life doesn't stop for a cold. [man] honey... [woman] honey that's why there's new dayquil severe honey. it's maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honey-licious taste. dayquil honey. the daytime coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, power through your day medicine. good evening once again and we'll be with you for these next two hours, which will include a kind of status report from joe bid biden, that now familiar stage in wilmington, delaware, was designed for an acceptance speech which joe biden may end up giving, but not until some of these states gets called, not until 270 becomes real.

tonight we'll likely hear from indoors accompanied by kamala harris. as you are likely aware, biden is leading the count in pennsylvania. he is leading in georgia. he is also ahead in nevada and arizona. in a minute, the latest reporting from inside the trump west wing on what the president is saying, his mind-set, and what his aides are saying to him. he's continuing to try to flood the zone with legal challenges. in the background for all of this, another grim record today that we are forced to report. 122,365 new cases of coronavirus in our country in a single day. as this illness continues to gallop uncontrolled across our country. let's not forget that for a moment. we want to start off by getting the very latest on the numbers,

especially for members of our audience just dialing into the primetime coverage tonight. that takes us, of course, to our friend, steve kornacki at the big board. steve, where do we stand right now? >> brian, let's start in pennsylvania. just a couple minutes ago we got another update. we are just getting incremental reports from various counties across the state as they continue to count out and report out the mail-in ballot votes. so we got one from allegheny county where pittsburgh is a couple minutes ago. it was another big one for joe biden. he has 79% of this new batch of votes. joe biden's now leading by nearly 30,000 votes in pennsylvania. this is number continues to rise with each update because it's very clear by now that joe biden won the mail-in voting overwhelmingly in pennsylvania. those ballots that were cast by mail are overwhelmingly for joe biden in pennsylvania. he's winning 75% of them on

average, and that's what's being counted up right now. the mail-in ballots, there are still mail-in ballots to be counted in allegheny county. they may release more tonight. we're completely at their mercy. but perhaps they will so there could be more to come from allegheny county. more to come perhaps from philadelphia tonight. we haven't heard from them in a bit. there are other counties around the state that are also tallying them. again, whether you're talking about small republican counties or big democratic cities, we've been seeing joe biden do extremely well with mail ballots in pennsylvania. so you can expect, in other words, that if we get any more updates, that biden lead is going to increase. again, it's now approaching 30,000. by the way, in 2016 when donald trump carried pennsylvania, he won the state by 46,000. it's conceivable with these mail-in ballots to come that biden could build his lead up to that level, could potentially, depending on exactly how many are left here, go beyond that

lead here. but that is the clear trajectory here with mail-in votes still to come. biden is going to continue to build that lead. now, how could trump still within the state? well, just mathematically there is this category of provisional ballots. now, we think maybe 100,000 of those also exist. so the idea here is we go through all the mail-in ballots that i'm talking about, biden's lead increases, it will go up considerably. and then whatever that biden lead stands at at that point, theoretically this 100,000 or so of provisional ballot pool -- if trump won it, if he won enough of it, he could eat into the biden lead and overtake him. but you're looking at the potential here for biden to be ahead by 40,000 votes. 50,000 votes, something like that. then if trump's going to erase a 40,000-vote gap, he's going to have to be winning 70% or more

of the provisional votes. provisional ballots are traditionally very democratic. there is some reason to believe there could be a lot more republican, a lot more trump votes in there right now. would they be 70% trump, though? that would be something. >> steve, don't go away. we still need a tour of georgia, arizona, and nevada. we'll come back to you. we want to concentrate on wilmington, delaware, for right now. our nbc news correspondent who's been covering the biden campaign, mike memoli, at what he likes to call the most famous parking lot in the world. mike, first things first. am i correct that tonight's event may be at the indoor podium and not the outdoor stage? >> brian, everything is in flux, i would say at this point. now, typically on an election night, a campaign would have the works maybe three speeches ready to go, an acceptance speech, victory speech, a concessions

speech and where is maybe a too close to call speech. my understanding in talking to biden campaign advisers is there are two speeches ready for it former vice president potentially to deliver tonight. one would be that acceptance speech, the victory speech should a projection from any of the major news organizations that do that kind of thing put him over 270 electoral votes. the speech that he's on track at this moment to deliver is something short of that, what advisers are considering more of a progress update, as he has in the last two days, he's expressed confidence he's on track to win this election, but stressed also the need to make sure the votes are counted and to have confidence in that outcome. and so i think the last check i did just before we began talking, brian, was our colleague mariana soto mayor, 15 minutes drive from her, they're holding at that location.

