicans to have a chance of retaining control of the senate. At the same time, he is directly instigating attacks on basically tearing up the very fabric of the Georgia Republican party, and leading to some possible 2022 challenges of not only Governor Kemp but also the secretary of state. Theres basically an internal civil war wage right now at a time when the Republican Party is desperate to unite. And you saw some of that come to light at the cobb county republican meeting on saturday when you had people and you heard the woman in the crowd saying how are we supposed to get money if this was decided . Its not been, but that plays into what the president keeps talking about, the unfounded claims of conspiracy. Thats the president s worst nightmare. All the talk about the false claims of widespread fraud, about voter irregularities, the issues that republican officials here have debunked repeatedly. They seep into the base. If you have, i dont know, 5 or 10 of the loyal Republican Base that would have otherwise voted but who hear all this and decide to stay home, well, that could be a direct threat to republicans keeping hold of the u. S. Senate. I mean, its really a fundamental issue right now. I think youre right. It is understood faundamental. Its interesting your writing about jon ossoff embracing Bernie Sanders which highlights a shift for georgia democrats. He tried to avoid it the last time he ran four years ago. Right . Yeah. If you go back a few years in georgia politics, democrats were the candidates who steered clear of national figures. Republicans embraced them. Now youre seeing, it started with stacey abrams, but now youre seeing more the embrace of democratic figures like Bernie Sanders. Like Kamala Harris, like barack obama and like president elect joe biden. Theyre going to be welcoming all those figures back to georgia if they choose to rally here in a way that we have not seen in georgia really in a major way playing a major role. Gregg, great reporting. I appreciate you being with us. Im sure over the next five weeks well see each other quite a bit. Good luck to you. After the break, are you ready for some football . Maybe the better question is is football ready for some covid . Youve got a growing number of players sidelined as the nfl fights the surge in cases in the league. Why they may be forced to go to its last resort. What that means coming up. Plus in our next hour, ali velshi continues his across america tour look agent how the pandemic has impacted businesses. Is that him . Maybe a standin . Get ready. 12 minutes away. Y. 12 minutes away. Smoothies, and do even more. Chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. The ninja foodi power pitcher. Rethink what a blender can do. 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A pill for adults with moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. Xeljanz can help relieve joint pain and swelling, stiffness, and helps stop further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. Before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections, like tb and do blood tests. Tell your doctor if youve had hepatitis b or c, have flulike symptoms, or are prone to infections. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. Taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. Tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. Dont let another morning go by without asking your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. Xeljanz. It is a different kind of spike for the nfl, which is now dealing with a spike in coronavirus cases. This morning, youve got all the nfl facilities closed, with the league shutting down inperson activities until wednesday. There are a couple exceptions. Theres tonights monday night Football Game between the sad Philadelphia Eagles and the seattle seahawks, and a tuesday night game between the steelers and ravens, pushed back from thanksgiving after more than two dozen ravens players and staffers tested positive. Including star quarterback lamar jackson. Speaking of quarterbacks, the broncos ran out of them. Jeff driscoll tested positive, three others were forced into quarterback because they were highrisk contacts for not Wearing Masks. That put the rookie wide receiver into an emergency start. The nfl blames setbacks on players, in part, celebrating thanksgiving with outside family members. There hasnt been spread on the field. There hasnt been spread from one team to another, from, you know, things that are happening within a game. With me now is host of the lead podcast for the athletic. Thank you for being on with us. My team knows i love the nfl. The league has a big problem on its hands, right . When covid sidelines all the quarterbacks on one team, delays for several days another game were looking ahead to tuesday night, and now theres an investigation into whether the broncos, as well as the ravens, broke protocol. What is going on . Yeah, its kind of hard to know where to start here. The most obvious place to start is with the bronco situation because we just saw that play out on the field in a