this sunday, coronavirus cases soaring. >> we now are at a viral tsunami. >> hospitals overwhelmed. >> it's the worst i'm asking for help and help is not coming. >> a more contagious form of the virus in the u.s. >> it will lead to a lot more deaths over a period of time because there is more cases. >> administration's vaccine distribution system failing to deliver. >> the federal government doesn't invade texas or montana and provide shots to people. >> it's not an invasion. it's helpful.

the federal government should be helping states. >> my guests dr. anthony fauci. the over throw of the election. >> there is a feeling this election was stolen and it's not fair and there is fraud. >> a dozen senate republicans support vice president pence and will vote to deny joe biden's victory. i'll ask the senator about this attempt to discredit a free and fair election. also, battle for the senate. two run off elections in georgia with control of the senate in the balance. >> we'll do everything in our power to ensure first and foremost every voter in georgia can be heard. >> my guests voting rights activist stacey abrams and qanon. >> there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this global cable of satan worshipping pedophiles out. >> how it's stretched to halls of congress. joining me for inside analysis are peter baker, nbc news

capitol hill correspondent leeann caldwell and jeff bennett. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press with chuck todd". good sunday morning and a happy new year to everyone. 2020 is finally in the rearview mirror, sort of. january is providing a bit of a 2020 hangover, if you will. donald trump's entire presidency is a stress test on the democracy and remains true even now. consider what has happened since election day. mr. trump refused to concede the election. he and his allies have declared wide spread fraud where none exists and tried and failed in court to overturn joe biden's victory with trump appointed judges turning away the lawsuits. at least 12 senate republicans plan to challenge the electoral

college vote on wednesday with mike pence's encouragement and trump is urging supporters to show up in d.c. to protest, create a disruptive environment. this week rupert murdoch's protrump new york post headlined spot the insanity and those tied to the mueller administration rewarded with obstructing meller and dlaetthreatened to derail t coronavirus relief package and backed down at the last minute. one thing president trump has not done is paid much attention to the covid pandemic that took more lives in the month of december than so far. after administration did a face plant on testing a small percentage of the 20 million vaccinations promised by the end of 2020 had been administered as a new strain spreads from state to state. so that's where we're going to begin because joining me is the single most respected voice in

the pandemic d dr. anthony fauci from the institute ovf infectios diseases. 2021 is here but we're still dealing with the fallout of 2020. the last time you were on this program was november 29th and i want to put up the number of people that have died since then. it an average, it's over 83,000 and it's an average of 2300 a day in those 36 days since you've been on last, which is the equivalent of six to eight jumbo jets falling out of the sky on a daily basis. here we are. how much worse is this going to get? >> you know, chuck, it could and likely will get worse in the next couple of weeks or at least maintain this very terribly high level of infections and deaths that we're seeing, and the reason is that, you know, we're in that situation that we predicted a few weeks ago, as

you get into the holiday season and people have done a considerably amount of traveling. there's been settings where people were gathering for social and family get togethers against advice of public officials like myself, though, it's difficult to do that when you have a family oriented season and you have cold weather, people doing things indoors much more than outdoors and this is what happens. it's terrible and unfortunate but predictable we would see the number of cases we're seeing now. my concern is it could get worse over the next couple of weeks as we see the lag that happens when an event occurs like the christmas and new year's holiday you usually have a couple week lag before you see an additional uptick of cases, which is always followed by hospitalizations and deaths. so things are bad enough as they

are right now with the numbers that you mentioned, which are really terrible but it could get worse. rather than sit back and throw up a hands and say my goodness, it's getting worse, we need to double down on some of the fund mental things we talk about all the time, chuck, the uniform wearing of masks, the physical distancing and the avoiding of settings of crowds particularly indoors. we got to keep doing that. >> with the combination of the new strain out there that may be and we're still learning more and i know you don't have full answers to this, either, but it may essentially, mean that a contagious person infects five people instead of two or something like that. are we looking at a campaign when president elect biden becomes president, are we going to need to do another 15, 30 days stop the spread, maybe do a partial lockdown between that

