good evening. so glad to have you with us tonight. 9:00 p.m. in the east right now. night three of our ongoing election coverage. we don't know how long it's going to go on. neither do you. that's fine. five battleground states are now still too close to call. say it with me now. pennsylvania, georgia, north carolina, nevada, arizona. but that long list of five

states belies just how close we potentially are to a declared winner if one of these states gets to the point where it can be called -- one or more of these states. any minute now we are expecting new votes to be reported in arizona out of maricopa county, votes that are expected to further close the gap in arizona between trump and biden. biden's lead, as you see there, currently under 60,000 votes in arizona. we'll be checking in with steve about those new maricopa county votes in just a moment. we're also awaiting results from pennsylvania, a state with enough electoral votes at stake that pennsylvania alone could get joe biden to 270 votes and would make him the next president of the united states. the vast majority of the outstanding vote in pennsylvania is mail-in ballots, and mail-in ballots have been breaking dramatically for joe biden, even in the reddest of counties, including what we've seen just over the course of the last hour. the president's slim remaining lead in pennsylvania at this point seems to be further endangered with each new

pennsylvania vote delivery, but those vote deliveries arrive at unexpected and irregular times. we're also watching georgia. new numbers showing that race separated by one tenth of 1%. look at that, under 2,500 votes between them right now in georgia. if it ends up less than a half a percent, that race is in recount territory. multiple states now, not just hurtling toward a final vote but increasing showing joe biden with the mum. that means the pressure is building on president trump. president trump did speak from the white house briefing room a short time ago. during his remarks, he made several frankly ridiculous and stunningly unfounded allegations, saying, quote, if you count the legal votes, i easily win. if you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. none of that is true, and it is of course undermining to democracy in a profound sense for the president to claim those

things. the president also, among other things, railed against polling organizations for suppressing the vote. you're mad at the pollsters? this is the first time we have seen the president since roughly 3:00 a.m. on election night. if his comments tonight are any indication, the pressure appears to be getting to him. it's also fair to say that if the comments we heard from the president tonight had instead been in a tweet, they would have been labeled by twitter as misinformation. that's where we stand right now. but, again, it's just after 9:00 p.m. on the east coast, and that means that we are expecting a bunch of new numbers, potentially tens of thousands of new vote out of arizona. let's go to steve kornacki at the big board. steve, what did we get out of maricopa county? >> we just got a batch of about 60,000 votes just came in. again, it favors president trump. you can see the difference here now. it was about 56,000. now it is down to 46,000. joe biden, this is his statewide lead here. joe biden's lead over donald

trump is down to 46,000. so what just happened? again, this is maricopa county. this is the big -- oh, i just went into maricopa county. that's why the numbers changed. here's what happened. we got about 60,000 new votes. 35,911 went for the president and 25,128 went for joe biden. now, the key here, we've been saying the number for trump of the outstanding vote in arizona, his target is to keep winning at least 59% of it. if he's at that number above, he's got a real chance of overtaking biden ultimately statewide. what did he get in this giant, giant batch of votes? he got 59%. >> mm-hmm. >> so he continues to be right at that line that -- that doesn't mean -- if he's at 59, it doesn't automatically mean he's going to get it. it's going to be very tight, but it suggests certainly, we said

last night that initial report raised the possibility that when all was said and done trump would overtake biden in arizona. 24 hours later we get the report that is very much alive. 24 hours ago we were looking at a statewide total that was actually twice what it is right now. it was 93,000 votes at this time, and it's come down to 46,000 votes. there are still many votes to come in maricopa county, and there are some as well from elsewhere around the state. but the headline from arizona is that trump remains in contention to win that state. of course if he wins arizona and loses pennsylvania, the other possibility we're talking about tonight from an electoral college perspective would be a pyrrhic victory for the president. >> that 59% threshold which you started talking about last night, as you understand it, if the president is able to keep those votes to roughly that 59%

threshold that it looks leike he's doing so far, does that put him on track to overtake joe biden in terms of his lead, or does that put him on track essentially to even the thing out and put us somewhere where it looks basically neck and neck? >> yeah. that's the -- roughly, i'm saying 59% is where he could pass him by a few hundred votes. >> okay. >> pass him by a few thousand, perhaps fall a little bit short. it gets into is it like 58.872? is it 59.163? 59% is basically the ballpark that would get that down to somewhere in the neighborhood of zero and just make it an extremely competitive election. 61%, 62%, that's where you know trump would clearly be ahead. at 59%, i'd say there's a shot. >> and, steve, we are -- as far as i understand this, and i now may be conflating my states. but we are expecting further maricopa county vote tomorrow morning, right? this isn't like nevada where we're getting basically one

