brian williams here with you as we continue now our special msnbc unending election coverage. thankfully, our friend nicolle wallace will be with us shortly. election day was tuesday. let's not forget. it's not friday, nearly 72 hours after the first polls closed. it looks increasingly likely that it will be joe biden standing on the steps of the u.s. capitol january 20th and taking the oath of office as the next president of the united states. as of now, this friday, this hour, all eyes remain focused on pennsylvania where the former vice president overtook donald trump in the vote count early this morning with his lead only growing as the hours have ticked by. if biden should capture those 20 electoral votes in his home state of pennsylvania, it would put him over the magic number of 270 needed to win. it would also -- he would also become the tenth person in our

history to unseat an incumbent president. we are expecting to hear from biden and his running mate, california democratic senator kamala harris, this evening. for joe biden, a victory would mark a triumphant end to his 32-year-long quest for the white house. kamala harris would make history by becoming the nation's first female vice president and then some. but donald trump has no intention of going down without a fight, saying in a statement this afternoon, and we quote, we believe the american people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election, this is about the integrity of our entire election pr process. indeed. he went on to say, we will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the american people have confidence in our government. that's a far cry we should hasten to point out from last

night when the president sought to undermine our entire democratic process by claiming without offering any proof that there was widespread fraud and cheating and the election was being stolen from him. comments that actually didn't sit well with some republicans, at least those courageous enough to speak out, including pennsylvania republican senator pat toomey. >> i saw the president's speech last night and it was very hard to watch. the president's allegations of large-scale fraud and thet of the election are just not s substantiated. i am in the aware of any significant wrongdoing here. >> all right. let's begin with the latest on the vote count, and it's fitting that the very last person i spoke to last night/this morning is the person i get to speak to first this afternoon.

that's ali velshi. >> i think there is a public service announcement due to explain where steve kornacki is. we have forced him, there might have been restraints involved, to getting some sleep for a little while. right now, as you know, we stand at 253-214 electoral votes. we are looking at the same stuff as last night. pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia, arizona, nevada. alaska is going to be a little while away. let's talk about pennsylvania, what's going on. we have 96% of the votes in. a lot of the mail-in ballots have been breaking toward joe biden who has got a 14,000 point lead in that state. 14,000-vote lead. that has diminished a little bit. i will tell you why. because there aren't just mail-in ballots which tend to break democrat. there are provisional ballots. there is an arcane rule in some states, including in pennsylvania, if you requested a mail-in ballot but decided to vote in person, you had to take your mail-in ballot and the envelope in which it came and the security envelope, hand it to them.

they would spoil the whole thing and then you would vote. if you didn't do that, you got a provisional ballot. the provisional ballots are being counted last and they are not breaking towards joe biden the same way, which is why pennsylvania remains too close to call. we have similar issues in nevada. they are just counting a little bit slowly right now. they are not used to the volume that they are getting. we have 92% in. we are looking for a lot more votes. joe biden is ahead there about 20,000 points. 20,000 votes, sorry. not 20,000 points. he is leading a little bit in washoe county, which is reno. we are expecting more votes that will probably break towards biden there and then in clark county where las vegas is, he has a 75,000 vote lead. but again same problem. provisional ballots are coming in and they are not breaking toward joe biden the way mail-in ballots are. so that's too close to call there as well. and finally, we have got arizona where we are hoping to get an update a little bit later.

94% of the vote in there. joe biden leading by 39,000 votes. georgia, as we know, is close, and will go to a recount. they have already announced that. we don't have a final result. joe biden leading there. north carolina will not give us numbers until the 11th -- [ inaudible ]. >> all right. alley, don't go anywhere. we may need to come back to you. we want to go live to harrisburg, pennsylvania. that's where we find our senior national correspondent chris jansing. what's been called the most famous parking lot for the time being in the free world, chris, first to you, and what can you update us on the count going on in all-important pennsylvania? >> reporter: yeah, the great vote watch is on. i think a lot of people are looking to an hour from now when we heard that allegheny county was going to be putting out about 6,500 ballots that have