issue and obviously, what's happening now, and it looks like hospitals, they were overwhelmed in november, dr. fauci, what will happen at the end of the january? >> yeah. well, i hope we don't have to do the lockdown because we all know, chuck, how much covid-19 fatigue there is of people just really being worn down with this, but we certainly need to enhance and make more uniform our public ehealth measured. president elect biden has called for 100 days of everybody wearing a mask uniformly throughout the country. that's really a good start. the idea about locking down is something that you might have to do but you want to avoid. in certain areas of the country, such as in kl ccalifornia, whic really being stressed with regard to the hospital beds and personnel who are really getting exhausted with the number of cases coming in, you may have to have and they already have

decided on some form of lockdown in specific areas of the state or specific regions of the country. so that's not out of the question. we hope we don't have to do it country-wide because we feel if you adhere to the public health measures, you can turn things around short of a uniform lockdown. >> let's talk about this mutated strain here. your level of concern about it and i assume you're like most other officials, you have to assume it's already running wild in this country. how long will it take you to know more about the danger of this new strain? >> well, we're certainly following it closely and taking it seriously. a lot of experience is coming out of the united kingdom, england that had this dominating the spread of the virus throughout the country. we isolated multiple examples of the a mutant being in this

country. there is no doubt it's here, and there is no doubt given the efficiency of the ability to spread that it's going to spread. what we're hearing from the u.k. colleagues is that although it does transmit much more readily than the standard strain, it does not appear to be moaking people sicker or greater incidents of dying, nor doeslud offered by the antibodies induced by the vaccine. we want to find that out for ourselves. we understand the data from the u.k. they are good. they know what they're doing. we want to study this carefully ourselves. bottom line, chuck, getting back to a moment counter this is do public health pressures that prevent spread. that's the point. regardless of the strain you have circulating out there, yo u have to adhere to the public health measures and that will stop the spread of any strain. >> let's talk about the

vaccination process right now. you yourself have called the rollout disappointing. we're obviously well short of the 20 million vaccination goal. you and i talked about this a month ago and you had had a lot of confidence in the vaccination system in this country would really kick in and work. what is your explanation of why the government's promise fell so far short? >> chuck, you know, you have to look there are multiple stages of this. there is the allocation, there is shipping, distribution and finally getting in people's arms. i had a conversation a couple days ago with general perna explaining they allocated 20 million. that's good. they shipped about 14 million and distributed namely to the individual clinics and hospitals and places who are going to be putting it in people's arms to about 13 million. they had promised it would be 20.

i asked why we're not at 20 and they were certainly a bit of a glitch, which he explained but as we get into the first couple of days and first week of january, very likely we'll hit that 20. we'll be somewhat behind by a few days. the real issue is getting it into people's arms. we have about milli4 million, w is obviously below where we want to be but if you look at the last 72 hours, there is 1.5 million administered into people's arms, which is an average of 500,000 a day, which is better than with that 4 million over 20 million proportion tells you. so what i'm saying right now is that a, we're not where we want to be. we've got to do much better but b, let's give it about a week or two into january to see if we can pick up momentum that was slowed down by the holiday season. so again, no excuses. we're not where we want to be but hopefully, we'll pick up momentum and get back to where we want to be with regard of

getting it into people's arms. >> a hand full of other countries, dr. fauci, decided not to hold back a second dose and fully vaccinate but hey, use all the vaccinations you got, get as many people a first shot as you can and we'll worry about the second shot when we get the second shot. we're not doing that. where is your head on that? are we at a point where you might say look, i'm not fully in favor of it but maybe it's better than a lockdown. >> okay. first of all, this related to a lockdown has nothing to do with a lockdown. i can tell you that. let me tell you where we are, chuck. it's obviously a question everyone is asking. thei issue of giving it to peope and not having a guarantee you'll get a second shot goes against the science. we want to do it according to the science.

