this sunday a shot in the arm. >> i feel like healing is coming. >> americans begin receiving pfizer's covid vaccine. >> it's safe. it's okay, and ay, and we need . >> a little bit of a sore arm. a little aching muscles, but no fever, headache or anything unusual. and moderna's vaccine is on the way. >> this is the most significant accomplishment in medicine we have had in 100 years. >> but the pandemic is raging with more than 300,000 americans now dead. >> i have to be the one that says i'm sorry, you can't come to see your loved one. >> i will talk to the former and

likely future surgeon general, vivek myrrh think. plus, compromising signs, two former cdc officials go public with claims, the trump administration put politics over science and blunted efforts to fight the pandemic. >> decisions are being made outside of the scientific world. >> kyle allen and campbell join me this morning in their first television interview. also, the suspected russian hack. >> this is huge across the board. can you not underestimate the incision. >> a lowing list of government agencies, private think tanks targeted, a scope never before seen and not fully understood. >> the mind equivalent of russian bombers reportedly flying undetected over the entire country. >> i'll talk to senator mitt romney of utah. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, rich lowry, editor of

national review, and yamiche alcindor, white house correspondent for pbs "newshour." welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. there are two ways to look at the covid-19 crisis today. once again there's real reason for optimism. americans have begun receiving the pfizer vaccine and this weekend moderna's vaccine was authorized for emergency use, adding millions of doses to be rolled out this morning, especially in more rural parts with normal freezers. all of this offers the kind of hope we've been longing for throughout this crisis. at the same time the pandemic continues to tear through the country, the four highest covid case counts since the coronavirus hit were recorded last week. as were four of the eight highest daily death tolls, including the top two. as we've noted, we're now experiencing a 9/11 every day and it's worse than a 9/11 on

some days. after september 11th, the government created a commission to study what went wrong? how do we miss the clues? our question is morning, does time to establish a 9/11-like commission to study how significant parts of our government missed this, chose to dismiss the oftenous danger, making it impossible for health officials to do their jobs? some things undeniably have gone right, like the vaccines created by our scientists in record-breaking time. but there are many other areas to probe, like why was the nationwide covid testing so deeply flawed, or the consequences of a president who spent his energy denying the pandemic, locking safety measures like mask wearing or social distancing, were allegations of the trump administration increasingly exerting influence over the cdc's messaging and data to play down the severity of the virus? our resulting loss of trust in government will only make it harder to fight the pandemic at the very moment people need to

be sursuedpersuaded to take thee and bring this horror to an end. >> we expect to have more dead bodies than we have spaces in morgues for them. >> as the coronavirus crisis gets worse -- >> we have patients just waiting days for a bed. >> so does another crisis, trust in government. already declining per decade, now chipped away by the federal government's massive failure in handling the pandemic. this week two former cdc officials, kyle gowin and amanda campbell, went public charging political interference with the agency and pressure to waterdown public health guidance. former hhs science adviser paul alexander, installed by president trump, pushed for a herd immunity strategy, writing in a july email -- infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions, et cetera, have zero to little risk so we use them to develop herd. we want them infected. >> you'll develop herd, like a herd mentality, it's going to be

herd developed. >> last week another cdc official testified director redfield told her to destroy an email from alexander showing he attempted to destroy reports that were believed to be unflattering to president trump. >> decisions were made outside of the science world by people with no expertise. >> it eroded trust in the government agency. in a gallop pull s. the cdc communicated, quote, a clear plan of action in response to covid. 33% say the same the president trump. >> the american people trust you on the pandemic when you're contradictory the head of the cdc? >> because of the great job we've done. >> the politicizing of the virus turned health officials into public punching bags. at least 181 state and local public health leaders in 38 states have resigned, retired or been fired since april 1. according to an investigation by the associated press and kaiser health news.

