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U.S. Surpasses 13 Million Coronavirus Cases; Trump Urges Supporters To Back Georgia Republicans In Runoffs But Baselessly Attacks Its Fraudulent System; Biden Picks Up More Votes In Recount Requested By Trump; Trump Urges Supporters Not To Boycott Georgia Senate Runoffs; Trump Has Spent A Fifth Of His Days As President On A Golf Course; Estimated 50 Million Americans Will Go Hungry In 2020; Germany, China Could Be Models For U.S. On Providing Relief For Businesses Closed During Pandemic. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 28, 2020 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Ana Cabrera.

Six days, that's how long it took for the United States to jump from 12 million to 13 million cases of COVID-19. Experts are warning that a major post-Thanksgiving surge could be on the way, projecting that soon, we could lose up to 4,000 lives in the United States every single day.

Their advice? Quarantine now if you attended a Thanksgiving dinner with people who don't live in your own household, and be encouraged, there's a vaccine on the way. But you shouldn't get complacent because it's not here yet. CDC committee is holding an emergency meeting on Tuesday to decide who will get the vaccine first.

And as thousands of Americans are losing their lives and more Americans are in the hospital than ever before because of COVID-19, the nation's leader is on the golf course still refusing to concede the election. For those counting, President Trump has visited a golf course for roughly one out of every five days of his presidency. That's about 20 percent. Yet it has been more than five months since President Trump attended a meeting of his administration's coronavirus task force.

Let's start our coverage in Los Angeles. That city is under new stay- at-home orders as coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations have reached record levels.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is standing by with two leaders of L.A.'s massive free testing campaign. Paul?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And as that free testing goes on behind me, Boris, almost 3 million by CORE, I want to bring in Sean Penn and Ann Young, the co-founders of CORE. And right off, as we look at of all this undertaking going on, we know there's tremendous anxiety as the hospitalizations are surging here in Los Angeles. If you could say or do one thing right now to head this off, what do we need to do?

SEAN PENN, CO-FOUNDER, CORE: Well, I think now is the time to really quadruple down on all of the common sense efforts of masking, social distancing. We know that there is this final -- finally, this light at the end of the tunnel, that these vaccines starting to come online. But what people need to know, for example, the Moderna vaccine, Moderna itself doesn't know if that is going to impose a low level asymptomatic COVID that is different (INAUDIBLE) having a vaccine may have to isolate for a period of time.

There's a lot of unknowns, but we know we're getting close. And that -- sorry, and so now is the time, really, that we have to recognize just how vulnerable we are and be humble to it.

VERCAMMEN: And your relief experience includes Kosovo, Congo, Haiti. When you see this undertaking going on in Los Angeles, what runs through your mind?

ANN LEE, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, CORE: What's scary is that it's not all that different. There's a lack of coordination, there's a lack of leadership. And what's scary is that the private sector and the NGO sector has stuck up in such a major way in this failing.

VERCAMMEN: So, core has this free testing throughout the nation but it's not everywhere. And what's the next step for you? Where do you get it to cities that desperately need this free test but don't have it?

PENN: Well, we're very ready in terms of our model to spread throughout the country beyond those areas that we're already serving. We're very hopeful that the next administration is going to move that forward. But we're really dependent right now, not just on the states and where we've had leaders like Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti or Governor Cuomo in New York, where they have been very diligent on these things, but those hundreds of millions of dollars that are coming down from the states that are just not going to do enough. They've been putting it all out front. We need federal funds and can speak to the CARES Act issue on this.

LEE: We need cares act to be extended. Right now, all funding stops December 31st. That means there's no more funding for this testing site or the testing sites that we have across the country. And that's problematic. Without that being as of December 31st, testing goes away, contact tracing goes away, supported quarantine goes away. We need Congress to act fast.

VERCAMMEN: And, Sean, while we have you here, I want to ask why you do this. As some people may or may not know, your father, a bombardier, a tail gunner, fighting World War II, laid to rest not far from here, in a way, he was at war and you're at your own war. Why did you get into this to the degree that you did? PENN: Well, you know, I have to say that my father represents most of my aspirations, yet still most unfulfilled. But in our family, there, I think, was a real emphasis on the value of service and we know now that one of the silver linings in this COVID experience is the nature of public/private partnerships and the exposure, really, of the need for that, so that we can come as citizens and work with governance to be able to do the kind of expanded care that's going to be needed.