you give a first dose if you have pfizer you get a past 21 days later, moderna 28 days later you get the boost. the stretch you are giving it to more people that's if you don't have enough vaccine and you have people lined up to get a vaccine. that's not a problem. we have vaccine. we need to get it into people's arms. it really is the right solution to the wrong question. right now, if we do it efficiently, the way we've planned, it's much better than trying to stretch it out and not having the scientific basis of knowing what happens if you wait instead of 28 days, you wait 50 or 70? we don't know whether or not that will be good enough. we know what the science tells us. so my feeling and my direct answer to your question, chuck, is let's do it the way the clinical trials have instructed us to do it, but let's get more efficient into getting it into people's arms. >> and final question, the president tweeted just before you came on questioning the death toll saying the cdc

massively over counts the death toll. many experts told me were under counting the death toll. where are we on this death toll? it's over 350,000. are we over counting in this country or under counting, dr. fauci? >> the numbers are real, chuck. you know, you're going to have some deviation plus or minus a bit but the numbers are real. we have well over 300,000 deaths and averaging two to 3,000 deaths per day. go into the trenches, go into the hospitals and intensive care units and see what is happening. those are real numbers, real people and real deaths. >> dr. fauci, as always, sir, thank you. happy new year. 2021 couldn't get here fast enough and let me just say for a lot of us, we can't wait to get the vaccines and i see you took one and you're fine, correct? >> i'm good. i'm fine. very, very little problem.

just a little ache in the arm and that was it. we're good. >> good enough for you, sir, it's good enough for me and my family. thank you, dr. fauci. turning to the other big story. the republican effort to delegitimize joe biden's election. 12 republican senators and senators elect will reject the results of swing states won by joe biden until an audit of alleged fraud is completed with support of the vice president. there was no wide spread fraud number one, but it looks like it being done to curry favor with president trump and supporters and among senators taking part is ron johnson of wisconsin and to his credit, he's agreed to join me this morning. welcome back to ""meet the press"." last month you told a newspaper in your home state you would not eject to the electoral college certification. there are 57 cases filed by the president or his allies. not a single court found a

single instance of fraud legiti. what changed to have you question the results of this election, sir? >> good morning, chuck and happy new year. let me respond on covid. our greatest failure in responding to covid is we completely ignored early treatment and vilified doctors that had the courage to practice medicine and treat patients with widely available repurposed drugs. i have to point that out. we've utterly failed to that standpoint. to answer your question, i'd ask all your listeners ask you, ask our critics to actually read the letter. one of the points we make is we are not apting to thwart the democratic process, we're acting to protect it. the fact of the matter is that we have an unsustainable state of affairs in this country where we have tens of millions of people that do not view this election result as legitimate. we've come off four years where the other side refused to

acknowledge the legitimacy of president trump and here we are again and what we're saying is we need transparency, and you do not -- when you're trying to incest gai investigate wrongdoing in the election, we're suggesting let's set up a commission as they did, i know it's a long time ago, 1877 but let's take a look at a bipartisan commission to organize all the allegations. s certainly what i did in my hearing, we barely scratched the surface and organized allegations and take off the table the ones that have been explained but acknowledge the problem areas that have not been explained so that we can restore confidence in the election system. this is an unsustainable state of affairs now. that's all we're saying. as long as someone will be objecting to this, let's propose a solution of transparency, investigation and commission. >> all right. senator, i want to quote senator

ben sass for you. what you're alleging is you ex your colleagues have created this controversy. right now we are lock into a destructive vicious circle in someways you've outlined, which is you made an allegation there is wide spread fraud and offered evidence of wide spread fraud but demanding an allocation of wide spread fraud so essentially, you're the arsonist here. president trump is the arsonist here. you started this fire and now you're saying whoa, look at this, oh my god, all these people believe what we told them because you didn't have the guts to tell the truth that this election was fair. >> chuck, this fire was started back in, your know, january of 2017. people like mark zade in his tweet, the coup started first of many steps, rebellion and impeachment to follow. this started when the main stream media dropped any fre

