to find a path to 270 electoral college votes, but we are just not there yet. so stick with us through today. that was "way too early." thank you for getting up with us on a thursday morning. i think it's thursday. the days are starting to run together but we're going to be here for you all day long. stick around because "morning joe" starts right now. it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners. >> joe biden sounding optimistic two days after election day and the election is still undecided. biden currently leads 253 electoral votes to donald trump's 214. biden expanded his lead yesterday after winning michigan with 16 electoral votes. wisconsin's 10 and 3 of maine's

4. trump won the other. we're still awaiting the results from several battleground states. right now georgia, pennsylvania, nevada, north carolina, all too close to call. arizona too early to call. so here we are. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, november 5th. along with joe, willie and me, from the associated press, jonathan lemire. nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early," kasie hunt. we will never let her stop working. host of "politicsnation" and president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. first to pennsylvania, joe biden has cut into the lead of donald trump significantly. around this time yesterday trump led by 700,000 votes. and now trump leads by just over 164,000 votes. with a lot of mail-in ballots

still being counted. we could look specifically at philadelphia county. home to a lot of biden voters. he currently leads by 60% and we are still waiting for more than 244,000 votes from philadelphia county. biden is currently at 79%. hillary clinton won philadelphia county with 82% in 2016. we're also waiting for about 80,000 votes from allegheny county where pittsburgh is located. biden currently leads by 19 percentage points in that county. over in bucks county the state's fourth most populated county where unemployment rates and deaths per capita linked to covid are some of the highest in the country. trump currently leads by just over 3,200 votes with 58,000 votes still expected. trump lost bucks county by 1

percentage point in 2016. >> while we're talking about pittsburgh and philadelphia and the state of pennsylvania, willie, let's -- if we look at some of the numbers that i just had sent to me, big difference in '16. montgomery county, biden's up by 26%. that's up from 21% four years ago. in chester, up by 17%. that's up from hillary clinton's 9%. delaware by 23%. that's also up and bucks will end unlikely being a wider margin than 16%. but pennsylvania is one of those states that if you look at the trends and you see where it's going and it's been going that way for the past couple of days, it looks like that's a state where joe biden's going to catch up in much the same way he caught up in wisconsin and michigan. if again, as i keep saying, the past is prologue.

it looks like he's going to have enough votes which he's getting at a quick enough clip that he could catch up. georgia is a little tighter. georgia we're going to go down -- i mean, that's -- we're going down to the last 10,000 votes there. biden can catch up there most likely we'll get very close if not go ahead by 5,000, 10,000 votes. then you look at arizona that's actually going in an opposite direction. and it's donald trump who's picking up votes at a pretty good clip. they still have quite a few to count there. and the votes that are coming in in arizona we're looking of course at pennsylvania right now, but the votes that are coming in in arizona are ballots that were dropped off at the end. and if arizona is anything like florida as far as the waves of voters, the closer to the

election those ballots are dropped off, those absentee ballots are dropped off the more likely voters are to be voting for donald trump. and certainly in a batch that was released last night we saw an almost 60-40 split in favor of donald trump and the president's going to need to continue on that pace. again, i think steve kornacki said he's going to have to pick up 59% of all votes that remain in arizona to overtake joe biden. so that's going to be a close one and then of course nevada later on today, which the biden camp feels confident about that. >> arizona, still confident from the biden camp, but as that comes in they get less confident. right now, joe biden is leading by about 68,000 votes, still waiting for votes from all-important maricopa county. the election department for maricopa which is the most

populous county, more results will come at 7:00 p.m. local time today. not clear when other counties in arizona will report out their latest figures but jonathan lemire, this is a place as you know that the trump campaign and the white house is focusing very closely the state of arizona. we have seen some of his supporters out chanting count the votes, count the votes there. obviously in other states they're saying stop the counts. but how close does the white house think arizona is? it may not matter if joe biden wins pennsylvania today he's got enough to go over 270. so where is the white house's focus this morning? >> the white house's focus is sort of in the closing days of the campaign, it's scatter shots, a lot of places at once. you hit the two states they're most zeroed in on. the associated press and fox news have already called arizona

for joe biden and that's something that has enraged the trump campaign. we have spoken publicly about it. we have reported that the night on election night when arizona first went fox news made the first call that sent a chill through the president's watch party in the east room of the white house. that is one as you said they believe they can pick up the number of votes needed to flip it and where they're trying to contest the election right now. they feel that they have the ability to change it even as the votes come in for maricopa county, but there's been a lot of second guessing in trump world about arizona. it's been a problem and some members of the campaign including brad parscale who was demoted over the summer suggested that the president needed to spend some time there and the president was reluctant to do so in part because he didn't like to travel out west. he's reluctant to spend so many nights away from his own bed

which he didn't want to be out there which would require an overnight stay. the focus is pennsylvania, they feel they need arizona and pennsylvania in order to keep any sort of feasible legal challenge going. to have to show they have a possible path to 270. pennsylvania, their campaign, campaign manager bill stepian declared victory in pennsylvania. on a conference call with reporters he declared victory, but that's not how this works. he did that, the trump campaign had a news conference in philadelphia that featured rudy giuliani and others and they made that same claim. they believe they have enough votes but they're growing more pessimistic by the hour as the numbers come in. that pennsylvania will be very, very difficult. as a final point you're right. we are seeing sort of an incoherence in their legal challenges. there are three states, pennsylvania, georgia and michigan, where they're trying to stop the count. in arizona, they're trying to keep it going. and it shows right now just a

real fear that today this race is slipping away from the president. >> there's a legal incoherence, mika. you saw it, there are no republicans taking these challenges seriously. mitch mcconnell as well as other senators. >> maryland's governor. >> they have stepped forward. yeah, larry hogan in maryland, they have stepped forward. you had rick sanatorium on cnn, chris christie on abc. a lot of the -- >> resoundingly pushing back. >> resoundingly pushing back for good reason because they understand the consequences of undermining the rule of law. the president does not understand the consequences of undermining the rule of law and he's made that perfectly clear over the past four, five years. some would say over the course of his entire adult life, but in this case the fact that he's

having such a scatter shot approach where he's demanding the stopping of counting in states where he's ahead are -- in the case of michigan, falling behind further by the hour, and then demanding the counts of votes of states where he's behind that has legal consequences. when federal judges see that sort is of scatter shot approach, that sort of intellectually incoherent legal argument, then that does have legal consequences for those challenges. that's why i don't think anybody that i have spoken with in the legal community sees any merit to any of these claims. so we are a far stretch from the legal challenges of 2000. right now, there don't appear to be any that are going to be

significant. >> yeah some day it would be great to talk about them and what makes this different than what where they have stood by quietly, but a resounding pushback and members of his family, the president's family, were screaming accusations of voter fraud right and left. rudy giuliani it was kind of interesting and -- >> well, it's not interesting. it's sad and pathetic. >> it was weird. >> they're busch league amateurs and they stumbled into the white house through what donald trump, the remarkable campaign he was able to run in 2016. >> no matter what you think of it, yep. >> well, it was an incredible campaign. >> it was. >> it was. and nobody expected him to win. and i probably -- probably the greatest upset in american history. >> yes. >> but there have been as you said family members and others who just embarrass themselves,

are not helping the cause at all and in fact, donald trump is not helping his own cause legally when he's holding the ranting press conferences. he can do whatever he wants to do, he's the president of the united states, but the press conference, the scatter shot approaches as jonathan lemire said does not help his cause not even legally. not even politically on places like fox news where they're even telling members of the trump administration, this is america, you have to count the votes. >> so georgia is too close to call this morning. a new batch of votes just came in and president trump, his lead, has narrowed to just over 18,000 votes in fulton county that's home to atlanta. 7,500 absentee votes still to be counted. at 10:15 p.m. last night, georgia's secretary of state said several counties were still

counting ballots and there were about 90,000 ballots still outstanding. numbers that will certainly update with this latest batch of votes. today can be a big day. >> today is going to be a big day. and so rev, we can put these states in different buckets. philadelphia right now, again, if you just follow the trends of wisconsin and michigan, it certainly looks like donald trump is going to catch -- or joe biden's going to catch and overtake joe biden there. you look at arizona, well, you know, donald trump i think is going to continue getting closer and closer to joe biden. as they count those remaining votes, but in georgia, we're at a virtual tie already. the new batch of votes put donald trump within 17,000 votes. you do the math. it looks like joe biden probably is going to catch him this morning and go ahead by 10,000, 20,000 votes. >> that is the way it appears at

this point, very much so. i think the thing that comes to me, you and i are baptist and the preacher in looks at the fact that donald trump probably personifies the most racist, xenophobic administration we have seen in our lifetime and it may end up just as jim clyburn and blacks in south carolina brought joe biden in and it may be that fulton county in georgia that brings them over the top in the electoral college which would be a fitting way for us to end the trump administration. if it all pans out that way. i'm watching it very closely, but i think you and i exchanged texts yesterday. when we saw what happened in wisconsin and the vote in kenosha helped to bring wisconsin over for joe biden. >> the irony of it all, the

irony of all places, kenosha brought joe biden over the top. >> that's where a young militia guy came in and shot and killed two people in kenosha and the president came in and never condemned it right there in kenosha and kenosha delivered the victory in wisconsin for joe biden. only joe, you and i on the bench would understand what that really means to us as baptists. >> yes. yes. let me ask you this. you have said that the president has been racist and of course you're not alone. the majority of americans according to several polls over the last few years have said that donald trump is in fact racist. so i have this question that i think a lot of people -- a lot of civil rights leaders like you and a lot of democratic

politicians are going to have to grapple with. and that's a fact that a guy who has made common cause with the proud boys, with white nationalists who drew praise from david duke and richard spencer and others and neo-nazis after charlottesville who's acted abhorrently and used race as a wedge issue received 20% of the votes of black men according to exit polls. we have to wait and see, sometimes the first exit polls aren't as accurate. there will be more in depth studies, but 20% and this morning i saw the headline in "the new york times." get this, hispanics deliver texas for donald trump. >> what's going on? >> you look especially at votes along the border. and hispanics broke hard. i think hillary clinton won hispanics by 60% in that area.

donald trump won them by 5%. so donald trump outperformed how most republicans performed among hispanics. a group that he's derided as breeders. that he's locked their children in cages. and has once again been racially insensitive at best. so what's going on there? >> i hope those numbers go down a little bit, black men once fulton county comes in and philly. but he's done better than in my judgment should have with black men and hispanics which means we have to look in the civil rights community over at the latino and the african-american side on what it is to be different in terms of being entrepreneurial

aspirants and being fair in terms of how we look from the whole. i think he appealed to some that wanted to feel that they had to be a certain kind of way, to be aspirational and you can be that and still be centrist and i think that a lot of them bought into the false view that they were putting out that joe biden with the crime bill rather than dealing with the fact that joe biden was going along with majority of people even in black leadership with the crime bill and distorting kamala harris's record and distorting that they were some kind of socialists and i think that a lot of that was bought in to as far as false propaganda and with no real push back and direct answers. i really believe there's got to be a lot of work in the areas to ignore it or act like it doesn't matter is not wise. and i think if joe biden and

kamala harris are successful they have to really work but they'll inherent a county that's in a pandemic and a low economy and they have a rough road and they have to deal with bringing everybody together to deal with it. it will not be something that you would really want to win if you want to have an easy three or four years. it really won't be. >> nope. >> i said it will be a tough four years. the economy will crash in 2021. >> the aftereffects. >> whoever wins. the dominos fall. so whoever ends up winning this race is going to -- it's just going to be a tough job and they're probably going to say did i really want to do this? it's so important, mika, what the rev just said about for instance, entrepreneurs, hispanics who are entrepreneurs. it reminds me of several years ago of, you know, gay republicans and people say how in the world can you be a gay republican and the answers would be this. okay, i'm gay, i'm also an

entrepreneur, i'm also a catholic and tick down the list. yes, this is one part of me, one part of who i am, but i'm not going to disregard the other things that i am as well. and it's the same thing with hispanics. you know, yeah, i'm a hispanic. i'm also an entrepreneur. i'm also a catholic. i'm also conservative. i'm also pro life. i also believe in traditional family, i also believe in this and i hate castro. all of these things when you start saying that and you're a hispanic, the democrats in the past have just shut you off. >> yeah. >> and they have just ignored it. again, i try to bring these things up and people get upset about it. the fact is let me say it again. miami-dade turned out the way miami-dade turned out to be because cuban americans hate

socialists. let me say that again. cuban-americans, nicaraguans who have come to america, and venezuelans who have come to america, they hate socialism and you may not like that on twitter but you might better just keep your head buried in twitter and not run democratic campaigns because until you understand that, until you understand what rev and i have been saying for years, that black americans are conservative with a small "c," and not woke, not latte liberals as the rev says, until you understand that you're going to keep getting surprised as this country becomes more diverse. those votes aren't automatically come to you as a democrat. you have to go to them and understand them. their lives, how they're living. why they may hate socialism.