>> one woman said, using very foul language, somebody needed to shoot me and another person volunteered to take that task on. >> other colleagues and friends working in public health had their cars broken into, had been followed home, rocks thrown through the building. >> now as the federal government begins a push to persuade americans to be vaccinated -- >> make to mistake about it, it's a medical miracle. >> -- 18% of americans say they definitely will not get the vaccine, and the vaccine distribution effort is already facing complaints of mismanagement. >> where are our doses? what is holding them up? >> there is no problem with the process. there is no problem with the pfizer vaccine. there is no problem with the moderna vaccine. it was a planning error and i am responsible. joining me now is the 19th former surgeon general of the

united states who's been tapped by president-elect biden to become the next surgeon general. dr. murthy, welcome to "meet the press." i want to start some reporting to see if you can give clarity about reporting my colleagues did when we noted that biden advisers are warning the trump mass action timeline may be too optimistic. dr. murthy, are you one of the biden officials that are concerned by the vaccine timeline by the trump administration? >> chuck, good to be with you today. you know, unfortunately, this is a grave moment offour our count and this pandemic. when it comes to the vaccine timeline, we all want the vaccine delivered quickly and as fairly as possible. you can be sure every day and night myself and others on the biden team are working towards that end but we also want to be realistic about the timeline. i think if everything goes well, that we may see a circumstance

whereby late spring, you know, people who are in lower-risk categories can get this vaccine but that would really require everything to go exactly on schedule. i think it's more realistic to assume that it may be closer to midsummer or early fall when this vaccine makes its way to the general population. so we want to be optimistic but we want to be cautious as well. >> right. look, the president-elect made 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days. is that timeline a realistic tlooinl? >> again, i think that is it doable? yes, i think we can do it but what we've got to do is prepare and be ready to execute. that's actually what's happening right now. for the last many weeks, many of us who are on the covid team have been working for suppliers, working with folks inside the administration as well and with other partners we're going to need in order not just to produce the vaccine, chuck, but deliver it and get it into the arms of people across this

country. this will be the most aggressive and ambitious vaccination campaign we've attempted in this country's history. and that's why we're working hard to make sure that we're ready on day one to execute. >> how would you describe the cooperation that you're getting -- i know you're among the leaders of the incoming team that's going to handle the virus going forward. what would you say the level of cooperation you're getting from the white house coronavirus task force is? >> well, it's been improving over time. we still have more information that we need to gather, many more conversations we need to have, but i'm glad those are finally happening. i also want to point out many of the people we're talking to are career officials who will be there after january 20th. those are partners who many of us, including myself, have worked with in the past. able to get in as quickly as possible, rebuild and restart those working relationships are absolutely critical right now. >>/i want to ask you about a concerning headline out of the

uk and that is they have a more virulent strain of covid-19. what do you know about this strain, and how concerned are you about it spreading here in the united states or do we have mutations that are similar to what the uk is dealing with? >> chuck, this news from the uk is about a strain of the virus that, according to uk, appears to be more transmissible and more contagious than the virus that we've seen circulating prior to this. it's important to mention a couple things though. while it seems to be more easily transmissible, we do not have evidence yet that this is a more deadly virus to an individual who acquires it. there's no reason to believe the vaccine that had been developed will not be effective against this virus as well. the bottom line is if you're at home and you're hearing this news, it does not change what we do in terms of precautions as individuals that can reduce the spread of this virus. it turns out masking, that

keeping physical distance, washing our hands, these are still the pillar preventing covid transmission. >> on vaccine prioritization, look, there seems to be universal agreement frontline medical workers and those in senior facilities. it's the next line that seems to be a debate, and this is not easy, this ethical debate. essential workers versus 65 plus. the death toll among 65-plus is obvious and there's the case there. obviously essential workers can't do the mitigation that others can. how will the biden administration deal with this dilemma? >> chuck, you're right, these aren't easy questions to answer. i think the more open and transparent we are with the public about this, the better. we need to have these discussions in the light of day. we need to be able to get public input on some of these decisions. but ultimately, what should drive these decisions should be fact, should be ethical

consideration, should be science and expertese. and that's why we're eagerly waiting the input of the advisory council on immunization processes and we're also awaiting the input from the cdc. regardless of how this rolls out, here's what's clear, we have to make sure we've got enough supply, we have to make sure we have both the logistical systems in place as well as people and terms to be able to deliver that vaccine quickly. if we put these together, then we can rapidly get people in our country to the level of herd immunity and that is ultimately what will let us get back to living our lives, which what we all want. >> it is what we all want. dr. vivek murthy, thank you for coming on. i hope you have a safe and healthy holiday and new year. and fingers crossed this vaccinating process only gets smoother. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much, uk which. best to you. turning now to what appears to be the largest hack of the u.s. government ever.