pretense of being unbias. this fire was started when you completely ignored for our investigation of hunter biden -- >> senator, all right. i've had enough of hearing this -- >> no, listen, i've had enough of this, too. >> no, senator -- >> you spent the last two years -- >> republicans and conservatives do not trust -- >> no -- >> the main stream media and that is what destroyed the credibility of the media and our institutions and -- >> right. no. the destruction of the institutions -- >> so i didn't start this. >> listen, you have spent, i'm curious, senator, you've spent much of your time in the last two years carrying a lot of crazy conspiratorry water for president trump whether the attempt to blame ukraine for the interference in the election, rather than russia. you've used your committee to sort of create the illusion of voter fraud as you described

earlier because there are quote allegations. i'm trying to understand here what are you doing it for? you're not trying to overturn the election you just said. are you simply trying to curry favor with constituents of the presidents? is that what this is about a political ploy? >> i'm trying to be transparent. you know, one of the things we found out in our hearing is the basic allegations kind of fall into three categories. the first is the violation over the enforcement of election law. there is voter fraud there. we had one witness talk about 42,000 people voting twice in nevada. the other issue -- >> just because you have somebody say it didn't make it true. >> it's easy -- >> senator, none of the allegations. stop. you don't get to make allegations that haven't been proven true. here is what i don't understand. you understand how our government was set up. the reason we have a judiciary is partisans like yourself

weren't going to be trusted by the public to decide who won or lost an election. let me ask you this, who carried the state of wisconsin? >> oh, biden won by 20,000 votes but there are issues in wisconsin. one of the things i point out and was revealed in the hearing, i entered into the record three letters written by congressional democrats to the voting machine manufacturers. at that point in time, i didn't hear chuck schumer call it quakery or conspiracy theory of a ridiculous charade but that's how he attacked my hearing but laid out issues. we had chris crebbs testify. the most secure election but admitted he wasn't talking about potential fraud, he was talking about hacking. he admitted the machines are hooked up to the internet that told me that wasn't the case. again, i didn't criticize democrats when they were talking

about potential hacking of voting machines, but now it's quakery and conspiracy theory, that's the problem, chuck. there is a double standered and we're not being transparent and dismissing the concerns of tens of millions of american. again, i didn't light this fire. this fire was lit over four years ago and we've destroyed the credibility, you have december decstroyed the credibie news media by your bias. john brennan destroyed the credibility of the justice system, as well. we have an enormous problem in the country that's unsustainable and the only way you solve it is with information and transparency and hearings and investigations, not quakeryconss going to be required. >> why didn't you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? there is menplenty of people th thought 9/11 was an inside job -- >> chuck, i -- >> if there is enough people who

hold -- >> the most lrelevant issue -- >> how about the moon landing? are you going to hold hearings on that? >> what i would like to hold hearings on, what i was talking about, why did we not spend hundreds of billions of dollars exploring early treatment and vilify doctors who had the courage to treat covid patients, practice medicine, try and find available, cheap repurposed drugs to do so? i'd love to hold hearings on that. there are things i'd love to hold hearings on. you have to pick and choose. we have an election and tens of millions of americans that think this election was stolen. we need to get to the bottom of it. what's explained, we need to explain it and get that off the table and acknowledge, there is real problems and issues that need to be explored and incest gated. >> you got to ask yourself, when you tell people a million times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, i think you need to look in the mirror and

ask yourself why so many people -- >> chuck, look in your mirror -- >> i got to go. appreciate you coming on. i've let you say plenty -- >> that is what you did in the media. you carried that water for years. you destroyed the credibility of the press. >> senator son jojohnson, other crediting you for coming on, appreciate that because only two of your colleagues had the guts to say yes this weekend about this conspiracy theory you're working on. thanks for coming on. that i appreciate. >> have a good day. we'll talk to did you know that geico's whole 15 minutes thing... that came from me. really. my first idea was "in one quarter of an hour, your savings will tower... over you. figuratively speaking." but that's not catchy, is it? that's not going to swim about in your brain. so i thought, what about... 15 minutes. 15 percent. serendipity. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