when he does leave, if it is sooner rather than later, i think we're on track for that progress update-type speech, which would be delivered indoors. the longer the wait goes on, the more the campaign perhaps believes a projection could come, in which case they would wait on that outcome and come here tonight and potentially speak to the country as president elect. they're watching kornacki as much as everyone out there is. >> i get it. it's necessary these days. mike memoli in wilmington, delaware. thanks. please keep in touch about the movements of the democratic ticket. to prove me nguyen business on this friday night, here our lead-up guests, the one and only nicolle wallace, host of the 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. hours on this network and on select nights host of the 9:00 p.m. hour. lawrence o'donnell, who is, of course, the host of the 10:00 p.m. hour on this network. ashley parker, pulitzer

prize-winning white house reporter for "the washington post." nicolle, let's deal with the elephant in the room. at least one presidential campaign and i'm guessing 90% of those in our television audience right now would really like us to call one or more of these states. our decision desks -- and this is the same at every network news division -- work independent of us. we do not have contact with them. they have to stay in their bubble and decide the numbers as they must. >> you're so smart to explain that to everybody. but i don't know exactly what they're looking at, but i know from being on campaigns, being on the other side and either wanting networks to make the calls or wanting them not to -- and i've been on both sides of that -- you look at what steve kornacki is sharing with us. when the allegheny numbers came in, it was 7,300 new votes for joe biden, 1,800 for donald

trump. that ratio is what gives people that make projections confidence. and i'm not capable of analyzing those ratios, but steve kornacki is. he has said for two days that the ratio of the outstanding boat makes it mathematically impossible for donald trump to catch joe biden. so i guess what i would say about the elephant in the room, and i think it's good to start here, is that the end is probably near. you know who else thinks that's the case? not just the biden campaign but the outer rim of the trump orbit, the outside advisers who sort of have an eye toward nudging trump toward reality. they are few and endangered and obviously not powerful enough to stop him from doing what he did last night, but there is some acceptance in that circle sort of right outside the family and rudy that the end is near. >> nicolle, either you or steve

kornacki, can you give your viewers a primer on provisional ballots, their definition, and how many we think are in pennsylvania? >> steve kornacki is the guy. >> is he there? is he on post? >> steve, are you there? i can try to explain it. >> he's taking a court-mandated break. >> we let him get some nourishment. the way he explained it in the last hour was, if someone had requested an absentee ballot and they were a trump voter, this was the example he gave. he talked about a trump voter in the suburbs of philadelphia who likes to vote absentee, had gone through the process of requesting an absentee ballot. but then heard their preferred candidate trump rail against the mail-in vote for many months, maybe saw congressional hearings with the head of the post office and lost confidence in that process of voting by mail and mailing it in and having it

counted. they listened to donald trump and maybe they went to the polls and decided to vote in person. they would have been given a provisional ballot. it's also -- steve explained this. it's for people that register or want to walk in and register and vote on the day of the election. steve is the expert. but they are a bucket of ballots that have traditionally -- traditionally, i know this from my time on campaigns -- benefited democrats and really just sort of helped add and pad leads that democrats have had, if that's the scenario as it is for joe biden in pennsylvania. but because we're in the middle of a pandemic and donald trump main-lined that direction to his voters for weeks and months before the election not to trust the mail, to go vote in person, it could have a chunk of trump vote in it as well. >> with apologies to lawrence and ashley, i'm told steve is off the phone and can hear us. steve, one more time for folks

who are tracking this vote in pennsylvania, of these provisional ballots, and nicolle did a great job explaining what they are, what kind of numbers are we talking about? how many? >> that's the first part of it. we don't have an exact number. we're trying to get a sense of it here because the estimate here is 100,000. we're trying to get numbers from all the different counties around the state. the estimate is that there's 100,000 of them statewide. now, that's a ballpark figure. that's much higher than you would normally have in a presidential election in pennsylvania. it's a significantly higher number. so that possibility that you're getting, one of the reasons why it's significantly higher is you're getting more republican voters in there. you're getting more voters from republican areas in there than you normally would. it's a very valid possibility. i can hear you talk about it, the idea that the assumption the provisional ballot is a