been counted. they are going to, at the same time, be starting to count about another 28,000. those are the ones that were misprinted ballots that they had to replace. so it's really wait and see. and i have to really say that one of the things i have noticed over the course of the day is how the mood has changed. people were pretty easily making suggestions yesterday well into the night about when the vote count was going to end, including the secretary of state, and now as these final votes are coming in, as the complexities of counting them are becoming obvious, people are stepping back. i am talking to folks who are democratic electeds, who are activists, people involved in this process for a long time. a lot of them seem to be taking cues from joe biden, which is let's see what happens. you can sense tension. tension around the lawsuits that have been out there, including the republicans going back,

asking the supreme court to look at these ballots that come in after election night at 8:00 p.m. a little bit of tension we saw from the philadelphia mayor who suggested that the president should put on his big boy pants and concede, although of course this election is not over yet. and i think that we have seen some defense of these poll workers. for example, in allegheny county we are told they work all day. in fact, they skipped lunch. they are planning to work well into the night to count these ballots. and in bucks county, which is a pretty even, partially worded statement put out saying any criticism of the integrity of this election is a direct attack on the integrity of these public citizens. those public citizens, the poll workers who at this hour continue to do their work. >> chris jansing standing by watching from harrisburg. mike memoli in wilmington. it appears, those of us not in

wilmington, this is a campaign kind of in suspended animation. they can hardly do any more sound or lighting checks on the stage until they have something to talk about. >> reporter: yeah, brian, exactly right. the roller coaster of emotions that began heading into election day on tuesday really just continues at this point. this morning when we saw joe biden take the lead in pennsylvania, the state that would most clearly put him over 270 electoral votes. when that happened we saw staff who had been talking about victory as imminent began to talk about it as realized, as actually happening. there was a real ramp-up of preparations at that point for a victory speech tonight. you will see the red, white, and blue jeeps that were to have the front row seats for this celebration have returned after leaving tuesday night. the issue at this point is for the biden campaign, is that the former vice president clearly

treasures values, these norms, these traditions of our democracy in a way that the current occupant of the white house does not. and i think for him the speech tonight that he hoped would begin the process of unifying the country really depended on the independent declaration of news organizations and others that he, in fact, reached 270 electoral votes. as he has been saying all week, brian, it's not for him to say who has won the election. it's for the american people to do so. there is reluctance on the joe biden campaign, the longer the day goes on, the slower the count trickling in for the vice president to get out ahead of a clear result in a way that will seem more of a campaign moment rather than the beginning of a governing process for the former vice president. >> yeah, i think they will have to ask themselves what that buys them, if anything. all right. mike memoli, chris jansing, two people who will remain on post for us. we turn now to a long-time friend of this broadcast, pbs

news hour white house correspondent and msnbc political analyst u misha alcindor. your best knowledge of what you think is going on inside this west wing and inside the head of this president. >> well, the president really is angry at where he stands right now. his path to victory is very, very narrow. i talked to someone close to the president who said the only way they think he will win re-election is by having recounts and then he would have to win state after state while, of course, joe biden only really at this point is looking at the having to win one state, of course, the ap has called arizona. we see the president lashing out. he is making unfounded claims. he is having in some ways a whole grab bag of accusations that are not founded. he has no evidence for what he is saying. he is floundering, trying his best to try to make the case

that he has won this election when, of course, he simply has not. and people close to the president tell me his mood is somber, his mood is anger, his mood is also looking at republicans trying to figure out who has his back in this moment. that's why you see people like lamb laptop and ted cruz coming out, senators trying to back up the president's claims. >> while i have never seen your phone contacts, i know a good deal about your reporting and i know that involves talking to members of the white house staff and the west wing. let's say for the purposes of this conversation joe biden prevails. are any of the people on your contact list preparing for that kind of mental pivot that will be required to view this presidency differently as something perhaps on its way out? >> it's very hard to say. there are staffers who definitely have started to talk

