good morning to you. i'm pamela brown, in for jim and poppy this morning. president trump is throwing out the lame duck playbook and throwing his final days in office chaos, which could impact millions of americans. it took months for congress to finally finalize and pass a stimulus deal. now the president is signaling that he won't get behind it. never mind that this deal was negotiated by his own administration. and that the government could be shut down and benefits for millions of americans would expire. how will lawmakers respond? that is a big question this morning. and the president is also unleaving unleashing a wave of pardons, many controversial, including some who pleaded guilty to the mueller investigation. also new this morning, the battle against the coronavirus, the u.s. is buying another 100

million doses of the pfizer vaccine. experts warn the key to stopping the virus is scrap those big holiday gatherings. so far people are not heeding that warning based on what we are seeing at the airports now. let's begin at the white house with john harwood. john, why is the president suddenly so interested in this bill now when he stayed on the sidelines in large part for months while it was being negotiated? >> well, we know pam it's not because of the content of the bill itself. the president could care less about that. if he did, he would have been involved. we also do not know whether the president is simply harmlessly making noise trying to make himself look good, trying to smack around political adversaries, the people who understand that they're going to be working with joe biden very soon, or whether he's actually trying to be destructive, cause a government shutdown, cause the american people to lose this

relief. the president is erratic, unpredictable. he can't handle in a sensible, mature way he's defeated by joe biden, so he's pushing this delusion he actually won the election. that's not going anywhere. at some level he knows that. and we're just going to have to wait and see. is this a one off, or is he trying to take it down? we'll be watching. >> senior political analyst john avlon is also here. john, it is true that it's anyone's guess which way this will go because of the erratic behavior from this president. what are the millions of people sitting at home looking forward to some relief after a very stressful year now anxious, not knowing what's going to happen, what are they supposed to think this morning? >> that we have a completely incoherent, borderline, incompetent president,

undercutting his own party's negotiations in this deal in a speech full of lies where he ends up speaking and acting as if he will have a second term when he will not. but this is a very dangerous time for our country. he can be swimming around the lap of luxury at mar-a-lago while people are suffering in the wake of christmas in the absence of this bill. if he wanted a better bill, if he wanted a higher number, he should have negotiated for it. instead, the house passed its own version in the summer. this finally got through the senate because of a bipartisan effort but his team negotiated. to attack it and undercut it now is simply cruelty as we face christmas for all of the people depending on something to help people through this period as the covid gets worse. >> the timing of this, john, last night i was reporting on the latest wave of pardons and in around 15 minutes this video was released that had us all sort of scratching our heads. what can you tell us about the latest wave of pardons issued by

the president? i imagine this is just the beginning from what i have been hearing. >> it is just the beginning, pam. what this first installment shows is the president is determined to use the power of office as he gets ready to leave to protect his friends, his allies and himself. so he pardoned these three corrupt republican congressmen who were early endorsers of his campaign. he does this at a time when he's trying to get house republicans to back his bid to challenge the election results. he pardoned those four blackwater guards who worked for eric prin erik prince when they murdered those people in iraq. erik prince later tried to bribe officials to cover up what happened and that ended up not working and he's also the brother to betsy devos, the secretary of education under president trump. most importantly he pardoned these two people convicted in

the mueller probe of trump in his relationship with russia. his overarching goal is to escape political and legal accountability for his relationship with vladimir putin for the health that they provided him and whatever he's done in return for that. of course, we're ending his administration on a massive hack of u.s. government agencies and business, which the president has tried to absolve russia of and points to china. but the -- alex van der zwaan and george popolopodus are just a continuation of what happened with the commuting of the sentence of roger stone, with the pardoning of mike flynn. we expect more with paul manafort, his campaign manager, and the president may try to pardon himself. >> we'll have to see. what do you think about these pardons hours before attorney general barr leaves? >> well, that's an indication that this is not just the beginning but these might be the

most palatable of the pardon spree the president is about to go on. but you see a couple clear themes in addition to what john harwood just laid out. look, he's pardoning me trying to make money, steal money out of campaigns, people who lied to investigators or congress. these are clearly things the president is reflecting a degree of projection on, he lies all the time, how much money he's made off the office of president and pardon of political cronies against the backdrop of the russia investigation. this is going to get worse. it is a complete insult to the intentions of the founders when they came up with pardon power, who worried explicitly not only about constraining a it ran cal executive but if the president would try to pardon people they put up to crimes. what the president's been talking about in all of the corruption surrounding his administration, sedition, trying to overthrow an election and in the case of the russian hack, which he refused to condemn the

