captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woouff. on the newshour tonight, pressure points-- president trump asking georgia officials questions, condemnation ands then, a troubling delay-- the coronavirus ccine rollout remains sluggish across the country as surges of infections and deaths continue. plus, on edge-- a year aftern iranian general is killed by an america drone, some iraqi militias grow creasingly hostile to the u.s. and, balance of power-- control of the u.s. senate and the future of president-elect of voters in georgia's runoff. all that and more on tonight's

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>> woodruff: president trumpie faces new of foul tonight, after his most blatant attempt yet to manufactu an election win for himself. his critics today called it everything from disgraceful to outright illegal. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor begins our coverage. >> alcindor: a bombshell phone call. and a president trying everything and anything to stay in power. in just over two weeks, the term of president trump, who lost the election, ends. but he is refusing to face that fact. instead on saturday, he personally made this demand of georgia secretary of state br raffensperger: overturn the state's election results. >> all i want to do is this. just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.

because we won the state. so what are we going to do here, folks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i ed 11,000 votes. give me a break. you know, we havthat in spades already. >> alcinr: raffensperger's office recorded the hour-long call. the audio was first rel"ed sunday by the washington post". president-elect joe biden won georgia by 11,779 votes. and the state has counted the baots three times. but president trump repeatedly insist raffensperger override that outcome. g >> the people rgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. and there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, th you've recalculated. w l, mr. president, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. >> you should want to have an accurate election. and you're a republican.>> e believe that we do have an accurate election. >> no, no, you don't. no, no, you don'. you don't have.

you don't have. not even close. you're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. so tell me bradgo, what are we g to do? we won the election, and it's not fair to take it away from us like this. and it's going to be very coly in many ways. >> mr. president, you ve people that submit information, and we have our people that submit information, and then it comes before the court and the court then has to make a determination. we have to stand by our numbers. we believe our numbers are right. >> alcindor: before t two men spoke saturday, the white house tid called the secretary of state's office 1s trying to connect them. th gabriel sterling, a top state elections official, refuted the fraud.t's allegations of >> this is all easily, provably false. yet the president persists, and by doing so undermes georgians faith in the election system.

>> alcindor: on twitter today, president trump again rejected the election results without evidence. he wrote, "how can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably wrong." the call sparked a new storm of outrage. biden campaign lawyer bob bauer said the call "captures the whole, disgreful story about donald trump's assault on american democracy."he with teorgia u.s. senate runoff elections schuled for tomorrow, both biden and trump nt to the state today. at a rally in atlanta, biden attacked president trump's response to the pandemic: >> the president spends more time whining and complainin than doing something about the problem. w i don't kn he still wants the job. anhe doesn'tto do the work. >> alcindor: congresswoman liz cheney of wyoming, the number three republican in the house, spoke out. she called the phone call" deeply troubling." house democrats urged the f.b.il to open a crimnvestigation into the president's actions. democrat caucus chair hakeem

jeffries of new york: >> the voters have spoken. th okectoral college has spoken. the courts have . joe biden will be the nenext presof the united states of america, notwithstanding than delusional fsies of some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. >> alcindor: he was alluding to republican senators who say they will object to the certificatren of thedential results in congress on wednesday. this weekend, one of the 11, ted cruz of texas, spoke on "fox news"" >> we together will object to certification in order to force the appointment of an emergency electoral commission to perform an emergency audit of the election results to assess these claims of fraud. >> alcindor: the effort is separate from that of missouri senator josh hawle who will also object to certification. but a number of other republcans, includg trumpr allies, senam cotton of arkansas and senator lindsey

graham of south carolina, have rejected that stance. they join with moderate republicans ttcluding romney of utah and susan murkowski of alaska, among others, who acknowledg correctly, that the election is over.ta >> woodruff: t through we learned the georgia senator key loeffler up for re-election, announces that she will also oppose the electoral count from the election. but right now to talk to more of to talk through more of the fall out from this weekend', i'm joined by our own yamiche alcindor and lisa desjardins. hello to both of you. yamiche, just in the last few minutes we've heard fallout from this call but you've been talking to people around president trump, the bid.en peop what more are you learning about reaction to it? >>ell president trump and allies of e president are standing by his stance on that phone call saying that he is ing nothing wrong, even though