democratic waballot, the only thing to keep in mind when we talk about this is trump doesn't need to break even and won't need to break even with the provisional vote in pennsylvania. trump's going to be coming to the provisional vote at a considerable deficit. he's now down by 27,000 votes. and again, that 27,000-vote deficit is going to continue to grow as more of the mail vote comes in. so if we get any more mail vote releases tonight from these counties, you can expect biden's lead is going to grow. once all the mail is counted, whatever biden's lead is at that point, that is what trump needs to win the provisional vote by. otherwise he can't catch biden. so you could see, if it is, let's say, 100,000 votes in the provisional vote pool, just take it right now, if it was 27,130 votes, you know, this has got to

be, like, 63-37. trump would have to be winning that vote by. it's not a question of there could be more republicans in here. trump is going to have to win the overwhelming share of it if there's 100,000 votes in there because he's going to have a lot of ground to make up coming out of these absentee and mail ballots. >> steve, thank you for that. lawrence o'donnell, to the politics of this moment and what is normally the kind of ceremony of this moment. you've been around politics a long time. talk about what should be going on inside the white house as opposed to what we know and what ashley is going to tell us what is going on inside the west wing. >> well, we have tonight the standard gap between those two things. there's always been a gap between what should be going on

in the white house since january 20th in the afternoon, 2017, and what is going on in the white house. so what should be going on is what we saw four years ago with president obama, basically once you get to the congratulations stage, which understandably would be for counting reasons, we haven't gotten to here. president obama called up donald trump, congratulated him, invited him to the oval office literally the nenext day. none of that is going to happen and donald trump is not going to attend the inauguration of joe biden. donald trump is not going to, you know, show joe biden around the white house. they're going to try to sabotage the transition in every way they can. meanwhile, there's no better conceivable president-elect when joe biden becomes that in these circumstances than joe biden because no one has more experience on how to go into that white house without the

help of a preceding president. and so joe biden is the strongest position person to try to pull off a transition while being sabotaged by the outgoing administration. and joe biden, of course, everyone agrees has handled himself flawlessly from the minute votes started to be counted. >> yeah, that's a great point, lawrence. he hasn't been away from that white house long. he's probably got that white house -- he's probably got some chapstick and a couple sharpies in a desk drawer he'll be able to recover when he gets back. ashley parker, the irreplaceable ashley parker who, along with the irreplaceable josh dawsey, has written a piece about what's going on in not only the west wing, but broadened the circle out, the president's circle writ large, the people who talks to on the telephone, the people who

think they might get him to listen to them. ashley, go through your reporting for the folks watching. >> sure. so the president today -- we did not see him in person. that was deliberate on the part of his aides and advisers who largely agreed that what he did thursday night, that torrent from the briefing room of falsehoods and baseless accusations that the election is somehow fraudulent, they thought that was a problem and they managed to keep the president out of public view. he did release a public statement where he said he was going to be fighting and behind the scenes we know he was calling aides and advisers and urging them to get on tv and defend him. he said there was some dawning this was going to be tough. a fight he thought he could win. but while all that was going on, we also found out that, you know, a group of advisers close to the president yesterday and today have finally broached with the president himself this notion that the reality is he

very well may not win. in fact, it looks increasingly likely that he will not win, and they are trying to get him to a place where just about everyone we talked to said this is donald trump, he's not going to give a traditional concession speech. he's not going to do that thing where you are gracious and magnanimous and you welcome the next person into the white house and you show up you and clap politely at their inauguration. they're trying to get him to a head space where he doesn't necessarily say, quote, unquote, i lost or admit defeat, but at least commit to some form of public remarks of peaceful transition of power. that is where things stand right now. >> nicolle wallace, i have to admit having heard you are earlier this evening with jon meacham talking about the concession john mccain

delivered. this is a dicey business if done right. if done well, it can be memorable and set the mood. >> i walked in from doing the final round of interviews on election day, and the last one as a spokesperson for the mccain/palin ticket was with you. i walked back into john mccain's suite and he was a pleasure to work for. he said, oh, sorry you had to do that. on a losing campaign, you can read the polls, you know what's going to happen. and he handed me his copy of a concession speech and said read this, it's mark's best. the two men, who really did love each other, had tears in their eyes. and i read it and it was one of the most important speeches two john mccain. there was such an undercurrent, the earliest faces of donald trump's birther movement