kremlin for, one of the dozens of times he refused to accuse the kremlin, got asked why these giving a hostile foreign power comfort? in ee effect he's aiding the enemy. he's constrained by the constitution on january 20th. he's constrained by the fact the administration are getting orders to move on but he's doubling down with conspiracy theorists and plotting in the white house to overturn our election, every democratic norm he can possibly destroy before he leaves town. >> the connected tissue with some of the more high-profile pardons are the fact they've been brought to the attention of the white house then pushed by gop allies of the president on capitol hill and conservative c media. this is the idea of draining the swamp, but john harwood, is this reflective of that? >> the president never had the slightest intention of draining

the swamp. the ethos of donald trump is what's in it for me? when he said drain the swamp, what he meant was, i'm going to go get mine and do what i can to help people who help me get mine. so you can't take that term at face value. the president's tried to make money off the presidency and here we see with these pardons he's trying to protect his friends and allies. >> john harwood and john avlon, thank you very much. this morning health and human services secretary alex azar announced the u.s. is buying an additional 100 million doses of the pfizer vaccine and they expect to receive all of those doses by august. let's bring in cnn senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. elizabeth, how significant is this? >> it's definitely significant. way back, pam, i remember you and i talking back in the spring or summer, they were sort of preordering these vaccines.

they didn't know how much to order of which, because some of them might not work. pfizer's and moderna's turned out to work better than anyone expected so now they're buying more. the secretary of health and human services, alex azar, has said with pfizer and moderna, those two purchases together add up to 400 million. you have to cut that in half when you look at how many people that takes care of because everybody needs 200 doses so enough for 200 million people. let's look at something secretary azar put in a press release. i think this was sort of the bottom line here. he said, this new federal purchase could give americans even more confidence that we will have enough supplies to vaccinate every american who wants it by july 2021. so what he's saying here is the intention is that if you want it, you'll be able to get it by july of 2021. so not immediate. people are going to have to wait, but we can look forward to hopefully a summer where everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

pam? >> hopefully. and then there are these travel restrictions that are continuing to tighten around the uk as we try to learn more about this new variant. what have we learned so far? >> so we know that other countries, many other countries, have said we don't basically we don't want flights coming in from the uk and the u.s. has not chosen to go that route. cnn spoke earlier this morning with dr. rochelle va lensky, the incoming cdc director under president-elect biden, and she said he that's a consideration. it sounds like it's on the list of possibilities but she said there might be other things done as well. quarantining people coming in from the uk, testing them, doing some combination of that. so i don't know that we are going to see a travel ban. the u.s. may stand not alone but almost alone in not putting in restrictions. but consider this, it appears this variant is already here. so do you really need to have a travel ban whether we know it is

likely already here? i have spoken to scientists who say probably hundreds of people in the u.s. have this uk variant, which we know is likely to transmit more quickly. now, we don't have documentation that americans have this uk variant but really that's because the surveillance system in this country is not so great. we haven't caught it yet but we know it's likely here. pamela? >> okay, elizabeth cohen, thank you so much. still to come this morning, president trump calls the carefully crafted stimulus bill a disgrace. could his position put relief for millions of americans in jeopardy and cause the government to shut down? president-elect biden laid the blame for the massive cyberattack squarely on president trump. i'll talk to a top democrat on the house intelligence committee up next. and president trump has pardoned military contractors involved in the massacre of iraqi civilians. a survivor of that attack is now speaking out. stay with us.

this morning right now as we speak, will americans facing food and rent evictions get the help they desperately need? the president now says he won't sign a compromised bill that finally passed after months of congressional bickering unless changes are made. house speaker nancy pelosi is in favor of one big change he wants. with me now is congresswoman jackie speier from california. thank you for coming on.