why they may hate castro, why they may hate ortega, why they may hate what's going on in venezuela and you have to understand that instead of from your woke castle in new york city or your ivory tower, or whatever outrageous industry we can -- rev, you have to understand this. it's a reality, why is it so important now? go read "the new york times" headline. hispanics deliver texas to joe biden. all the white voters that we have been talking about for the past year or two in the suburbs, all of those gains for democrats were erased by hispanics in texas who left the democratic party and voted for donald j. trump. it's complicated.

you can't figure it out on twitter. you actually got to go where they live and when they tell you something you disagree with, you might be better to just write it down, dig deeper, try harder. figure out how you can get them back to the democratic side. >> so republicans on capitol hill are increasingly confident about their chances of holding a slim majority in the senate. right now, the gop has 48 seats compared to democrats' 47. there are still five races that haven't been called. north carolina is too close to call this morning. wow. >> yeah. >> in georgia, one race is too close to call and the other is heading to a runoff. arizona senate race is also too early to call, although mark kelly has declared victory. alaska is also too early to call. yesterday democratic senator gary peters was able to hold on to his seat in michigan and in

maine republican senator susan collins was declared the apparent winner of her race. kasie hunt, what races are standing out to you? which ones are too close or too early are you watching and why? >> susan collins, people wrote her off for dead. >> i know. >> honestly i never did. if you spin through the tape of what we have said about her on the show, i -- she was always the one that we thought would be able to stand on her own apart from president trump and joe biden won the state of maine and susan collins carried the state for herself. so, you know, that is remarkable. but setting that aside, we have a couple of things going on here. one on the governing question, it's clear that this is a split decision in terms -- at least it's becoming clear, i want to be more careful since we haven't calmed the presidential race or the senate, but the trend lines are we're headed for a divided

government, even if democrats were to improbably take the senate, it would be so narrow. this is not what they wanted to -- this is about joe biden and mitch mcconnell and what their relationship is like. but to stick with the campaign for a second, you know, we are watching georgia and i have been obsessed with georgia for the last week of the campaign. and it's really bearing out in these two senate races. we know one's going to a runoff, but both sides of the aisle are saying we don't know how georgia will come out here. it is so, so close at the presidential level and the question is that other senate race going to a runoff or not? is one of the candidates going to get over 50% which is what it would take. i think you can see one or the other ask for a recount to try and adjust that 50% number to try to avoid or push the race into the runoff. that's something to keep an eye on. but there is a possibility if we

have two runoffs that the majority could be on the line in georgia in those runoffs in the first week of january of 2020. that's going to mean millions of dollars spent. we'll know all the names of all the counties in georgia and be talking about those buck head moms in cobb county that joe was focused on before election day. but the democrats, you know, they have a lot at stake in the perdue/ossoff outcome because they need both of the seats if they want to hit the 50 in the senate. we're waiting for numbers out of alaska but a lot on the line. >> the latest numbers of georgia they're teetering. perdue is right on the 50% line. so we'll see if he gets above 50% to avoid the runoff. but to your question about running, let's say joe biden gets to 270 and he becomes the next president of the united

states, what do the next four years look like? divided government back in washington, does anything get done? mitch mcconnell is talking about a big relief package he wants to get done before the swearing-in of the next president. what does government look like in washington in the next four years? >> willie, i think there's going to be a lot of gridlock. we have seen a lot of -- you know, it's been a really challenging four years incredibly partisan. congress has tried -- how many times have we talked about the infrastructure package that both sides seem to agree on but they can't figure out how to do because the politics have been so toxic. so i think, you know, it's likely that dynamic is going to continue. now, the one question that i have here and again, you know, joe biden if we're sticking with your argument he's in the white house, he is a senator at his core. right? i mean, he has wanted to be president his entire life. but he's a creature of the senate, he loves it.

he loves the institution. he has very strong relationships. there are fewer, you know, people that he served with now who are still serving in the senate but he has very strong relationships. he understands how those relationships can be applied and leveraged and this is very, very different -- i mean, barack obama did not have a good relationship with congress for most of his administration. i mean, he forced health care through at the beginning. it was his one big achievement. even democrats were very frustrated working with him. president trump has not -- you know, he has been dealing with obviously republicans in congress who have toed the line with him but not been a successful relationship. but i think the question will progressives in the democratic party let joe biden cut the kind of deals that he might be willing to cut with a mitch mcconnell in order to actually governor. >> good point. >> that's my going question going into this. >> so kasie, i want to follow-up

on that, because it's so important. again, people right now are thinking it's tend of the world as we know it. even if joe biden is elected president and mitch mcconnell is running the senate and nancy is running the house, you're right to his core, joe biden is a senator, who understands it takes compromise. you have to work with people who disagree with you. it's the antithesis of the view that donald trump had about congress. and barack obama, he may have been there for a couple of weeks, but he didn't have much use of congress and to be really blunt and willie and mika will confirm this, in the first couple of years of his administration we heard such complaints from democratic senators, the most powerful, that barack obama treated them

without any respect whatsoever. george w. bush, forget about it. that guy had no use for congress. they treated congress with absolute contempt as well. you go back to bill clinton of course, bill clinton you can impeach the guy on tuesday. he'd call you up on thursday, want to go out and golf? bill clinton understood there's always the next vote. okay, you lost the last vote, the guy made you mad, the woman made you mad, we have another vote coming up this week. i've got to keep that relationship going. that's what joe biden, if he's elected, will bring. so i agree with you, kasie. people are saying, oh, mitch mcconnell and joe biden. that's going to be the worst relationship ever. may not be perfect, but it will be a hell of a lot better than the relationships we have seen over the past 20 years between a white house and congress. even if it's a bipartisan combination. >> i think that's absolutely right.

mitch mcconnell and joe biden have a relationship. and, you know, they have downplayed it because frankly progressives don't want to hear that. mitch mcconnell is probably -- maybe even the most hated republican politician for many on the left who are really focused in on his role on -- you know, the judiciary and other areas. but you know if you look back to, joe, what the obama administration did do with congress in the second term, guess who did all of the deals, did all of the work we were chasing through the hallways, it was joe biden working with mitch mcconnell. when they had divided government in the second term and frankly some of that's generated anger, some of the work done there has generated anger among democrats but we'd be misleading people if we didn't say that mitch mcconnell and joe biden have had a successful working relationship in the past. to think that's not going to did fine any divided government, that a biden administration is presiding over, is simply

ignoring the realities. joe, you guys have had joe biden on here so often. this is is his bread and butter, this is what defines who he is as a politician, how he does things, are these relationships and they're very strong. >> he loves it. >> he does. mika, it reminds me all of the complaining there's not one party rule in washington, d.c. over the next couple of year, oh, there's going to be grid lock. you know, tom ricks has an amazing book called out i think it's called "first principles." i'm trying to remember the name of the book, we have him on a lot to talk about it and he talks about the madisonian democracy and the checks and the balances and all of the frustrations that that brings to people who want to get things done quickly. and he quotes sort of an old silicon valley adage which is that frustration, those checks

and balances, it's not a bug. it's a feature. those frustrations, those checks and balances, that's why we're still here 241 years later. that's why this country is still moving forward and for those of you who didn't think we were going to survive donald trump, if we do, i'm just saying that for mika, we're going to. >> yeah. >> if we survive donald trump, then we will see the checks and balances. again, not being a bug of democracy. being one of its greatest features. >> well, i think kasie just nailed the area for hope if biden does move forward to win the presidency perhaps even today. still ahead on "morning joe" president trump lays the groundwork for contesting election results in three different battleground states. we'll talk about his campaign's new lawsuits with a law expert.

you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. expert you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

bipolar depression. it's a dark, lonely place. this is art inspired by real stories of people living with bipolar depression. emptiness. a hopeless struggle. the lows of bipolar depression can disrupt your life and be hard to manage. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms, and in clinical studies, had no substantial impact on weight. now i'm feeling connected. empowered. latuda is not for everyone. call your doctor about unusual mood changes, behaviors or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. elderly dementia patients on latuda have an increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, and confusion,

as these may be life-threatening, or uncontrollable muscle movements as these may be permanent. these are not all the serious side effects. this is where i want to be. talk to your doctor and ask if latuda could make the difference you've been looking for in your bipolar depression symptoms.

president trump's campaign manager bill stepian issued a statement on the race in wisconsin saying in part, quote, the president is well within the threshold to request a recount and will immediately do so. joe biden narrowly won wisconsin yesterday but according to state law a candidate is allowed to call for a recount if the margin of victory is 1 percentage point or less. the request for a recount has to be made within the window when all county results are submitted and the following day at 5:00 p.m. central standard time. wisconsin's former republican governor scott walker tweeted yesterday in part, quote, after a recount in the 2016 presidential race in wisconsin,

trump's numbers went up by 131 as i said, 20,000 is a high hurdle. >> yeah, when governor walker, republican former governor, is warning the president about a lawsuit it's trouble. president trump's campaign filed suit in three states where the lead is either dwindling or gone. they filed suit in pennsylvania, michigan and georgia and joined existing republican legal challenges in pennsylvania and nevada where the party is challenging the handling of some absentee ballots. the michigan and pennsylvania suits filed yesterday sought to stop the counting until trump campaign observers are allowed to review ballots already counted. the michigan lawsuit claims secretary of state joslin benson a democrat, was allowing absentee ballots to be counted without teams of bipartisan observers and challengers, but the associated press says observing first hand there are plenty of poll watchers from

both parties in counting locations. joe biden was awarded the state of michigan after the suit was filed. in addition, the president's campaign intervened at the supreme court in a case challenging pennsylvania's plan to count ballots received for up to three days after election day. in georgia, the lawsuit alleges that chatham county is improperly counting ballots after the ballots received after the state's election day deadline. the campaign is seeking a court order to remind vote counters to separate out late arriving ballots. joining us now chair and constitutional law at the ohio state university, ned foley. he's an msnbc news election law analyst. good to have you here this morning. let's start in pennsylvania where a lot of eyes are today. we are expected to get a bunch out of the state and it could be enough to give the state to joe biden which would put him over the 270 electoral vote threshold. what do you see in some of the lawsuits? do you see merit in what the president is accusing the

elections board there of doing? >> good morning. i don't think that any of the lawsuits that we have seen so far ultimately are going to make a difference in the outcome. i think when you're behind in this kind of vote counting litigation, you have to sue and sue quickly because the clock is moving and you need to do something if you're behind. but they often lack merit and the courts are going to reject them if they don't have merit. so, you know, pennsylvania has some issues, but even there i don't think in the end the litigation will matter. >> so the argument that we're hearing is to stop the count, stop the counting of votes in pennsylvania, but when you go to arizona it's continue the count, let's get them coming in because we think president trump may be able to make up the difference there. what does that kind of incoherence, the dissonance, between the white house mean broadly? >> well, the standard practice of lawyers in these cases is to make their arguments depending on whether they're ahead or