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feel the power. beat the symptoms fast. welcome back. control of the united states senate will be determined in two run off elections on tuesday that have already set records for fund raising. republican purdue and kelly leffler top of the screen are running against john ossoff and rafael and nobody has done more

to register democratic voters and fight voter suppression than stacy abrarms and she joins me now. apologies. i'll have a little shorter segment than i wanted because of what i had to do with the previous interview, but i want to begin with president trump's recent tweet attacking your former opponent in 2018 governor kemp essential recalling for his resignation, alleging and called him a puppet and said they are disastrous for georgia and won't let professionals get near fulton county. could you have scripted president trump's behavior any better to help democrats in your efforts to turnout voters? if anything, he's dividing the republican party. >> i don't think our focus should be on the fights happening with the republicans. my mission and the mission of john osoff and rafael is turn every georgiaen that wants relief from covid-19 and understands $600 is not going to get a family through the winter, we need jobs, we need access to

justice, we need real health care in georgia and across the south and we need leaders who actually show up to do their jobs. we have two hypocrites in david purdue and kelly leffler. they have waffled back and forth on whether they care about the future of georgia and they have done very little to show any real concern for georgia lives. we know that john and rafael are the two men who will go to washington d.c. and will prove that georgia indeed stands with its people. >> if you come up short, what would be your explanation? you've had plenty of money. you've had plenty of resources. you've had in this -- is it what? is it the access to the polls? if you come up short on tuesday, what is your explanation? >> this was a competitive election and we didn't get the votes we needed. the reality is in 2018, we were able to show in court multiple times that there were impedim t

impediments to voters who right the right to vote and secure legislation to make changes to make it easier for voters to access the ballot. at any time, i never challenged the lega legitimate of the but election but process. i'm excited georgia is a competitive state and this is a nail biter and i hope democrats will show up and demonstrate november is the beginning of a pattern but if not, it going to further demonstrate we are a force to be reckoned with and will continue to fight not only for national elections and statewide elections but fight to continue to improve lives at the state and local level. >> you know, democrats don't win one or both of the seats, some of them will come to you and say hey, stacey abrams, i wish you you were on the ballot. i wish you had run. have you had second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth though in the back of your mind? gosh, i wish i were on the ballot right now?

>> not at all. we have two extraordinary candidates. john osoff, there is no better person or foil for them than david purdue that profited off this pandemic and a social justice warrior, someone that fought hard for families and kelly leffler has done nothing with her time in the u.s. senate than to make money and chastise and undermine the communities doing their best to be heard and seen in the country. >> look, i'm a dad and i know you know your state county by county and stuff but there is a generic take, atlanta and the suburbs versus the rest of the state. blow up the conventional wisdom, tell me someplace outside of atlanta in savannah that you think democrats, if they do well there, that's a sign they will win this race. >> we're going to win metro atlanta. we'll win columbus. we're going to win in albany. we're going to win in making. we're going to win in savannah.