president trump said he wants more money to go directly to americans, something democrats want too. were you surprised when he did this, and do you welcome it? >> so, we're surprised and gleeful about it, but he's been awa awol during these negotiations for the last two weeks while he was trying to overturn the elections by the american people. so coming out with this magnanimous offer is terrific, it's exactly what we wanted, but we weren't allowed to get it because of the republicans in the senate in particular. so they were only interested in doing this package at all because of the georgia elections and that is what has motivated them. >> so let's just talk about that. as with he know speaker pelosi thumbed her nose from the proposal of the white house at one point $8 trillion before the election. now the democrats seem to like

the idea of putting money more in americans' pockets and what the president is proposing. why is that, why was she against it before the election and now for this? >> first of all, she was always for a minimum of $1,200 of economic stimulus and republicans said that was out of the question. they were more interested in a three-martini lunch 100% deduction when restaurants are closed and people are not going out for lunch, nor is that one of the priorities of democrats. before the election, she was also fighting tooth and nail to get money for state and local governments because we've had so many people that have been laid off, and we're talking about police, fire, teachers as a result of the pain and suffering that states and local governments have endured. so that's what she was fighting for. after the election, we were

still negotiating for that and they made it absolutely clear that wasn't going to be the deal. the only way we were going to get anything was this pittance of $600 per person, and that was a tradeoff for not giving money to state and local governments. >> it where does this go from here? will you be voting on a new measure today, given where things stand with the president's message? >> we will take this -- the president, whom had no interest in negotiating or being part of helping americans, but now that he's offered $2,000, we will actually take that bill up on the house floor tomorrow and give the republicans the opportunity to embrace it. they have typically not done so. >> okay. i want to move on to another big development that came out last night and that was this pardon spree, including two men who pleaded guilty in robert mueller's investigation.

three former congressmen who had been convicted of corruption and four blackwater guards involved in the iraq mass car. these are just some of the people the president pardoned, along with several nonviolent drug offenders. what is your reaction? >> it turns my stomach, to be quite honest with you. the president will pardon you if you lie for him. the president will pardon you if you are one of the first members that endorsed him. the president will pardon you even though you killed 17 civilians in a noncombative setting and a trial that took place three times. this is a president who does not provide pardons based on mercy and repentance in the sense of people who have kind of paid their dues. he does it because it reflects

on him. if you're going to lie for him, you're going to get a pardon. look forward to seeing paul manafort pardoned soon and others within his orbit who have been willing to lie for him or who have been engrandizers to him. >> is i want to get to the russian hack before we let you go. there was a massive rush hack of private companies. here's what joe biden said last night. >> this has all happened on donald trump's watch when he wasn't watching. it's still his responsibility as president to defend american interest for the next four weeks. rest assured that even if he does not take it seriously, i will. >> what does the incoming biden team need to do to deter them, stop them, when sanctions have already been ramped up so much?

>> there's so much more we need to do. and the president has been absolutely silent. and putting our national security at great risk. this is like an act of war. we know that they've gone into our networks. the we don't know if they're just occupying the networks or if they have taken control of the networks. this is so serious and yet the president hasn't said a peep. he hasn't said a peep when it was alleged russia put bounties on american soldiers in afghanistan. he didn't say a peep when the russian opposition leader was poisoned. this president loves autocrats and he loves those who have shown him an interest in wanting to do business with him. whether it's a hotel in moscow

or trump hotel in istanbul or erdogan was given the opportunity to go ahead and invade syria and go after the kurds, who have been our allies in shutting down isis. this man has no more fiber and it is time for us to get a real president of the united states. thank god january 20th. >> you called it an act of war, congresswoman speier. joe biden was asked if he viewed it as an act of war. he used forceful language but he didn't come outright and say, yes, this was an act of war. would you have liked to see him be more forceful on this hack that everybody in intelligence thinks came from russia? >> i think the president-elect will be very forceful once he has the reins of power. it's very difficult when you are a president in waiting. we always only have one

president at a time. so i think he's using language that he's very careful about the language he's using. i would be very surprised if he doesn't characterize this as an act of war. it clearly is. >> okay, congresswoman speier, thank you. despite several warnings against holiday travel, tsa says 5 million people passed through security airport checkpoints since friday. why experts are raising the alarm, up next. xfinity customers, stream hbo and more