swirling in the republican party and john mccain for a lot of reasons thought it was of vital national importance to bestow all the credibility and legitimacy and dignity onto the president-elect. losing is brutal. it is heartbreaking. nobody wants to lose. i don't know that anyone ever gets over it. but everyone before donald trump who has run for president sees a national good, a national purpose greater than their own heartbreak from the defeat and does what ashley parker is reporting donald trump doesn't plan to do. >> lawrence, back to my first question and your first answer. this is an echo of how politics were done. maybe, maybe we'll be -- will be again someday. >> will definitely be again someday. this is all the unique exception of donald trump that is all

based on his personality which has been mapped for us by his niece, mary trump, and other professionals, psychiatrists, and psychologists who have study this mind. they make the point that he cannot concede. it doesn't exist within his menu of human choice. it's not that he won't or, you know, kind of resistant to it. it's a physical impossibility. it would be like asking him to run the new york city marathon. he cannot do it. and that's been obvious from the start, from the first day of donald trump as a campaigner. and so -- by the way, i think it's actually a really good marker for historians that they'll be able to see this, and then there was this one who did not concede. there was this one who did not invite the successor into the oval office. there was this single one who did all these things that no one

else even dreamed of doing. he's laying down perfect tracks for historians to have absolutely no confusion about who and what this man was. >> one more quick question to ashley parker. there are aspects of the machinery of the presidency that, in fact, if biden prevails and he is up over 270 are going to be -- a lot of them are already en route, if not on site in delaware. and that is just a bump up in secret service protection. there's more layers, the press corps expands, the aircraft expands, so does the attention. i'm imagining that kind of thing, that perceptible power shift up by 95 will also get to donald trump if indeed it happens. >> i would imagine that's the case, brian. one thing that was interesting today was that people we talked

to said the president -- this has not been his stance since elections day. he's really vacillated. but he said he was generally calm and calling people and giving them updates and explaining his path on how he thought he could win. but he was not sort of the angry and defiant donald trump that we saw yesterday. but this is a man who spent the day in the oval office watching television, and as soon as the networks and the newspapers and the people who do this sort of work declare that joe biden is the president-elect, that is the sort of thing, that if we're looking at history of our judge, will enrage donald trump. and i think that may be when we see some more of the potentially angry behavior that we sometimes see out of him. one more thing that's important to mention is, you know, aides say, look, the idea that donald trump would have to be if he loses removed by force was never really the case.

someone called it a liberal fever dream. but the idea that he may continue to sow distrust in the democratic institutions is incredibly dangerous and damaging. for whatever reason, his ego, it's about the groundwork, not the normal crisis of a president, but the coronavirus which we're not talking about, but cases are continuing to spike every single day. and he inherits a country where the president has told his supporters, you know, a little less than half of the country that joe biden is not the legitimate president. that is a devastating landscape for joe biden and for democracy. >> we are really grateful to be able to talk to these three initial guests. our thanks tonight to our friends, nicolle wallace, lawrence o'donnell, and ashley parker for hanging out with us and starting us off. just to show our homework and be transparent, mike memoli mentioned that we are waiting

and watching the biden home about 15 minutes away from the biden speech location. there has been no movement yet. joe biden is not yet en route to campaign headquarters. we will let you know. we have an embed there with elements of the motorcade. we'll let you know when he starts moving there. right now republicans and the trump campaign are zeroing in, as you know, on the state of pennsylvania with these various election lawsuits. the legal challenges come as biden expands his lead on donald trump. again, to ashley's point, none of this is going unnoticed. with us for more, neal katyal, a veteran of the justice department, acting solicitor general, the top lawyer before the supreme court during the obama administration. he has argued 42 cases before the u.s. supreme court. counselor, i know i've asked you

this before, but with each new day, there seems to be a new lawsuit. do any of these cases you've seen bring any merit? do any of them make you sit back and examine the argument? and please tell your audience why a justice of the supreme court was involved tonight. >> well, earlier tonight, brian, i said to ari melber, i gave the scholarly legal term for what trump's value is, it's an arcane term, it's butkus. there's nothing here. i mean, you started the show tonight by saying trump is flooding the zone with lawsuits and you're absolutely right. there's a lot of lawsuits he's filed. he's filed seven since election day. he's gone 0 for 7 in the lawsuits. and that trend is going to continue. it's not going to get better for him. the best chance he's had, and this is what you're asking about, is pennsylvania, where basically pennsylvania's legislature has said that