batch of vote per day. in arizona, we've just got this now. are we expecting any more tonight, and are we expecting more tomorrow morning? >> no, and we had not been -- that was news from vaughn hillyard. from a vote counting standpoint that was great news. tomorrow morning, i think he said 10:00 a.m. earn, 11:00 a.m. eastern, we'll get another batch. last night they did one at about midnight, 12:30. that's not happening tonight. but early tomorrow morning we will get another one of these batches. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. exciting to watch the stuff come in. brian. >> thank you. let's bring in former democratic senator from the great state of missouri claire mccaskill. former rnc chairman michael steele, both of them still alert and awake and taking nourishment. so, michael, i'd like to begin with you. we have a lit stage and podium set up in wilmington, delaware. we have vote coming in, in pennsylvania that we are told in

its margin favors joe biden. if that one's called, it's ball game. we've got a race in georgia that's under 3,000 votes different now. we have vote coming in, in arizona. we have vote coming in, in nevada. what are you watching? >> i'm watching pennsylvania because that's -- that's the play. we turned the corner in that race. we're now -- the margin for the president is very much done. he's not going to enjoy much more after what's left to come in. so pennsylvania is the play, which is why you're probably seeing the stagecraft put in play for joe biden because once you hit that number, you turn that corner, those 20 electoral votes, it's over. and to steve's point, you know, nevada and arizona, georgia, all of it becomes, you know, nice,

but it's over at that point. >> claire, i'm coming to you except i'm going to take a turn off the road to go to steve kornacki because we just got some raw out of pennsylvania, steve? >> we got more votes coming in from pennsylvania here. again, we talked about delaware county right outside of philadelphia. big democratic area. biden is just dominating in the mail vote too. they reported out more of their mail vote. it just came in. and now the statewide lead for donald trump has fallen inside of 50,000 votes. it's 48,854. you can see it. every one of these updates, this thing keeps falling by a couple thousand votes. now inside of 50,000. now clearly at a point where if anything, anything remotely like the number of votes we think there are outstanding in philadelphia are, in fact, there, biden just on those philadelphia votes will not just erase the trump lead statewide but will take a significant lead

of his own. >> all right. steve kornacki, thanks. keep watching it. we'll keep coming back to you. and now senator mccaskill, from the briefing room at the white house today, it's hard to sum up what we saw. it was dark. it was false. it was so totally unlike anything the two of us have seen over the course of our lifetime. it remains so totally unlike the way any president has ever spoken in our lifetime. chiefly dangerous, though, because this president is trying to undermine this election in progress. >> we all know he was lying. but the saddest part about this, brian, is there are millions of americans that are going to believe him. and him tarnishing and frankly really taking a pickax to our democracy in such a brazen and

ugly fashion, i really think journalists should swarm republican senators and republican congressmen and make them say one way or the other whether they are down for this tearing apart of one of the sturdiest democracies in the world. and, you know, the thing that kills me about him saying about these votes magically appearing, remember, remember he told republicans not to use mail-in ballots, that they were not reliable. so is it any wonder that the democrats are using them and republicans aren't? now, you say what about arizona? let me take a stab at explaining this. i don't want to go too far into kornacki land there. but in arizona they've been using mail-in ballots for many years. and they know that mail-in ballots are safe and fraud-free, and so the republicans in arizona really didn't listen to trump about not using mail-in ballots because they're used to using mail-in ballots. pennsylvania not so much. so the reason these ballots are

appearing in pennsylvania so heavily weighted towards donald trump is because donald trump said that's what he wanted them to do. >> and, claire, about these republicans, devil's advocate, who are they and where are they going to come from? i noted in the last 24 hours, rob portman of ohio exited the witness protection program, stuck his head up and just put out a statement saying we should count all the votes. we won't hear from him now for a while. where are they? who's going to speak up? >> well, they all should be held to account if they don't. this is a speech tonight that was given that will be taught in history class. it will be taught for years about the lowest point in the american democracy. and if they don't weigh in, then they ought to have a couple of lines in that chapter in the history books about how they stood by and patted him on the back when he did this kind of damage to something that we