secretary of state mike pompeo admitted friday, quote, we can say pretty clearly it was the russians who were responsible. but just as the trump administration seemed ready to speak with one voice on the subject, president trump tweeted that perhaps china was responsible. there was no evidence china had anything to do with this hack. a who's who of government agencies were penetrated and remained compromised by the security breach officials are calling, quote, a grave risk to the federal government. joining me now is republican senator mitt romney of utah. senator romney, welcome back to "meet the press." and you made a very impassioned plea for the president in particular to speak out, administration to speak out with what was going on with this russian hack. secretary pompeo did do that. i imagine what the president tweeted about china is not what you thought needed to be done. what do you make of the president's decision, i guess, to speculate on an alternative

theory? >> well, you're absolutely right. i was disappointed in the president's comment but i think we've come to recognize the president has a blind spot when it comes to russia. and the reality here is the experts, the people who really understand how our sims work and how computers work and software and so forth, thousands upon thousands of cia and nsa and department of defense had determined this came can from russia and it is an extraordinary invasion of our cyberspace, and the implications of this as tom bossert, who was president trump's, if you will, adviser with regards to homeland security, you cannot overstate how serious this is. they basically had the capacity to know what we're doing. we even got into the agency responsible for our nuclear capacities, for our researchers with regard to nuclear weaponry. this is an extraordinarily damaging invasion. and it went on for a long, long time. >> you know, you brought up the

president in your -- i think very charitable when you called it a blind spot. look, he came into office downplaying what the russians did in 2016 and he's leaving office now downplaying what the russians do. we went through the impeachment process during ukraine, which was arguably him embracing a russian disinformation campaign there. is there a point where you start to wonder if this is more than a blind spot? >> well, i'm not going to psychoanalyze the president, but i think he feels that anything that suggests that russia is being being ma lev lent or not treating him with the respect he deserves, he backs away from that. he doesn't recognize how bad of an actor they are on the world stage because it reflects poorly on him and perhaps in his own

mind. the reality is russia really is a geopolitical adversary. they go with us on every front. they invaded our cyberspace again. they kill people in their own country, whether it's politicians or media people and we have to recognize, we made -- i made fun of hillary clinton saying we would have a reset with russia. we've got the same problem in this administration, which we've not been serious enough at the very top about how damaging an adversary russia can be. >> what is the line between espionage and an act of war, and where does this fall? >> well, this basically -- i will step back to respond to that and say, look, you will remember about 20 years ago as we attack baghdad, you saw the videos of the rockets going across the city and slamming into various buildings and the places they attacked, of course, were the communication centers and utility centers. you can bring a country to its knees if people don't have

electricity, don't have water and can't communicate. basically what russia appears to have done is put themselves in those systems in our country. they don't need rockets to take those things out. they potentially have the capability to take out all of those things and doing it remotely at very small cast l cost. this is a very dangerous and damning invasion of cyberspace, which has enormous national security implications. as bossert indicated, it will take us months, if not years, to understand what they got. they have the information to cripple us economically, went into our businesses and can cripple us with regards to water and electricity and so and so forth. so this is very, very serious. >> i guess the question about the espionage and act of war, i want to ask it this way, do we live in a gls house on this issue? isn't our goal to have similar capabilities inside the russian government and their network? >> i think what this invasion

underscores is that russia acted with impunity. they didn't fear what we would be able to do from a cyber capacity. they didn't think our defense systems were particularly adequate. and they apparently didn't think we would respond in a very aggressive way. and i think all of those things have to be addressed. i think we have to be much more serious about our cyber capabilities, offensive and defensive. i think we have to have a rethink about that at the department of defense as well as our other agencies and i think we have to have a clear-eyed approach how we deal with russia going forward. this demands a response. and the response you'd expect to occur would be a cyber response. i don't know if we have the capacity to do in a way that would be the same scale or even greater scale than what russia has applied to us. but this is something we have to address as soon as possible. >> and that seems -- apparently, we've tried to respond a couple of times.