bizarre way yesterday. Where they had to play a backup wide receiver, practice squad wide receiver who hadnt played quarterback in years. I think the question here is, how are they going to actually try and contain the spread . With the ravens, thats the number one concern. We actually got news that yesterday, there was a positive test again, so thats eight Straight Days of positives in baltimore. Tomorrows game in pittsburgh is very much in question right now. What happens if they dont play it tomorrow night . Its a good question. There are a lot of scenarios. The nfl has said that it actually does have the power to force a team to forfeit if it finds that a team has broken protocol. Thats on the table. The worstcase scenario for the nfl and, frankly, for the steelers, would be playing a week 18 game, which would end up pushing the playoffs and possibly the super bowl, which is just something the nfl does not want to do. And that just essentially pushes everything back a week, right . Its not like they play those games on this i mean, you have no choice, but at that point, lengthen the season . Yeah. At this point, youre late enough in the season you dont really have a lot of bye weeks you can postpone games to, which was a luxury that the nfl had earlier when we had outbreaks in tennessee. Thats really not an option right now. The nfl is kind of just holding its breath, and especially the ravens right now are in a holding pattern. Theyre still in baltimore. They were supposed to travel to pittsburgh tonight, but they got word from the nfl that they shut down all their practices for today. Theyre waiting on word from that. Can you just explain this to me, because this is what i dont get, covid is enough to shut down inperson activities through wednesday, according to the league, yet theyre going ahead with the games tonight and tomorrow night, at least for the moment. How does that square . It doesnt seem to make a lot of sense. What the nfl has said and maintained is that onfield activity doesnt actually lead to spread. What theyre seeing causing the spread is off the field stuff, Team Meetings and practices. So, yeah, i mean, it doesnt make a lot of sense to us, but think really want to continue the games and will do so as much as they can. Its not just the nfl but college football, too, that covid is really affecting. You actually saw something, what i think is a little bit of a bright spot come out of that, with vanderbilt soccer player, sarah fuller, becoming the first female to play in a power five conference. Explain this. The entire rest of the vandy kicking squad, i believe, kicking whatever, folks, were out with covid, so she had to step in, right . Yeah, vanderbilt basically had to turn to sarah fuller as an alternative because they lost all of their kickers to covid. You know, shes a soccer player. Vandy doesnt have a mens soccer program, and she was the best available option. Frankly, she did everything asked of her. The first play was a designed play she executed perfectly. It was a really great moment, to see, despite some of the noise you might have heard around it. Thats awesome. Sarah fuller, props to her. And to you, thank you so much for being on to talk one of my favorite nonpolitics topics. Appreciate it. Does does it for us and msnbc live. Ill see you at the white house for nightly news. Next on this network, ali velshi is live for the special hour from north dakota. S south dakota. See you in a bit. South dakota. See you in a bit ng we want to be when helping people find a medicare plan. So if youre looking for yours, say hello to hellomedicare. A one stop shop for medicare plans,. Including a range of Unitedhealthcare Medicare advantage plans. Plans that could give you 0 copays on all primary care, doctor visits, preventive dental care, and eye exams. With hellomedicare, you can learn, compare, even enroll all in one place. No matter where you are in your search. Give us a call. Our licensed hellomedicare agents are here to help guide you to a plan that fits your needs. Because we get it finding the right medicare plan can be challenging. Plans can differ by price. Or benefits. They can even differ by where you live. Thats why were here to put it all together. 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Wire, weve had to rethink our whole approach. Were going to give togetherness. Logistically, its been a nightmare. Im not sure its going to work. Itll work. I didnt know you were listening. Good morning. Im ali velshi, live in scenic, south dakota, on the edge of the pine ridge reservation, home to the largest tribe in the state. Scenic is really the name of the place i am in. It is also the right word for what you see all around me. You know that i learned so much from being out in the field, talking to people, and so we are live in americas vibrant communities every week. To be frank, the beauty of what you are seeing right now, that is the pine ridge reservation, the beauty of what you are seeing in south dakota masks the grim underbelly of this pandemic. South dakota is reporting some of the highest covid death