it's clear, judy, that is he tryuning trmine the integrity of the election and have the election overturned in his favor. president-elect biden and his allies are condemning this phone call, condemning the president's actions to try to overturn the election. but also they are saying they need to be busy with the work that is ahead of him because of course president-elect biden is coming into office in 16 days. when we look at what president out at republicans, trying tong get them tcome on his side. some help cansstere agais pushes to yefer turn the election, the surrender cheaucu. anthing is, what is extraordinary is we have seen the president use the same language out publicly. he has been tweeting it, making videos about these false claims. we hear in a phone call in extraordinary terms, ing troublernls trying to push the georgia secretary of state to find vot for him. when i talked to biden officials they say yes, it true, we condemn it but they want to move on, they say it is theatrics on the part of the president and

why it is dangerous for president trump to stay inoffice. say they are focused on the kroafer pandemic, on president-elect biden's first hundred days. they have a lot of work to bedo use they have not named the attorney general, so many other things on their plate but it is iking to see the president of the united states in a country like ours thatem exportsracy say here he wants dem sock-- democracy to be overturned. >> woodruff: and lisa, you have been reporting on the hill, what are you seeing, what are you hearing in reaction from there? >> first it is important to understand that nearly everything right now is calculated based on whether it affects the orgia senate races. today hous le republicder mccarthy was asked about the georgia phone call theid prest had. he ignored those questions, did not have a comment, other republicans say they believe the president means they are-- that.

>> the democrats many of them say this could be a criminal ofmnse. one of t being-- house member thinks it is impea achable. ao want to note that we have had a call for f investigations. i want to show a picture of two house members, they are calling for a sen seur resolution of the president. and so we'll see what happens. woodruff: and meantime, yamiche, there is also stron f reaction froormer cabinet ofcials, from leaders out gde vernment. what are you hearing there? >> that is right. todawe have really heard a course of people saying that this action by the president is wrong and alpushing for the congress and others to move forward, to go on so that the election can be fully certified and joe biden to come into office. we saw the former ten living secretaries of defense come out, se are secretaries of defense

who served both democrats and republicans in office including leone panetta, dik cheney, i want to read part of what this op t tey wrote said, it said in rt, efforts to involve the u.s. armed forces in take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. they called also on the pentagon and military officials to welcome the new biden administration and said they should resist any attempt to try to get them not to do so. we also heard from nearly 2 hundred business leaders, big sinesses including microsoft, fiedzer, which makes the coronavirus vaccine, one of them, as well as the nda and said this is really an election that is over.ey aid they want scwoa bied into turn to the coronavirus pandemic because st impactinges busineincluding their own. >> woodruff: and then separate from all of this, lisa, what is going on this week is congress has gotten under rsway. fiweek of the year, it's going to be a very busy week.

what should we know about that, what is coming up. >> apologies fordi that problem i had, we saw yesterday inorhe house fpeaker pelosi being re-elected as speaker, even though she has a more nar below-- narrow majority, she will be t democratic leader again. i think the standout story of this opening of congress is the vid concern we know today that one of the representatives who was in the chamber yesterday, kay granger of texas, after she voted, after she was there, several tg imes durine day, tested positive or received her positive covi now i want to also show you a picture of what the house chamber looked like during one of the swearings in yesterday. you can see that there s a real lack of social distancing. i will say most members wereri wea masks. however they were in each other's proximity. i watched it from above, myself, social distancing. there was very litt social

distancing. there is a real concern thatpe perhaps theng of the house session yesterday itself could have been a superspreader event. we're going to have to wait for the next few days to see if other members are quarantined, having the quarantine or tes positive and of course we have a major joint session about the electoral college just a few days awahi >> woodruff: will involve a lot of people, lisa, in the house chamber. we certainly hope that no one else tests positive. but everyone is on the lookout. lisa desjardins, yamiche cindor, thank you both. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, washington, d.c. activated the national guard aad of expected protests against certifying president-elect biden's victory. on wednesday, congress meets to count the electoral votes,and

president trump has called for mass demonstrations. today, mayor muriel bowser urged locals to stay away. >> we will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate rou residents, or cause destruction in our city. so again, we're asking d.c. residents d people who live in the region, to avoiiod confront with anybody who's looking for a fight. >> woodruff: the mayor said some traffic control and other roles, but will not be armed. on the covid-19 pandemic: british officials imposed a new lockdown across a england, new variant of the virus spreads. in the u.s., new york became at least the fourth state to report a case of that new strain. and, governor andrew cuomo announced fines for hospitals that don't use vaccines within e