about life after a trump presidency. i just talked to the highest ranking african-american official in the trump administration. he is leaving today, was his last day, tells me he was planning to leave before the election, he still supports the president, wants him to win re-election, but he said i thought the president would be cruising to re-election. i talked to other people who are starting to talk about the fact that they might lose, and there is also talk about who is going to break the news to president trump, not just that he might have to concede, but also that he might have to stop talking about the integrity of the u.s. election this year as compromised. so there is really a lot of talking going on at the white house about who can really pull this president back when it's time for him to admit that he has lost. there is still some feeling he could pull this out. i am not saying that the president couldn't win, but there is real talk, real tension around who is going to have to convince this president to do something that he really has not done his whole life, which is admit defeat. >> and as you and i have

discussed, there is such a short list of republicans who have in good times been willing to stick their heads up, say something publicly, god forbid risk getting tweeted at or about. it will really be important to see who they are in the days and perhaps weeks ahead. >> that's right. there is a feeling in trump world, people close to president trump, there is a feeling that their names are being made, put on a list of people who stood with president trump in this moment. it almost feels like we are back in an "access hollywood" moment where the president was standing on his own saying, yes, i am going to be a part of this nomination and the establishment republicans started to distance themselves from the president. you are seeing matthew gates go after nikki haley. nikki haley tweeted president trump had a great presidency. you see matt gaetz going after her saying she is trying to have an obituary for the president. the president's son is also saying people need to go to war at this point.

you also hear trump legal advisors saying amy coney barrett needs to, quote, come through for the president. you are hearing people not also only taking stands and looking at republicans and how they are standing in this moment but looking at justices on the supreme court saying do they owe president trump some sort of victory here can they try to deliver this presidency for the president. again, critics of the president say it's impossible for the president to mount any sort of legal challenge that would end up with the supreme court that would then deliver the presidency for him. there is all that talk going on in trump world right now. >> we're happy to have a bit of your time on what we know is a busy day for you and your colleagues. thank you, as always, for making us and this broadcast a part of it. we are also happy to be joined at this hour by the attorney general of the state of pennsylvania, josh shapiro. as busy people go, he is on the list these days. mr. attorney general, thank you

very much for making us a part of your plans this afternoon. you have a free shot now at a television audience that's eager for information. they are eager for news. and, yes, they have their eyes on 270 and the commonwealth of pennsylvania. so two things, please. number one, any of the legal challenges that have come your way, have any standing or merit in your view as the top law enforcement officer in that state, and number two, what can you assure the people watching about the integrity of the ongoing vote in the commonwealth? >> brian, thanks. maybe i will handle those in reverse order. i have been saying for months that here in pennsylvania we would secure, protect, and count every legal vote. we had a secure election day. it was smooth. we protected those ballots. now we are in the process of counting. and that counting is going on by clerks and volunteers and others

who live in communities all across pennsylvania, and we are indebted to them. i know they are working as quickly as they can. i realize maybe not as quickly for the people across the country or even my own kids who want finality to this. but they are doing a great job and it has been smooth. as to your first question about the legal issues, as you have reform reported on air, there is a lot of noise on the legal front here in pennsylvania. but, brian, there has been basically no impact on the process whatsoever. the ballots are being counted. these are legal votes. they are being tallied up. and soon the people of pennsylvania's will be heard not just here in the commonwealth, but across the country. and so i would urge everybody to take a deep breath and recognize that good people in pennsylvania are doing good work, and these legal charges or tweets or whatever that's being put out there by some right now really

have had zero impact on the process. and that's a good thing for the people of pennsylvania because it means their ballots be being counted and their voices are being heard. >> let me ask you about this phrase "legal votes," which is getting an airing from potato both parties, certainly from the president, the vice president. have you encountered any of the other kinds of votes? i heard the secretary of state yesterday say she was aware of one guy in luzerne county who tried to get a ballot for his deceased mother. how often do you encounter illegal votes? >> we don't. by the way, brian, if i did, we would shut it down. there is a difference between a clerical issue that may come up here and there and the kind of widespread fraud that, you know, really outrageously has been claimed by the president and some of his enablers. but it follows a pattern, brian. this is a pattern that we have seen time and time again. here is how it goes. they make a crazy claim.