i was in a county traditionally republican county but it has improved the democratic performance from 16 to 18 and from 18 to 2020. we know that in a lot of the ex urban counties outside metro atlanta but not quite south of the nat line, we've seen pper ' passion. they are voting and cast ballots and they are disproportionately voters of color and young voltevolt voters. in the statewide election, you didn't win county by county but person by person. fair fight is willing to invest millions of dollars into organizations, smaller groups doing the grass roots organizing and mobilizing that is going to take to win and we're very hopeful and very determined to do so on tuesday. >> stacey abrams, appreciate you coming on. happy new year to you. thanks for coming on and sharing

your prospeerspective to us. >> thank you for having me. >> you got it. when we come back, what mitt romney called the dang

welcome back. the panel is joining us. peter baker chief correspondent for "the new york times" and lee an caldwell and jeff bennett. all right, guys, i think the theme for this is simply going to be president tlumprump's divg of the republican party. peter baker, in the last ten days he called on the republican governor of georgia to resign and called the campaign illegal, threatened john thoon with a christi challenge. president trump here, we knew he might burn it all down. apparently, he wants to divide his party right to the very end here. >> well, i think that's right, . we have to put this into content. we act like this is normal and it's not. i think 220 years ago john adams was the income bent

president to win an election. here we are 220 years later, no sitting president in history lost an election is trying to hold on to power. this is something that has never happened before. he is dividing the republican party because republicans say this is a bad precedent all around. there will be democrats who will lose elections and certainly they will be claiming with false allocatio allegations they will try to take away a win from their side. this is not the way the system worked historically and president trump is willing to go after everybody and anybody no matter how close he's been and no matter the party and masahide kobayashi -- mitch healthcare reform conl and the point and out of speed for senator mcconnell and it's all part of this unending relentless campaign to convince the country that somehow he didn't lose.

>> lee ann caldwell, mitch mcconnell called the publicity stunt ted cruz and those are engaging in, one will become one of the most important votes ever as united states senators so here they are dividing the party on this. how divided is this party going to be on this vote on that senate republican floor. we know what will happen with house republicans. they are the trump base. senate republicans are not. will half vote against the president or not? >> so, chuck, i've been talking to my sources all weekend and there is a couple things. this group following ted cruz, they haven't yet decided how many states or which states they're going to object to and how they perhaps might vote. all these things are still under discussion. a lot of sources i've also been talking to, none of them say that outcome is going to change at all. so what's going on here and it is that trump has a tremendous shadow over this party and a

divided party, a divided country only benefits the president. and there is a lot of electoral politics coming into play here especially with trump's grip on the republican base on conservative basis. it's not just 2022 the midterm elections but looking ahead to the 2024, the presidential election, as well, with people like josh holly, ted cruz who are perhaps possibly going to jump in that race and even vice president mike pence who is going to have a big role on wednesday, chuck? >> jeff, what's the end game for president trump? what's his end game here? >> the end game is as its always been to find some off ramp from this election to emerge as if he's not the loser. his now resulted in the president trying to undermine a free and fair election and it's an objective fact that the election results have been counted, recounted, certified and litigated multiple times. president trump and republican

allied groups are on the receiving end of about 60 court losses and to leeann's point this game bbit planned for wednesday won't change the election outcome beyond damaging our democracy and standing in the world and i've talked to some establishment republicans who are concerned that this fizzure could create a trump party and republican party and if that crack hardens and continues, it will be hard if not impossible for republicans to win swing states or swing seats because there just aren't functionally enough republicans to support a party that's effectively split in two and then on the other side, i've been covering the biden transition from the start in wilmington and there are concerns among democrats that not only will this sort of leave this lie in the minds of millions of trump supporters that joe biden is somehow not a legitimate president, it will also make it increasingly

difficult for a president biden to get republicans to support donald trump to buy into what joe biden is pushing to fight covid for every american to wear a mask. for every american to get vaccinated, not just once but twice, chuck. >> peter baker, if democrats sweep the senate seats on tuesday in georgia, the fallout, i mean, it painfully obvious to any observer without a partisan hat it will be donald trump will be the main reason this happened, maybe mitch mcconnell is a secondary boogie man source there. i imagine this will accelerate the divide inside the party, right? >> well, you would think so. because republicans did pretty well in the november 3rd elections all things considered except at the top, right? they gained seats in the house and held onto the senate even though they had more vulnerable members than democrats so to lose two georgia seats in a state that frankly is still

