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The Lead with Jake Tapper

First doses of Moderna’s vaccine administered today; Pres-elect Biden, incoming first lady get first vaccine doses; AG Barr rebukes Trump claim: we don’t need a special counsel to look into voter fraud; Russian spy duped into revealing details of plot to poison opposition leader Alexey Navalny;

The Lead with Jake Tapper

CNN

News

3.51.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

TSA pandemic record: 1M+ travelers for 3 days in a row; New virus variant in U.K. may be 70% more transmissible; Dozens of nations shut down travel to U.K. due to new, highly transmissible COVID-19 variant; Fauci: not recommending U.K. travel shut down right now; Biden’s surgeon general pick: most Americans won’t get vaccine until mid-summer or fall; Giroir says it will take until January to vaccinate 20 million people; First Moderna vaccine given at Long Island, NY hospitals; Nurse becomes first person at NY hospital to get Moderna vaccine; Nurse becomes emotional after receiving Moderna vaccine;

Soon: congress to vote on $900B stimulus bill, second largest relief plan in U.S. history, $600 stimulus checks included; +5,500 pages in stimulus bill released, congress expected to pass $900B relief package tonight, sets midnight deadline;

Barr says there is no basis for federal government to seize voting machines as Trump falsely claims fraud; Barr joins Pompeo in linking mass cyber hack to Russia as President Trump downplays Russia’s role; Navalny says Russian toxin team put poison in his underwear; Russia’s FSB: Navalny’s phone conversation with spy was “fake” and “planned provocation”;

Kansas city newspaper apologizes for decades of racist coverage; Kansas city Star: out past coverage of black communities focused on crime, underplayed major events, ignored black icons; Husband pens final love letter to wife before dying of COVID; Husband’s final love letter to wife: I “would never have traded it for all the riches in the world”;

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Transcript

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0:00.0

And welcome to the lead, I'm Pamela Brown and for Jake Tapper today.

0:05.1

And we begin with the health lead, a major milestone in the fight against coronavirus.

0:10.6

A second coronavirus vaccine now in Americans arms. Right now, some of the first

0:16.4

Moderna vaccinations are happening in the United States. Just a minute to go,

0:20.5

President elect Joe Biden received his first dose of Pfizer's

0:24.2

coronavirus vaccine and soon-to-be First Lady Joe Biden received hers just

0:28.7

before the President-elect. In total at least half a million doses have been administered, though top officials are warning the rollout may take longer than previously promised.

0:38.0

Plus, health experts figure the holidays will only make this pandemic more dire. The TSA says it screened more

0:44.4

than 1 million passengers each of the last three days in a row. That is a

0:49.4

pandemic first. And the CNN's Martin Savage reports for us now, one in every 217 Americans was

0:56.9

infected with COVID-19 just last week. The battle against coronavirus gets another shot in the arm as patients begin

1:09.4

receiving the first doses of the new moderna vaccine.

1:12.6

I think it's a really great milestone.

1:14.8

Now, with two COVID-19 vaccines greenlighted,

1:18.0

health officials plan to accelerate distribution

1:20.8

over the coming holiday week.

1:22.4

By the end of next week, we'll be 11 million doses distributed to the American people,

1:27.0

but we have a long way to go and we want to be better and better and better.

1:32.0

Meanwhile vaccine advisors for the CDC,

1:35.2

recommending who should get the injections next

1:37.9

following health care workers and residents of long-term care

1:41.5

facilities.

...

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