It's Thursday, November 12th. I'm Achila Hughes.

And I'm Gideon Ressneck and this is what a day where we are making the bold observation

that there are now two lame ducks named Donald.

Yes, you're insulting a beloved Disney character, but I do see your point.

I will be supporting the cartoon Donald Duck for President at some future time.

Yeah, his no pants mandate is really popular.

It's liberating, frankly.

On today's show, the Biden transition continues and what outside allies are looking for.

Ben some headlines.

But first, the latest. America is still in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic

with cases and deaths rising almost everywhere.

In the past two weeks, the number of confirmed cases has increased by 70%.

It was just Monday that we reported 10 million total cases over the course of the pandemic in America.

And just days later, we've added a quarter million more.

Across the country, more than 65,000 people are hospitalized, a record.

And deaths are starting to trend above 1400 per day, which means it's the worst we've experienced

since the enormous spikes in September, two weeks after Labor Day and schools returning to class.

Yeah, it is a very, very serious situation.

And new daily cases are hitting records day after day as well.

So where, when we look at this, is the pandemic hitting the most right now?

Is that even the right question to pose?

I mean, honestly, the whole country is a hotspot.

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