[15:05:10]

Not only through the end of COVID but through the entire vaccination process.

One of the things that we've been working on, we have a pilot program on this in Washington, D.C., now because we all recognize the importance on so many levels of getting kids back to school. So we want to make sure that we find ways to create bubbles the same way the NBA has and for the teachers and the testing to be pervasive throughout.

VERCAMMEN: Can you talk more about that, Ann, you wanted to model the NBA that you envisioned for children getting back to school safely and, of course, protecting the health of their older teachers?

LEE: That's right. We need to treat our teachers like NBA players. We need to take care of them as much as we have with the NBA groups. And I think that it's so important right now, especially to do screenings, rapid testing screenings and that's what we're focusing on in these schools in Washington, D.C.

VERCAMMEN: Okay. Both of you sit down, let's say, with President Biden. What do you say to him? What is the one thing that you think that he should do first?

PENN: Well, I would go straight to, because our lane on this, and it's only one component of it, is the testing and the contact tracing. It is a misnomer that contact tracing isn't working because where it is working, for example, on the Navajo Nation or in Fulton County, Georgia, where we have a direct hands-on, not a door-knock team doing it.

President-elect Biden knows what to do. I've heard him speak to it. What I would say to President Biden is that CORE stands by ready to do all we can to help them to do it.

VERCAMMEN: Right. I thank both of you so much for taking time out in front of your test here and congratulations on all the testing that have achieved and you have done here.

Sean Penn, Ann Young, you heard it right there, Boris, they're on the ground with us every day with L.A.'s free testing, just absolutely swelling and many people ramping up ahead of what they expect to be just another dramatic rise in hospitalizations.

SANCHEZ: Yes. The pandemic certainly revealing a lot of the inequities and injustices in our society in a very prominent way, but it also highlights those who go out of their way to be heroes and to help others and we thank them for their work. Paul Vercammen from Los Angeles, thanks so much.

Well, Thanksgiving is over, but all the travel and close gatherings could be the catalyst for, as you just heard from Paul, an enormous surge in the pandemic. Already, it's twice as bad as it was over the summer, the U.S. now reporting more than 100,000 infections every day for 25 consecutive days.

Experts also warning that COVID-19 deaths could soon double, potentially meaning that 4,000 American lives would be lost every single day by next weekend.

CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner joins me now, he's a professor of medicine at George Washington University. Dr. Reiner, thanks so much for joining us. You describe Thanksgiving as potentially the mother of all super-spreader events. There are other major holidays on the way, so what should the average American be doing right now to stay safe?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: They should be masking up and not traveling. This virus is no longer isolated to certain enclaves in the United States. It's all over the country, and when people travel from place to place, they just further that spread. So, the next big holiday is obviously the Christmas/New Year's holiday, where people tend to travel, want to travel, want to be with family, but we just can't do it this year.

We're going to cause needless deaths and particularly among people we really care about, our most vulnerable, our grandparents, our parents, our neighbors. We can't travel this year. We need to stay home. This is a sacrifice that Americans can make and we should be making it for each other. Stay home, mask up, we have a great series of holidays next year. We'll really have something to celebrate next year.

SANCHEZ: And for those folks that have already ignored the advice from the CDC and they've already traveled, what advice, practical advice do you have for them once they get home?

REINER: Well, they should be quarantining. They should be quarantining for probably seven to ten days and then getting tested. That's what they should do. If they just go back to what they were doing going back to work, they are going to spread virus. So much of this virus is spread by asymptomatic folks. So stay home for more than a week, get tested, then go back to work.

SANCHEZ: I want to ask you about the CDC advisory committee. They've scheduled this emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss who is going to get the coronavirus vaccine first. What are you expecting to come out of that?

REINER: I expect probably somewhere around December 10th or so, the FDA will issue an EUA probably for the Pfizer vaccine first and Pfizer will start shipping that night.