of receiving them. we'll focus on vaccinations, after the news summary. overseas, iran says it has ramped up uranium enrichment again, this time, to 20% purity. that is still far short of weapons grade.an but today'uncement marks tehran's latt violation of a 2015 nuclear deal since president trump quithe pact in 2018. also today, iran's revolutionary chemical tanker and crew.an it happened near the entrance to the persianulf. iran claimed the ship had polluted the region's waters. the iranians have demanded that south korea release $7 billion of assets frozen by u.s. sanctions. we'll return to all of this, later in the progr. a british judge today refused to order wiki-leaks foundian to face espionage s.o the u.s., the judge said assan's mental alth is so bad that he might

kill himself. supporters erupted in cheers outside the court once the ruli was announced. but assange's partner warned it's too soon to celebrate. >> we are extremely concerned that the u.s. government has decided to appeal this decision. it continues to want tsh julian and make him disappear into the deepest, darkest hole of the u.s. prison system for the rest of his life. >> woodruff: assange is wanted in the u.s. for publishing thousands of documents that exposed u.s. military misdeeds in iraq and afghanistan. the ack messaging service was hit today with a global outage, affecting millions of people worldwide. ring the pandemic, slack has working or attendiool atle home.id

the company t's investigating what caused the outage. today, amid fears covidback lockdowns and uncertainty about the u.s. senate runoffs in georgia. the dow jones industrial average lost 382 points to close at 30,223. the nasdaq fell 189 points, an the s&p 500 slipped 55. still to come on the newshour: the coronavirus vaccine rollout remains uggish across the country. pro-iran iraqi milias grow ineasingly hostile to the u.s. the president pressures georgia's secretary of state to ovturn his electoral defeat. and much more.

>> woodruff: the new yeais unrtunately starting out wh a staggered start. the u.s. is stumbling out the gate in many ways when it comes to getting the vaccine distributed. a numberf other countries are in fact, several european nations said today they are considering delaying a second planned shot of the vaccine in order to get wider initial distribution. all this as a seemingly more contagious variant of the virus is spreading in the u.s. william brangham has our look. >> brangham: the lines strched for miles this morning-- peopl waiting in daytona beac florida for their covid-19 vaccinations. >> it's been a long journey for everybody. we're lucky that we're getting it today.>> brangham: countless americans are waitg for their first shot, as hospitals at the heontline of administering face increasing pressure to move quicker. >> hospitals that do not do a good job at getting a vaccine

out, their allotment will be transferred to hospitals that are. >> brangham: the f.d.a. approved pfizer and moderna vaccines for mass inoculations in mid- december, but only 15 million doses have been shipped nationwide-- that's far below the trump administration's year- end goal of vaccinating 20 million. but vaccine supply is not the only problem. states, which are charged with adminiering their own plans, are facing challenges actually getting them into people's arms. the picture looks differe across the nation: states like west virginia are moving quickly, with more han 2,000 per 100,000 already vaccinated. in arizona, and parts of the south: a stark difference. less than a thousand people for every 100,000 have got shots.r this slow, irregular pace means the gap between delivery of vaccines and actual injections cont ginues w o

o, republican governor mike dewine asked hospitals to speed up the job, and limit their turnaround to 24 hours. >> we ask them to aim for that and to do the best that they can to make sure that vaccine is gone, used, in people's arms within that period of time. >> brangham: and today in new york, democratic governor andrce cuomo annound fines for hospitals that fail to minister shots within a week of receiving them. fridge or a freezer, i want it in somebody's arm. >> brangham: skepticism about the vaccine is another problem. dewine said abt 60% of nursing home staff in the state declined to get the vaccine. in all, only 4.5 million americans have received the first of the two doses.gs these backave led some leading public health voices to suggest delaying thasecond shot and ung them instead to give a first dose to more americans. but over the weekend, the top u.s. infectious disease expert, dr. anthony fauci, warned againsthat. >> we don't know whether or not that's going to be good whough. we kno the science tells us. ve let's do it the way the