behind. sometimes you see the lawyers switch positions as they -- as the lead switch. this happened in the minnesota u.s. senate race in 2008. as soon as the lead flipped from one side to the other the lawyers switched their positions. what we're seeing now is this inconsistency at the same time, because the candidate is ahead in one place and behind in the other. so that's the recount lawyers behaving according to form. the basic proposition from the voters' perspective we should have consistent counting of ballots. as long as votes are valid they need to be counted whether they're in one state or the other, no matter who is ahead or behind. >> jonathan lemire, we'll repeat what we're saying for weeks. we're still counting ballots in pennsylvania because this is the way that the process is supposed to work. we knew this from the beginning. we knew they couldn't start to count the mail in or early vote until election day so here we

are watching the process play out the way it was supposed to play out legally and the president is challenging that. >> that's right. and the process created these delays in part because of republican state legislatures taking their cues from the white house in some ways. ned, my question for you, as we have made a lot of comparisons to what happened in florida, when the eyes of the nation fixated on that state for more than a month. right now we're -- there's potential legal challenges in a number of states with the scatter shot approach we have been addressing all morning. in some ways, is that going to be more difficult for the trump campaign to sort of process and make a coherent legal argument because as willie said there's arguing one thing in one state, another thing in another. will that impact the merit of the case, are you seeing anything in any of the states that will lead to the drama and the drawnout process we had in florida 20 years ago? >> yeah. i think the reference to florida

is important. i haven't seen anything so far that looks like the hanging chads that were the focus of so much attention in florida in 2000. in order to have a lawsuit make a difference, you have to have a real problem to fight about. and the hanging chads were a problem. and nothing like that has emerged yet. the other thing about florida in 2000 was just how narrow the margin was. 537 votes. you know, we're not seeing at this point -- they're still counting ballots as we have been talking about, but margins of 20,000 are not margins of 500. and the numbers really matter in this context. and then the third point is in 2000, it was all florida, florida, florida, it all turned on one state. obviously the magic number in the electoral college is 270. so winning the lawsuit in one state if that happens doesn't of affect the entire outcome of the electoral college because multiple states are in play as you say. >> yeah. it also takes pressure off of

certain supreme court members to rule in certain ways, not that they'd have political considerations in making their decisions. but if the president doesn't revolve around one state, there may be a little less pressure on the individual court members. so let me ask you, mr. foley, about pennsylvania. i will admit it on msnbc i'm a conservative and when i see judges rewriting election laws and overtaking what the state legislature has done which is what happened in pennsylvania, i grow concerned. obviously, there are members of the supreme court who also are concerned about it even though they did not intervene the first time and concerned because of course the constitution says that the state legislatures are going to set the election laws, not state judges.

i'm wondering what the impact of that ruling may possibly be. is the court going to come back to it? do you think they'll have the five votes to disallow the votes that came in after tuesday? >> not on that point which i think is the key point. i think there are two issues still on the case in pennsylvania. the first one as you mentioned initially is this basic legal theory under the federal constitution about whether or not because state legislatures have the authority in the u.s. constitution to determine the rules of the elections whether it can violate the federal constitution if the state constitution rewrites the legalese. what's the consequence in the constitution, i don't think

there's five votes to validate those cast by innocent voters who cast their votes at the time where the pennsylvania supreme court's decision was in place. the voters weren't doing anything wrong, they were eligible voters and it would be a game of gotcha if their votes were invalidated. there was another case out of south carolina that had a different issue and there justice kavanaugh and others refused to rule on those cast in good faith. so we might see something like that in pennsylvania if it comes to that. >> that does make a lot of sense that the supreme court might have problems with what the pennsylvania courts did. but at the same time, refusing -- they likely will. refuse to invalidate voters who did nothing wrong but follow what they saw were the rules of their state at the time.

all right. well, thank you so much, ned foley. i hope -- let me put it this way. we hope you'll come back, but we hope -- >> it's not about this. >> but we hope it will be under the right circumstances. >> yeah. coming up, there are a lot of takeaways from this election. but ed luce of "the financial times" says the real lesson from today's hotly contested vote is that america is bitterly and energetically and evenly divided. he joins us with a new piece entitled "joe biden risks being a lame duck president." next on "morning joe." and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away.

♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ it's a new dawn... if you've been taking copd sitting down, it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur.

take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. and save at trelegy.com. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. (♪ ) you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier.

still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better.

and you know, what a beautiful view of washington, d.c. >> wow. sunrise. >> 6:52.

and the sun rising over a city who still doesn't know who will be the next president. the democrats are feeling awfully confident, believing that joe biden will overtake the president in pennsylvania today. willie, i think i need to let you know something that happened around here on election night when we did what we have been doing since '47, '48, doing election nights on peacock. >> we have had a lot of surgery that's why we look so young. >> exactly. very good diet. we both decided to do the churchill diet. it's kept us alive for quite some time. >> i thought it was fun doing election night live on peacock. i think we should do more on peacock. >> yes. but anyway, at the beginning of the evening, while you were at the big board, one of mika's daughters. >> oh, man. >> oh, no. >> she texted --

>> she's a big kornacki fan. >> okay. let's start -- >> who isn't a big kornacki fan? >> she's obsessed. >> you know how teenager girls in the 1970s and '80s had pictures of andy gibb on the wall, leif garrett, shawn cassidy. and now they have the poster, shirtless, buff, of the rage, kornacki. >> she loves steve kornacki. >> so i say this, a very, very long windup to say -- it is a long windup. >> yes. >> just get to it. >> she asked, what's willie's doing at the board? that's kornacki's board, what is he doing at the board?

>> then the second text was does he know what he doing? and then he doesn't know -- then the fourth text, actually he's pretty good. >> how about that? >> i was worried about the first three texts. honestly, the board we had fun doing that. but kornacki, actually he's in the charging station right now. he'll be back, don't worry, msnbc viewers, a little bit later today. >> the charging station. >> what he does up there in breaking down the numbers is incredible. he can tell you what's happening in every county and every precinct in the united states of america. when you get up and try to do what he does, you respect is even elevated further. >> exactly. we'll get you back at the board at the top of the hour. i want to talk especially about georgia, but rev, let me go to you first, because willie will be at the board. we'll be looking at the georgia numbers, but let's talk about georgia. if in fact it goes the way it's

looking right now -- and again, who knows? maybe the president holds on. but if joe biden catches up, you have to look at two people making a tremendous difference and here's the latest out of fulton county. joe biden, 72.5%. but barack obama's last-minute appeal in atlanta was electrifying to a lot of people in atlanta. that made a huge difference. and stacey abrams, stacey abrams may have come up a little bit short in her race in 2018, but if joe biden wins the state of florida and cracks the solid south for the democrats many, many people have to look to stacey abrams and the organization that she's been building in that state as making

a huge difference this year. >> no doubt about it. if joe biden wins georgia, even if he doesn't, there's a lot that is owed to stacey abrams who has built a statewide organization that that's lasted beyond her race. i think ossoff who is in a runoff they have to give a lot of credit to the political infrastructure and the energy stacey abrams brought that state. it was a run away red state until she did what she did. and you're right, when president obama came in and charged that energy, i think that's what brought it this close to what may be turning that state for joe biden. >> yeah. jonathan lemire, georgia is a

state that election night as things were looking bad for the biden campaign, there was some discouragement about north carolina, discouragement about georgia as well. but you sort of sense -- i mean, i heard from you, you sensed a growing optimism that trends were looking good like in wisconsin and michigan and now pennsylvania as some pennsylvania officials are believing that joe biden may win by as many as 100,000 votes. but georgia, georgia is a state that the biden campaign has gotten more confident about as every hour passes. >> and joe biden would be the first democrat to win in georgia since bill clinton did and it would be a remarkable moment and potentially one of reshaping the electoral map. i mean, north carolina, the biden camp believes is probably going to stay out of reach, but certainly a true battleground

now. we have seen obama win it and then the democrats lose it in other cycles but now the democrats feel that georgia can do it as well. not a state to take for granted any time soon, but they're seeing encouraging turnout among black voters in atlanta, the atlanta suburbs that continues the trends that we have seen all year long. sort of breaking away from president trump and an extraordinary win if it were to happen from joe biden. let's remember how much time we spent talking about the former blue wall, the four great lake states of pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan that trump won four years ago. take them away in hillary clinton. joe biden is now building it back up. he has two-thirds of it already in michigan and wisconsin and his track feels on track by winning pennsylvania in the coming days. now, whether those are -- the start of a return to those becoming democratic strong holds or not remains to be seen. there's certainly some

democratic shifts there but we shouldn't lose sight of that. that biden was able to make that appeal to those sort of working class voters, white working class voters that trump has been successful winning, but also improving turnout in places like milwaukee, in places like philadelphia and pittsburgh, in places like detroit which could make the difference for him and put him at this moment just a step or two away from the white house. >> wow. let's go to cook political report's dave wasserman. >> so dave, we have a lot to still talk about. you haven't slept in five days. it's so funny when i talked to you before the race and said, oh, i can't wait for this to be over, about five days before you were smart enough to say, oh, i'm just resting up. it's after the election that we're really going to be digging through it and sure enough here we are. georgia on the cusp.

pennsylvania, arizona. donald trump catching up quickly in arizona. nevada, we're going to find out later today if the biden campaign's confidence is warranted there. they're feeling good about nevada but let's start with georgia since that's the closest right now. what trends are you seeing? >> well, look, joe, it's going to continue to get closer because the bulk of the remaining ballots that are out are in the metro atlanta area and it's just going to be extremely tight. but the fact that georgia is close makes it a real bright spot for biden out of the sunbelt states. >> does joe biden have enough votes? are there still enough votes left there to put biden over the top if he continues overperforming? >> i have been speaking with consultants on both sides who say that, you know, their models show that it's going to finish pretty much near a tie now. i won't step on our decision

desk, but one democratic consultant i talked to was optimistic that biden would finish ahead by a couple thousand votes. but we have to wait and see today, but it's clear that the best path to 270 by far is pennsylvania. >> yeah. let's go to pennsylvania. the trend line's looking very good for the former vice president there. what are you seeing in pennsylvania? >> joe, you know, again, i'm going to leave it to our decision desk in terms of making a definitive characterization when the time is ready, but when it comes to pennsylvania you have to like the trend lines a lot if you're joe biden. we're looking at the completed counties, the counties that are nearly done counting their vote and of course president trump won pennsylvania by 0.7 in 2016 so joe biden doesn't need much of an overperformance in order to win.

we're seeing him overperform clinton's by a modest amount. for example, in lackawanna county where scranton is such a central push, biden ended up it by eight points, hillary only three. gone to montour, danville, which is in the "t" of the state, a pretty rural setting, biden -- this was his biggest overperformance in the state, lost it by only 21, whereas clinton had lost it by 29. you go to suburban philly and chester county. you know, the whole foods revolt in pennsylvania and across the country may not have been quite as dramatic as we would have expected before the election, but it's still likely enough to power biden to what he needs because hillary clinton won chester county by 9.4%. joe biden is ahead there today by 16.5%. so these deltas are larger than

what he would need on a county by county basis and we still have hundreds of thousands of uncounted mail ballots that we'll get from some major, major counties that will break extremely for biden. >> dave, obviously if he wins pennsylvania, joe biden does, this conversation becomes moot but let's talk about arizona and what's happening there. as more vote has come in out of maricopa county as we have seen more of that percentage, donald trump actually has picked up a little bit of ground there. how do you see that playing out as the votes trickle in throughout the state? >> when you calculate what trump needs from the batches in order to close the gap, at least out of the remaining uncounted ballots in maricopa, trump is getting right about at the number maybe a tiny bit less in the batches that came out last night around, you know, 2:00 a.m. eastern. and before that, in order to get to the tie. the concern that republicans i

speak to have is that there are also a few provisional ballots that remain in the uncounted column that they believe are a little bit more favorable to biden perhaps than the ballots that are in the batches last night. this will come down to the razor thin margin in arizona. and look, we have to be patient as the county recorder updates the tallies. >> all right. let's move over a little bit and talk about nevada. a frustratingly slow count for a lot of people waiting to see what's going to come out of there. what is going on? why is that count taking so long? >> yeah. well, look, nevada is in a similar predicament to arizona where clark county obviously, you know, about three-quarters of the state were simply waiting to see what kind of ballots are these that are still uncounted.