[15:10:08] I expect the committee, the NIH committees and CDC committees, will recommend vaccinating hospital workers, nursing home workers and probably nursing home patients. There are about 6.4 million people who work in hospitals in the United States, about another 1.6 who work in nursing homes, and then almost two million nursing home residents. So that's about 10 million people. And we think we'll have about 20 million doses in December and 20 million doses, it's a two-dose vaccine, will cover 10 million people, that's who will very likely get the initial doses of the vaccine.

SANCHEZ: And, Doctor, I have a quick question for you, we don't have much time left, but it's kind of a curveball. Former Maryland Congressman and Presidential Candidate John Delaney wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post this week advocating the idea of people being paid $1,500 to take the vaccine. He says it might help limit skepticism among folks that are hesitant to take it. What do you think of the idea of paying people to take the vaccine?

REINER: Oh, I think it's a fabulous idea. Representative Delaney is my old congressman and I love his idea. Look, in our best year with influenza, we only vaccinated about 48 percent of adults and about 64 percent of children and we need to do much better than that.

We need to vaccinate 70 percent of the population. So if you look at our experience where we try to get people to wear masks, we try altruism, protect your neighbors, and that didn't work. More recently, we try to get people to protect themselves and that doesn't seem to work. So maybe money works. And I'm all about paying people to do the right thing.

So, sure, so many people in this country are hurting financially, they need stimulus, they need some stimulus money, get vaccinated, send the government your receipt and get paid, I'm okay with that. Let's do that.

SANCHEZ: It just strikes me that there are so many people out there that are conspiratorial nowadays, right, and they're skeptical of any advice that comes from the government, really, without any reason to be when it comes to the coronavirus and the coronavirus vaccine and that they might think this is some sort of a bribe to plant a micro chip in them or something. What would you say to those folks?

REINER: You know, I think what we need to do is a lot of public education. This is an incredible advance. This is an incredible opportunity. As soon as vaccine is made available to me, I'm going to get it. I'm going to urge my family to get it, my friends to get it, and my patients to get it. We talk about this every week in clinic with my patients. I talk to people and there is a lot of skepticism. We need a lot of education.

The FDA will not approve a vaccine, even under EUA, until it's safe. There are a lot of eyes looking at this. We'll see the data. No vaccine will be released unless it's safe. Everyone should get the vaccine as soon as they can.

SANCHEZ: We appreciate you sharing that message. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you so much.

REINER: My pleasure, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

The Peach State has become the center of the political universe, as President Trump plans a trip to Georgia to campaign for two Republican senators in a runoff election. How is he going to impact the race and the balance of power in Washington?

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SANCHEZ: Welcome back. The state of Georgia is now ground zero for the battle of control of the U.S. Senate and Republican strategists and state leaders are getting increasingly worried that Georgia's Republican voters may not turn out to vote in the January 5th Senate runoffs there specifically because of the party's own baseless attacks against the integrity of the election.

Remember, President Trump repeatedly has made claims that the secretary of state in Georgia is an enemy of the people, that he's created fraud in the state to make Joe Biden the winner there.

And Trump now is trying to find a workaround. He's telling his supporters they have to show up and vote for Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, even though the election was a, quote, total scam. Fact check, it was not.

Let's go CNN's Ryan Nobles in Atlanta. Ryan, you heard an unusual exchange today between the Republican National Committee chairwoman and some Georgia Republican voters. Tell us what happened.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris. It really was a fascinating morning, GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel here in Georgia trying to fire up the base of Republicans to get out and vote in these crucially important Senate runoffs. The Republicans have to win at least one of these races if they want to retain control of the Senate majority.

But after she gave her pitch to these voters, the people in the audience started hammering her with questions about the November election and specifically the way that the Georgia race was run. They were demanding that she do more to help President Trump try and overturn the results of this election. In fact, listen to this one exchange between McDaniel and a few of these Republican voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are we going to use money and work when it's already decided?

RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: It's not decided. This is the key --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know?

MCDANIEL: It's not decided.

If you lose your faith and you don't vote and people walk away, that will decide it. So we have to work hard, trust us, we're fighting, we're looking at every legal avenue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we have to get that word out, because people are losing here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: So now that's just one Republican voter, Boris, but it demonstrates the worst case scenario for Republicans here in Georgia. If Republicans don't have faith in the electoral process and if they're so obsessed with President Trump's efforts to undermine the credibility of this election, there's a real worry that they may not show up on January 5th.