whether it was sanctions, didn't work. then vice president biden told me districtly that the american public might not know our response, but that we are definitely going to inflict some damage. is this something the world should actually see this time, that whatever response there is, the world needs to know in order to put other folks on notice? >> yeah, i don't care so much if the rest of the world knows. those that are inside the governments of various countries will know what we did or did not do. they know what we did after the last russian incursion into our cyberspace. and so does russia and obviously that was insufficient for them to take a different course. we have to make sure that what we do is of a scale and of a nature that they say okay, not doing that again. and that's not something we have been able to demonstrate yet. >> quickly on covid, i'm going to be speaking with a couple of former cdc officials that are going to speak out on what

happened with messaging and the white house interference at the cdc. and it raises a question, we've over 300,000 folks that have died from this. we clearly had a harder time with this pandemic than most of the western world. do we need an iraq study group, 9/11 commission, pick your comparative in history to figure out what went wrong and how we prevent this from happening again? but a commission, you know, something like with two leading figures, a chris christie, jeh johnson, jeb bush, people like that? >> i'm not sure it's a commission or not but we certainly need to study what we could have done better and prepare for the next pandemic. there will be another one. hopefully not very, very soon. but we have to do things to prevent the mistakes we made this time. there's no question we made all sorts of mistakes. the next phase, the vaccination phase, we got to get that right. because this thing can go on for

a long time unless people get vaccinated and are able to get back to work. by the way, you heard the good news, we have apparently been able to solve the issues with regard to a covid relief package and we're going to be able to get help to the american people who snead need it right now. >> quickly, in 2012 you won 40% of the popular, more than donald trump won in 2016 or 2020. and in 2013 the republican party had to do a action report to figure out why you lost. and in 2020 the republican party is not talking about that despite a republican nominee that performed less well than you did. what explains that? >> well, i believe the republican party has changed pretty dramatically, and by that i mean the people who consider themselves republican and voted for president trump, i think it's a different cohort than the cohort that voted for me. not entirely, of course, but in many respects. we lost a lot of suburban voters. we attracted a lot of blue collar democrats that had voted for democrats forever before

that. and i think the party as you look at those thinking about running in 2024 is trying to see who made the most like president trump and that suggests the party doesn't want to take a different direction, it wants to get in that same direction but perhaps with some differences, of course, because personalities are different. i don't think anyone who's looking at running in 2024 has the kind of still and shtick president trump has. he's a unique and capable politician. and so there will be some differences of personality but i think the direction you're seeing is one that he set out and i don't see a different course being considered by those that are looking for 2024. >> you're so comfortable -- are you comfortable in that version of the republican party? >> no, i'd like to see a different version of the republican party because my side is very small these days. i think over time our party will gravitate back to the principles that formed it.

i think we are a party committed to pushing back on nations like russia, authoritarian regimes. we're a party that recognizes we need to balance our budget. i think ultimately we're individuals who say we welcome legal immigration. we don't denigrate people who are coming from other countries. i think we recognize that character actually does count. so these things i think will once again have have ascendancy within my party but it's probably going to be a while. >> senator mitt romney, republican from utah, i'm glad to see congress get this done. let's hope it gets across, run through the tape as they say, and i hope you have a happy holiday season and happy new year, sir. >> thanks, chuck. good to be with you. when we come back, two former cdc this year we got it done. and with free curbside pickup at walmart... you can get the perfect gift up until the last minute. let's end the year nailing it. ♪