they could be slightly more favorable to trump than the ballots that have already been counted and the margin is extremely tight. jon ralston seems to be optimistic that trump can make up some ground. so look, nevada becomes moot if pennsylvania ends up in the biden column. but it does speak to the truth that trump did make progress with hispanic voters on tuesday and in a big way. >> in a big way. i wanted to ask you about that. i have been talking this morning in the first hour about "the new york times" headline that i found to be jarring, which said hispanic delivered texas for trump. we have been talking for several years since 2018 about the revolt of the suburbs against donald trump. the republican suburbs. a lot of white voters around the suburbs of dallas, a lot of

white voters, and others around houston, those suburbs, but as "the new york times" article laid out any white voters that democrats gained in those suburbs were erased by hispanic voters along the border and across the state who broke for donald trump. >> that's right. and look, we're all pummeling polls right now, but polls ironically, you know did a reasonable job of describing the changing contours of the electorate before the election. we knew from the numbers we were seeing that donald trump was likely to see an improvement among hispanic voters particularly hispanic men. i think when we unpack all of the numbers we'll see that there was a really large gender gap among hispanic voters. there's a big difference between how rural hispanic voters look at the race and how more urban and central city and higher

income hispanics viewed the contest. and look, the margins that we saw for biden in not only miami, but in south texas and along the border were catastrophic for democrats there. i don't know that it's enough to say that it cost joe biden the state of texas when the margin is hovering around 6 points, but it certainly played a role in texas being decisively in trump's column. >> let's go to willie, he's at the board right now. you're looking at a state right now that both campaigns are looking at closely and the political world and that's the state of georgia. >> yeah, i wanted to point out to dave we had some new vote in from fulton county. look at the spread now in georgia, donald trump leads by 18,500 votes and the secretary of state has just said there are 25,000 outstanding absentee ballots so what is your sense of

where that vote is? what percentage of it might go to joe biden and how close that number might end up being? because 18,540 right now in georgia. >> yeah. it's going to be extremely tight, willie. and, you know, i have to look more closely after this dump to see where they're from. to the extent they're from clayton county that would be good news for biden because that's an overwhelmingly african-american county, but he's going to need to really run the table on the remaining ballots statewide in order to catch up. >> all right. >> was that number, willie, for the entire state? >> yeah. this is statewide, 18,540. that's the spread statewide and the statewide -- the secretary of state says statewide there are fewer than 25,000 absentee ballots remaining, and by the way, they should be finished counting by noon today.

so i mean, as if you can get any closer. this will get down to the 10,000 or fewer spread in georgia. >> yeah, i think we're talking four digits. >> wow. willie, of course, if that comes from certain areas, counties that are overwhelmingly black and donald trump is losing that by a 9-1 margin, that'll be enough to get joe biden certainly close enough and possibly move ahead by 1,000 or 2,000 votes. but if it's from a county that trends more for donald trump, obviously, he'll be able to hold on to georgia. >> yeah. let's shoot over to pennsylvania as well. dave wasserman, as you have said, as the votes come in from the suburban counties obviously they're being the to trend toward joe biden. is there a scenario you see where trump can stem that enough

to hold off the state or is this a forgone conclusion in pennsylvania? >> look, i have a very hard time seeing a comeback path for the president in pennsylvania. there's just nowhere in the state where he's overperforming his '16 margin by enough if at all to be able to off set the kinds of defections we have seen from trump in suburban pennsylvania. but not just the suburbs, also northeastern pennsylvania we have seen a pretty strong biden performance in the scranton area and the surrounding areas and the lehigh area. northampton county is bethlehem, we saw donald trump win that county and flip it from obama in 2016. it apparently has flipped back to biden who has a lead and that biden needed to lose by 3 points

or less. these numbers are really encouraging for biden across the board and, you know, i was -- i was speaking with a congressional republican who pays close attention to these numbers last night. who admitted that trump is in deep trouble in pennsylvania. >> let's bring in msnbc contributor mike barnicle. chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker. editor-in-chief of "the atlantic" magazine, jeffrey goldberg. white house correspondent for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor. good to have you all on board. jeffrey goldberg, i'm reading a piece in "the atlantic" about the amount of people who voted for trump and what it says about our country. what do you make of the results so far? >> as this piece by george packer i think there's the one you're referring to says are a bitterly and seemingly permanently divided country.

there's two americas, we have another piece by ron brownstein -- acknowledges the old civil war, that the country is split down the middle and one side is not understanding the other side. both sides don't understand each other and that we live in a social media environment in which differences are exasperated. and, you know, it's -- there are a lot of people who simultaneously recognize that there's a high likelihood that joe biden is going to win, and then this uniquely from their perspective uniquely terrible president is going to go and yet they're feeling awful about the current conditions of the country. i think that's kind of the dominant mood, sort of relief and also disgust. >> yeah. and george packer actually will be joining us tomorrow on "morning joe." >> yeah. mike barnicle, this wouldn't be

the first time that americans have had this reaction. of course, it's -- you can go back obviously to the founding of the republic. go back to the election in 1800 which as jon meacham who wrote an extraordinary book on thomas jefferson, long called that one of the ugliest presidential campaigns. but even more recent times, republicans reacted viscerally with this visceral hatred about bill clinton when he got elected president of the united states. george w. bush was called a nazi for eight years. barack obama, you know, donald trump started really -- promoted the birther racist conspiracy against him. we have been through tough times and it seems to me if joe biden is elected president of the united states, that's the battle field that he walks out upon

politically and it's his job to try to bring us together. don't you think, knowing him as long as you do, that that's exactly what he's built to do? >> you know, i think joe biden thinks and knows and feels very strongly that job number one when he gets back is to expedite a vaccine, to really rid this country of the virus. look, the other aspect of that job that's going to be all time-consuming is the one that you just described, joe. the packer piece is really interesting. as you expect from george packer. it points out something that we all should be acutely aware of in this ongoing autopsy that we're going to do on the two americas that we talk about each and every day and this did not begin with donald trump. the roots of the division were there long before donald trump and as jeffrey just pointed out, you just get the sense that the

explosion of social media, twitter and instagram and everything that surrounds us every day in communications terms we are inundated with it every day and you talk to people who voted or believe in trump and you get amazingly simplistic themes about why they're divide it. i was speaking to a person yesterday, loves donald trump, loves what he's been doing and i asked about the other side. you know, joe biden, good guy, blah blah blah. they boil it down to the simple sentence -- i'm tired of so many people telling me what to think, how to live and now they're telling me what to eat. i mean, the take that so many people about the interference in their own personal lives by an overwhelming apparatus of government, the flood of social media, the autopsy on this is going to be among the most

interesting american experiments we have ever done and it has to be done. >> you have to add in there, and i say this as a guy who's a republican for 20, 25 years, so much of that also comes from just an overwhelming sense of victimhood. i swear if i hear one more friend of mine who's an evangelical talking about they're coming for us, the persecuted church and i politely and gently remind them that over the past five years, no supreme court in the history of this republic has done more to protect religious rights than has the roberts court. i can go down one ruling after another after another. you know what? i can't help you with what's on tv or on at the movies. i can't help what your kids are streaming on your television

sets at home. or many of the other challenges that we all face with teenager children, but to suggest that somehow this federal government is hostile to faith and we must vote for donald trump to protect christendom is one of the stupidest arguments i have ever heard in my life. look at what the supreme court has done on religious liberty, specifically protecting religious liberty of conservative christians. people that i have grown up with and been with in churches for, you know, the past 57 years. the sense of victimhood is outrageous. you know what it makes it more outrageous, i'm sorry to get on this soap box is these are the same people that are talking about religious liberty are

supporting a guy still who promoted a muslim registry. yes, yes, a muslim registry. sounds an awful like jewish registries in nazi germany. oh, you can't say -- but wait. that's what he proposed. and a lot of you evangelicals that run around screaming about religious freedom and religious liberty and how the libs are coming after you and your church and your beliefs and you're ignoring supreme court decisions, protecting your rights, which of course i support, because i'm a conservative, you don't feel that way. you don't have those same concerns for the others. and it's just the damnedest thing.

you don't care about the babies that are born that are locked in cages. barack obama -- no, it wasn't barack obama's policy to deliberately find children and lock them up. but that was donald trump's policy. in fact, they had a cabinet meeting where everybody raised their hands to support it except for christine neilson. >> who got blamed for it. >> that was a stated policy. so i really don't get it. i mean, the victimhood. stop being a victim. stop being a snowflake. i've got the same most likely a lot of the same beliefs that you have. but those similarities stop when i think that the protection of my faith, of my evangelical faith should only be applied to me and not applied to catholics, not applied to jews, not applied to muslims, not applied to the others. the blinders.

i have to say of all of these years, the blinders are just extraordinary, mika. i want to say one other thing too. again, there are people -- i'm going to upset maybe some people on the left. there are people who are acting like it's the end of the world because we may have divided government. i go back again to thomas ricks' book coming out in the next couple of weeks where again the separation of powers. this frustration that stops tyrants from taking over governments or stops parties from darting too far in one direction or the other direction. that is not a bug of our government. that is a feature. that is not a bug in the constitution. that's a feature. those of you talking about how we need to change the constitution, you need to take a long, cold shower because checks and balances, that's what this government's about. and that's what scared me so

much over the past four years of the trump presidency. by the way, we're not -- the world is not coming to an end, okay? yeah, i don't understand why people voted for donald trump. i don't understand why my family voted for donald trump, i don't understand why everybody i know voted for donald trump. but i've got to get along with them. i love them. i'm not going to throw away 57 years of friendships over one election. we've got to stop thinking that it's the end -- everything is the end of the world. bill clinton was the end of the world. george w. bush, the end of the world. barack obama, the end of the world. donald trump, the end of the world. joe biden is going to be the end of the world. you're in good company. as rick said in his book, george washington died believing that the republic he built was

doomed. thomas jefferson died believing the declaration of independence that helped launch the united states of america was doomed. they died pessimists believing their government and their nation was moving in the wrong direction. we're still here. and we'll survive four years or eight years of donald trump. we'll survive four years or eight years of joe biden. it's time for us to take a deep breath and just move forward with our lives and stop obsessing so much over politics. now let's continue with our three-hour show on politics. mika? >> since falsely declaring victory from the white house early wednesday morning, president trump has remained holed up inside his residence watching the results. "the new york times" reports that donald trump made calls to supporters and friends yesterday while watching fox news coverage sounding subdued and somewhat dispirited to some people.

he also spoke to the republican governors of texas and florida to ask about the possibility that fraud was being committed according to people briefed on the call. the president's advisers reportedly try to persuade trump to speak in the east room before joe biden's remarks in the morning hours on wednesday. but they were unsuccessful and said they sat and watched as biden set the tone for the night. as arizona edges towards a biden win, some trump aides have begun pointing fingers. they told "the times" that trump had often resisted requests to spend more time in arizona, in part because he did not like traveling west and spending the night on the road. while trump was not seen publicly yesterday, he was tweeting and his close circle was very vocal including eric

trump and rudy giuliani who held a news conference in pennsylvania to question the state's ballot counting methods. >> we're not showing you any of that. >> it's something else. >> crazy. i don't want him to be embarrassed any more than he already is. >> it's incredible. meanwhile, son-in-law jared kushner was making calls, looking for what he described as a quote, james baker like figure. >> too late for that. >> who could lead the legal effort to dispute the tabulations in different states according to a person briefed on the discussions. >> let's bring in peter baker. so peter, talk about what's going on inside the white house right now. >> well, look, this is obviously a white house that has fewer paths towards victory than joe biden as you guys have very aptly outlined. and they're hanging on, clinging on to the idea they're going to still pull it out. that they have a couple of ways of getting there but it's a place where back biting and finger pointing is only going to increase in the hours and days to come.