Now, McDaniel really tried to turn it back on these voters.

[15:20:01]

She said to them that it was so important for them to vote. She tried to instill some level of confidence while at the same time entertaining this idea that there was something fraudulent about the election in November.

Keep in mind, in Georgia, the election system here is run completely by Republicans. The secretary of state is a Republican. The governor, Brian Kemp, he is a Republican. Both of them are big supporters of President Trump.

Boris, at this event we were with today with Chairwoman McDaniel today, there was someone in the crowd who actually screamed out, Kemp is a crook, talking about the Republican governor who is a supporter of President Trump. It's essentially becoming a Republican civil war to a certain extent where there's a lot of angst among rank and file Republicans who have a lot of passionate support for Donald Trump.

Both David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler need those voters to come out and support them on January 5th. But they hope to win these seats and retain control of the Republican majority in the United States Senate. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yes. You really have to do some incredible mental gymnastics to believe what you're hearing from President Trump and Ronna McDaniel about the race in Georgia at this point. Ryan Nobles, thanks so much for that, my friend.

A recount in Wisconsin costing the Trump campaign $3 million, but the president lost more than money. He actually lost the votes in the final tally. We're going to break it down just ahead.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[12:25:00]

SANCHEZ: In Wisconsin, President-elect Joe Biden has just picked up more votes in the state's recount. Remember, this is a recount that was requested by President Trump's campaign in its failing attempt to overturn the election results. The final count gave Biden a more than 180,000 vote edge over his rival in Milwaukee County and certified his victory. By the way, the recount cost millions of dollars, so the Trump team spent millions to lose even harder.

Legal defeats also keep mounting for the president. In Pennsylvania, a Trump appointed judge rejecting the campaign's efforts to undo Biden's certified win in that state.

Let's get some expert perspective here. A.B. Stoddard is the Associate Editor and a Columnist at RealClearPolitics, and Mark McKinnon is a former Bush and McCain adviser, and the co-host of The Circus on Showtime.

Mark, I want to start with you. A recount that adds to your opponent's lead, not a good sign of where things are.

MARK MCKINNON, FORMER BUSH AND MCCAIN ADVISER: No, it's not. I think the legal cases now are -- they've lost 40 and won 1, I believe. This is called clawing your way to the bottom. That's the problem with recounts, particularly in an area where Biden did well and Democrats do well. If you do a recount, you're likely to get more Democratic votes. That's just how this works. But they're obviously trying to throw every possibly bit of paint on the wall that they can and they're just not meeting a lot of success.

SANCHEZ: A.B., the judge in Pennsylvania said in his ruling that calling an election unfair does not make it so. I cannot keep stressing this enough. This is a judge appointed by President Trump. Accusations of bias go out the window.

Today though, Kayleigh McEnany argued that the judges, it's a three- judge panel, she argued that they misunderstood the case. The campaign obviously not accepting the outcome. So is it fair to assume at this point that the president is going to be fighting this all the way to January 20th and likely beyond?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: I think that President Trump has made that perfectly clear. He's raising money for his political future for the leadership PAC with the donations he's asking for for these recounts and his sort of election defense fund, and the voters are buying it. Everything that he tells them on Twitter, most of which you've made a good point, Boris, of pointing out is not true, about these recounts, about the lawsuits, about the secret evidence that he is going to present but never does is believed.

And that's why that whole scene in Georgia today with the Republican National Committee chairwoman is so telling. The Republican Party has convinced -- I mean, I'm sorry, Donald Trump has convinced the Republican voters who support him on Election Day, millions and millions and millions of them, that he is the victim of a mass conspiracy and the election was stolen from him. And that's why voters in Georgia don't believe that the vote on January 5th for two Senate runoffs is going to be above board because they were told by the president the Georgia vote on November 3rd was not.

So the party is lighting itself on fire by standing by as President Trump says all these things. It's not just reckless, it's not just another Trump show. This is an attack on the system itself, which we will pay for for years and years to come. And the Republicans remain silent, and as a result, are very likely to lose the runoffs on January 5th, as a result, because they have not told those voters that what the president is saying is a lie.