ballots have to arrive by election day, on tuesday, and the pennsylvania supreme court said, no, they have to arrive by friday. that led the pennsylvania secretary of state to say, well, we're going to take the ballots, we're going to accept them if they come by friday, but we're going to put them in a separate pile. we're not going to count them yet and leave them alone. trump then filed an emergency motion in the supreme court that said basically keep the ballots separate. the pennsylvania officials said basically, yo, we're already keeping them separate, there's nothing we need to do here. and justice alito said tonight in an opinion, please keep them separate, which is exactly pennsylvania said they were doing. so you had people like sean spicer get on twitter saying, oh, this is a big victory for the president. i mean, it's a victory in the same way as if donald trump managed to say the sky is blue without mangling it. the supreme court would agree, yes, the sky is blue.

that doesn't help him legally. and the reason why it doesn't help him is two-fold. one is these ballots haven't been counted yet, and yet biden is well in the lead. so this is just gravy for biden these extra ballots. if they are counted, they will presumably help him, but he doesn't need it. the second problem is legally it's a really dubious theory, justice alito didn't get into it, but basically no supreme court has ever accepted this, no supreme court majority in our 200 years of our history. if i'm joe biden tonight, i'm feeling really good right now about where i am in the election count, but i'm also feeling really good about the law. >> well, there you go bringing in another legal term like gravy. let me ask you about a third. you can answer this perhaps just as a citizen of the united states and an involved one at that. whenever you're trying to stop the counting of legally cast

votes, isn't that a bad look? >> it's not just a bad look, and it's not just a bad strategy, it's fundamentally un-american. and i think if you go back and look over the course of 200 years of election law, which i managed to have to do because i was arguing the voting rights acts case, you're putting the finger on the fundamental principle. you don't need to be a lawyer to get it. you just need to be an american to understand what is more precious to us than our ability to vote our leaders? here you've got a president who's going in now seven different times to different courts saying throw this out because of this technicality. that signature isn't the same. you move these ballots off one table to another, therefore, they don't count, it's literally trying to disenfranchise americans and that is our greatest check this that our founders gave us against the executives. that's the power to vote him out of office. and that looks like, if the counts are right, what the

american people did on tuesday. >> neal katyal, whose latest argument before the supreme court, by the way, virtual though it was, number 42 happened to be this week. counselor, a pleasure always to have you and your counsel on our broadcast. coming up for us, word has just reached us that joe biden is, in fact, now leaving his wilmington house. drive time eta, approximately 15 minutes. but he is under way and en route to the convention center. we are still awaiting his remarks. a quick break. we'll be back right after this. introducing voltaren arthritis pain gel. the first full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel... available over the counter. voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel.

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, again, joe biden apparently en route from his home in wilmington to this venue. we still don't have confirmation as to whether his remarks are going to take place outdoors or at the inside podium they have set up in the press briefing cent center. such as it is in our era of social distancing in an uncontrolled pandemic. because pennsylvania is occupying so much of the time and attention, we want to go to harrisburg, the state capitol. our national correspondent chris jansing has been on post there. chris, i want to just lay it out to you this way. anything you have heard in our discussion of the coverage of pennsylvania and the count that you can fill in from there? >> yeah. i would say there is a growing discontent that i'm hearing from some elections offices about the way that this is being approached by the president and

republicans. the criticism they've had about what they see as the i will legitimacy of this election, the ballots should be counted and they're getting more vocal about it, brian, especially as these folks are continuing to sit there night after night and continuing to work. it's not like they're getting rich doing this. they're doing it very carefully, very pain stakingly. in fact, they felt so strongly about it in bucks county, they put out a statement that read in part, any criticism of the integrate of this election is a direct attack on the integrate of these citizens. they are men and women of all backgrounds. we've been hearing that increasingly from elections officials in various counties. and i was talking to some folks today, democrats who have long supported joe biden, who've been behind him from the beginning, who encouraged him to come here

more than any other state, and like millions of other americans and joe biden himself surely, they had hoped, they had expected by now he would be able to say that he was the president-elect, and that perhaps pennsylvania had delivered it to him. but as one of these folks said to me just a short time ago, he said, listen, you don't do that on the backs of criticizing people who are just trying to get the job done. and so like everyone else, the folks who have supported joe biden for a long time as he makes his way to the chase center are trying to just take a deep breath and let this all play out, brian. >> our senior national correspondent, chris jansing. chris makes a terrific point. we've been watching these counters on some of the closed circuit and web cams in these counting centers. these are either volunteers or for the most part minimum wage, hourly hires. the work is mentally exhausting,