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from the start of the pandemic, president trump and his administration have been accused of playing down the crisis. and as we mentioned earlier, several officials at the cdc charged the official with substituting science, softening the business and protecting the agency. joining me now is the former chief of staff and former deputy chief of staff, amanda campbell. thank you both for being here. the best way i feel i would like to go through this interview is pick out a certain event that took place over the last year and i hope you guys can give us in context. the first big moment where there seems to be some fight between the white house and cdc is when nancy messonnier, the director of the cdc centers for immunization directly predicted that this virus would cause a major disruption in life, stock market falls. the result of that hhs he gets

sidelined, cdc gets sidelined, mike pence. kyle mcgowen, how significant was that moment? >> first off, chuck, i just want to thank you for having the two of us with you today. i also you want to thank all of the dedicated men and women at the cdc who continued to work every day to make sure that we get out of this pandemic as quickly as we possibly can. they are the people who truly make the cdc the world's most premiere public health institution. and to your question, it was very concerning and that was just the very beginning with dr. messie messinger. and nothing she said didn't come through, and nothing she said was false. as amanda and i worked in the spring and summer, we saw more and more the administration wanting a larger say in the messaging that was coming out of the cdc. and when that messaging clashed

with the science, the messaging won. and it's our hope moving forward that the cdc will be able to, again, talk directly to the american people. >> amanda, i want to fast forward to june. the cdc puts out guidelines for schools, the president tweets he disagrees with them. tell us what happened next, what happens behind the scenes? >> i just want to thank you as well, chuck, for having us here today. when kyle and i went to the cdc, we were there to be a bridge between the cdc and washington and really to provide them with political support that hadn't quite existed there before. and to support the incredibly important work that the public health experts there do on a daily basis and it truly was an honor and privilege of a lifetime to work alongside them. throughout the course of the summer and during our time there, we did see more and more

often individuals across the administration commenting and on the guidance the cdc was trying to put out. unfortunately that often led to delays in this cases and in that particular instance with the president tweeting out, it led to us having to go back and make changes and do additional guidance in order to provide the right information and more information really to the american people. but really what was so critical during that time and what was needed was cdc to be able to get information out quickly to the american people so they can make the best decisions for themselves and their loved ones. . and it's our hope that moving forward, they're going to be able to do just that. >> right. kyle, i want to go and try in august, and that was the month you chose to resign. in august was this dust-up when suddenly there were guidelines coming from the cdc that were mixed messaging on whether asymptomatic people needed

testing. it was all happening at the same time. the president was complaining about essentially too much testing. i'm curious, was that your breaking point? >> no, that wasn't. i think amanda and i have said all along that we will continue to work in public health and continue to support the cdc and in the best way that we can. we had a wonderful ability early on prior to the pandemic to be able to support large initiatives at the cdc, including the ending of the hiv pandemic, opioids, many things. but when we got to the pandemic and, frankly, the meddling that was coming out of the administration, we were not able to do the job we were sent there for. and there was no single breaking point i would say, but in that summer in august or that time in august is when amanda and i started talking about how we

would leave. >> amanda, it's my understanding you guys have met with some of the biden transition officials to essentially provide your thoughts, your expertise on what you saw, what needs to change. atwh arene or two reforms that you would like to see done that helps restore the cdc's good name? you saw the poll numbers. you're down to 31% trusting what's coming out of the cdc and this was an agency that sort of had been above politics for most of my lifetime. how does that get restored? >> yes, thank you for that question. it's important to remember cdc is the world's premiere public health agency. and that's because of the men and women who work there. and they're the same men and women and dedicated professionals that were there at the start of this pandemic that have worked tirelessly throughout it to protect the american people, and who are going to be there as we get through this.