particularly in some of -- as some of votes continue to be counted. any white house on the edge of the defeat if this is where this white house ends up being, it's a pretty toxic place. add to that, a president who's very modus operandi, whose very method of operating is in fact to cast blame, to drive division. then you have a much more toxic stew than you'd normally have. >> peter baker, can i ask you about the james baker comparison that jared kushner's fishing around looking for his james baker -- obviously you have a book out about it right now, the circumstances around florida and james baker obviously extraordinarily different than what we have in front of us right now. >> yeah. they're significantly different. first of all, james baker who, you know, led george w. bush's recount effort in florida didn't

try to stop counting before the first count happened. that's what they're talking about doing and he didn't throw around baseless allegations of fraud without zero evidence whatsoever. he would have considered that embarrassing. that's not what james baker was trying to do they had a full count in florida. the question is that the democrats wanted four counties to go back and look at some of the ballots that had been thrown out for procedural reasons because they weren't fully punched through, in the punch card ballots, for instance, and they were trying to get them back into play. the republicans under james baker weren't trying to throw out whole categories of ballots en masse because they'd go for the other team. it's a very different situation there. the other difference i would say is that jim baker and the democrats, they fought it out in the system and all the way to the supreme court. in the end, the democrats were disappointed. they're bitter about it to this day. but in the end you had the al gore and george w. bush and jim baker, people who believed in

the system. who didn't try to tear it down or didn't sit there and call the whole thing rigged and corrupt and fraudulent without any basis whatsoever. they believe in the system when it was over al gore, he gave a gracious concession speech and said george w. bush is our president and george w. bush said i'm now the president of the republicans and democrats and all americans, and they tried to reach out and believed in the system. that's not what we're seeing in this particular president. >> absolutely not, yamiche, in fact, the president is throwing baseless conspiracy theories against the wall. he's retweeting breitbart and dave wasserman has been showing the joe biden victory in pennsylvania can come some time later today. what is happening inside the white house? stop the vote, count the vote, they're trying to get something to stick to the wall.

do they actually think something will change with these lawsuits which seem to be based in nothing at this point? >> the strategy now is to try to wrestle back states and they're hoping that the legal strategy helps the president win back some states that have been called by the networks including the a.p. and they're eyeing arizona as one of the states that the a.p. has put it in the corner. the vote is still very close. people are still counting in the state, but the president is flooding the zone with misinformation. his twitter time line right now looks like a collage of labels with twitter warning people that most of the information, the majority of the information that he's sent out in the last few hours, few days, is wrong. that it's not something that should be believed. that there's misinformation there that he's calling states for himself. he's claiming north carolina, georgia, we have never seen a u.s. president try to delegitimize a u.s. election. if this was happening in another

country, we would be alarmed. we might be sending in election observers, sending in backups to help the country get the democracy in order but it's happening here in the united states. what the president is also doing is lashing out at people, who were trying to get him to change his rhetoric on the coronavirus pandemic or when he was attacking people like john mccain in the state of arizona, someone seen as an icon, a political figure in the state. i'm already hearing from donald trump advisers, people that are close to the president, blaming in some ways pointing fingers at each other and they're starting to get deflated, thinking this might not end well for them. the president is lashing out and doing all of this because he's very, very worried he might lose and the courts are the only way to get it back. >> jeffrey goldberg, we have been wondering where's the line for trump republicans, like how far will they go for them? this seems like it's it.

we head from leading republicans from maryland's larry hogan, we heard from marco rubio, chris christie, this is a no go. this is not an area where they want to stand next to donald trump. do you think that will continue? >> you know, i think this is the huge question. you know, i personified the question in mitch mcconnell. you know, the question i have in my mind. when does mitch mcconnell simply call up the white house and say, okay, it's over. just stop. we're not doing this anymore. i mean, but of course, you know, one could hope that that would happen, but also if you look back over the previous four years, there were approximately one million moments in which responsible senate leadership could have called up the white house and said, please stop doing that, please stop saying that please stop promoting conspiracy theories, please stop being racist, please stop a

whole bunch of things. so i don't have -- i don't think you can say with confidence that that's going to happen immediately, based on past performance. but when you see what rubio tweeted, what you see governor hogan -- admittedly an east coast moderate said, you have to wonder if the dam just breaks today or very soon and people somehow call up the president and say, reality has now dictated that you're not going to be the president anymore. the second question of course is what will trump say when mitch mcconnell tells him that this is over and no one can truly predict that. >> yeah. hey, so, let me ask you, jeffrey, along the lines of the senators who have been silent when i think most americans that care about constitutional norms

and political norms and the saving of life would have wanted them to speak out, they remain silent. they were obsequious to donald trump. but they were rewarded this week at the polls. you look at joni ernst who really became unrecognizable as a politician from her campaign ads after donald trump was elected president. you can look at susan collins who went against the wishes of her state several times, had promoted herself as being a pro-choice republican and then supported kavanaugh and also remained silent for the most part when president trump preached political norms. you have to look at steve daines built a very strong steve bullock in montana. and even if you look at what's happening right now in arizona, we were seeing polls that showed that martha mcsally was losing by double digits. here we are on thursday, nbc news still not calling that race

because it's still too close. so it seems that at least for many of these senators, clinging on to donald trump and remaining silent actually was a good political strategy for them, even if we found it repugnant. >> right. you know, it's interesting, it's already become a cliche in two days to say that donald trump may have lost, but trumpism has won. and i think you can examine that statement across a couple of different dimensions. the democrats have to ask themselves serious questions about centristism. and i think mika was talking about this before and you were talking about it, the way that people feel like democrats and

liberals hector the rest of the country and there are other sets of questions that have to do with our information, the ecosystem and the fact that competing television network, for instance, pushing out information that is just not true and has penetrated deeply, deeply, deeply into the country. so you've created a closed system in which these senators who many of whom, you know, you know and you know and think that trump is all the things that you, joe, think that trump is, they know that ecosystem and that architecture that we exist in won't allow them to survive if they actually call out what needs to be called out. i mean, i'm struck by one other thought, i'm struck by something. that if donald trump had had a credible response to the pandemic, if he had taken on the pandemic the way one would -- a president would take on an

enemy, of course we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. he'd win 53%, 54% of the popular states and would be winning the states he's losing. there a lot of people who need to be held to account, the people who knew better. they saw the disastrous handling of the pandemic and they did nothing out of fear and it was out of fear of being called out by trump, out of fear out of being called out by the media and the social media apparatus by donald trump. i think everyone has to be held to account for something but the smart group of senators we have to ask them, what were you thinking? >> yeah. all right. thank you for being with us. jeffrey's comments reminded me

of a conversation i had last night and there are of course -- there are elected republican officials, both governors and senators, who are now breathing a sigh of relief. actually believing that donald trump is going to be leaving washington, d.c. of course they'd never admit it to the voters but they have felt the burden of keeping their mouth shut or defending the indefensible. i'm hearing from many of them who are actually looking forward to being able to be elected representatives for four years without having to run away from cameras to respond to the latest donald trump outrage. dave wasserman, let's go back to georgia. it's a tough fight down there, a close race. have you gotten any information where the remaining 25,000 ballots are from? >> not yet, joe, but we do

believe they're mostly in metro atlanta. >> if they're in metro atlanta, let's see. it's an 18,000 vote difference right now. so joe biden would have to -- joe biden would have to pick up i guess about 8 in 10 of those votes. so when are we going -- when do you think we're going to be hearing -- i know it's this morning, but when do you think we'll be hearing more from pennsylvania and get a better idea of when joe biden is going to go past donald trump in vote totals? >> yeah, i think we'll be getting a better idea from pennsylvania throughout the day. keep in mind, if there are as many ballots from the city of philadelphia as we think they are and if their turnout was in line with other counties in pennsylvania, then joe biden could potentially erase donald trump's entire lead at the

moment just from those uncounted philadelphia votes. there's some debate about how many there are outstanding and the trump campaign hopes that falls on the lower end of the range. the probable for trump, there are hugely democratic batches of mail-in ballots that have yet to be added to the tallies from some large counties such as delaware county right outside of philadelphia. lehigh county which is allentown, monroe county, outside of harrisburg, there's a lot of democratic vote there in those suburbs. look, there's a lot of different pathways for biden to be able to erase the deficit in pennsylvania and do so comfortably. >> all right. dave wasserman, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. willie? >> dave, thanks so much. let's bring in elissa slotkin of michigan who won re-election to michigan's 8th

congressional district. congresswoman, congratulations on your victory a couple of nights ago. it was close throughout, i know it was a fight for you all summer. what was the deciding issue here? was it coronavirus? what was front and center as people went to the polls on tuesday? >> i certainly think that the president's response to the coronavirus was a big deal for a lot of people. we had a pretty big swing this our district. the president won the district in 2016 by over 25,000 votes and won it by under 2,000 this time around. i think that's a big part of it and also health care. just the idea that people with pre-existing conditions were at risk of completely losing their coverage, really we started to get a lot of questions about that. so those two issues for sure. >> so congress woman, you're one of the people warning over the summer that michigan as a state was much closer than polls were showing in terms of the presidential race, that it was going to be a dogfight, in fact, it has been here. what did you see over the course of the summer that told you some of the polls that we can talk about polls in wisconsin and in

pennsylvania and other places, but in michigan, exactly, what were you seeing on the ground that said the polls might not be right? >> i think in general we know from 2016 that we just didn't get it right. the folks who were doing the polling across the country were just undercounting trump voters. and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. some of which is maybe they don't answer polls as much, maybe they only come out to vote for donald trump when he's on the ballot. maybe that's why we got it right in 2018 and not 2020. i think that fundamental undercounting from 2016 should have been a big flight, shiny flashing light for 2020. even the best of us are watching the polls and saying, okay, maybe we feel more comfortable and in the end that was incorrect. >> we heard from the donald trump campaign that suing the michigan court of claims in the michigan court of claims to look at the ballot counting in the presidential election. do you see any merit to the

lawsuit? they want more observers and more eyes on how the ballots are being counted in your state? >> i don't have any specific insight into the case other than, you know, the president seems to be launching the lawsuits in multiple states. in some states he wants to stop the count, other states he wants to continue the count. i don't think anyone should be confused about what's happening. the president has telegraphed for six months that he was going to challenge the results of the election. he made it very clear and on the basis of absentee voting and the count of that vote. so we shouldn't suddenly be shocked he's doing what he said. >> there's access by -- observers in place, that there's no merit to that. congresswoman, mike barnicle has a question for you. >> congresswoman, given the trajectory it looks as if we're going to have a biden presidency, perhaps announced as

soon as today, given the probability of pennsylvania coming in and given your background in the intelligence community what do you think can be done to improve not only the morale of the intelligence community but the effectiveness of the intelligence community working with congress and the president? >> sure. well, listen, the vice president and hopefully president is going to have a big task on his hands. i think the big thing to do, frankly, for the intelligence community, the same thing goes for the state department and all of the diplomats we have lost is there's a law on the books that allows the next director of the cia, the dni, the next secretary of state to do a targeted callback of folks who have departed. and either they were pushed out or they resigned out of principle. if we need their expertise, if they need some of that senior experience, the senior officials can bring them back. i think that's important particularly since we have a ton of mid level professionals who just exited out because they

couldn't deal with what they were being asked, you know, to represent. i think that would be on day one or two a really big, important thing for the biden administration to do. >> congresswoman elissa slotkin, thank you very much for being on this morning. and congratulations. we'll get more reporting from peter baker and yamiche alcindor after a quick break. you're watching "morning joe."

occupation.

occupation. res, new skin growth, occupation have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. rpls, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. lasting remission can start with stelara®. if you've been financially impacted by covid-19, janssen may be able to help. stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue.

that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. tell your doctor about any infections... and if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq. take on ra talk to your rheumatologist about rinvoq relief. rinvoq. make it your mission. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help.

welcome back. it's 48 past the hour.