should consider sacred. >> michael steele, they don't seem to care. >> well, that's it. you just summed it up, my friend. that's it. they haven't for a while. i mean we've had so many examples, brian, from the very beginning. you just go back to that -- you know, that moment after charlottesvil charlottesville, and moment after moment, silence, crickets, nothing. then like you appropriately put it, you know, they'll put out a press release, stick their head around the corner, say something and dart back away from the cameras. that is not a profile in courage. it's not a profile in leadership. it's certainly not the profile we would want from a senator or united states congressman or woman. you represent us, and you know how the american people feel about this democracy. why can't you speak to that in an honest, open way, you know? it's not, you know, partisan or political or ugly to call out

bad, unconstitutional, demoralizing behavior of the president. i mean i don't understand when did we take that off the list of things that we should be concerned about? so claire's right. the history books written about republicans in this period of our history, whew, it's going to have just like a black thread that runs right through the pages because it's a dark moment. and it's unfortunate because a lot of these folks, i know they're not like this. i don't know what they're afraid of. i just don't independeunderstan they're afraid of. >> claire, a dicey question is how does this end? for the sake of this conversation, for the sake of argument, let's say that the kind of quants and the computers and comes with a call for joe biden that's 270. what happens next? what happens then, do you think,

if that's the president we have as of today? >> well, that will be a really, really incredibly important moment to see if republican leaders stand up at that point in time if the president continues to live in an alternative universe in terms of the facts. you know, i'm hoping former presidents -- i'm hoping president bush makes a very public display of congratulating president-elect joe biden. i'm hoping that, you know, people that are respected in the republican party, current and former officeholders, people like bob dole, who has been loyal to donald trump, call the president-elect and say, congratulations and let us all know about it. if more republicans step up and do what is the norm in terms of the peaceful transfer of power, he is going to get more and more isolated, and hopefully then he just goes away. he won't, but that's what we would hope. >> no, he won't.

no, he won't. >> to our friends and returning veterans, former senator claire mccaskill, former rnc chairman michael steele, thank you both for coming on. >> thank you. >> and thank you for your patience. rachel, back over to you. >> since we have been on the air since the top of the hour, just in the last 15 minutes, we've been getting some new reporting out of the biden campaign in terms of their intentions for tonight. i don't think anybody's going to be so bold as to say the writing is on the wall. but trends in pennsylvania and georgia are such that a lot of people are starting to talk about whether we might be hearing from former vice president joe biden tonight, whether we should be expecting some sort of statement from the campaign or appearance by him to try to nail this down. we're joined now by nbc's mike memoli. he has been following the biden campaign, and he is in wilmington, delaware. mike, what are you hearing at this hour? >> reporter: yeah, rachel. as you know, we've been keeping our vigil here in the parking lot where we would expect to see joe biden speak as he did on tuesday night. but i'm now hearing from

multiple biden campaign officials that we will not see the former vice president deliver remarks here tonight. he continues to watch results come in. they like what they're seeing, especially some new data coming in from arizona that you've been talking about. but at this point given the slower than hoped for pace of returns coming in, it's unlikely he will come here this evening. but this is a longtime officeholder who in his first election for the u.s. senate 48 years ago -- his first election came down to a margin of 3,162 votes. so the idea of a very close outcome is not new territory for joe biden, and they continue just to watch these results come in and communicate with their allies. but, again, not expected to see him this evening, rachel. >> mike, let me just clarify with you one of the things that we've been talking about tonight is the timing about when we're getting data from various states. it doesn't seem like anybody even at the statewide leadership level in pennsylvania knows exactly when we should expect the various counties in pennsylvania to report.

but if trends stay as they are in pennsylvania tonight, if hypothetically pennsylvania were called for vice president biden tonight, even if arizona is still up in the air, that would put him in a pretty strong position in terms of thinking that he was going to be the next president. even in the event of a pennsylvania call tonight, we still wouldn't hear from vice president biden? >> yeah. they're saying it's very unlikely. obviously they're in the mood to celebrate as quickly as you can. earlier i heard from a democrat in pennsylvania that was the message they were getting from the campaign. be ready to celebrate but also get ready to do the hard work. but this is a campaign that's also pacing itself at this point, and they want to make sure they have as full a picture of these returns as possible. so they're not going to be quick. this is a campaign that's never been quick to lurch on any news event or any quick development. it's always been about slow and steady. so simply seeing the margin flip from narrow trump to narrow biden in pennsylvania would not