clinical trials nstructed us to do it. >> brangham: the chief medical advisor for operatiowarp speed, dr. moncef slaoui, suggested giving two half doses to stretch out the existing supply. >> injecting half the volume. i think that's a more responsible approach that would be based on facts and data. >> brangham: dr. fauci also voiced optimism the pace of vaccination would soon pick up. >> some little glimmer of hope is that in the last 72 hours they've gotten 1.5 million doses into people's arms which is an average of aut 500,000 a day, which is much better than the beginning when it was much less than that. >> brangham: this hope comes amid fears of surging infection rates driven by holiday travel and therings for more on why this vaccine rollout stumbling, and what else we might do to address it, i'm joined by dr. robert wachter. he's the head of thetment of medicine at u.c. n francisco's medical school, and he and dr. ashish jha wrote this op-ed suggesting we delay the

planned second dose and use all eavailable vaccine immedily. dr. wachter, breat to have you the newshour, before weet to your idea, let's back up just and can you help us understand why from your perspective ts vaccine rollout is stumbling so badly? >> well, it is a little surprising and it's not, the part that is not is the rollout of ppe and rollout of testing also stumbled so i guess we could have predicted it. but i guess most of uous t the bottle neck would be oversupply, that there was just not going to be enough doses o vaccine that would be out there. hard it's been get vaccine how it is complicated.lders. we're a big, diverse country but i think it has been relatively poor planning. it it has been underresourced. the congress just passed a bi ll th going to provide 8 or 9 billion, that was just last week. th should havbeen done a

couple of months ago. and theepartment, t departments of health, the hospitals that are responsible for rolling out the vaccine are inundated with covid cases, so everybody is really, really busyj there is ust not a lot of band width in the system and i think we underestimated the complexity. >> brangham: so you and ashish jha's to address this bottle neck proposed his idea that i mentioned before about delaying ate second shot using all of those shots thould have been held in reserve and just giving them to everyone as quickly as possible. why do you think that is the right move? >> well, i should first say that i didn't think it was the right wove as recently as about t weeks ag and the things that changed in my own mind were the extent of the surge that we're seeing now which is really quite devastating. probably 50 to 100,000 americans will die this month, of covid. the second thing was as we already discussed the slowness of therollout. if this had been moching swiftly, if we had 120 opmillion

vaccinated by the end of december which is what we were told would happen, it mig be different. but we have 4 million people vaccinated. s d the third iis new variant that you heard about which is real. it's cearly in the united states. the more we look for it, the more we are going to find iit d more infectious th the old covid that we had last year, so there is a little bit of a race to get more vaccine in people's shoulders more quickly. what we know from the trials, that lead to the approval much both the pfize and mderna drug, the trials were done using two shots three weeks orou weeks apart. but they also looked at what first shot ited out by ther the time they got their second shot, that first shot was awfully well. it was working probably 90ct% efve, 85 to 90% effective. so we don't argue that people shouldn't get the second shot. they should. vaccine in a sir ring rey toa go, let's say a few weaks from

now, you give it to someone f their second dois to bump them from let's say 90 t95 effective or do you give it to someone for whom it will be their first dose and get hem from 0 to 80 or 90 percent effective. we do that math. we thought you would save far more lives if you did it with ai broader distri of the first shot, deferring the secretary shot for a couple months until the supply was more plentiful. >> let's say we did defer for a couple of months. do youeel kf department that that protection from the first shot would last? >> there has bnneen ngs of millions of people who have gotten covid in the world and the number of documented reinfections now after almost a year, you can count on a coupleh nds, te fingers of a couple of hand. they happen but they are very rare. that implies that protetion, oncyou have immunity, protection lasts for at least several months. by the first shotthe trialsated were actually fairly high. and so there is a little bit of

uncertainty, and there say possibility that some of the effectiveness would wane a bit but i think there are very fthew people thank it would wane so much, that people uld be massively vulnerable if they waited a couple of mopts. >> brangham: what about the concern that if you suddenly change the dosing or scheduling that you are just gog to ramp up the skepticism that is already there about this vaorine. do you about that? >> i think that is a risk. and i wish there was a riskless solution. people haveaid after they read our peace, you are hearing from what we knew whias the rightg to do. how could you say that. and e problem is if we stuck with the plan as it is right now, that carries a huge ri rsk. thk is we're not going to be vaccinating people for many iny months. whrive down the highway, i like it stay in the lane, it is the right thing t do. but ii see a truck barreling toward me from another lane, iut veerf the way. and so there is no plan here that carries 0 risk.