pretty republican if it's trending more democratic than it had been in the past would be a big blow and leave them outside of power in the house and senate. it would leave biden and democrats in control of all three of those institutions and i think there would be a lot of recriminati recrimination. normally there would be. you'd see republicans saying why do we follow a leader that led us down this path, the brand, the republican brand itself has power but it was trump himself who was the one who couldn't bring votes to the table and we should move on. on the other hand, he got 74 million votes and that's a really powerful force within the republican party. he's going to remain an outspoken figure from the sidelines. his twitter account with 80 some million people will receive messages no matter how true or false they are and that's a factor for republicans, particularly those who want to run in the future. >> very quickly, leeann caldwell, does mitch mcconnell have anything to worry about if somehow he's not going to have the votes -- he's not majority

leader anymore. would he have to worry about his leadership? >> yes, he needs to win georgia. he does everything -- every decision he makes is to ensure that he maintains his position as majority leader. a republican source of mine said trump has been extremely unhelpful in georgia, chuck. so it's going to be a big day. >> yeah. all right. excellent panel trio. appreciate that. when we come back, the conspiracy theory that migrated from the internet fringe to the halls of (vo) this new year, get the phones everyone wants on the 5g america's been waiting for. verizon 5g is next level. now get one of our best 5g phones on us when you buy one and get $500 when you switch. plus, select unlimited plans include disney+, hulu, and espn+. 100% obsessed with "the mandalorian." (man) i watch a lot of sports. (woman) it has all my favorite shows. and right now, the gaming the whole family will love is also on us. it's like a gift on top of another gift. gifts keep coming at you. everywhere. this is 5g from america's most reliable network.

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welcome back. suspicion of government and openests to conspiracy theories are features of american politics. qanon part of a blanket theory part religion and part racial spread mike a virus from the fringes of the internet to the political main stream. the cqanon phenomenon is protrup and follows one newly e mekt ll members of congress. "meet the press" on nbc news and peacock, the issue for the gop will it distance itself from the

movement or welcome the enthe enthusiasm of the support. >> do you believe there is a ring of high-politicians kidnapping and sacrificing children? >> i do. >> reporter: a symptom of how susceptible america is to a constpiracy theory super charge. adrian spent months studying qanon and shadow origin. >> this mysterious figure q is someone with military intelligence secretly working with donald trump to take down high profile democrats who are in private abusing children. >> reporter: kim said her fiancee left her after being drawn in online. >> the anti-vaxxers and flat earthiers and spygate and obama gate and et cetera, et cetera, that has now found a home. >> reporter: according to a september analysis on qanon supporters, 63% are white.

58% are male, 55% of a household income less than $75,000 a year and just 30% of a bachelor's degree or equivalent. and 58% said they were supporting donald trump for president. >> at it's core a protrump conspiracy theory. >> i heard these are people that love our country and don't like seeing it. i don't know anything really about it other than they do supposedly like me. >> reporter: the president is retweeted qanon linked accounts hundreds of times and boosted congressional candidates who supported it like georgia republican marjorie taylor greene who mr. trump called a future republican star. taylor greene was elected and will support lauren. >> there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this global cable of satan worshipping pedophiles out. >> reporter: the republican party grappled with whether and how to distance itself. >> big mistake, this is a group

of nuts and kooks. >> the resolution is adopted. >> reporter: 17 republicans and one independent voted against the resolution. the fbi labeled qanon a domestic terror threat. >> we have cases involving violence where people have been motivated by some of those conspiracy theories. >> reporter: in 2017 a fk fk no carolina men was sentenced to prison after firing a gun at a d.c. pizza restaurant where he was looking for a non-exist tablet child trafficking ring run by democrats. all of it an internet lie. half of cqanon supporters say te coronavirus isn't real and among those who say it is, a good chunk think it's being spread by 5 g cellar technology. in the fall qanon accounts pushed the conspiracy theory president trump was not sick with the virus but carrying out secret missions in an imagined war.