be enough to rush him down here to speak to the country at this point. >> mike, let me just ask you to follow up on one thing that you mentioned almost sort of in passing. at least you mentioned it quickly, was that the campaign is happy in particular with the new data that they are seeing out of arizona. we did just several tens of thousands of votes out of maricopa county. vice president biden holds on to a narrow lead, less than 50,000 votes in arizona. none of us know if these votes as they come in will be enough for president trump to catch him. but you said the biden campaign is happy with how things are in arizona. they feel confident there? >> reporter: yeah. in fact this morning, the biden campaign manager was warning reporters that as we were expecting new batches of voters to come in throughout the day, that some of those votes were going to come from trump-friendly counties. and, yes, indeed, we might see the margin narrow just a bit. but the number they were focused on was 59%. they said that was the number that president trump needed to be getting in some of these

counties in order for him to really have a chance of overtaking joe biden's lead. they're not seeing that, and we're still expecting to see more biden-friendly votes still come in. so they're very confident in that picture of arizona at this stage, rachel. >> fascinating. nbc's mike memoli with the biden campaign in delaware. mike, thank you so much. appreciate it. all right. there's more to come tonight, including an update on the tightening race in georgia. the back of the envelope math in georgia has been somewhat tantalizing for democrats and biden supporters tonight. we're going to look at that and where that stands, where the margin right now is currently under 2,500 votes between the two candidates. stay with us. iend. 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.

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get your free reputation report card at reputationdefender.com or call 1-877-866-8555. welcome back. and among the races we are watching is a tightening race in the state of georgia. steve kornacki back at the big board. steve, what do you have? >> we got another update in

georgia. overwhelmingly democratic, clayton county, outside atlanta there. we got a small number of votes from them. biden won the clear majority of them, and it brings donald trump's lead now in georgia inside of 2,500 votes. joe biden now trails 2,497. clayton county, you can see it here, this is the county where we just got the votes from. there are many more mail ballots. i say many. many relative to the number of outstanding votes in the state right now, which we think is about 15,000. but clayton still with more to report. it just reported some, and it brought that trump lead statewide to under 2,500. if biden does get over the top here, obviously there's that issue of is there going to be a recount? the loser could request one inside half a point. if biden were to get over the top and win the state, it would be the first time in 28 years that a democrat wins georgia. and in arizona, we'll just check

in again. that lead, 46,000 for joe biden statewide. we mentioned we got that big drop of votes from maricopa county. throughout the night, the cou y counties elsewhere around the state have been reporting out numbers as well. again, to bring biden's lead to 46,000. i think the next big event in this arizona count, it looks like it's going to be 9:00 a.m. local time out there, 11:00 a.m. on the east coast tomorrow. that's when maricopa will again release a big batch of votes. there might be some small ones from some of these other counties. we're not sure. but maricopa, 11:00 a.m. eastern time tomorrow, 9:00 a.m. local time. big batch, it sounds like. >> okay. steve, i'm glad you mentioned maricopa county. gadi schwartz has made his way inside the municipal building there, the elections department. gadi, what's going on behind you? >> reporter: hey, brian. those ballots came out of this room right here. you can see there was a mad dash to get to that 7:00 mark, and then you've got things starting

to settle down here. people are taking a break. then they're going to get back at it because again tomorrow morning, we've got another deadline. more of those coming here in arizona, there are still about 300,000 ballots outstanding. there is a crowd outside. they're a little more subdued right now. you can kind of hear them chanting but they've been keeping things pretty mellow. we had somebody go into the crowd and try to explain to a lot of people sharpie-gate. i'm not sure if you're familiar with sharpie-gate, but here in arizona it is something that has been gathering a lot of steam. it's a conspiracy theory that's now been debunked. it goes a little bit like this. some trump supporters believe they were given sharpies on purpose, and they were given these sharpies to invalidate their votes when they're filling out their ballots. but from what we understand from poll officials, everybody was given sharpies. in fact, when you're talking about these tabulators that can punch out 6,000 to 8,000 of