it was our judgment at this point that the risk of delay of getting more people, high risk people vaccinated outweighs the risk of our plan. but one of the risks i think that has to be fact in is the possibility that people would see this as yet another curve bl, you told methat masks didn't work and now you tell me they do. you told me i have to cleanthe mask and now you tell me i don't. th is very real. there are scientists that i think should be looking ard at at. my own feeling is that the vaccine is so remarkably effective, the safety record is really ve, very impressive, that, that at the end of the day some people may want to wa a little bit to see how things go. but the amount of covid, the numberngf people dyirom covid, i think at the end of the day most people are going to tnt to getheir shots. but we'll have to see >> brangham: all right d bob wachter, uc san francisco school of medicine, tnk you very

much. >> thank you. 7 >> woodruff: we return to president trump's hour-long phone call with georgia' secretary of state this weekend. it raised number of legal questions. for some answers, we turn to again to rick hasen. he's an election law professor at the university of california- irvine, and author of the book "election meltdown." professor hasen, welcome back to the newshour, as somebody wh studies election law what was your reen you listen to this? >> well, my first reaction was i can't believe it's january and 2020 election.alking about the not the runoff but the actual election that we held in november. i t that the statements of the president were outrageous. he was clearly trying to pressure the georgia secretary

of state to manufacture votes, to flip the results of the elecon based on no evidence. it was really the kind of election fraud that he hasn opiniling about for years. an here we have the whole thing on tape. it's just-- it is a very sad ment for american democracy right flow. >>sery sad and you aid clearly kind of pressure the secretary of state are there legal questions about what the president did? did he cross the line? >> i think there is a good argument to be made that hate on both federal law, which prevents one perom trying to get another to procure fraudulent votes, as well aors ia law which makes election fraud, ballo crime.uffing a in both of these cases i think you have pretty gorcod stances standings evidence from the call itself that the president was asking for there toe ballot box stuffing. i think the real question is onf ntent.

and it is kind of hard to tell. it was an liur-long cal kind of a me anderring conversation from the president. the real question is does he believe tt the kind of wild conspiracy they'res that he has been spewing, if he does. then maybe you could make the argument he doesn't have the intent that would be necessary to show that he was trying to commit fraud.t think, you know, this would be really a question for a jury. did he have t e intent de fraud the-- defraud the people of georgia of their right to have a fair election. a and it is serious question that prosecutors on both the federal level and in georgia o the state level should be oking at. >> woodruff: what are the most concerning aspects of the call. you have the president sayinwa i you to find, he says, fellas, i need 11,000 votes. number over the dnceactly the between him and president-elect biden. and what else did you hearim

say that is most concerning potentially from legal standpoint? >> well, you know, he was talking about thate was potentially doing this in other states. we're going to have a counting of the votes in congress, that will happen on wednesday. the president callsor wild protests in the country's capitol. on wedneay. all of this seems to be geared towards maximum chaos towardsma ng what by all indications under our legal rules appears to be a done deal that joe biden is the next president into something thais up for gabs. i don't think it is going to work in terms of how the senate and house are going to count the votes. it might lead to a delay but it does suggest that he is not accepting the election results. we don't know, the next two dangerous time foicanery democracy. if he continues to reist what

court and election officials have gone through to show that there is not really any questn that joe biden has won this electi >> an just quickly back on theù language the president used on this call, when he said to secretary of state raffensperger in georgia, he said you're taking big risk in what you are doing. i mean it had ae threatening t to it. ounds like a kind of extortn that could be going on here. o thinow, if you don't d prosecution.ce criminal the whole call from trying to flatter the secretary of state and trying to threateden him to get what he wants which is thfae mauring of voafts. and that really is about as bad as it gets when it comes to conducting an election, of trying to stuff the ballot box. >> woodruff: and i just, again, making noapts on rssome ot he said there is nothing wrong with saying that, you know, youe recalculated. the suggestion is the president

is saying find something that didn't happen. >> you know, this election, if was conducted usi voting machines that the president has criticized. it was recounted by hand. so if there had been any problem with the voting machines they woulhrhave been foundough the hand recount. and you know, there were investigations by the georgia burrow of investigations, there have been court cases, there has been no finding of massive fraud anywhere in the country. not in georgia, not anywhere that would justify finding additional voteds that would help the president. to help steal the election.loi >> and we heard that georgia elections officials say pretty much that, in his news conference this afternoont, saying whe president said was completely fabresicated. sor rick hasen, professor of election law, thank you very much. >> thank you. >>