standing and walking on concrete floors for your entire shift is physically tiring. it tends to be thankless. if you want to blame anyone for how any of this has gone to underscore chris' point, don't blame them, please. in this case, they are public servants. we want to read you something from our own director of elections, and that's a gentleman named john lapinski. john teaches at the university of pennsylvania, the ashley parker alma mater. and he has put this out tonight. and i don't blame him because there's so much attention on the various network decision desks. the nbc news decision desks, john lapinski notes, this particular year there are just so many curveballs that we are taking more time to make sure we

understand exactly what we're seeing and analyzing it. john is a friend to so many of us at the network and he's a guy whose job is pretty calm, except for this time of year every two years when he just works incredibly long hours and is dealing with the incoming data and tries in the decision desk realm to remain impervious to the outside pressure. they do not see television coverage where our decision desk is, so they're unaware of other news organizations who may be calling races. they try to stay linear. they try to stay in each individual silo, call the races when the numbers add up. now, speaking of numbers, speaking of an ongoing count, there's arizona to think about. vaughn hillyard is our

correspondent in scottsdale, arizona, tonight. vaughn, we've been away from arizona for a bit. for our audience just tuning in tonight, update us on the situation in that state. >> to echo you, brian, we trust john and the elections desk when we're talking about these numbers. frankly, is new numbers out of maricopa county tonight don't seal the deal in the state of arizona. that's why the decision has not yet been made out of the desert here. there is an additional batch of about 70,000 ballots that dropped here today. they were under that 59% threshold that we have been saying over the last 24 hours the president needed to hit. but it was at 55%. so i was doing a bit of calculations here. outstanding maricopa county ballots, total is 90 margin points. when you do math, we expect that 90,000 ballots to look a lot like the ballots that dropped here tonight. so then the question comes down to the ballots outside of maricopa county. brian, there are 80,000

non-maricopa ballots in the state of arizona. that will be our focus point from here out. so what do those 80,000 ballots look like? look at the counties that are outstanding, that have the most outstanding ballots. those include the likes of pima county, cochise, navajo county. among the 80,000, donald trump is going to have to win about 63% of those ballots. what we saw today out of those counties, the percentage, in pima the number was 52%. cochise county, 64.6%. navajo county, 67.3%. again, from those counties he's got to get 63% of those remaining 80,000 ballots outside of maricopa county. that is why this race right now the margin is 29,000.

but we expect with about 170,000 ballots still outstanding across the state of arizona for that number to continue to decrease and the president of the united states is still in this ball game. if this was the bottom of the ninth, you could make the case that donald trump keeps fouling off the pitch with two strikes. it's enough to stay in the game, but that's all they need as these ballots continue. >> i got it, vaughn. thank you for that and thank you for that rundown. you don't need me to tell you what we've been looking at on the left side of the screen is the biden motorcade arriving in wilmington at the venue. we were talking about the machinery of government, especially the personnel involved in security. well, the biden motorcade, even though he is not yet -- if he is indeed named as president-elect, if he indeed gets pushed over 270, it has still increased in

size exponentially just with time and the level of interest and importance, especially with what the secret service believes may be about to happen. steve kornacki back in the studio. steve, do you have a development? >> yeah. more vote came in. allegheny county, pittsburgh, a bit more for biden. his statewide lead expands at 28,833. i believe that changes the decimal point. it's now half a point. joe biden now leading statewide in pennsylvania by half a point, 28,833. allegheny county, pittsburgh, remember they had a bunch of ballots, they couldn't count them yesterday and for much of today. there was a whole legal issue there after a mail error. so they have now provided several updates tonight. we're trying to get word if they are still counting because there are more votes to come from

allegheny. the question is will we get more votes reported out from allegheny tonight. but this latest, it's a small bunch, but joe biden gains ground with it and his statewide lead stands, now sitting close to 30,000. 28,833, brian. >> one more question about the pesky provisionals. can we not call a state with that many provisionals outstanding? >> it's a question for the decision desk, i have to say. you know, we've seen -- i think what we're not used to seeing, put it this way, what we're not used to seeing are elections with this many, you know, provisional ballots. but i think the question becomes how big is the lead for the candidate before you get to the provisional ballots? you know, is it within the range of where the provisional ballots could plausibly change it? but i let the decision desk