but it's so critically important that we moving forward are able to provide the cdc both the political support that they need to be able to do their job, to have been able to communicate directly to the american people again as kyle said, but also the financial support that they need to do their jobs. unfortunately, we've seen administrations and congresses in the past fund public health and knee-jerk reactions, be funding for zika and ebola to say fix a problem for us but not having long-term sustained funding for public health. you have to remember, too, 70% of all of the funding that goes to cdc is actually going out to the state, supporting our public health infra structure. they have to have that funding in order to do the important things we need moving forward based on this response, we need to modernize our public health

data, modern work capacity modernized workforce. i hope the bhadeliden administr will consider all of these things. >> proof political appointees put public service first too. thank you for coming out here and sharing your perspective with us. >> thank you for having us. >> you got it. when we come back, how advanced non-small cell lung cancer can take away so much. but today there's a combination of two immunotherapies you can take first. one that could mean... a chance to live longer. opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread and that tests positive for pd-l1 and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. it's the first and only approved chemo-free combination of two immunotherapies that works together in different ways to harness the power of the immune system. opdivo plus yervoy equals a chance for more days. more nights. more beautiful weekends.

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ask your doctor about opdivo wasays "hose".? -it says "horse"! hose? not a "hose"! cedric! get over here! servicenow. the smarter way to workflow. for skin as alive as you are... don't settle for silver 7 moisturizers 3 vitamins 24 hours hydraonti gold bond champion your skin welcome back. the panel is joining us. nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, rich lowry, editor of the national review, and yamiche alcindor, white house correspondent for pbs "newshour," who was just named yesterday journalist of the year

by the national association of black journalists. congratulations, yamiche. i'm here to make sure i embarrass you because i know your mom is watching. >> thank you so much. >> congrats on that. hallie, let me start with the hack and the president's response, in some ways incredibly predictable, right, over the totality of this administration you've been covering. >> yes. >> but i'm curious, what is happening around him? how concerned are the national security folks? robert o'brien cut short a trip he was taking overseas to deal with this. >> right. >> what is happening behind the scenes in the west wing? >> right. so i will tell you, chuck, there is -- you're right, for the national security apparatus, this is a big deal. you laid it out in your interview with senator romney earlier in the show, this hack is nothing that can be sort of buried under the rug or overlooked. what is the president focusing on, chuck? i can tell you from a source that i talked to recently,

the president is increasingly focused none on this hack or response to it, but on what he feels is the stolen election and election that he lost. he's fuming about it. he's talking about it. he's almost obsessed about it according to folks i talked to who are familiar with his thinking. that is where his mental energy is, not on the issue of the national security facing this country. and that is immensely frustrating to those around him. including members of congress who feel that they're simply not getting enough information. we have been hearing for days the impact of this hack are still being assessed. this is ongoing. it seems like the administration does not have a handle on just how bad the hack was yet as we continue to get through the drip, drip, drip on a daily basis on where else the suspected russian intelligence service may have gotten into, may have breached in this country. lawmakers wanted more information. they hoped for a briefing even this weekend because they were so dissatisfied with the briefing they just had on the hill and this includes some republicans, not just democrats. i will tell you every time this administration, the trump

administration started with concerns the president was not tough enough on russia, it is ending with concerns the president is not tough enough on russia. whenever i bring this up to folks who are close to the president's allies, they go, here you go again, media, russia, russia, russia. the depiction of the media who cried wolf. the wolf is in federal agencies now. the breach is the wolf. >> i want to play for you the briefing about how they got here and put some words to what hallie just said. take a listen. >> we are very disturbed. we didn't get the information we wanted. >> very disappointing. like pulling teeth. >> their briefings were obtuse. sorely lacking in details. >> there was more in "the new york times" than there was in that room. >> thomas massie saying he learned more from "the new york times," not surprising coming from intel briefings on capitol hill. but, rich, you wrote essentially

what i would call is enough is enough editorial here about the president's behavior and that was before -- that was three days ago as we're learning about this hack. this presidential behavior, i've lost the ability to find an adjective to describe it. >> a couple hallmarks of the entire administration with how he handled this. one, extremely defensive about russia and wanting to deny russian misconduct. two, the president sort of stands outside of his administration oftentimes and just acts as though he's commenting on it and has nothing to do with it. the fact is, despite what he said, despite his posture, the president has taken this threat very seriously. it happened to be the things we were focused on were wrong things. we were focused on defending the election, actually did a very good job on that. very focused on defending against malware attacks. but this was something different, they used a so-called trusted tool to intrude in all of these systems.