oodruff: lawmakers returned to d.c. this week, but control of the u.s. senate still hange. in the bala it all comes down to two senate runoff elections tomorrow in georgia. our lisa desjardins has th report on the final push. >> desjardins: for weeks, a platoon of the powerfuhas been flying one by one into georgia, including the current president and the one about to become president. >> but don't be fooled. this is a ground war. >> we've knocked on millions of oors, already me millio phone calls.ea >> we've a reached 711,000. ca one of the field agents said he made like 150lls. that's amazing to me. >> desjardins: it is a political doubles contest with the highest

stakes. republican senators avid perdue and kelly loeffler defending their seats against democrats jon ossoff and raphael warnock. if both democrats win, their party takes over the senate. >> we are the last line of defense. >> desjardins: republicans faced a late campaign challenge, when perd had a covid exposure and entered quarantine last week. but meanwhile, dozens of groups have deployed everyonerom the national parties to the ¡new georgia project', focused onre underrnted groups, to the anti-abortion susan b. anthony list. we've brought in our most seasoned field directors from all across the country into the state of georgia. >> and you've got people from california, virginia and new n rk who just want to help. >> with more tha1,000 combined volunteers.hounds of >> out of all of my years of doing this work, i've never experienced what i'm experiencing on the ground. >> desjardins: la tosha brown co-founded the black voters

, tter fund four years agoto foster more black turnout and registration. nearly a third of georgians arec only mississippi has a higher proportion. asian-americans and hispanics, together about 14% of the georgia population, are also key this election. but the black vote effort isul partly large, with 60 different organizations involved. >> i morning.arly vote this >> desjardins: the groups are creative, as seen in facebook videos: voter drives in parking lots and with new year's collard greens, as well as showing up courthouses to protest proposed cuts from voter lists. in early voting, many of the counties with the biggest turnout have large black populations. that may be about more than the senate. so four million georgians filed for unemployment in the pandemic. brown ys the black community was hit hard by the economic and health crises. >> we're seeing black voters who ine literally disturbed with what is happeninhis state and really committed that they're going to get out and

vote.em >> desjardins:rats also feel good about new voters: 72,000 voters, including those who just turned 18, who have registered to vote since november. but republicans say they match all of that. >> this is t largest grasoots operation ever built in the state of georgia. >> desjardins: the trump victory campaign and republican national committee have teamed up for a mammoth operation-- a $20 million vote effort with thousands of people involved. >> we are talking voters ov and as soon as they vote, we'll stop knocking on their door and call on their phones.rd >> dess: in case voters aren't getting enough attention, there are also the ads. they have taken an ugly and sometimes personal turn recently. ad spending in the race is near half a billion dollars, more than the trump campaign spent for its entire 2020 ad budget, according to the government transparency webette open se

voter pat miller of milton,fa georgia and hely are ready for it to stop. >> well, i think we are all really burned out, regardless of which side we're voting on with all the commercials. and quite frankly, the candidates could have done themselves a favor and a lot of money by cutting down on their advertising. ti think people decided s one a long time ago which way they were going to vote. >> desjardins: which brings us to republicans' trump card-- the president last visited the state >> everything that we've achieved together is on the line. visit tonight is lss abouthis winning minds then about getting out his voters. but some republicans fear the president's electricity comes with electoral confusion. he continues to rail against georgia's voting system, which has led someonservatives to say they are boycotting the senate races. buzz brockway a republican and former state house representative >> what's that small percentage of people who have just decided

to throw up their hands and say, forget the whole thin is that a small number or a larger number? >> desjardins: more than three million ople have voted sofa by mail or in-person. i tha state record for a run-off. with the eyes of the country on georgia,iller offered some words of assurance. >> i just want people outside of the state to know that we're ertaking it seriously, wheou agree with us or don't, we are usall taking this very ser. and i think the turnout so far is evidencof that. >> desjardins: for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: it's the first weef he new year, and already there are a number of critical political stories; from president trump's remarkableca phon with the georgia secretary of state to the electoral college count congress. here to analyze it all, our regular politics monday team. amy walter of the cook political report and host of public radio's "pitics with amy