the sun has come up over a washington, d.c., still waiting to see who will be the next president of the united states. let's go to peter baker. peter, as things sort of close in on the president, the numbers not looking good. fair to just speak to fact here. you're envisioning a little bit of what trump does after, where trump goes from here? is there a trump legacy and what about the people who work for trump? >> yeah, it's a great question. i think that we think that president trump isn't going to go anywhere quietly. i think that's a fair question -- a fair point to make. >> yeah. >> even if he's packing the moving truck on january 20th, he's still got 88 million twitter followers and thinking about setting up his own television network to compete with fox news on the right or even run again. he's talked with his advisers, sometimes jokingly and sometimes

not, maybe he'll announce he's running again in 2024 and that may be a way to keep raising funds and doing rallies. this is someone who is not that going or george h.w. bush quietly retiring to texas. this is a president who if defeated he'd be the first incumbent president defeated in 28 years if he is, doesn't plan to leave without much of a mark, and i think that the election results give him more credibility in that sense. he proved more resilient than a lot of people had expected, right? he got so far 68 million votes. that's 5 million more votes than he got four years around. rather than losing in the aggregate he still got 48% of the public standing by him. that gives him power within the republican party that he has dominated for the last four or five years particularly if the republicans remain in charge in the senate and he's goosing them

on in the sidelines telling them to stand up to president biden if he were, in fact, to win the white house. >> the president obviously is not thinking about the future yet, he's trying to scrape his wayimprobably to a win here. does that person exist? i mean, i'm racking my brain to think of who has the clout to walk into president trump's office the way barry goldwater did in the summer of '74 and tell richard nixon it's time to go, who would he possibly listen to that? he's just going to continue to re-twe re-tweet conspiracy theories, it seems, until the end. >> the president has a lot of people around him who might say that to him. whether or not the president will actually heed that is another story. i think there are still a couple of people in the white house who deliver hard news to the president who tell him things he doesn't want to hear including people who were trying to

convince him to come out and speak before joe biden. trying to convince him to be a little bit more subdued, trying to tell him not to declare victory early. he doesn't listen a lot of times to those people. he does not listen when it came to coronavirus and his rhetoric there. i think we'll have to wait and see if there are republicans who will actually be able to convince him to come out. what we do know is that we already see senate republicans doing something they rarely do and that is having a message that is different from president trump. we saw marco rubio coming out saying voter suppression is not counting the votes. that alone, even though it shouldn't be a controversial statement is seen as brave on the part of republicans because they have been so rarely wanting to try to have any sort of message that conflicts with the president, but if the president loses, you're going to start seeing republicans, of course, looking at their party and looking ahead. you already see democrats, i should say, sounding excited at the idea of joe biden winning,

but already envisioning mitch mcconnell doing what mitch mcconnell has been doing for years now, and that is getting in the way of democrats, even if they win with tthe white house. i've already been talking to sources saying the legislative move forward, they're going to get held up in this republican senate and it's going to be a dog fight. >> or, i mean, there is in theory a chance that the dems could win a majority if they win both of the georgia runoffs or one of them and alaska, so we're still waiting on those. we shall see. mike barnicle. >> peter baker, it's kind of interesting that one of the items on the national agenda right now that we deal with every day, the virus, if donald trump had dealt with it, he might be in an entirely different position electorally today, but he's not, and it

certainly appears -- oh, yamiche, i'm sorry. i guess pete is awol, so let me ask you because you -- i mean, you hooked into the white house, so if he had dealt with the virus, he would be in an entirely different position today, and yet he didn't, and he's not, and probably pennsylvania comes in it looks like and joe biden will be president-elect. can you given your understanding of donald trump and the people around him, the mood, the tenor of this administration and the man himself, could you ever envision him giving a concession speech? >> it's hard to envision the president frankly doing that. i'm sure it might look something -- if it happens it might look something like when he said that birtherism wasn't true, that barack obama was born in this country, it was quick, it was fast. you almost missed it. if you didn't pay attention, so we could possibly see that happening. i will say that i've been

talking to advisers who have been saying to me all morning we tried to get president trump to say something differently on the coronavirus. we tried to get him not to down play this virus. he did not listen. he leaned into his instincts. he took that risk not listening to republicans, and that is, of course, where we now see him landing. so it's hard to envision, but it could happen. >> all right, peter baker's shot froze up, but we thank peter and yamiche as well. coming up, joe biden leads in the electoral count with several key races still too close to call, including georgia where biden just cut into the president's lead with new results reported this morning. we'll have an update on where things stand. we'll back in just a moment. a .

>> the question before us, if the lawful election process goes forward is will the president's supporters except the lawful result feceven if he is encourag them not to. if he is encouragin them not to. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away.

less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala at home. find your nunormal with nucala. for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for.

♪ usaa ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

it's clear that we're

winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners. >> joe biden sounding optimistic two days after election day and the election is still undecided. biden currently leads 253 electoral votes to donald trump's 214. biden expanded his lead yesterday after winning michigan's 16 electoral votes, wisconsin's ten, and three of maine's four. trump won the other. we're still awaiting results from several battleground states. right now georgia, pennsylvania, nevada, north carolina, all too close to call. arizona too early to call. so here we are. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe," it is thursday, november 5th along with joe, willie and me we have white house reporter for the

associated press, jonathan lemi lemire, capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early" kasie hunt, and host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton is with us. so first to pennsylvania, let's go right there. joe biden has cut into donald trump's lead significantly. around this time yesterday trump led by some 700,000 votes. now with 89% of the expected vote in, trump now leads by just over 164,000 votes with a lot of mail-in ballots still being counted. we could look specifically at philadelphia county, home to a lot of biden voters. he currently leads by 60% and we are still waiting for more than 244,000 votes from philadelphia county. biden is currently at 79%. hillary clinton won philadelphia county with 82% in 2016.

we're also waiting for about 80,000 votes from allegheny county where pittsburgh is located. biden currently leads by 19 percentage points in that county, and over in bucks county, the state's fourth most populated county where unemployment rates and deaths per capita linked to covid are some of the highest in the country. trump currently leads by just over 3,200 votes with 58,000 votes still expected. trump lost bucks county by less than 1 percentage point back in 2016. >> and while we're talking about pittsburgh and philadelphia and the state of pennsylvania, willie, if we look at some of the numbers that i just had sent to me, big difference in '16. montgomery county, biden's up by 26. that's up from 21 four years

ago. in chester he's up by 17. that's up from hillary clinton's 9%, delaware by 23. that's also up, and bucks will end up likely being a wider margin than '16. but pennsylvania is one of those states that if you look at the trends and you see where it's going and it's been going that way for the past couple of days, it looks like that's a state where joe biden's beggoing to ch up in much the same way he caught up in wisconsin and michigan if, again, as i keep saying the past is prologue. it looks like he's going to have enough votes, which he's getting it at a quick enough clip that he could catch up. georgia's a little tighter. georgia we're going to go down, i mean, we're going to go down to the last 10,000 votes there. biden can catch up there most likely will get very close, if

not go ahead by 5, 10,000 votes, but then you look at arizona. that's actually going in an opposite direction, and it's donald trump who's picking up votes at a pretty good clip. they still have quite a few to count there. and the votes that are coming in in arizona, we're looking of course at pennsylvania right now. the votes that are coming in in arizona are ballots that were dropped off at the end, and if arizona is anything like florida as far as the waves of voters, the closer to the election those ballots are dropped off, those absentee ballots are dropped off, the more likely voter are to be voting for donald trump. and certainly in a batch that was released last night, we saw an almost 60/40 split in favor of donald trump, and the president's going to need to continue on that pace.

i think steve kornacki said he's going to have to pick up 59% of all votes that remain in arizona to overtake joe biden. so that's going to be a close one. and then of course nevada later on today, which the biden camp feels extremely confident about. >> they feel extremely confident about that. arizona still confident from the biden camp, but you're right, as those come in, they get a little bit less confident. arizona is still too early to call. right now joe biden leading president trump by about 68,000 votes. still waiting for votes from all important maricopa county. the election department for maricopa, which is arizona's most populous county tweeted overnight, about 275,000 ballots still to be counted plus provisionals adding more results will come at 7:00 p.m. local time today. not clear what other counties in arizona will report out their latest figures. jonathan lemire, this is a place that the trump campaign and the white house is focusing very closely, the state of arizona. we've seen some of his

supporters out chanting count the votes there. obviously in other states they're saying stop the count, so they should make up their mind about whether or not they want the votes to be counted. >> what is that? >> jonathan, how close does the white house think arizona is? it may not matter if joe biden wins pennsylvania today. he's got enough to go over 270. so where is the white house focus this morning? >> the white house focus is in the closing day of the campaign. it's pretty scatter shot. you certainly hit the two states that they're most zeroed in on right now, arizona to start. we should note the associated press and fox news have already called arizona for joe biden, and that's something that has enraged the trump campaign. they've spoken publicly about it. we have reported that the night on election night when arizona first went, fox news made that first call that sent a chill through the president's watch party in the east room of the white house. that is one they believe they can pick up the number of votes

needed to flip it, and certainly it's where they're trying to contest this election right now. they feel that they have the ability to change this even as the votes come in from maricopa county. there's been also a lot of second guessing this trump world about arizona. that's a state that loomed for a while now as a problem. some members of the campaign, including brad parscale back in the early days of 2020 suggested the president needed to spend more time there. they saw early warning signs there. the president was reluctant to do so in part because he didn't like traveling out west. he he is so reluctant to spend any nights away from his own bed. the other focus is pennsylvania. the math is obvious. they need arizona and pennsylvania in order to keep any sort of feasible legal challenge going to have to show that they still have a possible path to 270, pennsylvania, their campaign, campaign manager bill stepien declared victory in pennsylvania on a conference

call with reporters, he declared victory. we all know that's not how this works. he did that. the trump campaign had a news conference in philadelphia that featured rudy giuliani and others. they made that same claim. they believe they have enough votes to squeak out a victory there, but they acknowledge they're growing more pessimistic by the hour as the numbers come in that pennsylvania will be very, very difficult. as a final point, you're right, we're seeing sort of an incoherence in their legal challenges right now. there are three states, pennsylvania, georgia, and michigan where they're trying to stop the count and arizona they're trying to keep it going. it shows right now just a real fear that today this race is slipping away from the president. >> and there is a legal incoherence, mika, and you saw it. republicans, there are no republicans taking -- >> that's right. >> taking these challenges seriously. mitch mcconnell as well as other senators -- >> maryland's governor. >> -- have stepped forward.

larry hogan in maryland have stepped guard, and you had rick santorum on cnn, chris christie when he was on abc, a lot of the president's steadfast reporters. >> resoundingly pushing back. >> resoundingly pushing back for good reason because they understand the consequences of undermining the rule of law. the president -- the president does not understand the consequences of undermining the rule of law, and he's made that perfectly clear over the past four, five years or some would say over the course of his entire adult life. but in this case the fact that he's having such a scatter shot approach where he's demanding the stopping of counting in states where he's ahead or the case of michigan falling behind further by the hour, and then demanding the counting of votes of states where he's behind, that has legal consequences.

when federal judges see that sort of scatter shot approach, that sort of intellectually incoherent legal argument, then that does have legal consequences for those challenges. that's why i don't think anybody that i've spoken with in the legal community sees any merit to any of these claims. so we are a far stretch from the legal challenges of 2000. right now there don't appear to be any that are going to be significant. >> yeah, i mean, someday it'd be great to talk to some of these gentlemen and ask them what made this different than other things that they have stood by quietly. but a resounding pushback to the president's efforts and members of his family, the president's family were holding little press conferences around the country screaming accusations of voter fraud right and left, rudy giuliani, it was kind of interesting and -- >> well, it's no the

interesting. >> it's sad to watch. >> it's sad and pathetic. >> it was weird and sat. >> they're bush league amateurs, and they've always been bush league amateurs. they stumbled into the white house through what donald trump, the remarkable campaign he was able to run in 2016. >> no matter what you think of it. >> it was an incredible campaign. >> it was. >> it was. nobody expected him to win, and probably the greatest upset in american history, but there have been as you said, family members and others who just embarrassed themselves, are not helping the cause at all, and in fact, donald trump's not helping his own cause legally when he's h d holding these ranting press conferences. he can do whatever he wants to do, he's the president of the united states, but the press conferences, the scatter shot approach as jonathan lemire said does not help his cause, not even legally, and not even

politically on places like fox news where they're even telling members of the trump administration this is america. you have to count the votes. . sti still ahead, before wisconsin was at the center of the presidential election, it was the center of the simmering tensions surrounding race and policing in america. the direct line between those two evens next on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever.

to save you up to 60%. these are all great. and when you get a big deal... ♪ ...you feel like a big deal. ♪ priceline. every trip is a big deal.