it's very concerning that u.s. government agencies didn't discover this, intelligence officials didn't discover this. it was discovered via an automated warning at a private company that very easily could have been ignored. so there's no substitute for even more robust defenses than we have now in this realm. >> yamiche, the issue of deterrence, the president-elect in october of '16 sat down with us right before that election, and i asked him about sending russia a message for what they did in 2016. here's what he told me then. >> sort of like in baseball, you throw a high, hard one to send a message. why haven't we sent a message to putin? >> we're sending a message. we have the capacity to do it, and the message will be sent -- >> he will know it? >> he will know it. it will be at the time of our choosing and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact. >> so a message is going to be sent. will the public know it? >> i hope not.

>> so yamiche, this is proof -- and look, we know supposedly the trump administration did -- went after a troll farm in russia too. whatever we have done either in the end of the obama era or during the trump era has not worked. >> that's -- that is clear. what we hear now from president-elect biden is this idea russia is going to have to pay a substantial cost, that's what he said this weekend in a statement for the activities. even if it's different from what president trump does, and it might be something that is, of course, more strenuous because the president has really wanted to, as mitt romney just told you, had a blind spot for russia. he does not want it to recognize him as an adversary. the big question coming for the biden administration is how are you going to handle russia? fiona hill told "the news hour" this week what we need is a

cohesive response to russia, we need our allies in the united states working together, we need our officials on the same page. what we've seen is a president who's continued to be really personally offended by anybody saying russia is a personal adversary, we have seen the president taken the word of putin over his own national security apparatus. and this is down to him not wanting his win in 2016 to be questioned, and even now the president demanding be more strenuous, be more hard on russia, the president just can't get himself there. president trump can't get himself to do it. president-elect biden is going to try. >> very quickly, rich, is mitt romney right in some ways? do you think once donald trump disappears, the republican party will find its spine on russia again? >> i think this -- there's going to be a long struggle over where the party is over a lot of things, including that. i think the president's influence over the party will be long lasting. the conventional scenario he will lose and influence wane.

that hasn't happened. strangely his grip on the party has even strengthened since he lost the election. >> despite the numbers i have pointed out and numbers you will see in a minute here. when we come back, why republicans are learning to love ♪ ♪

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4.5 percentage points and 7 million raw votes. s with as we needed the second largest since 2000, second to only obama in 2008. let's look at the three states to put biden over the top in the electoral college and compare that to the three states that gave donald trump the presidency in 2016. as many disappointed democrats have pointed out for four years, mr. trump won pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan by a total of 78,000 votes, pretty small margin but biden won arizona, wisconsin and wisconsin by 33,000 votes combined, an even smaller margin to an already-small margin. so biden won by 70 million votes but flipped less than 1% of the margin in three states and he loses the election. this is part of the reason the democrats loathe the electoral college these days and rpsz l e republicans love it. here's another way to look at it, consider the 2000 election, even outside of florida it was extremely close.

many less than 3.5 percentage points, and that reflected the popular vote where the margin was just 547,000. now compare that to 2020. there were still eight states where the losing candidate was within 3.5 points, different states mostly, but the national popular vote was a whopping 7 million. in fact, biden's entire popular vote margin came from just two states, california and new york. the more that democratic votes are packed into just a few states, the more republicans can win the electoral college while losing the popular vote. the result, don't count on republicans calling for an end to the electoral college any time soon. reminder, on the popular vote, we're a center left nation. but our institutions like the electoral college keep it center it's been a tough year. and now with q4 wrapping up, the north pole has to be feeling the heat. it's okay santa, let's workflow it. workflow it...? -uh-huh. just picture it... with the now platform,