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the tsa says nearly 1 million people travel through u.s. airports again on tuesday. this marks the fifth straight day that around a million people pass through security checkpoints despite several warnings from the cdc against holiday travel. cnn's at wilmington international airport in virginia. pete, what are you seeing there? how are the crowds? >> pamela, it's possible we can see another big bump in air numbers today and health experts are worried that could lead to another surge of the virus. more than a million people passed through airports on friday, saturday and again sunday. nearly a million on monday and tuesday, but it's the three-day streak that's so interesting,

something we have not seen before since the pandemic, not even around the thanksgiving holiday. we know the thanksgiving holiday led to a surge in the virus and dr. anthony fauci says these new numbers are concerning. >> this type of travel is risky, particularly if people started congregating when they get to the destination in larger crowds in indoor settings. i'm afraid if in fact we see this happen, we will have a surge that superimposed upon a difficult situation that we are already in. so it could be a very difficult january coming up if these things happen. >> now remember a lot of these are people leaving for the holiday, but there's a concern they could be coming back all at once. november 29th still holds the tsa pandemic record, the sunday after thanksgiving when more than 1.1 million people flew. pamela? >> pete muntean, thank you very much.

in the meantime california's health system is in crisis mode according to one health care executive there. coronavirus cases climbed to nearly 2 million. dan simon is in san francisco. what are you hearing there, dan? >> hi, pamela. california about to hit 2 million cases. what's especially noteworthy about that is it took about ten months to reach the first million and only six weeks to reach the second million and it's because of all of these disturbing trend lines that governor newsom announced the stay-at-home order was set be lifted in los angeles will likely be extended. icu capacity in southern california is high and hospitalizations risen 63%. in l.a. county one out of 64 people are said to have the infection and actively spreading it. county hospitals are full. here in san francisco it's not quite as bleak. cases rising about 2% each day as opposed to 8% a few weeks

ago. nonetheless, these trends remain disturbing and, of course, officials as pete said, are warning folks not to travel, do any unnecessary travel or have any family gatherings over the holiday. that said they were bracing for a post holiday surge, much like what we saw after thanksgiving. pamela? >> dan simon, thank you very much. now let's bring in dr. seema yasmin, cnn medical analyst and former cdc detective. she's author of "viral bs: medical myths and why we fall for them." if you could put this in perspective for us. we know the u.s. reported just over 3,400 coronavirus deaths tuesday, second highest in a single day since the start of the pandemic. that timeline, what we are seeing in hospitals and death rate lines up to people infected around the thanksgiving holiday. what goes through your mind as we continue to see americans ignore travel warnings around christmas? >> what goes through my mind is

horror now that we are seeing the bump from thanksgiving travel and still seeing millions of people pass through tsa checkpoints per day over the past five days, so what will we see in january? i just worry so much health care workers are at their breaking point. we've got icus in southern california and san jaquin valley nearing capacity. and because the hot spots are so widespread, like everywhere is a hot spot, it makes it that much harder for icus in one region to say to a neighboring area, can we send our patients to you, because those hospitals are struggling. and here in california especially we keep setting national records for covid-19 and then we keep breaking them. in fact it's so bad here, if our state was its own country, we'd be ahead of the uk, india and germany in terms of the number of new infections. this situation is dire, and i'm concerned that this increasing number of people traveling over the holidays will make it so much worse in january and we just won't be able to cope.

>> what do you do at this point to get through to people? you were sounding the alarm around the thanksgiving holiday. people went anyway. now we are seeing that reflect in the numbers. what more could health experts like you be doing for people? >> i think it's frustrating but worth reminding people over and over again. yesterday we saw that nurse crying on tv saying she's been in this profession 40 years and never seen something as bad as this. for some people those kinds of messages and those kinds of images from folks on the frontlines can start to get the message across. of course, there are psychologists saying we've become numb to the numbers at some point. we're talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands infected and thousands dyeing every day. the numbers start to go over people's heads. reminding people these are grandparents, these are siblings, these are partners we're losing every day. we cannot lose sight of that and

we have 0 to hunker down over t holidays, even though that sucks. this is not your ordinary christmas and new year's. we're in the middle of historic generation-defining public health crisis. we have to make things better now to heal and things will look better in the new year. >> and you want to be able to look forward to more christmases with your loved ones. >> right. >> so you're saying it's worth giving up more to do that. and uk researchers are saying the new strain of the virus likely arrived in the u.s. mid-november and hundreds of people in the states could be infected with it. since this strain is expected to be more contagious, does that mean children are more vulnerable to contract it? >> we have seen different dynamics in kids with the new variant. we keep calling it the new variant. actually u. it actually, it's been around since at least september. even then the uk has been doing