they tweet about it. they amplify it. maybe it shows up in some kind of press release or statement from a white house spokesperson. sometimes a lawsuit follows, and every time a lawsuit follows, it gets dismissed. because there is no evidence to back up any of these claims. so i realize there may be this need for spin right now, and -- but i would sort of say, look, the campaign is over. there is no need for spin. what there is, is need to give these great clerks here in pennsylvania and in these other states who are doing terrific work the space to count the votes. and there we are going to respect the will of the people, whoever is chosen. that's what's going to happen. that's the process playing out here in pennsylvania. i am exceedingly proud of our commonwealth. >> final question for those of us who are football fans and this football fan is without swagger because i am a long suffering new york giants fan. we divide your state into eagles

country and steelers country. let's talk about steelers country out west, allegheny county. i heard the registrar earlier today responding to complaints that it's taking a long time to count, say what i have heard you and others say. we would have loved to have had the early vote count done and dusted and ready to announce on election day. the legislature wouldn't let us. so, do you think that message to an anxious nation is getting out enough that this is the work that is mandated by the legislature to have taken place after election day? >> well, brian, you're right on there. there is a nuance to al gape le county. you are correct that the legislature did not tweak the law to allow for processing of these ballots in the days prior to election day so that we could

have a result on election night. states like florida, north carolina, just to name two, they're low that, as the mail-in ballots come in, they get processed. obviously, there is no count that's recorded until election day, but at least on election day you get that result. and you are correct that when governor wolf asked the legislature to give these clerks more time to process the ballots, they refused to do that. that is statement one. statement two, allegheny county, there is a nuance there. i think it speeds to the broader narrative that it's gotten a bit hysterical at times, certainly not from you, brian, but i have seen a little bit online about this. folks thought when the allegheny county clerks went home a couple of days ago and didn't process these ballots, all of a sudden there was something nefarious going on, something bad was happening, when in fact they were doing what the law required. there was a court order in place that said they couldn't begin processing these, i think it's roughly 35,000 ballots or so, until today.

they are following the rules. they are doing what they are supposed to do. allegheny county executive, county chief executive fitzgerald is doing a terrific job there. we have to recognize that laws are being followed, clerks are working hard. of course, it would have been good to have a little bit more time at the beginning of this process, but ultimately the most important thing here is that we get it right, that we follow the law, the will of the people is reflected, ultimately in the outcome, and that's what we are working hard on every single day in the commonwealth. >> thank you, general, for an orderly walk through what my from the outside appear to be a disorderly process. the attorney general of the commonwealth of pennsylvania, josh shapiro. greatly appreciate you making time for us this afternoon, and good luck. up next for us, ballots continuing to be counted. joe biden continues to gain ground in his path to 270. we will have the very latest from the states yet to be called. plus, how the democratic ticket

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democracy sometimes is messy. it's sometimes requires a little patience as well. but that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance and that has been the envy of the world. we continue to feel, senator and i, we continue to feel very good about where things stand. we have no doubt that when the count is finished, senator harris and i will be declared the winners. >> that was the last time we heard from joe biden. again tonight we may hear from him again.