SANCHEZ: And mark, I'm glad A.B. brought up Georgia, because he tweeted, the president, that he is heading to Georgia next weekend where two runoffs will decide the balance of power in the Senate. Given that he just lost the general election in the Peach State, is his presence going to help or hurt the two Republican candidates?

MCKINNON: I think it will help. You know, listen, he's got to undo the damage that he already did that A.B. just pointed out, which is he is trying to say that the election wasn't a legal election, and then double back and try to convince supporters to come out in another election to vote and that this one will be okay and the last wasn't, so it's a very mixed message.

[15:30:06]

So he has got to go down there and straighten it out.

And listen, it is important for Trump to be there, four square. Because I think his supporters will not be animated unless he is out there.

And, listen, I think that generally speaking, a runoff election on a non-presidential election favors Republicans. So this ought to be an advantaged Republican of a special election, generally or historically.

So I mean, this is an unprecedented time and unprecedented election, a different case. But the Republicans have to rally all the effort and that includes getting Trump there, four square, I believe.

SANCHEZ: I want to make time to ask you about something that has struck me today, and I want both of your perspectives on this.

According to CNN's tabulation, President Trump has spent about 20 percent, one in five of his days in office, playing golf.

Now, I don't fault anybody for taking time off for destressing, for recreation. It's an extremely high stressful job, the presidency. You have to respect that.

But the reason this strikes me is because, before he was president, he judged his predecessor routinely. He routinely went after President Obama for playing golf.

In fact, he tweeted nearly 30 times criticizing Obama about golfing.

And notably, he criticized President Obama for playing golf during the Ebola outbreak, when there were only two cases of Ebola in the United States.

Right now, there are more than 13 million coronavirus cases in the United States. There are people dying. There are people going hungry.

More Americans are in the hospital because of coronavirus than at any point in the pandemic.

A.B., what does this say to you about President Trump and his character?

STODDARD: Well, President Trump has been a hypocrite since the day he entered the presidential race in 2015.

People have kept lists of all of the tweets he's sent during the Obama presidency, attacking President Obama for all sorts of things -- it's too long to list here -- which he then ended up doing himself.

Golfing at his own properties and feathering his own nest, making profits off of events held at Mar-a-Lago and the Trump International Hotel and here in D.C.

And everything that he has done throughout his presidency is of no bother to his voters. This does not bother them in any way. And he has known that, which is why he's continued to do it.

He has more than 3,000 conflicts of interest with his presidency and the Trump Organization since the time he's been in office.

And the fact he's given up on the pandemic does not bother his voters one bit either.

It doesn't cause him any political price or pain, which is why he's always continued to do it even though we've continued the point out these facts all along.

SANCHEZ: Mark, I spent too long setting up the question so we're short on time. Give me your quick take on --

(CROSSTALK)

MCKINNON: I'd say it's one of the greatest hypocrisies of his presidency. Even though, like you, I say, listen, it should be mandatory that all presidents play just to take the stress off.

(LAUGHTER)

MCKINNON: But he lit up President Obama every time he went out. Every time, he talked about how inappropriate it was that Obama was golfing.

And as we now know, Obama didn't golf nearly as much as President Trump has, or on the kind of solemn occasions where we have a health crisis going on.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Mark McKinnon, A.B. Stoddard, thank you both so much for your time. Hope you have a good rest of your Thanksgiving weekend.

MCKINNON: Thank you, Boris. Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Thanks.

Now as we head into the holiday season, many families are on the brink of economic disaster. The images of long lines at food banks are becoming all too familiar. We'll hear from one mother struggling to feed her children after losing her job in the pandemic.

[15:34:04]

We're back after a quick break.

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SANCHEZ: The devastating economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has millions of Americans relying on food banks this Thanksgiving. By one estimate, 50 million Americans will go hungry this year.

As CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich reports, it will take eight billion meals to feed them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The journey to get food through the cold and COVID-19 has been long and hard for Regina Status.

REGINA STATUS, NEW YORK CITY RESIDENT: Got to take one day at a time. And as long as you have for today, you save for tomorrow. When tomorrow gets here, something's going to happen.

