good evening once again. day 1387. >> former vice president joe biden is on the verge of reaching that goal. that much we can say. by our count biden still has 253 electoral votes. donald trump with 214. that means the former vice president just 17 shy of the magic number of 270, that means that the went electoral votes in pennsylvania, to name one commonwealth, would do it. if you were watching, you know a

short time ago biden offered an update on this unusual situation. >> we're going to win this race with a clear majority of the nation behind us. we've gotten over 74 million votes. let me repeat that, 74 million votes. more than any presidential ticket has ever gotten in the history of the united states of america. what's becoming clear each hour is that record number of americans of all faiths, religion, chose change over more of the same. >> biden has extended his lead over trump in state of pennsylvania. win there would mean the suspense is over. former vice president also continues to lead in nevada and in georgia, a state democrats have not won as you heard him

say since 1992. biden also remains ahead in state of arizona where just today democrats officially picked up a badly wanted senate seat. nbc news projects the democrat mark kelly has defeated republican incumbent senator martha mcsally. we also know as part of our coverage never to be away from steve kornacki for too long. back we go inside the studio to steve and the big board. help me fact check joe biden. when all is said and done, projects north of 300 electoral votes. any reason to doubt that?

>> most direct path for biden is pennsylvania. he is leading and every update from the mail-in ballots still being counted he continues to increase his lead. built up half a point. if he were to hold on in pennsylvania, where he figures to get a bigger lead as the mail ballots come in, would keep him at 273 as president-elect. biden is trailing by significant number there. if you're waiting for officials, tough to see biden getting votes, north carolina would be tough for him. georgia you mentioned, biden has a very light 4300 to 4400 lead.

looks like all the votes are accounted for but they're in recount zone. provisional ballots. lot of factors will delay getting final result from georgia. but if biden were to get georgia where he leads by slightest of margins, it's not out of the question. then arizona, clinging to lead over donald trump. trump continues to erode. it. there's a question, every time we're checking the percentage of the trump votes. last updates he's been short of, missing the pace he needs to be at to overtake biden. right now on pace to come close but not close enough. still other votes to come. let's see. biden, if he hangs on there, if trump doesn't get votes he needs, could put biden at 300.

then got nevada. nevada right now, biden sitting on a lead of 22,000. tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in clark county, las vegas area, expected to do well with those. provisional ballots for trump but would need enormous share. evidence there's lot of democratic votes in there. if biden held on to nevada, would be 306 electoral votes. >> number one, are they counting any votes arrived post election day in pennsylvania? number two, do you have any questions for arizona secretary of state? i have guests stacked up like jets over laguardia, she's two from now, holding for us. >> basic question, when do they anticipate the process being complete in arizona. that's the key question.

i know the pennsylvania question you asked, how raheem ellis has been talking about this. when they give us the totals of unreported ballots in pennsylvania, there's thing that ballots that arrived after election day, they're setting them aside, part of the complicated, potential legal maneuvering for post election legal fights. but "x" number of ballots uncounted, asking if they're including the late arriving ballots in there. we don't have clarity in that, it's important question and variable in pennsylvania. >> okay. steve, thank you. indeed we can bring in katie hobbes, the secretary of state for state of arizona, patiently waiting for us. madam secretary, i thought steve was going to hit us with a complex technical question for you, no, nuh-uh, he wants to

know same thing all of us want to know, timing. when do you think the count will be done in your fine state? >> we've got about 173,000 ballots left, bulk of those are in maricopa county and plan to be counting through the weekend. going to update us twice tomorrow. i think that should give us the bulk of the rest of their ballots. want to say there's about 46,000 provisional ballots in the state. and just a caveat on those, first of all obviously not all provisional ballots are counted, that's why they're provisional, we have to see if they're eligible voters. as they get verified, they can start to be processed. but by law counties have up to tuesday to finally verify those. if voters have to come back to show i.d. they have until tuesday to do that. some of the provisional ballots will not be able to be counted

until after tuesday. but i can assure you, i think that's going to be very small amount of the entire vote totals left in the state. >> i want to give you one last question and give you an opportunity to stick up for the folks doing the work as we try to every hour of the day. it is exhausting and thankless and the counting goes on, and i know there's craziness going on outside the building they can hear inside. >> yeah, thank you so much for that. these folks really are working around the clock. know the pressure is on, that arizona is under the spotlight and everybody wants these answers. and they're working so hard to get them to us. and having to deal with these angry protesters as they walk into and out of the building. and nobody should have to do this work of really upholding our democracy and making sure election laws are carried out