those ballots every hour, precision is key. now, here is why those like sharpies more than they like pens. all right. so here's a sharpie. so you fill in a sharpie, right? we're filling in the sharpie. and then it dries extremely quickly, and it doesn't leave any streaks. this is your normal ballpoint pen. these are also usable. however, the sharpie is preferred because we'll give it a second here and then -- woops. you can see that smudge. that smudge, sometimes if it's bad enough, if it's a new pen or leaking ink, it can gunk up the mirrors and gunk up the sensors. it can also spread onto other ballots, and it can take one of these machines down for quite some time. time is of the essence obviously here. so they prefer sharpies. it is just in maricopa county from what we can tell. we're not talking about other counties, and other counties may not allow sharpies. now, the conspiracy theory goes like this. if you use a sharpie, it bleeds

through, right? and this does not bleed through. so what maricopa county has done, obviously this is not an official ballot. this is my poor penmanship here. but what the official ballots look like is they're offset on the backside. so when you do have those bubbles on the back, they are not exactly where the bubbles are on the front so that the intention of the voter is very clear. that's something that has caused a lot of confusion because there are so many different systems around arizona, and not just around arizona but all over the country. it's something that officials here, poll officials are trying really hard to debunk because they've got an important job to do. they've got to get these ballots out, and those protests outside can be a distraction, especially when poll workers have to be escorted to their cars by armed security. >> you are right to explain it because it's been mentioned. it's out there. you're also right that it's a conspiracy theory. gadi schwartz, who came armed

with not one but two pens for this segment. rachel, back over to you. >> i have to say that was sort of beautifully done. i kind of read in on sharpie gate, and i had thought that i understood it or whatever. but when he did the smudge and the smudge worked perfectly, and then he held it up to the light and you could see it did bleed through, that was like mr. wizard territory. that was -- anyway, sorry. i'm containing myself now. joining us now is the top elections official in the great state of arizona, secretary of state katie hobbs. secretary hobbs, thank you so much for being back with us at this busy time. thank you. >> thanks for having me. and i very much enjoyed watching that sharpie gate demonstration. >> i wanted to ask for your critique of it from an accuracy perspective in terms of understanding it. i actually feel like i have a stronger understanding of what people might have misunderstood or what people might have been scaring each other about when it came to the sharpie conspiracy theory. is what gadi explained lining up

with what people have misunderstood in your state? >> yeah, i think so. you know, honestly, the sharpies are the pens recommended by the manufacturer of those particular tabulators. they were issued by poll workers who would probably get in a lot of trouble if they deliberately tried to invalidate ballots. so this whole thing is just sort of ridiculous. >> yes. well, it's ridiculous but also clearly ridiculous, which is actually better than it being fuzzy and ridiculous. madam secretary of state, let me just ask -- i'm going to run by you some of what we understand as the state of play right now in arizona to ask you to confirm it and to update us if our reporting is behind the times. as far as i understand it right now, about 90% of the expected vote has been tabulated in arizona. there are perhaps about 300,000 votes that remain to be tallied. the vote difference between the two candidates that we have right now as a joe biden lead of

just over 46,000 votes. and the next group of ballots that we're expecting will be some number of tens of thousands of ballots from maricopa county at 9:00 a.m. local time tomorrow, which is 11:00 a.m. eastern. that's what we understand as the state of play. is that accurate as far as you know? >> yeah, that sounds right. and our estimate of the ballots left is closer to 285,000. so a little -- so less than 300,000 statewide. and 200 in maricopa county. >> i didn't mean to step on you there. 200 of the 285 in maricopa? >> yes. >> okay. in terms of your expectations and the smooth running of the vote counting process in arizona, at this point in the process, on thursday night, 9:30 p.m. on the east coast, is this basically where you expected to be? are you ahead or behind your schedule? >> i think we're exactly where

we expected to be. we've said all along this is going to take time. we want to make sure every ballot gets counted. and we knew -- the number we didn't know coming into election day was how many of those late early ballots, the ballots that voters bring and drop off on monday or tuesday, would there be. and with unprecedented turnout in this election, there was a lot of those. and that's what we're counting right now. and we're actually well ahead of where we were at this point in 2018, two years ago, when that -- my race took ten days to call because of those ballots. >> i heard you talk about this earlier, and i'm struck by the fact that in the race that you won, that made you arizona's secretary of state, in fact media organizations, the associated press specifically, miscalled that race and called it for your opponent. and it turns out they were wrong, and now you're secretary of state. i imagine that has to make you