YURKEVICH: And it did, just in time.

STATUS: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No problem.

[15:40:02]

YURKEVICH: Days before Thanksgiving, Agatha House Foundation, a local food pantry in the Bronx, New York, made a special Thanksgiving delivery, filled with everything she needs for her and her two teenage daughters.

STATUS: It's just a relief that I don't have to purchase all of that.

YURKEVICH: Over 50 million Americans like Regina won't have enough to eat in 2020. In part, because of the pandemic. Feeding America, the largest hunger relief group in the U.S. projects

that eight billion meals will be needed next year to feed food- insecure Americans.

CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT, CEO, FEEDING AMERICA: About 40 percent of the people who right now are turning to food banks for help around the country are people who've never before relied on the charitable food system.

STATUS: Onions.

YURKEVICH: Regina is out of a job. Her car was totaled months ago. And she's not receiving unemployment. She now relies on a once-a-week delivery from the Food Pantry.

(on camera): Day to day, is your pantry stocked, or what does it look like day to day?

STATUS: Just surviving. That's all I can say. You just have to survive it.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): The 15th congressional district here in the Bronx has the highest food insecurity rate among children in the country.

At Agatha House, they're hoping to take the stigma our of needing a little extra help.

JEANETTE JOSEPH-GREENWAY, FOUNDER, AGATHA HOUSE FOUNDATION: We have to look and try to imagine ourselves in the position, what we would want for ourselves. Not just to give them a cardboard box but to make them feel loved, special.

YURKEVICH: This small operation says it's seen 100 percent increase in need.

JOSEPH-GREENWAY: Even with the that they get, hopefully, there's someone in their building or one of their neighbors that they can invite for a plate of food.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Got to give Miss Mamie some stuff.

YURKEVICH: Despite her struggles to put food on the table --

STATUS: You welcome, Miss Mamie.

YURKEVICH: -- Regina is sharing what she has with her neighbor and remains grateful for this Thanksgiving.

STATUS: Even if we didn't get to Agatha House or we were just having regular chicken every day, just to say that you're alive to eat it, that's a blessing in itself.

YURKEVICH: Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, Bronx, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss, CNN global economic analyst and associate editor for "The Financial Times," Rana Foroohar.

Rana, there's a strange dichotomy we're watching unfold right now. The Dow Jones is on track for best month since 1987.

At the same time, you have people, many of them, for the first time in their lives, lining up at food banks.

It appears that the inequities in our society are not only being exposed by coronavirus but accelerated as well.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Absolutely. And it is a bizarre dichotomy that you have the markets at record highs even as unemployment has been near Great Depression levels. People who are food insecure in record numbers.

This is about a couple of things. The markets are not really responding to what's happening on Main Street. They're responding to the Federal Reserve.

And the Federal Reserve has, for several years and certainly through the pandemic, been offering a lot of liquidity to the markets.

Interest rates are low. Cash has been funneled into the markets. That helps to boist (ph) up prices.

There are a couple of other things going on. One is the largest chunk of the S&P 500 is now tech stocks. And one thing that people are using now is all things digital. So that's going to keep markets up for a while.

There's also optimism about the new administration and the vaccines. The idea that we may see the end of this pandemic sooner rather than later.

SANCHEZ: Yes, still though, 778,000 filing for unemployment benefits last week. Some 12 million Americans that could lose benefits just after Christmas.

It's really imperative that Congress does something. What happens if they don't pass a relief bill?

FOROOHAR: It's a great question. I think we've got to have some relief in order to get through the winter.

Janet Yellen, the new treasury secretary, is a terrific pick on the part of the Biden administration. She is somebody that has a lot of experience with risk management.

She's a moderate. She's someone that's going to appeal to markets as well as to progressives.

And so there's a hope that she may be the sort of the person that can help broker a deal, that can work with the Fed, and could potentially get more stimulus through. Even if she can't, the treasury secretary does have a number of levers

that they can pull to really help, you know, add help to the economy, get money to community banks, get it out to Main Street.

There's a lot of tools at her disposal. That's another reason for some market optimism right now.

But I agree that the divergence between Wall Street and Main Street, which, frankly, has been with us for a decade or more, is reaching new highs.