walter." and tamara keith of npr. she also co-hosts the "npr politics pcast." hello to both of you. happy new year. amy, let's startth georgia where lisa left off. so much drama between the president's phone call. he is there inrg geo today, so is joe biden. what does that senate runoff look like, both senate runoffs? >> well, both sides feel like they are unclear on what it is going to look like stvment very, very close. whether we know this far is thao democrats seehave done better as they did in the generaelection, the normal general election in november, in states like georgia and ostther es that had early votes, in the early vote, both in the absentand people who showed up to vote early in person. and republicans are counting on a strong turnout on election day

which they were successful in ie 2020 in acan of these states. think about texas or florida, where the turnout on election day was really unprecedented and in many cases unexpected. so it is really, really important for rublicans to have big energy turnout tomorrow at thpos. and for democrats to be able to meet at least meet some of that on election day, rather than just hoping that their early vote ienough. now whether or not this call is going to impact anything, swrudy, i'm scept about that, in part because as the voter poind o in lisa's piece, people have made up their minds a long time ago. and what is hpening in washington and what the president is doing or not doing i think eshass impact on the i also think that the bichgerme.

lenge for so many is the question about motivation. are a little bit nervous. they do wonder if by saying that the process is rigged, by questioning that the way the te was counted in november, it coming out to ote.publicans from i think that trump has been successful at turning at into a rallyingry, right. don't let them steal our votes. come out and vote. t and at the sae you notice that biden today at his rallies for the two democrats didn't mention the phone call at all. barely mentiod donald trump. instead he said the stakes in this election were really about being able to get more mon into the state, to handle the pandemic and into people's hands. get those 2,000 stimulus chengs. >> woodruff: it is interesting. biden didn't mention it and yet there has been so much static around the president and what he has beeaying. there is a question about whether what he has done is

going to suppress turnout, raise rnout. and again you heard the top icial today we heard him saying repeatedly please, gorge begans, vote tomorrow. at the same time he was krilt sizing what the president said yesterday-- criticizing what the president said yesterday. >> and all of this fighting between republicans in the state. the president threatening to go after the republican governor, encourage-- encourage a primary forth is so much noise and so much statowic. you i really see this race, this runoff as a test of coat tails, both for the incoming president and outgoing president. president trump, you know,ve beliand has at times been able to drag people across the republicans across the finish line with his incredibly strong faith.

that in this runoff, it is an isolated getting so much attention, so much focus,event. and for joe biden, here is someone who won the presidency but lost seats in the house and did not do as wl in the senate as democrats had hoped to do. n he help these candidates? and amy is right that hi message was not about president trump. m the way that entioned trump was simply to say that he didnet ct these democratic candidates to be loyal to him. he expected th to bloyal to the voters, and the criticism he had of the republican senators from georgia is that they are loyal to president trump. >> woodruff: it's hard to remember a senate race, much rless two senaun offers in the same state at the same time, amy, but to remember something

where so much is hanging as we said, balance of power in the senate on these two races. but let's turn to whais happening on wednesday. and that is the challenge tha we now know, 13 republican sebtors are going to e making to the electoral vwhote point. do you make of it? what do you see as the calculus on t part of these senators who are and how long-lasting a split is this in the republican ranks? >> yeah, it is aological gud question,dy. and to pam's-- tam's point about republicans and the president, we're seeing in washington theen split betwhose two want to challenge the electoral challenge counting that there is votingraud that should be investigated. and those, republicans in the , no, wwho say no, no are making a mistake here who are doing this, those who chose

to do it or making a mistake because there are long-term implications. so it seems like this ithe battle line today in th republican party, of what is conservatism stand for, does it stand for what it traditionally did when you think about conservati that many of these senators including senator portman of ohio o mitt romney of utah were saying. you know,ea conservatisms that the federal government does not get to come in and big foot the state. the state has certified thi election. st over, st not the job of congress to overturn that. ver us the sort of tiumpian conser which says the goal is to win. the short-term win is more important than anyth it is thnae institutlift versus immediate gratification. that is the dividing line, the party has always been there within politics, there always that tension. st just under trump it has gotten even more extreme. and i do wonder when trump is no longer in the white hous does this sort of fade because the