half of the world share of coronavirus sequencing so if there were going to be variants, which inevitably there are if a virus is spreading so out of control, they were going to be found in the uk. we you have emphasize this strain, this variant, has also been found in australia now, denmark, italy, iceland and netherlands. so it's in many places. we think it might be spreading among children quicker in a different way compared to the earlier variants of the coronavirus. i don't think the travel restrictions actual politic sense in terms of trying to stop this variant spreading. i think that's pd hhappened. it's been around months and is not brand new. but reiterating people should not be traveling now. kids might be more at risk. we're still trying to figure it out. even more reason to wear your mask, do physical distancing and limit your gatherings over the holidays. >> p dr. seema yasmin, thank you. >> thank you.

president trump's controversial pardons include four military contractors involved in a massacre in iraq that killed more than a dozen civilians. this morning, new reaction of the survivor of the mass shooting. your journey requires liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. wow. that will save me lots of money. this game's boring. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.

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it makes our lipton leaves better. which makes this smooth tea taste better. and time spent together. even better. and drinking lipton every day. can help support a healthy heart. an iraqi victim who survived an attack by four blackwater guards in baghdad called president trump's decision to pardon the men involved are

unjust. irwa darwin is following these developments for us. what more have you learned? >> look, this ripple of pardons have just rippled through iraq and been especially painful for those who lost loved ones in this massacre and for those who managed to survive it. this happened in 2007 at a baghdad intersection where these blackwater security guards opened fire. there was a hail of bullets that was so intense, followed by the use of grenades, that cars exploded into balls of flame. that is how fiercely this security convoy opened fire on iraqi civilians in their vehicle. it took until 2014 for these victims and survivors to even be begin to see justice with this

initial court appearance that then saw one of the guards sentenced to life in prison and the other three to 30 years. now those men are going to walk free. i mean, just imagine if you have lost someone you love to that, there's one doctor cnn spoke to fairly frequently in the initial years after the attack took place, who had to scrape his son's brains off the sidewalk. we also just spoke to another survivor, who was injured in the head who not only called this pardon unjust for victims, wounded and families of the victims, he also said they were terrorists. back in the day, this attack severely strained relations between iraqis and americans.

and there has been pretty much since the onset of the u.s.-led invasion in iraq back in 2003 this sense among iraqis that their lives are cheap and worthless. what this pardon does is just once again re-emphasize that. >> arwa damon, thank you. we'll be right back. (solemn orchestral music begins)

- [narrator] as many of the nation's most trusted hospitals, we all know this. the science has not changed. masks slow the spread of covid-19. every one of our healthcare professionals is asking you to do one very simple thing. let's keep it up. let's mask up.

(solemn orchestral music ends) year like no other, including in the world of sports. from coronavirus' impact to the

untimely death of basketball superstar kobe bryant, it was an unprecedented time. cnn andy scholes takes a closer look. ♪ >> reporter: a big part of sports is the emotional ups and downs. in 2020 the highs were high but the lows were as low as we've seen in a long time. from kobe's death to big-time event cancellations to the coronavirus leaving stadiums empty, sports had a tough go of it this year. the 2020 started off like any other year in sports. >> and the tigers of lsu, a team of destiny and a team for ages, capturing the national title. >> lsu won their first college football national championship since 2007, but then the sports world was dealt a devastating blow. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> we're following very tragic, very sad breaking news.

the nba legend kobe bryant has died in a helicopter crash. he was only 41 years old. >> reporter: the sports world mourning the loss of kobe bryant, his daughter gianna and seven others for weeks. >> god knew that they couldn't be on this earth without each other. he had to bring them home to have them together. >> when kobe bryant died, a piece of me died. now he's got me, i don't have to look at another crime meme for the knicks. >> reporter: when the lakers eventually took the court, they held an emotional tribute. in february patrick mahomes would lead the kansas city chiefs on a comeback to win super bowl liv over the 49ers. andy reid finally had his super bowl title and chiefs their first in 50 years. >> i follow my dreams and now i'm here winning the super bowl with all of my teammates.