speak to exactly what goes through their calculations. that's how i would think about it standing here explaining it to you. >> got it. thank you, steve. we'll come back to you if you get anything else in. back us tonight are two friends of our broadcast, eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post," and michael steel, happens to be former chairman of the republican national committee, these days the host of "the michael steele podcast" because he probably had the perfect name for it. senior adviser also to the lincoln project. good to see you both again. eugene, this is the longest i've gone without talking to you, probably three days. but you've been a columnist and all. you have a pulitzer prize prize an and all. almost a lonesome picture of a venue all dressed up and nowhere

to go, all decade out for an acceptance speech, all decade out for an event that is -- we're on the verge of it, they can feel it, they can taste it, you can see it in the numbers if you look hard enough. it's not been conferred upon him yet. this is going to be an unromantic status report. so where would you put this period in the life of joe biden, eugene? >> well, you know, look, this is just a continuation of 2020, right? why would anything be normal in this year? this is a very close election that's taking place in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and so of course the daily maw is going to be like none other we've seen. and we're in this sort of point of suspended animation when we have to count all the votes and

it must be very difficult. yet thrilling too for joe biden because it is very likely that he emerges as the winner and becomes president of the united states and that's got to be thrilling and humbling and just a mix of feelings, all of which have to be suspended at the time. just a random thought. you know, we talk a lot about the mainstream media and what dinosaurs are and how outdated -- we're too biased or too timid or whatever. when you need to know who won a presidential election, who are you going to call? the entire world is waiting the american mainstream media to tell them who the next president of the united states is. so i think reports of our collective demise are perhaps a bit premature. >> i've thought about that, eugene. you're absolutely right. we are so fortunate at our particular company to have an

ivy league professor whose life's work is polling and surveys. but every one of the major media companies has his equivalent, has a very talented, experienced person who is taking this work so seriously and approaching the subject with such diligence. yes, to be candid, because we've been wrong in the past. we've gotten numbers wrong. there's a lot of scrutiny, as there should be on our math, on our numbers, on our projections. some networks are hanging out there having already delivered arizona, a step we were not willing to take. we're not hiding anything from anybody with a phone. you can see that we've been at 253. other networks have been at 264

this whole time. we are holding where we are and we have our reasons. i'm waiting only because we are now within the two-minute warning. i'm told that joe biden and kamala harris arrived, went in the back entrance to the holding room where we are expecting them to come right up here and deliver their remarks. so michael steele, we'll get to you after this. here comes the democratic ticket approaching the stage and they are indeed using the indoor venue. >> my fellow americans, we don't have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us a clear and convincing story we're going to win this race. just look at what's happened since yesterday, 24 hours we were behind in georgia, now we're ahead and we're going to

win that state. 24 hours ago, we were behind in pennsylvania and we are going to win pennsylvania. and now we're ahead, but we're winning in arizona, winning in . in fact, our lead just doubled in nevada. we're on track to over 300 electoral college votes, and look at the national numbers. we're going to win this race with a clear majority with the nation behind us. we've gotten over 74 million votes. let me repeat that. 74 million votes. that's more than any presidential ticket has ever gotten in the history of the united states of america. and our vote total is still growing. we're beating trump over 4 million votes, and that's a margin still growing as well. one of the things i'm especially proud of is how well we've done across america. and we're going to be the first

democrat to win in arizona in 24 years. we're going to be the first democrat to win georgia in 28 years, and we've rebuilt the blue wall in the middle of the country that crumbled just 4 years ago. pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, the heartland of this nation. i know watching these vote tallies on tv moves very slow and as slow as it goes, it can be numbing. but never forget the tallies aren't just numbers. they represent votes and voters. men and women who exercise their fundamental right to have their voice heard. and what's becoming clear each hour is that record number of americans of all races, faiths, religions chose change over more of the same. they've given us a mandate for action on covid, the economy, climate change, systemic racism.

they've made it clear they want the country to come together not continue to pull apart. the people spoke. more than 74 million americans, and they spoke loudly for our ticket. but while we're waiting for the final results, i want people to know we're not waiting to get the work done and start the process. yesterday senator harris and i held meetings with groups of experts on public health and the economic crisis this country is facing. the pandemic as you also know is getting more worrisome all across the country. daily cases are skyrocketing. it is now believed we could spike and see as many as 200,000 cases in a single day. the death toll is approaching 240,000 lives lost to this virus. that's 240,000 empty chairs at kitchen tables and dining room tables all across america.