focus then goes back on toan governinquite frankly goes back on to the new president which is e biden. >> woodruff: right, and to pick up on that, tam, because it is such, the question is you ho long-lasting is this split goes to be, but st such anre ining divide to see conservative republicans divided ashey are over wt to do about this electoral count. >> you kw, i'm not convinced that this rift over the future of the republican party on what the republican party really stands for. i'm not convinced that this gets resolved before there is a 2024 nominee. especially with president trump at least on some level dangling out the ia that he could be a candidate in 2024. you have all of these senators and governors and people who would be candidatesn 2024, some are on different sid of what to do about this electoraln

college which we should just be clear, there is no way this ends with donald trump united states. president of the joe biden won. there is no path for this to sueed which is why mitch mcconnell, for instance, didn't want to go through the exercise. and why meone like mitt romney saying that it is bad f democracy. to he this public show that leads to nothing but continues to raise doubts about an election that was free and faish. -- fair, but you have potential sides of this didait.n different i think you are going to see these people lining up on different ses of the debate and all sort of frozen until president trump determines what president trump is going to do. >> woodruff: frozen in a number of ways. and amy, ie n ttle bit of time left, the senators who re standing up to their leader, mitch mcconnell who had pleaded with them not to raise

objections on wednesday. >> right. much course my of-- of course many of them are look beyond theiend and ruing in 2024 for maybe a different job. so to tam's int, when you think about really how long this rift continu, it's not just maybe until we get to the 2024 election, this is where we come back to gorgea, who is in charge of the senate, who controlled the senate. it is so impoe rtant. becathink it will be more interesting should democrats control the senate in 2021 to see if these risks continue, can joe biden rea out and pick off some of these republicans likeom an mittyk like a lisa murkowski, like a susan collins, to be able to show that there is by parsan-- or d those factns go together when it's all bout, again, protecting the republican majority in a mid-term election. >> woodruff:o much days.rring on these nex

that georgia vote fom and the senate, and the house together looking at the electoral college on wednesday. thank you both. amy walter, tamara keith. >> you'ree welcom. >> woodruff: in a world of zoom and facetimeconversation might be more critical than ever to find connection. here is a brief but spectacular take from renowned designer fred dust on how we can all talk better together. >> i'm talking to you from my kitchen. first technology that stolehe conversation away from us was television. no offense pbs newshour, i love you. but the momenthat we gave our dinner over to television, which we did in abt the '50s, we

started to lose conversation, in america, in the world. >> my mother happened to be a really phenomenal listener. she has one of those faces. however,dy mother a stroke when i was 24 and wasn't really able to listen as well ever again. when you can lose someone, where she is gone in some capaci, you startealizing your life needs to be really full. i realize my life had to be full by meeting as many people and having as many conversations as i was a gay kid raised in a private school bmy father who was a head master who wanted the perfect son so ilaad toy soccer and date cheerleaders. so i was pretty lost in a persona that wasn't me. at the same time, aids had hit we were seeing basically the again side of-- genocidof gay men and i was afraid at that

point to come out. but when i finally diitd as act up, an activist organization that focused ocrn arts,tivity and aids that i really ended up working with.at conversationheir best are conversations where people feel like they're safe and there is a lot that is designed into a conversation that does that. hi somebody hunting our propery. and i saw his truck which had a bunch of stickers for a candidate i wasn't voting for. so i just walked down, and i introduced myself. and we just talked for awhile. and i sy,aid he fyi, if you are hunting, we have a dog. we has ve knning around, just be careful. he is like no problem. and i was like hey, and also, we love ven i son so drop by some venison, so we didn't even have a conversation aboutolitics. we just had a conversation about him, ht'is son, and tthe beginning of a conversation that we can have for a long period of me. i also have a counterintuitive idea for conversation.

which is when you can't talk t somebody, just make something with them. so i had a young woman who emailed me recently saying her father is teaching her how to play golf because she doesn't want to talk about politics. i feel like everything in the world is designed. the roll of design or creativity is to think very, very carefully about the thin that you make. one of the most important things we make is conversation. conversation fuel changerye time you have a conversation. >> my name is fred duff and this is my brief butpectacular take on making conversation.f >> woodrand you can find all of our brief >> woodruff: and you can find all our brief but sptacular segments on our web sie. that's at pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evenil ng. for us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and see you soon.

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