>> i can coach another 20 years with this group. >> reporter: soon after that on march 11th, the entire sports world came to a stop. >> the nba just announced the as soon as season is going to be suspended. >> the ncaa is canceling its men and women's basketball tournaments over coronavirus fears. >> reporter: the nba the first league to shut down. the ncaa tournament canceled for the first time ever. major league baseball sent their players home from strain training. sports everywhere put on hold from covid-19, with no return in sight. >> even if we're out for a month, even if we're out six weeks, we can still restart the season. >> reporter: for more than three months we had no sports to watch. over the summer events did start to slowly come back, with nascar being the first to allow fans. the sport's only black driver started by banning the confederate flag at the races and then tony wallace because the target of a hit crime.

>> nascar is investigating a noose found in the garage of bubba wallace. >> reporter: the inspire sport and wallace's peers rallying around him. >> drivers wanted to show support for me. >> reporter: in the end the fbi determined the noose was a garage door pull that had been in the garage before wallace was assigned to it. it looked increasingly like i'm going to be watching an unprecedented amount of sports on tv pretty soon. in july the nba returned, moving all operations at a bubble in disney world. it was a great success with the league having zero positive covid-19 tests for the nearly three months the teams were in the bubble. the nhl and wnba following the nba's model, completing their seasons without positive tests. but at one point the players nearly walked away from the successful restart in order to stand up for social justice. >> nba playoff games, all three of them tonight, have been postponed in protest of the shooting of jacob blake. >> reporter: in a show of

solidarity with the nba, teams across the wnba, nhl and major league baseball halting play. athletes in 2020 more than ever using their voice to encourage change. >> we, the national football league -- >> believe black lives matter. >> we've always been about this fight. we're a league of 70% black women and we want to represent our communities as best as we can. >> is it really woke the world up and let them know we're serious. we need change. we need more love in the world. >> reporter: the nba playoffs did eventually resume but lebron james capturing his fourth nba title and first for the lakers since 2010. >> to be able to get to the finish line and to be able to cross it, this is unbelievable film. >> reporter: the city of los angeles wasn't done celebrating in october after a rocky regular season dealing with outbreaks, the dodgers winning their first world series in 32 years, beating the rays at a neutral site in arlington, texas. about 11,000 fans were in attendance for the game. while fans did return to sporting events in 2020, it

looked much different. >> it feels sad but we're going to make the best of it. >> reporter: college football saw conferences tackle the coronavirus in different ways. the big 12, sec and acc were determined to play and never wavered, while the big ten and pac-12 postponed their season. >> we just believe collectively there's too much uncertainty at this point in time in our country to encourage our student athletes to participate in fall sports. >> reporter: and nearly all conferences eventually decided to play in the fall but faced significant postponements and cancellations. >> this week's slate of college football games is the hardest hit yet by the pandemic. >> 18 games in all have been called off this week because of covid. >> reporter: the nfl also struggling to the finish line of their season, dealing with cases on teams from week to week. >> the fifth tennessee titans football player just testing positive for covid-19, prompting the nfl to tweet, the

steelers/titans game will be moved to later in this season. >> the nfl is postponing tonight's game between the baltimore ravens and pittsburgh steelers after the ravens confirmed multiple cases of covid. >> reporter: no march march madness, masters in november and games played in empty stadiums, 2020 was a very challenging year but with vaccines on the way, there's hope the sports world will return to normal in 2021. thank you for joining me today. i'm pamela brown. i will be back with you in the morning. "newsroom" with kate bolduan starts after a quick break. (vo) when subaru shares the love, good things happen... over sixty-four thousand pets supported. over twenty-five hundred wishes granted. over two million meals provided.

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hello, everyone, i'm kate bolduan. thank you so much for joining us. this morning this country is in crisis. just two days before christmas, because the president is threatening to blow up everything that was settled, unemployment benefits for millions of americans now run out in three days. the government shuts down in five days. and congress has already left washington, all with a deadly pandemic raging on. but the president just couldn't let things actually function the way they're supposed to, threatening last night in a bizarre video that he wants a different covid relief bill, not the one that's been negotiated business his own treasury secretary and both parties for literally months. he blind sided