we'll never be able to measure all that pain and the loss and suffering so many families have experienced. we know something about what it feels like to lose someone. and i want them to know they're not alone. our hearts break with you. and i want everyone, everyone to know on day one we're going to put our plan to control this virus into action. we can't save any of the lives lost and any of those that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead. senator harris and i also heard yesterday about how the recovery is slowing. more than 20 million people are unemployment. millions are worried about making rent and putting food on the table. our economic plan will put a focus on a path to a strong recovery. look, we both know tensions are

high. they can be high after a tough election, one like we've had, but we need to remember we have to remain calm, patient, let the process work out as we count all the votes. you know, we're proving again what wave proved for 244 years in this country. democracy works. your vote will be counted. i don't care how hard people try to stop it, i will not let it happen. the people will be heard in our journey to a more perfect union and it keeps moving on. in america we have strong views, we have strong disagreements and that's okay. strong disagreements are inevitable in a democracy. strong disagreements are healthy. they're a sign of a vigorous debate of deeply held views. but we have to remember the purpose of our politics is a

total unrelenting, unending warfare. no, the purpose of our politics, the work of the nation isn't to fan the flames of conflict but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot and to improve the lives of our people. we may be opponents, but we're not enemies. we're americans, and no matter who you voted for i'm certain of one thing. the vast majority of 150 million americans who voted, they want to get the vitriol out of our politics. we have to put the anger and demonization behind us. it's time for us to come together as a nation to heal. it's not going to be easy, but we have to try. my responsibility as president

will be the represent the whole nation. and i want you to know that i'll work as hard for those who voted against me as those who voted for me. that's the job. that's the job. it's called the duty of care for all americans. we have serious problems to deal with from covid to the economy, racial justice to climate change. we don't have anymore time to waste on partisan warfare. you know, and more than that we have such an incredible opportunity to build a future we want for our kids and our grandkids. i've said many, many times i've never been more optimistic about the future of this nation. there is no reason we can't own the 21st century. we just need to remember who we are. this is the united states of america, and there's never been anything -- anything we've been unable to do, unavailable to accomplish when we've done it together.

i hope to be talking to you tomorrow. i want to thank you all and may god bless you and may god protect our troops. good night. >> so michael steele, we were about to talk to you and you get to be the one summing up as we approach the top of the hour, summing up what we just heard a status report by any definition from the former vice president. >> yeah, very powerful. and there are two things that jumped out to me in what he said. the first, we may be opponents but we're not enemies. and i think that's an important value set as we go into the next turn after this election. that those who harbor these kinds of animosities towards neighbor and friend and family members and, you know, republicans verse democrats, i

think the vice president's trying to strike a tone, brian, that says, look, you know we can do knock down, drag out, we can go toe to toe, but we're not enemies of each other. and the next battle we're going to need to do shoulder to shoulder. and the second one when he said i'll be the president for those who supported me and for those who voted against me, that's the job. it's called, you know, what is it, the duty of care. and that, again, i think is a another important message to send out to the country that, you know, look, i know a lot of you 70 million didn't vote for me, i get it, i said that but i'm your president. and that's going to be an important message as well. he's setting those blocks in place that will be part of the foundation of not only his

transition but his administration. he's going to need that not just for the first 100 days but for the year because covid-19 and the civil unrest will still be an important challenge. >> and eugene, back over to you because this the conversation you and i have had so many times, the traditional notion of stewardship, the president is steward of all of us and protector ideally of all of us. >> yes, and that's what we grew up as the president's role and the president's job regardless of whether it was a republican president or a democratic president or regardless of whether or not we agreed or disagreed with the president's policies. let's face it, president trump is a president like no other. we've never had a president like that. we cannot imagine, for example or at least i cannot imagine

that if indeed he loses as it looks as if he will, he will graciously hand over the reins of power, that he would invite vice president biden to the white house, that he would do a president does when leaving the office to his successor. and that's a very strange feeling. joe biden was sure. he sounded like the presidents we used to hear. >> well, people can change and there's still some time to go. we still have to get to 270 it occurs to me. our thanks to michael steele, eugene robinson, two friends of the broadcast for hanging out with us tonight. and with that at the top of the 11:00 hour eastern time, good evening once again. day 1,387 of the trump administration. night four of our week-long