[15:45:07]

SANCHEZ: I really wonder, when you look around the world, has there been a country that stood out when it comes to providing relief for businesses that were asked to close for public safety?

Is there a model that the United States could follow?

FOROOHAR: You know, it's a great question. There are two models, Germany and China.

China is an interesting case study. It's not a democracy. So it's able to say, look, the entire country is going to lock down for four or six weeks. Everyone is going to wear masks.

It's a command-and-control economy but they've managed to contain the virus. And they're now enjoying a V-shaped recovery.

That's obviously not a model that the U.S. can follow for a lot of reasons.

But Germany is a great example, too. In Germany, not only were there early actions around quarantine and around public health, but there was a sharing of pain.

The public and the private sector came together to make deals to furlough workers instead of just laying them off, put them on two- thirds time or halftime.

The government gave businesses benefits to do that. Unions were involved.

So there's a kind of a partnership in the economy there that the U.S. could really learn a lot from.

SANCHEZ: It's fascinating.

And I want to make sure we get some time for any practical advice that you might have for folks who are trying to figure out their finances right now, especially during the holidays.

It's unclear that Black Friday and some of the employment opportunities that are typically there this time of year will be there. And a lot of folks are trying to do a bit of juggling.

What advice would you have for them?

FOROOHAR: Great question. If you have debt, try and pay it down. This is not a time to be going out and having a lavish holiday and putting it on your credit card.

It's a great time to talk to children about, you know, hey, we're going to have more together time at Christmas but we're maybe not going to have quite as many presents.

It is a time to be getting your house in order to be saving if possible. Because we don't know where we're going to be through the winter.

And even if a vaccine does get passed and gets distributed well, we're still looking at spring at the earliest for that to have a real effect on the economy.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Some really important advice to keep in mind.

Rana Foroohar, thank you so much for spending part of your day with us.

FOROOHAR: Thank you for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Hey, don't go anywhere. We'll be back after a quick break. Stay with CNN NEWSROOM.

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[15:51:55]

SANCHEZ: Today, some history was made in college football.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That was Sarah Fuller. She's a senior at Vanderbilt University, becoming the first woman to play in a Power 5 college football game.

The Power 5 consists of college football's five strongest conferences. And Fuller took the opening kickoff for the Commodores in the third quarter against the University of Missouri.

She was actually added to the roster this past week after multiple players on the team were ruled out due to COVID-19 contact tracing.

Fuller took to the field donning a sticker on the back of her helmet that read, "Play like a girl."

She's actually a talented multi-sport athlete. She's also a goalkeeper for the Vanderbilt women's soccer team.

This year's "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE" will be a special celebration of those who stood up to do more when faced with COVID-19 and racial injustice.

It's been a challenging year but there have been moments of resilience, of hope, joy, and inspiration. And they've helped keep our spirits lifted and moving forward together.

Here's one of those inspiring moments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Hans Christian Anderson wrote, "Where words fail, music speaks."

(SINGING)

COOPER: In the early days of the pandemic, we didn't have the right words or know the right way to be together. But we had songs that filled the air.

In Florence, people sang the Italian national anthem.

(SINGING)

COOPER: In Chicago, they countered the sorrow and loss with "Living on a Prayer."

(SINGING)

COOPER: In Dallas, they made sure their neighbors knew they could lean on me.

(SINGING)

(CHEERING)

COOPER: In Boston, they belted out "Sweet Caroline."

(SINGING)

COOPER: And a Broadway legend, Brian Stokes Mitchell, serenaded us with "The Impossible Dream" from his balcony.

(SINGING)

COOPER: All across the world, people found a way to sing and spread hope and offer thanks and celebrate life. They posted on social media.

(SINGING)

COOPER: Communities belted out hits from balconies and neighbors brought their musical skills to the streets. All over the world, we found a way to lift each other up and connect

through the power of music.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Encore!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Really heartening moments there.

Go to CNNheroes.com right now to vote for the most inspiring moment to you.

Once you vote, you can actually upload your own video telling us why the moment you chose moved you. You might see yourself on "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE."

[15:55:00]

It airs Sunday, December 13th, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

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