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welcome back. it's fair to say that when even 50 years from now you'll be able to say 2020, and it will invoke plenty of images in your head in the same way that just saying the year 1968 does for certain americans over the age of 50. so it's tough to do what i'm going to ask you guys to do, b yamiche, 2020 is this consequential year. there are so many ways to try to dissect this. how do you look at it? how is it -- it's obviously going to change us. what are you looking for going forward? >> the pandemic obviously is the thing that was the hallmark of 2020. there was so much mourning, so much loss, so much sadness in this country. and there was a presidency that really failed to meet the moment in ways objectively seen because the president downplayed the virus, he didn't take it seriously. it's large in part based on my reporting why he lost the election. i think you couple the pandemic

terrible loss with the political upheaval, and i also want to point out the statistic that sticks with me that african-americans are 2 1/2, 3 times forelikely to die than white americans in the pandemic in the same when african-americans are two to three more times more likely to be killed by police than white americans. this is also the year where the pandemic exposed long-standing inequalities in this country and showed african-americans and people of color do not get treated as equal citizens so this is a dual economy as well as racial circumstances that continue to happen. >> yes e. it was an mri for us. the question is after we see this mri, do we do something about it? that's going to be a rich test. rich lowry, what say you about what 2020 looks like? >> i will say the health story,

covid effects, the presidential election that could have gone differently if it had not been for the pandemic, economic effect, hammering people down the income scale in a way that will take them years to recover and widening the cultural divisions. i think, chuck, this is a year it became undeniable. we're living in an era of poisonous political contention on par with the 1790s, 1850s, late '60s, early '70s when neither side is of a mood or state of mind to say the other side is legitimate and considers the other side a fundamental threat to our system. >> hallie jackson, you've had a unique front-row seat yourself, covering this administration, and i think in some ways the effect will be greater the farther you get away from it. but what are you focused on as we look ahead? >> one thing chuck that started as sort of a natural logical, perhaps illogical conclusion, of

something that happened right here on this show two days after the inauguration of president trump taking office, kelly an conway talking about alternative facts in the way it related to inaugural crowd size and incorrect comments and incorrect claims by then-expect sean spicer. we are looking at the peak of factism and i'm longing at the long-term effect of that. we're seeing it point to the division of discourse rich is talking about but the division of two separate realities in this country. we've seen it in relation to the health of americans in this pandemic and concern, scepticism public health experts are so worried about with people not taking covid seriously, not believing the science, not believing the data. we've seen it with the help of this democracy and people also in this country, those who especially support president trump, believing not in the sort of foundational structures that hold our democracy up but believing what president trump said instead.

here we are four years later and it's not just alternative facts, it's an alternative set of realities and that will have serious impacts moving forward not just in the political spear but culture spirit as well. i think you're right. it will take all of us who have been covering the trump administration to look back and say how do you put this four years in the context of history are? but i do think that will be a key part of it. >> yamiche, what kind of appetite do you think the biden administration's going to have? i talked about a covid commission. i think that's likely to happen, something like that. but i notice "the new york times" called for something -- they didn't call it this but it felt like a truth and reconciliation commission. is that something our current politics will allow to happen? >> i think because of this thing former president obama called truth decay, it's very hard to have a truth and reconciliation commission when americans can't agree on the truth hallie jackson is talking about, kellyanne conway talking about alternative facts.

i remember being on "meet the press" when rudy giuliani told you truth isn't truth. it's the thing that defied the trump administration and this era, he wanted to create a completely new version of the truth and so many americans, more than 75 billion, went along for that with president trump. i'm not sure we can get to a place where americans can sit down and say let's talk about our differences when we can't even agree on the facts. >> excellent points. i really appreciate the three of you, not just this week but all year long. you've been tremendous contributors to "meet the press" and this roundtable. thank you all for watching. that's all we have for today. all of us here at "meet the press" want to wish you a safe and joy us christmas. have a restful holiday. remember, take a mental health break if you can as well. we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

breaking overnight, at long last, relief for the millions of americans struggling in a pandemic congress striking a $900 billion deal after months of gridlock. what that aid package will provide and when it will arrive, including those new stimulus chks. another shot of hope the second vaccine approved in the u.s. is rolling out right now as new fears infect the uk london locks down to try and slow the spread of a new, more contagious covid strain. procrastinator, better watch out. the shipping woes that may prevent your g