sort of acutely aware of the balance between the real vote count and what media organizations think about it. it is -- has been an unusual thing for a couple of days now that fox news and the associated press have called arizona for one of the candidates. the rest of the news organizations in the country haven't. has that created any additional pressure or friction or frustration from your point of view in terms of you getting the stuff done? >> yeah. i mean, i think the issue was that when the race was called, then people blamed me for that. like, you know, you're committing fraud because you called the race or whatever. i don't call races. it's not my job. and so it just makes it a little bit harder in terms of the misinformation and the accusations that are already out there. but, you know what? all of that aside, we're going to continue doing our jobs. we're going to make sure every vote is counted regardless of who has called what race for who. >> i spoke not too long ago with

congressman ruben gallego, who represents parts of maricopa county. and i asked him about some of the protests that we've seen, including outside the voting location, the vote-counting location in maricopa county. and i asked him if he's worried that that has crossed over into intimidation territory. now, this footage, i should tell you right now, it should be clear this is footage from yesterday. the crowd outside this location tonight, gadi schwartz was just there and reporting for us that it's a more subdued crowd and a quieter crowd. it's been a crowd, although they're trump supporters, they have not -- been vocalizing the fact they don't want to hear from the right-wing conspiracy theorists that were there yesterday. but there is a question as to whether or not the process is susceptible to intimidation or to physical danger. and i just want to ask your confidence in the protection of

the vote process as it does get closer and closer and later and later. >> yeah. well, what i know is that the building is secure. so i'm not worried about, you know, access into the building. they're right by the sheriff's office. i don't know the sheriff's office was involved yesterday in assuring the safety of the workers. when i look at that video, they are literally -- those steps go up, and the door to the building is right there, and that's how most of the employees come out and walk to their cars. they're right there in the parking lot. so i think that a lot of the folks who were leaving had to be escorted to their cars by sheriff's deputies. i read somewhere that protesters were there until 6:00 in the morning, probably not all of them. but i'm glad to hear that they've calmed down because quite honestly what they're asking for is for all the votes to be counted, which is what we're going to do. we're going to do it regardless if they're asking us to do it or not. and their presence there is more of a distraction that has the potential to cause delays, which is counterproductive to what

they're asking for. they're also asking for transparency, and we have transparency. besides the fact that there are observers allowed in, a limited number of observers for logistical purposes, but there's also cameras. and the tabulation process is streamed online. anyone can go to the county elections department, any county in arizona, click on the link, and watch the tabulation while it's happening. >> arizona secretary of state katie hobbs, very much in the middle of it. thank you very much for being with us tonight. i really appreciate you helping us understand the process. >> yeah, thanks so much. >> let's go back to steve kornacki. steve, i believe we're looking at numbers in georgia? pennsylvania. >> we could look at both. pennsylvania, we just got a pretty big side update here. you can see it has brought donald trump's lead even lower. now he's barely above 40,000. it's 42,142. what we got was a big batch of votes from monroe county,

pennsylvania. this is where stroudsburg is. it actually has lifted joe biden into the lead in that county. trump had been leading the vote tally in this county, and the margin here, again, this is much -- this is a 2 to 1, better than 2 to 1 lead for biden in the mail ballots that were just reported from monroe county, pennsylvania. so, again, mail ballots, a good chunk of them here. there were about 15,000 total that were just reported out from monroe county, and it has brought donald trump's lead even lower. only 42,000 right now. in terms of georgia, an incremental update here. we got some votes here, about 1,000 i think it is, from rockdale county, again, outside atlanta here. mail ballots, they favor biden. it brings that trump lead statewide -- now it's under 2,000. now it's 1,902 votes. >> wow. >> that is donald trump's lead. it's so close that when you do it to the tenth of a decimal point, it is now a tie, 49.4% to

49.4%. you'd have to go to the hundredths of a decimal point at this point to see the trump lead. >> since we've been on the air tonight, just looking at my notes -- and my notes are an absolute disaster here. this is ridiculous. but reading my own handwriting, going from 9,500 votes, the vote lead for donald trump at the beginning of the night. 9,500 to 9,400 to 3,400 to 2,400 to now under 2,000 votes for the president as the vote continues to sort of irregularly and on a surprising non-schedule roll in from georgia. it just seems like it's inexorable at this point, steve. >> again, we're just looking at the list of what we think is to come. there are votes, as i said, to come in forsythe county, a republican county. but, again, the mail ballots we've gotten from there so far, biden was leading. very close. it's not like pennsylvania where biden is getting 70%, 80% with the mail. but biden was even leading those. so, yeah, the big thing here, i