an election result that we're still waiting on, and the results come in from these possibly race-determining counties trickling in today. biden has the clearest and easiest path to victory. we can say that. we can also say that he appears to be on the verge of becoming president-elect. but joe biden and senator kamala harris have already made history with a record turnout of votes in a record turnout election. something all americans can be proud of. over 74 million showing up for their ticket. about 4.1 million more than the republican side. about 4.5 million more than the record biden set alongside president obama back in '08. let's bring in our next two guests and with us is msnbc contributor "washington post" columnist former democratic congresswoman donna edwards and steve smith, among the

co-founders of the lincoln project. good afternoon to you both. steve, i have to begin with you only because i am a follower of yours on social media where you really have to learn to be more candid. you have been pointing out today in a manner of speaking that there is a way to do this now. there is a way to behave. there are certain things to say, and you don't see that behavior in all of the loyalists and in all of the hold-outs surrounding this president. do i have that about right? >> do you, brian. good afternoon. look, joe biden is going to be the president-elect of the united states, and, frankly, every leader of every network decision desk knows that the math is an impossibility now for donald trump. he cannot be elected president of the united states. there is no path for him to be elected when you look at the counties and where the votes are

from that are outstanding. and so we are in this hour where i understand the caution, but by the standards of all of the networks and all of the news organizations, including through how the first 30, 35 states were called in this election, at this hour it is clear, and these races should be called, because with each hour donald trump is able to use the confusion, his lying about the inevitable, to do more damage to our democracy. if there was an eclipse coming and a news organization knew about a suicide cult with a thousand members planning on offing themselves, would news organizations not cover the facts of the eclipse? and the answer is they would. the president's feelings don't matter here. his temper tantrum doesn't matter. his delusions, his king lear

act, tenablers, everyone around him who is upset, it doesn't matter. they lost. and what happens now is we begin the process that culminates with the peaceful transition of power uninterrupted since 1797 at noon on january 20th. >> donna edwards, two things. number one, there is a reason why there is a cocktail shaker not far behind steve schmidt. everyone should have one nearby touring this time. number two, donna edwards, and i know you think about such things, how do you best advise biden/harris, should they prevail, to govern during a time where we can just look at the math, look at the turnout in this race, we couldn't be a more divided country. >> well, you know, i think we have to acknowledge, we were divided in 2016, and i think

what we do is what donald trump did not do, and that is come together from the beginning with a message of unity. that has been the tone and the tenor that joe biden and kamala harris have struck, is especially in these days as we are waiting a final decision about who is going to be the president-elect and the vice president-elect. and i think that they will demonstrate exactly that same kind of tone starting out. i think joe biden and kamala harris have an advantage of having served on capitol hill. they know those institutions. and i think that they will be able to at least borrow some of that steam in order to begin the process of governing. and you know what? the challenge is great. starting at the beginning, as joe biden said, you know, conquer this pandemic so that you can conquer getting people back to work and restarting this

economy. and then do it in a way that doesn't just say we're going to rebuild the economy that we had, but we are going to build it better. that's his language. and i think what he means by that is doing things that unify people. build infrastructure, roads, bridges, rail, all of the things that every single congressional district in every state in the country needs in order to grow their economies, and that is a way that you begin the process of governing. and people come together when there are jobs at stake. and i think that joe biden and kamala harris have exactly the right tools to be able to do that. >> steve schmidt, when i heard marco rubio the day before election day kind of saluting the folks, the trump caravan that almost ran the biden bus off the road, you know, you hear something like that from someone who is supposed to be a mainstream republican senator,

you realize that trumpism, and that's part of what the lincoln project was formed to defeat, trumpism is a powerful thing. it may be a loser politically, but do you anticipate it to survive donald trump? >> oh, absolutely. look, we have almost 48% of this country that's voted for a statist authoritarian movement with fashionistic markers hostile to american democracy, to the rule of law that ven rates an individual, that's a cult of personality. i think that tucker carlson is the frontrunner for the republican nomination in 2024. what you are going to see is every republican candidate will kowtow to the conspiracy that trump was stabbed in the back by unseen malicious forces of the deep state, that the election was stolen, that it's

illegitimate forever. forever. more than a majority of the republican party will believe this was an illegitimate election because they have been poisoned by the murdoch operation, by oan, by sinclair, by the toxic sludge of sewage and crap and disinformation and lies that flows on facebook into the screens of the american people. and so this is a long-term fight. you know, with evan em bold ent white supremacist, white nationalist movement in this country now because of trump. we see a militia movement that has become part and parcel of the republican party where it's now standard operating procedure at a political rally to see the guys with their ar-15s. so all of this needs to be sealed back under a s sararcophagus that lace over the chernobyl reactor. but it's going take a long, long