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. welcome back. joining me to talk about the danger posed by conspiracy theories like qanon, brandy, i want to start with you. donald trump has been a central figure in the qanon conspiracy. what happens to qanon on january 21st? >> well, cults and, you know, churches don't generally give up their messiahs and we don't expect that to happen now whether trump is in the white house or not. trump seems to be the central figure with this group, and he seems like he'll continue to be. that's only proven right so far as we look towards the -- his claims, his baseless claims the election was contested and they won. the main people shepherding this lie. that's expected to continue.

>> the social media companies i would argue particularly over the last, say, three months did seem to make some efforts to purge themselves of cqanon in te way they didn't before. looking back, how successful have they been and/or are these folks going to just migrate to the parlors and more extreme sites around the internet. >> chuck, you know, we do have some parallels that we can look at. there are purges of different extremists groups over the years and we see them try and coalless on other platforms and unless the platform is really strong, meaning that equals engagement and allow was and get to in terms of an app, the groups really struggle. so what i think is interesting about qanon and this migration, you see this new app parlor come online and you see a co-lessing of people move there.

ultimately, it was a little too late on the social media part. once they are there, it allows them to spread and recruit. the longer they're on these main stream platforms, the longer they're able to connect with like minded people around the world. >> brandy, qanon, the qanon conspiracy in someways sort of fit hand and glove with the pandemic whether we like it or not, right, whether the mask mandates, whether it's anti-vaxxers, there's a lot of parts of the pandemic we're dealing with that feels like the qanon conspiracy is using to build followers or what. how would you describe it? >> yeah,conspiracy theory covered everybody interested in the anti-lockdown protests, the election, and people who are arguing that the pandemic was either a hoax or

measures to sort of protect us from the pandemic were ridiculous, anti-mask and stuff like that. what happened was we studied this face on book using this tool called crowd tangle and we could see the membership spike in march. we would watch the qanon groups before the platform groups got rid of them and like a line you saw a crazy spike and those just continued and that happened in anti vaccination groups and saw an incredible over lap. the biggest anti vaccination group became explicitly a qanon group with hundreds of thousands of members and we saw it spread to instagram. we saw these flash posts but it's lifestyle influencers, mommy bloggers, fitness gurus, alternative health people and over the summer, you know, we even sue cqanon protests and soe

200 different cities across the country. so we just saw it blanket everything. >> and clint, we have the first member of congress marjorie taylor greene got elected to congress, a qanon follower. she's tried to distance herself a little bit. here she was at her orientation tweeting the first session of member of orientation covered covid in congress and i said masks are oppressive in georgia and we workout, go to restaurants and schools without masks. my body my choice. >> chuck, what is always strange about this is conspiracies about deep states usually don't happen when a symbolic leader like president trump they admire so much is in power. usually it part of the information comes from outside and it's about a deep state, and i think in the case of this congress woman, it's going to be similar.

now she's in charge to a degree. she's going to be calling upon people to testify and votes and how the votes line up against an ideology. so at what point does it begin to collapse or not meaning that no matter what she does, her supporters will continue tocons are -- theories or a plot that will unfold in the future. it shows a demand for information in the society right now.w3 conspiracies combining with qmpulismñi brought together on social media is a way for a belief system to orchestrate itself and then when they do come into power, what will they do with it? what is the deep state when they are now part of the state? >> well, that's what it is. it's the ease with which this surfaced. clint watts, brandy, thank down both. thank you-all for being with us today. that's all we have. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week.

from our new studio next door to the capitol because if it's suday, it's meet the

. this week, what happened to all that stuff we returned to the store? he has most of it. >> meet a young entrepreneur helping restaurants survive the pandemic. and a startup that's bringing live music back, mandolin ceo. that's this week on "press: here." good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgovernment's exhi m. i didn't know that my favorite restaurant makes less