- [anthat can leave cleaning gaps and wrap hair. so shark replaced them with flexible power fins to directly engage floors and dig deep into carpets. pick up more on every pass with no hair wrap. shark vertex with duoclean power fins.

and remember the moment that things, for one strange time in our lives, got very quiet. we worried over loved ones, over money, over our planet, and over takeout. let's remember this time when so many struggled to feel secure, and build a future where everyone can. because when the world seems like it's standing still... that's the perfect time for us to change it.

. so let's get back to the states here, georgia is too close to call this morning. a new batch of votes just came in and president trump, his lead has narrowed to just over 18,000 votes in fulton county. that's home to atlanta. there at least 7,500 absentee votes still to be counted. at 10:15 p.m. last night,

georgia's secretary of state said several counties were still counting ballots and there were about 90,000 ballots still outstanding, numbers that will certainly update with this latest batch of votes. today could be a big day, joe. >> today is going to be a big day, and so rev, we can put these states in different buckets. philadelphia right now, again, if you just follow the trends of wisconsin and michigan, it certainly looks like donald trump is going to -- or joe biden is going to catch and overtake joe biden there. you look at arizona, well, you know, donald trump i think is going to continue getting closer and closer to joe biden as they count those remaining votes, but in georgia, we're at a virtual tie already. the new batch of votes put donald trump within 17,000 votes. you do the math, it looks like joe biden probably is going to catch him this morning and go

ahead by 10,000, 20,000 votes. >> that is the way it appears at this point very much so. i think the thing that comes to me, you and i are baptist preacher in me looks like donald trump personifies the most racist homophobic sexist administration we've seen in our lifetime. it may end up as jim clyburn and blacks in south carolina brought joe biden into victory in the nominating process, it may be black districts in pennsylvania, philadelphia, and fulton county in georgia that brings him over the top in the electoral college, which would be a fitting way for us to end the trump administration, if it all pans out that way. i'm watching it very closely, but i think you and i exchanged texts yesterday when we saw what happened in wisconsin and the

vote in kenosha helped to bring wisconsin over for -- >> the irony of it all, rev, the irony of it all. kenosha of all places put joe biden over the top. >> and that is where jacob blake was shot in the back by a policeman in the back several times. and a young man came in, a young militia guy shot and killed two people in kenosha and the president came in and never condemned it, and kenosha dlifd t -- delivered the victory in wisconsin for joe biden. coming up, the balance of power on capitol hill, the latest on the senate fights that will have a huge role in how the next four years will play out in washington, d.c. look limu! someone out there needs help customizing

their car insurance with liberty mutual, so they only pay for what they need. false alarm. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. oh. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now you're binge learning. see how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from td ameritrade. visit tdameritrade.com/learn

♪ our most advanced formularonamel repair. visit tdameritrade.com/learn helps you brush in vital minerals to actively repair and strengthen enamel. so you don't just brush to clean, you brush to build. pronamel intensive enamel repair.

republicans on capitol hill are increasingly confident about their chances of holding a slim majority in the senate. right now the gop has 48 seats compared to democrats' 47. there are still five races that haven't been called. north carolina is too close to call this morning.

wow. in georgia, one race is too close to call and the other is heading to a runoff. arizona's senate race is also too early to call, although mark kelly has declared victory. alaska is also too early to call. yesterday democratic senator gary peters was able to hold onto his seat in michigan, and in maine, republican senator susan collins was declared the apparent winner of her race. kasie hunt, what races are standing out to you? which ones that are too close or too early are you watching and why? >> well, let's also -- i just want to take a beat. i mean, susan collins, people wrote her off for dead. >> i know. >> and you know, honestly, i never did, and i hope if -- you know, if you spin through the tape of what we've said about her on this show, she was always the one that we thought would be able to stand on her own apart from president trump and joe biden won the state of maine, and susan collins carried the state for herself, so you know,

that is remarkable. but setting that aside, we've got a couple of things going on here. one on the governing question, i mean, it's clear that this is a split decision in terms -- or at least it's becoming clear, i should say. i want to be a little bit more careful since we haven't called the presidential race or the senate, the trend lines are emerging we're likely to be for divided government. if the democrats were to take the senate, it would be so narrow. this is not the sweeping victory democrats anticipated. this is going to be a story likely about joe biden and mitch mcconnell and what their relationship is like, but to stick with the campaign for a second, you know, we are watching georgia and i've been obsessed with georgia for the last week of the campaign, and it's really bearing out in these two senate races. we know one's going to a runoff. all of my sources both sides of the aisle saying we really don't know how georgia is going to

come out here. it is so close at the presidential level and the question is that other senate race going to go to a runoff or not. is one of those candidates going to get over 50%, which is what it would take. i think you could see one or the other ask for recount to try and adjust that 50% number to try to avoid or push the race into a runoff. that's something to keep an eye on, but there is a possibility if we have two runoffs that the majority count on tld be on then georgia in the first week of january 2020. that's going to mean millions of dollars spent. we're all going to know all the names of all the counties in georgia, we're going to be talking about those moms in cobb county that joe was focused on before election day. but democrats, you know, have a lot at stake in this purdue ossoff outcome. they need both of these seats if they want to hit 50 in the senate. most likely. we're still waiting for some

numbers out of alaska. a lot on the line in georgia, mika. >> i'm looking at these latest numbers out of georgia. i mean, they're teetering. purdue is right on that 50% line. we'll see if he get above 50 to avoid the runoff. to your question about governing let's say joe biden does find another state today, he does get to 270, he does become the next president of the united states. you do have a republican senate, what do the next four years look like, divided government back in washington? does anything get done? mitch mcconnell's already talking about a big relief package that he wants to get done before the swearing in of the next president. what does government look like in washington the next four years? >> well, willie, you know, i think there's going to be a lot of gridlock. i mean, we have seen a lot of -- you know, it's been a really challenging four years, incredibly partisan. congress has tried to do -- how many times have we talked about an infrastructure package that both sides seem to agree on, but

they can't figure out how to do because the politics have been so toxic. i think it's likely that dynamic is going to continue. now, the one question that i have here, and again, you know, joe biden if we're sticking with the argument that he's in the white house, he is a senator at his core, right? i mean, he has wanted to be president his entire life but he is a creature of the senate. he understands how it works. he loves it. he loves the institution. he has very strong relationships. there are fewer, you know, people that he served with now that are still serving in the senate. he has very strong relationships. he understands how those relationships can be applied and leveraged to actually get things done. and this is going to be very, very different from -- i mean, barack obama did not have a good relationship with congress for most of his administration. i mean, he forced health care through at the beginning. it was his one big achievement, and i mean, even democrats were very frustrated with working with him. president trump has not -- i

mean, he has been dealing with obviously republicans in congress who have towed the line with him, but it has not been a successful relationship. i think it could be under joe biden. i think the question's going to be will progressives in the democratic party let joe biden cut the kind of deals that he might be willing to cut with a mitch mcconnell in order to actually govern. >> that's a really good point. >> that's kind of my question going into this. >> and coming up, an update on battleground nevada with someone who knows the state as well as anyone, john ralston joins us with the latest from there. "morning joe" is back in just a moment. trelegy for copd.

♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ it's a new dawn... if you've been taking copd sitting down, it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand and start a new day with trelegy.

ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. and save at trelegy.com. on the sleep number number's 360 smart bed.ale ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. can it help with snoring? i've never heard snoring. exactly. no problem. ...and done. and now, save $1,000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now $1,799. only for a limited time. - [announcer] meet the make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away.

the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away.

after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. i'm not here to declare that we've won, but i am here to report when the count is finished we believe we will be

the winners. there will be no blue states and red states when we win, just the united states of america. once this election is finalized and behind us, it will be time for us to do what we've always done as americans, to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again and respect and care for one another. to unite, to heal, to come together as a nation, so let me be clear, i, we are campaigning as democrats, but i will govern as an american president. the presidency itself is not a partisan institution. it's the one office in this nation that represents everyone,

and it demands a duty of care for all americans, and that is precisely what i will do. i will work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as i will for those who did vote for me. >> joe biden speaking yesterday in delaware with that message of how he will govern if he wins the presidency. he currently leads in the electoral college count, 253 to donald trump's 214. still to be called are georgia, pennsylvania, north carolina, arizona, and nevada, which is where we find msnbc correspondent jacob soboroff, and editor of the "nevada independent" john ralston. right now joe biden is ahead in nevada with about 7,600 votes with thousands of ballots still uncounted. jacob, what do we know at this

point of the timing for those ballots to be counted? >> reporter: you said it, mee car accide -- mika, it is incredibly close here. it is relatively quiet when it comes to ballots being counted here. the first poll workers and election observers are just starting to show up this morning. i kid you not, a nice woman came up to me named donna. she said she was a "morning joe" viewer. she was very excited to see us out here. she won't be watching the show this morning, but she will be conducting what is in all seriousness arguably one of the most important roles any citizen can play right now, and that observing the counting of the ballots. i don't think it's an exaggeration to say are very well going to come out of this facility behind me. they have been counting for days. they have been counting deliberately, i wouldn't say slowly but they have been counting very deliberately here where they count about 70,000 votes a day, and that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to know the results today here in las vegas, nevada. the vast majority of the votes,

potentially tens of thousands if not more than that votes outstanding here. we'll get an update around 10:00 local time, 1:00 on the east coast about where that vote count stands and what happened with that 8,000 vote margin, but as of right now, it stands at 8,000. they went home for the evening. we're 50 un-united states of america when it comes to voting rules. >> so john ralston, the spread as jacob said, it's about 8,000, 7,600 votes an advantage for joe biden. where do you see the outstanding vote here? could that lead grow for joe biden, or on the other hand could donald trump cut into that lead and perhaps overtake joe biden based on what's out? >> well, willie all we can do is speculate but we can do it in an educated way. we know that most of the votes are in clark county, which is las vegas, which is very heavily democratic, and we know that these are mail ballots. we usually don't use a lot of

mail ballots in nevada, but there have been hundreds of thousands of mail ballots returned this time because of the pandemic and because they changed the law to mandate that every voter got a mail ballot. before election day democrats in clark county had won those mail ballots by an overwhelming margin, more than two to one, so democrats here are very optimist ic, when as jacob pointed out, these tens of thousands of ballots start to be counted joe biden is going to pull away. there are some ballots still outstanding in the rural counties of nevada where like most places in rural america donald trump did very well. let me go really quickly, willie tor , to a point jacob made. they may not count or release all of these ballots this morning when they start to release them, and that means that, for instance, if they only release 15,000 of them, joe biden may pick up some ground, but that may be negated if a few

thousand votes are released from rural nevada. we just don't know so for democrats who just want to see this be over with, they want nevada to be in the blue column, they may be disappointed this morning depending on how many ballots they release. >> there are a lot of jittery democrats across the country watching nevada, so i'll ask you what's on their minds, a very sophisticated procedural question, what's taking so long? >> this is just the way they do it here, willie. what i would tell everybody is buckle your seat belts. i think election administrators are some of the most admirable people in this nation and some of the most important civil servants, no more so than today and every four years. but the process here is its own unique process. the 16th of november is the official certification date. if you move backwards from there, the 12th of november is the last day signatures can be challenged on ballots, backwards are from there, the tenth of this month is the day that the last mail-in ballots can be counted as long as they were postmarked by the 3rd.

john said it exactly right, this is the first time ever on such a large scale we have had mail-in ballots in this state, universal mail uni mail-in ballots obviously the coronavirus. the democrats are jittery, while they're wondering what's taking so long, i think the simple answer is this is a deliberate effort by professional election administrators to get it right. >> they're doing a good job under the rules they have and the volume of ballots they have coming in. john ralston, let's take a step back and look at how people voted from what we know so far in the state of nevada. what was top of mind as you look at some of the exit polling and people you talked to even before election day. was it the economy? was it coronavirus? was it some combination of the two? because as we know, those are inseparable at this point. what's going on in nevada? >> they are inseparable, and those are the two overwhelming issues. nevada's been hit disproportionately i think to almost any other state on the economy because of the coronavirus, and that's because

as i've been saying, willie, listen, our economy is based on a few miles of road called the las vegas strip, and when that shut down, that destroyed the economy here in nevada, cost tens of thousands of people their jobs, caused an unemployment insurance claims nightmare this state has ever seen. the question for the republicans who were trying to win nevada, which is a democratic state is to try to substitute the democratic governor steve sis lack for joe biden on the ballot and get them to blame the governor for shutting down the state for shutting down the economy as they portrayed it. it appears since joe biden has not done as well in clark county as hillary clinton did, that that may have had some impact, that they may not have blamed the president as much as the democrats would have wanted, and that's why this race is closer than i and a lot of other people thought it might be.