time to do it. the good news is this. the majority of the country has rejected this. they have rejected it by more than 4 million votes. the states of georgia will flip. pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. this is a very substantial victory by vice president biden. it is a historic victory. it is hard to turn a president out of office. donald trump has been repudiated by the righteous anger of the american people significantly. now, the trump enablers like lindsey graham, they paid no price. they were rewarded for it. and now we see lindsey graham standing up with donald trump in what is tantamount, at least rhetorically, to a coup. in the end, from lexington and concord forward, the idea of the country was that we, and by we i mean the people, govern ourselves.

we pick the leaders. our politicians don't tell us how long they wish to serve. we tell them. and trump has been fired because of his recklessness, his insanity, his malfeasance, his incompetence, and because he is the worst president in the history of the country who has presided over one of the greatest calamities had the history of the country. it's time to pack up. every single republican elected official in this country from dog catcher to u.s. senator to governor has an absolute moral and an american obligation to support the integrity of the election and the result of the winner, and the winner is joe biden. the 46th president of the united states come january 20th, 2021, at the noon hour. >> donna eld wards, a final

question about your old caucus. i don't think anyone expected the democrats under nancy pelosi to lose seats in the house. but that is what happened. any lessons that are obvious to you? >> well, i think it's disappointing, but i think democrats have also displayed a lot of unity over this last year, and i think that they are going to have to hash whatever the differences are inside of the caucus and then get down to the business of governing. i think part of the reason that you saw these losses are in places where, you know, democrats won in places where donald trump, you know, had major victories. it's tough to survive under that. but democrats have the majority. they have the majority. they will have the presidency. and they will have a governing mandate, i think, with a record number of millions of people who did, as steve said, repudiated

donald trump and they will begin to really rebuild this country in all of its institutions. you know, brian, i have been very concerned about the way the world sees us, and this week they have to see us as a surviving democracy and the way we do that is for democrats and republicans to begin to govern. >> all right. two of our returning veterans, our thanks. steve schmidt, when we have time next time we will talk about your theory that tucker carlson is the heir apparent to the republican candidacy for the president. up next for us, arizona, nevada remain too close to call. we are going to swing out west. we will get another check on the ballot counts out there right after this.

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we know not to take our focus too much off where the votes are being counted, so to that end we want to go back tout to the american southwest where, of course, two key states remain uncalled. counting continues in arizona where a batch of votes this morning cut into biden's lead in the state, less than 220,000 possible votes are out there that remain to be counted. and in just a few hours we have been told to expect another batch of results out of clark county in nevada where joe biden is holding on to his lead. we are told further there are at least 100,000 votes still outstanding in nevada. so let's first go to jacob soboroff li soboroff live outside clark county election headquarters. jacob, what can you add to our reporting about what's going on behind you? >> reporter: well, it's a great

question, brian. i think several things are going on. one is they are counting those mail-in ballots. they have 60,000 mail-in votes they are going through methodically. then there are 60,000 provisional votes additionally which have to be counted. then the folks coming to cure their ballots. we started to see an interesting phenomenon. this is the beginning of the line. elections have been over since election day. these are folks that are here to have their ballots what is called cured, check the signatures. they believe they have some issue. some of them say they logged on and their registrar says their votes were not counted. many say they were republican. this nice woman said to me she got an urgent vote alert. if you are a current person who cast a provisional ballot, it may not have been counted. >> they came to my house. the republican party. >> reporter: they said we are from the nevada republican party? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: did you look online at your ballot? >> i my son and daughter-in-law