think this is now the biggest outstanding source of votes in georgia is clayton county. we had a small update from there a few minutes ago, and that was what brought biden within 2,500. i've got many relative to come from statewide. yes, you can clearly see a path here for joe biden to get into the lead in georgia. now, again, if he does get into the lead, you're at such a point here with the votes that are left that it seems, you know, very likely that the leader at the end of the night's going to be well within that 0.5 range where there could be a recount. you could very much see biden moving ahead in this. if we get another report -- if we get a big report from clayton sometime soon, that would be a moment when i think it would happen. >> steve, i'm going to ask you a blasphemous question, and i know you're not going to answer, but i'm going to ask you anyway. are we -- as vote continues to come in tonight in georgia, are

we conceivably coming to a point where the decision desk, which is not you and is not me -- where the decision desk could be starting to talk about an apparent winner? georgia? >> well, so i can explain the term "apparent winner," and you can decide if you think it might apply. it's basically when we think, we as a network, the decision desk thinks that every vote in the state has been accounted for and there's no other source of it that could even theoretically change the outcome. if it's very, very close and a candidate -- there's a recount possibility, something like that, that's when you'll get the term "apparent winner." like the term "apparent winner" was thrown on wisconsin the other day. wisconsin, when all the votes in the state were tallied up and joe biden was ahead by 20,000 in wisconsin, and you couldn't look at the map and say, oh, wait, county "x" still has 21,000 votes. but it was within the recount parameter. the decision said, okay, that is the apparent win there that joe biden has just put on the board. yeah, georgia, it's similar in

terms of what the recount situation would be in georgia to wisconsin. so, you know, yeah, if you could get all -- again, in any state. you're right, it's like being in church. you don't want to offend the church elders here. but, yes, in general that's what the decision desk will always tell you, that if they get them all accounted for and somebody's ahead and there is still something like a possible recount looming over it, that's when they'll use that term "apparent winner". >> if you burst into flames, both joy and i will put you out. >> thank you. >> don't worry. all right. we got much more on the latest out of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. we are watching that vote come in in georgia. again, unpredictable vote delivery times at this point, but we are seeing the leads there get telling. all right. stay with us. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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we got to see steve kornacki actually walking there for a second. with so many eyes on pennsylvania, we want to head back there now, especially to the capital in harrisburg, where our correspondent chris jansing remains on station. chris, what can you add to the conversation? >> reporter: well, i've been keeping in touch tonight with democratic electeds, and they tell me they're expecting poll workers to continue the vote count into the night. in fact, we're told they are working like crazy. one of them told me they were expecting a drop of ballots in the 9:00 hour. i think that's what steve just reported before the break. but here's what's really interesting. they've been taking a look at the pace at which they're counting the ballots and the percentage that's going to joe biden, and they are telling democrats that they have calculated that joe biden will go ahead of donald trump in the vote count sometime around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m.

that does not mean he's going to win. it's exactly what it says, that at that point they believe the number of votes that he has will surpass that of the president, and they are going to continue to do that count. the way they put it to me is they want to get this done. not necessarily part of that calculation but a consequence, brian, would be that they won't run into what they had today, which is that they had to pause the vote in that philly vote center because of some legal maneuverings that was going on, and that delayed at least for some time the resumption of the counting of the votes. so if you're not counting votes, if it's done, you're not going to have a legal problem that's going to stop it. finally i would just say that if talking to these democratic electeds this morning, they all sounded good. they felt positive. that has changed into this evening. they are sounding very, very confident about joe biden's prospects here in pennsylvania, brian. >> so, chris, quick follow-up to what you just reported. with people listening right now on a razor's edge and looking

for any partisan difference that may be seeping in, is what you're describing, that kind of projection, casual as it is, that biden could go ahead between the 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. hours, that's a math extrapolation -- >> 4:00 and 5:00. >> like a weather forecast absent partisanship? >> reporter: yes, i would say actually i would say that sounds very kornackiesque. you take the pace at which they're counting the ballots, the percentage which steve has been doing so beautifully, at which the vote is going to biden over trump. and when you do that math, they're saying between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. is what they're telling democratic electeds now is when they expect joe biden to go ahead. remember, these are democrats reporting to democrats. >> thank you for pointing all that out. chris jansing in harrisburg. we are happy to be joined once again by john micic, editor in chief of the pennsylvania capital star. john, thank you very much for your time. we realize there are other