>> all right, john ralston and jacob soboroff, thank you both very muff for being on this morning. now, neighboring arizona is still too early to call. we are waiting for votes from maricopa county that are supposed to come in later tonight. yesterday protesters gathered at the maricopa county tabulation and election center apparently angry that joe biden led donald trump in the votes counted in their state so far, and alleging voting issues contributed to his lead. at least 150 protesters, some of them armed, gathered yesterday evening at times yelling count those votes and chanting shame on fox, a reference to the network calling the state for joe biden on tuesday night. some argued the use of sharpie pens invalidated ballots, a claim election officials say is completely false. at least a dozen county sheriff's office deputies were

on the scene standing guard to the entrance to the building. maricopa county has not voted for a democrat for president since 1948. >> and mika, all this now for the first time against the backdrop of a pandemic. the number of new united states infections has surpassed 100,000 cases in a single day. no signs of slowing. hospitalization numbers surging across the midwest and the southwest as a growing number of states reach record highs. dr. ant ahony fauci warned more than five months ago that america would reach 100,000 cases a day. >> so i'd have to say the numbers speak for themselves. i'm very concerned that i'm not satisfied with what's going on because we're going in the wrong direction. ke clearly we are not in total control right now. we can't just focus on those areas that are having the surge. it puts the entire country at risk. we are now having 40 plus

thousand new cases a day. i would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, and so i am very concerned. >> that's dr. anthony fauci. a new daily record crossing 100,000 a day, another number 751,000 new unemployment claims made this week. that is a number that's down slightly but put it in context, before this pandemic, the record previous had been from 1982, 695,000, so we're still, although they've come down obviously from their highs in march and april, still a crisis of employment and a crisis of public health in this country. >> absolutely. and up next, donald trump made an effort to court latino voters in this election, and it paid off in places like south florida, but our next guest says miami is not representative of the latino vote nationally. that conversation is next on "morning joe."

non-small cell lg 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. more ugly sweaters. more big hugs. more small outings. opdivo and yervoy can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues in your body and affect how they work. this may happen during or after treatment has ended and can become serious and lead to death. some of these problems may happen more often when opdivo is used with yervoy. see your doctor right away if you have a new or worse cough; chest pain; shortness of breath; diarrhea; severe stomach pain; nausea or vomiting; dizziness;

fainting; extreme tiredness; weight changes; constipation; excessive thirst; changes in urine or eyesight; rash; itching; confusion; memory problems; muscle pain or weakness; joint pain; flushing; fever; or tingling in hands and feet. these are not all the possible side effects. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions including immune system problems, or if you've had an organ transplant or lung, breathing, or liver problems. here's to a chance for more together time. a chance to live longer. ask your doctor about opdivo plus yervoy. thank you to all involved in our clinical trials.

serena: it's my 9:12, no-days-off migraine medicine. it's ubrelvy. for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes without worrying if it's too late, or where i am. one dose can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within two hours. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks cgrp protein, believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. serena: ask about ubrelvy. the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better.

chevrolet. you can crush ice, make nismoothies, and do even more. chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. the ninja foodi power pitcher. rethink what a blender can do. welcome back, 48 past the hour, a beautiful day in washington, d.c. whatever comes out of this election, one of the most important takeaways is that the polling was off, once again under estimating the strength of president trump. nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander

has more. >> it feels like deja vu all over again, another rough night for pollsters fueling renewed doubts about political polls. >> we're headed for a polling reckoning in the months and years ahead. >> reporter: the president today complaining the pollsters got it completely and historically wrong. it's not the first time they missed the mark in president trump's historic upset over hillary clinton four years ago. once again, the stunner, some of the state polls. take wisconsin, heading into election day, biden was enjoying a nearly seven point advantage on average with one recent poll showing him cruising by 17 points. it appears biden will eke it out in the state by less than 1%, so close the trump campaign is requesting a recount. democrats thought florida might turn blue with biden and former president barack obama recently heading south, where the final polls showed biden clinging to a tight lead. but president trump would carry that state by more than three points. >> as much as we thought

pollsters learned their lessons from 2016, it's clear that they haven't fully figured out how to accurately sample the midwest, florida, and other parts of the country as well. >> reporter: pollsters had made changes promising not to underestimate trump's support, trump's support including calling enough white voters without college degrees and rural voters. what happened? >> there is some evidence that people who distrust institutions, both support trump more and respond to surveys less. >> reporter: still, the polls did get some things right, forecasting the president would overperform among black men and latinos. the only poll that matters is the one after everything ballot is counted. >> all right. joining us now, matt bareto, co-founder of latino decisions, the leading national polling and research firm among latino americans. also a pollster for the biden campaign. also former senior adviser for the house oversight committee, kurt bardella. we have a new categorization for

the state of arizona at this hour. it is now too close to call. so there we go as we wait for the numbers to come in. matt, okay, so let's talk about latino voters and texas and florida and what happened. >> i think you know coming out of the segment, if you look at the polling, our polling found that it was going to be tight in these places and that the latino vote was going to be decisive. and so if you look at places like florida, let's start there, let's not generalize, number one, from miami-dade county. it's only one county out of 3,000 counties across america and the latino vote overall was a good night for vice president biden. vice president biden won the latino vote. there had been some changes over the last few years but he won the latino vote overwhelmingly. close to 70%.

and so that is going to prove decisive in states like arizona that you were just talking about. that's a very close margin. that's going to be the latino vote that makes the difference there. states like nevada as well. so if you look around the country, while there were some places where the latino vote was not quite as monolithic as people have been discussing this whole cycle, it was very strong latino night for vice president biden overall across the country. >> yeah, except that you can't take away miami-dade out of the conversation because that's a pretty big part of the conversation. so can you explain what you think happened in miami-dade, what was different? what connected? >> yeah, let me put that in perspective, though. it gets a lot of attention because it's in the state of florida which was, of course, a critical state. it also came in early. so if arizona had come in first for whatever reason the way we count blallots we would be

talking about the historic vote in phoenix and tucson. but miami is only 3% of the entire overall latino population. it is true that president trump had some increases there, but that is predominantly with the cuban american population who is overwhelmingly republican and one issue was that in 2016, he underperformed with cuban americans because if you recall, mika, he spent the greater part of the presidential primary bashing marco rubio and ted cruz. two prominent republican cuban american senators. so they came back home. they've been republicans for decades. they came back home a little bit. overall, put it in a national perspective. the latino vote was very strong for vice president biden coming in around 70% nationwide. >> matt, it's willie. you look at the voting in texas and the voting in arizona, joe biden is about in line with where hillary clinton was four years ago. in fact, in miami-dade county, he was close to in line and it was donald trump who added

200,000 extra votes in that county. there's a lot inside those numbers. but wasn't the idea that every four years as the demographic changes continues in this country and democrats believe those were good for them that you would exceed where hillary clinton was and that you would have had this big thrust forward four years later for joe biden as compared to hillary clinton? >> well, i think you see that in many places. let's continue to look at arizona which is still a state the vice president is doing well in. that state has added 150,000 u.s.-born latinos under the age of 24 in just four years. 150,000. that's going to end up being the margin of victory there. florida is a different state because while the latino population is growing, there's also a continued abundance of white seniors who are moving there from the northeast. the demographic changes in florida are quite different. texas, for example, which is going to increasingly get competitive. it's going to increasingly get

competitive. that's a state we're adding about a million latino eligible voters every four years. so continue to watch those places. we're already seeing that, willie, in arizona. that's a state that's flipping this year because of the strength of the latino vote. >> kurt bardella, another look at the senate races. the gop has 48 seats. democrats have 47. there are still five races that haven't been called. north carolina is too close to call this morning. arizona's senate race is too early to call, although mark kelly has declared victory. alaska is too early to call, and in georgia, one race is heading to a runoff. in the other, david perdue leads jon ossoff by a roughly 2.4%. but it's worth noting that if neither candidate finishes up over 50%, a runoff would be triggered in that race as well and could determine senate

control. yesterday democratic senator gary peters was able to hold on to his seat in michigan and in maine, republican senator susan collins was declared the apparent winner of her race. kurt, i'm curious. there's different ways this could go. there is a path to democrats having the majority. >> there is, mika. i think we're all being realistic just as we are with vice president biden's chances now of winning the presidency. i think that we are all preparing for the likely reality that mitch mcconnell will continue to hold on to the slim majority in the u.s. senate. i think nowhere is the polling being off more evident than in the senate races that we've seen. susan collins was left for dead. jaime harrison was supposed to be within ear shot here of competing with lindsey graham. a lot of the places that a lot of resources were dispatched and a lot of attention was given

turned out to not even be close. to have this conversation about polling, i think that in the senate races, it was particularly expensive and damaging for the democrats that the polling did not seem to add up with what the reality turned out to be. there's still going to be, i think, a huge showdown in georgia. the runoff. one of those senate races will be january 4th. i know the lincoln project will look to be very active in that contest. any time you can have any seat, one seat flip, that's worth put something time and energy in. and the narrower the lead that mitch mcconnell has in the senate, that gives democrats some semblance of leverage to be influential and impactful. mcconnell is already lining up his troops to be ready to make things difficult for the biden administration. looking to control the type of cabinet biden can assemble. the type of hearings he can have. having the power of the gavel in the senate. we've seen what havoc and how tough republicans can make it on democrats and the democrat

administration with that type of power. so we're looking at what's going to be a very, very, i think, very tough four years ahead of us with a lot of gridlock and a lot of dissension. >> you've lead me to my question, kurt. you've worked in the congress. you know how the levers of power work there. how do you think it looks with, let's say for arguments sake, biden wins pennsylvania today and gets over the 270 threshold if he becomes president of the united states. he knows mitch mcconnell. they worked in the senate for many years. does that give you any hope or do you think mitch mcconnell is the guy he is, and he's going to stand in the breach of anything that joe biden and democrats want to get done? >> i think mitch mcconnell has shown us exactly who he is and more importantly, the people that serve under him like ted cruz, marco rubio, ron johnson who are all still there. the ingredients remind me of what we experienced after the obama win, which was republicans used whatever influence, whatever attention they could get to derail every step of the

obama white house as obama was trying to stave off an economic crisis, trying to get the economy going. here we are facing another crisis with covid-19 and with the economy teetering and millions of people off work. republicans are going to hope the biden white house is so consumed with fixing the problems in front of them that it gives them an opening just as it did during obama years to use their tools to try to disrupt the biden white house. >> kurt bardella and matt, thank you very much for joining us this morning. we shall see as we close out the morning. another look at two of the key states yet to be called. georgia is too close to call this morning. the ballot count was updated just about moments ago and president trump's lead narrowed to just over 18,000 votes. in fulton county, home to atlanta, there are around 5,000

ballots still to be counted. georgia's secretary of state told reporters this morning that they have about 25,000 votes left to process statewide. as of 3:00 a.m. this morning, "the new york times" reported joe biden must win around 60% of the remaining votes to pull ahead. and let's look at pennsylvania around this time yesterday, trump led by about 700,000 votes. that lead is down to just over 164,000 votes with 89% of the expected vote in. and a lot of mail-in ballots still being counted. so we will watch that and also results out of nevada today. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is ur