did. >> reporter: it said it wasn't counted? >> yes. >> reporter: you said the same thing, sir? >> yes. >> reporter: thank you very much. look at this liechblt i have never seen anything quite like this. and it's concerning, frankly. i think it's concerning that there are folks out here who feel like they need to have their vote cured, number one. you guys checked your ballot and it wasn't counted? what happened? >> i tried three different locations yesterday to register and vote and was denied three times. >> reporter: okay. let's -- thank you very much. nice to meet you. this is the issue, brian. the line goes like this. it's been like this all day long. it doesn't necessarily mean that the margins are big enough to make up the ground. we are talking about 20,000 votes when the votes are coming in tonight, it may very well dwroe for joe biden. but there are several large pools of voters whose ballots have not yet been necessarily counted by the clark county elections department and this is -- this is another one of them. >> jacob, let me trouble you

just for a layperson's definition of cured. a word we associate with deli meats and diseases. what does a cured ballot mean in that case? >> reporter: that there was some issue with the ballot, brian. so some folks logged online and they believe their votes had not yet been received or counted. some folks voted provisionally and those provisional ballots may have required you to have an identification that you didn't have at the time, and if you show up here with your ballot you can -- with your i.d., excuse me, they will look at your vote and ultimately put your vote into the system is that that's all rectified. i heard several versions of what people are coming to so-called cure the issue. i would think of it as they were presented with what they believe to be a ballot that was not counted and they came here to rectify that situation. is that the situation, ma'am, you are in? >> yes, identification. >> reporter: correction of identification? >> yes. >> reporter: are you comfortable sharing your party with me, who you voted for?

>> i think that's privacy. >> reporter: totally respect that. no worries. thank you. we will monitor it. the margin is very big, 21,000. certainly not 21,000 people out here. but it is something we will keep our eye on out here. >> wow, fascinating. democracy at the molecular level, folks in line wearing masks, we are happy to see, during a pandemic. jacob soboroff, thanks for that. now let's go to phoenix. if you have been watching this network the past several days you have seen the extraordinary work of gadi schwartz trying to describe what is going on behind him. and more than that, inside the building. gaudy, take it away. >> reporter: hey, yeah, so what we're seeing, this crowd in front of the maricopa county elections center has gotten smaller. a little while ago it was out into the road. this sheriff's department they closed the road. they have the road blocked off 4-3, four square blocks here. in front of the place where

inside they are tabulating those votes. you said it a little while ago. we are looking at 120,000 votes that are going to be coming out of this building, and the margin here, biden is leading trump right now by about 39,000 votes. so it still is possible. i want to show you something. this is a little bit of inside baseball. but it's important. it has to do with conspiracy theories. we have been talking about some of the conspiracy theories we have seen boil up. we saw one happen in front of us. the birth of a conspiracy theory. it went like this. you have a crowd of people over here. you have got the media staged over here. i am going to walk over here. we will be a little bit mindful of these people here. but all of a sudden a small crowd broke up a screaming about voter fraud. they believe that voter fraud was taking place in front of them. that was happening over here. so we've got this is the media staging area. they set up this barricade and this is where the media comes in, they park over there.

they have got a freedom of speech zone, so that freedom of speech zone is supposed to be where that protest is. howdy. so he is a self-described member of the bugula boy. we will talk about that a different time. this sear conspiracy. the conspiracy was they were counting or bringing in ballots. they were bringing in ballots in vans that were from california. so everybody rushed over here and it was news crews, actually them over there. we tried to explain it was news crews loading in equipment. we will give them a little bit of space. they were not having it. but the conspiracy theory went that reporters were loading in ballots to take inside. and it turns out it was just camera tripods, it was just the live packs that we use to broadcast and it was a fox news crew that was loading in their equipment, and this crowd was convinced that they were participating in this election

fraud and that they were bringing in extra ballots to be counted here. so it was something that happened right in front of our eyes. we are talking about a crowd of about 30 to 40 people, all of them had their cellphones out, filming what was going on, screaming voter fraud and all it takes is one video to go viral and next thing you know, the entire election here in maricopa county is called into question. so we've been trying to be diligent and vigilant about everything we see going on but it is hard to keep track when the crowd keeps expanding and contracting. we understand this protest is going to continue throughout the day and we're expecting to get a lot bigger tonight. but again, inside this building, while all this chaos and confusion is going on outside, they have one job to do. that is to count 120,000 ballots and they could determine the way that arizona sways. back to you, brian. >> gaudy, thank you for talking the time to tell that story. it is fascinating and it is