people and interests hugging at it. what can you fill in about speed of tabulation? as we look at the map of the p pet county you like to follow in this situation? >> brian, the speed with which joe biden has closed this gap this evening is pretty extraordinary and does speak to sort of the industry of the poll workers out there. the two counties i've been looking at tonight are two of the four that flipped for donald trump in the 2016. that's northampton county in the lehigh valley, the eastern part of the state, and then erie county up there in the far left-hand corner of the state along lake erie, which will flip for trump in 2016, but surprisingly flipped blue this evening. it was pretty tight in 2016. it was not sure if that was going to go back this way for

joe biden but the early trends are going that way. that was a surprising one for me. >> hey, john, it's joy. quick question. given the fact that we've had people like lou dobbs go on television and say that, you know, people should go and watch what is happening in philadelphia sort of implying some sort of fraud is taking place. we've now had tucker carlson go on television and say there's no way to know if there's been a free and fair election in the united states and stoking that kind of thing and given what we've seen in other states about the response that trump supporters have had to that, wouldn't you report about the preparations that particularly in philadelphia are being made to really kind of protect both the people who are counting the votes and are doing this work and just the general public? i think given particularly the fact of the demographics of philadelphia, you get the sense that puts african-americans in particular jeopardy. >> yeah, sure. joy, we had another big day of

covid infections in pennsylvania, in the midst of a fall surge. the trump campaign was in federal court here in philadelphia just this evening trying to close the distance that their observers could be from the ballot counters. they are now within about 6 feet which doesn't seem really great that you're having sort of a super ballot counting operation going on, not great, but, you know, there were claims observers had been kept out of the ballot counting operation in philadelphia which was patently untrue. there have been democratic and republican observers in the ballot counting room in philadelphia. i've been talking to one out in allegheny county for a couple days now watching this operation go on so the idea, the republican idea there hasn't been transparency in the ballot counting doesn't pass the basic smell test. >> john, brian again. just a question as we look at some of these live pictures of the tabulators.

again, standing on a concrete floor, thankless work. it can be mentally exhausting work. we talked to the lieutenant governor in the last couple hours who expressed great pride on the part of the state as did the secretary of state tonight saying that they in a pandemic were given a crash lesson in how to vote largely by mail but how to get this in and done and counted. and i suppose they deserve some degree of congratulations for that. it's a big, very diverse state. >> absolutely, brian. the fact that these folks are in there doing what they're doing under these circumstances is pretty extraordinary and the voters of pennsylvania as well. 3.2 million who chose to participate by mail-in ballot. we had extraordinary turnout from all corners of the state. people going out in the middle of the pandemic voting in

person, voting by mail. making their voices heard. and i can't disagree with the secretary or the lieutenant governor. these folks are working really hard under very difficult circumstances. >> thank you, john, for always stopping by and spending time with us. few people understand the layout of the state as well as you do. we greatly appreciate it. just to review as we head to a break here as we come up on the 10:00 hour eastern time, we've got tight races all over the place starting right there. pennsylvania separated by just over 40,000. georgia's even wilder, 1902 is the current difference between the two candidates. go out west you got arizona. you got nevada. we've got a lot still to talk about and cover. of course you never know when the computer is going to alert

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with acetaminophenction fights pain in two ways. advil targets pain at the source... ...while acetaminophen blocks pain signals. the future of pain relief is here. new advil dual action. we are just coming up on 10:00 on the east coast. and here we are. continuing night three of election night. night three of our 2020 election night coverage. it will end at some point we think. we just don't yet know exactly when as votes continue to be counted and tabulated across the country. those votes are arriving here in the studio whenever they're ready not according to any

schedule anybody external can set. all eyes on a few battleground states tonight. just since we've been on the air tonight joe biden has cut significantly into president trump's lead in the great state of pennsylvania. about 42,000 votes now separate the two. in georgia the margin is tighter. the president's lead now in georgia is less than 2,000 votes. in both pennsylvania and georgia joe biden appears to be narrowing the president's lead more and more with each new slice of votes that gets reported. again, on an unpredictable time frame. in the west joe biden leads in both arizona and nevada with most of the outstanding votes from democratic leaning counties. that said, the incoming vote in arizona including some just this past hour has seen president trump narrow the biden arizona lead. that said, the biden campaign expresses confidence tonight that they will end up winning in that state. we're watching it all unfold just as you are. we don't have any secret informatio