troubling and in equal measure at the same time. gadi schwartz where the counting is going on in arizona. there is never has been a better time to bring in the author and presidential historian michael beschloss. let's just take a second. that was a moment in time from gadi schwartz as he put it the birth of a conspiracy theory. and our society right now, you've seen the vote breakdown, we are primed for this. this is the perfect storm, the collision of social media, electronics, overseas intervention, our foreign adversaries love fomenting this and seeing this cut loose in our society. so what era, exactly, are we on the cusp of? >> we're on the cusp i hope of an era that is like most of american history and that is as you well know, brian, you read history so fervently, throughout american history at various

times there have been conspiracy theories that have been floated to explain all sorts of changes that some people don't like. the arrival of immigrants before the civil war, conspiracy by certain groups to get us into world war ii, you could do it all the way through the time of joe mccarthy in the 1950s. and guess what the one ingredient was that had a lot to do with dispelling these conspiracies? it was the president of the united states. dwight eisenhower at the time of joe mccarthy's effort to suggest wrongly that the government of the united states was filled with hidden communists, eisenhower went to dartmouth in 1953, 1954 gave a commencement speech saying don't join the book burners. we've relied on a president to explain what is going on and to say to conspiracy theorists, you're unamerican, get lost. >> michael, let's say for the

purposes of this conversation that joe biden prevails, that in the next 12 to 24 hours he goes up over 270. what would norms dictate that a sitting president would do and say during that period? >> well, what norms would dictate that a president that lost election which doesn't happen that often, less than a dozen times, that you have the sitting president be as helpful as possible. for instance in 1980 jimmy carter was defeated by ronald reagan by about 10 points in 1980. the first thing he did was he called reagan and in pacific palisades in california and he and mrs. reagan were taking showers at the time, they had to be gotten out of the showers to

take the president's call. and what is the first thing that jimmy carter said aside from i concede the election, you've won, congratulations, governor. he said and this is' verbatim quote, i want to have the best transition in history. that is what most presidents do. they don't stay in the white house and claim fraud that doesn't exist, they don't threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue. they don't appear and then come out in the briefing room and give a performance like what we saw last night blaming everyone and everything but himself, that is not in keeping with american history. and one thing i really hope is that if joe biden is the president of the united states, that either donald trump will come to his senses, which i don't have very much hope for in terms of behaving graciously toward an incoming president, but what i do hope is that we have a restoration of the tradition that even when you get an incoming president and

outgoing president who do not like each own. like herbert hoover and franklin roosevelt in '32 or dwight eisenhower and harry truman in 1952, for the good of the country, one of the important things is to show that everyone is on board and there is a show of unity that brings this country together at the end of a bitter campaign. >> michael beschloss, it is always a pleasure to the folks watching, we can't -- i always try to promote michael's twitter account of special note today, particular scene in the wizard of oz that michael chose to tweet about. i'll let that be up to the rest of you. michael, thank you very much. >> thanks a lot. >> to our viewers, we're still watching all of the states. you could recite by wrote by now and you may know by now our decision desk is an independent operation within the news divisions. all news divisions have them.

a call is their business. that could come at any moment. that is why we're never taking our eyes away from the ongoing count. our election coverage continues with my friend nicolle wallace coming up after this quick break. ♪ ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. [ engine revs ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

♪ so i owe you an explanation. "deadline: white house" hour two starts now. i promised you nicolle wallace. i'm disappointed too. she's having some issues getting to a camera in our studios. they just assumed i had nothing else going on this afternoon, they assumed correctly. what i have is ali velshi at the wall. and what i'm going to ask of ali velshi while we wait for nicolle to get in and seated in the studio, is a tour of