and then be badgered for doing their jobs. >> hear hear, absolutely. thank you for saying that. thank you for being patient with us. thank you for the work you're doing, katie hobbes, secretary of state in great state of arizona. let's go nearby to las vegas, in nevada. correspondent jo ling kent is standing by there. jo, same circumstance, folks in nevada are working hard to count up all the votes as increased public attention focuses on their work. >> reporter: there's a lot of focus on the remaining 54,000 mail-in ballots and 60,000 provisional ballots they say they're going to only count after finishing the mail-ins, only sunday. big question marks how they're going to break. as we've said, mail-in ballots tend to break for the democrats

historically b historically but we'll have to wait and see on that front. lawsuit brought by individual voter, jill stoky out here seeking injunction to stop the counting of the vote with certain machines they use in clark county, claiming improper voting. lawsuit has been ruled now that injunction has been denied. it's a loss on the legal front for trump supporters and the trump campaign, which initially explained what that lawsuit was at a press conference at clark county registrar yesterday. so there's a lot going on here. we expect to get another batch of votes tomorrow, twice in the morning, then in the afternoon. i'll ask the registrar more questions about the pace of the vote. to be honest we haven't had a ton of access as we have in other areas of the country to go inside and see on regular basis

how the vote is being processed and secured and counted. we're asking for more access to see what's happening. 90% of the outstanding folks from nevada are from clark county, brian. >> thanks for the work you're doing there, jo. good to see the strip behind you, even though we know business has yet to come back to that city, the economic engine for state of nevada. >> that's right. >> jo ling kent in las vegas tonight. bring in leadoff conversation after all for this busy hour on a friday night. alexi mccammen, political reporter at axios and barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney for eastern district of michigan. alexi first to you, latest reporting on the president's mindset, the advice people are trying to give him, how much air

support he will get from republicans, how many other republicans will stand up and remind the president and people around him, especially if biden goes up over 270, what's supposed to be done in this instance. >> you know, brian, i actually think if we look at joe biden's speech tonight and president trump's absence from today and remarks from this week, can see real contrasts in how president trump is viewing the end of this election and how he can move forward. we hear him cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and the very democratic process of participating in this election. and we hear the way he's sowing division and chaos in the entire process. whereas joe biden comes forward to talk about the way forward, not talking about himself but integrity of the process and moving forward past this moment. we know that president trump is looking at same numbers that joe

biden's team is looking at and not feeling good about those things. part of the reason why we're not hearing much from him but when we are, not about wanting a legitimate process and every person's vote to be counted but saying that certain ballots are illegal without evidence and claiming fraud, which he doesn't have proof for, because he's seeing the numbers not move in his direction or his favor. joe biden stepping up to fill the void of leadership, the way the biden campaign views it, to show american people who he would be in contested election with president trump but who he would be if he were elected president and leading the american people you through this moment. that's the real contrast here. >> barbara mcquade, if you were running legal for the biden campaign, would any of these lawsuits that you see out there worry you about getting to count

all the votes? >> no, frankly not a single one. until earlier today i had a little bit of concern about what was happening in pennsylvania. as you've been reporting earlier, the state supreme court had said they could count ballots received after election day up until friday. but there was some uncertainty whether those would stick in the end or possibly be discarded by the supreme court. we had order by justice alito to say make sure those ballots are segregated to be looked at later, which is exactly what the pennsylvania secretary of state had already ordered them to do. tonight the "new york times" have said those ballots are not being counted in public reports released in pennsylvania. and that those numbers of those three days worth of ballots are in the thousands but not tens of thousands. with a lead by joe biden approaching 30,000 i believe

steve kornacki told us recently, no matter what happens with the ballots received those days, not going to put a dent in joe biden's lead in pennsylvania. >> barb, do you concur with neal katyal, during our conversation earlier, anytime you're suing to stop the counting of votes cast by americans it's a bad look? >> it is, brian, because it shows you're not trying to enfranchise people but disenfranchise people. i read a report that said of the 40 lawsuits that either the trump campaign or republican party was involved in across the country, in exactly zero of them were they seeking to permit people to vote. in all of those cases they were seeking to stop people from voting. it is a bad look in a country where people have died for the right to vote. >> alexie, nbc news has confirmed a story i believe was

broken by bloomberg tonight that mark meadows, the president's chief of staff, few closer to him in the orbit, up for election night, is covid positive. mr. meadows' health aside and we hope for the very best, adds to the visual of a president trying to operate independent of the greatest mass casualty event in modern times. >> that was something that was kind of striking about joe biden's remarks tonight in terms of the contrast again. we don't hear president trump talking about the realities of the coronavirus pandemic even as those in his inner circuit continue to test positive and not take it as seriously as rest of the country is forced to, our entire way of life upended by the pandemic. heard joe biden talk about families grieving because

they've lost loved ones to the virus, saying they don't have to deal with this alone. we don't hear this from president trump to the american families, or even with those close to him testing positive or his wife and son test positive, it's a passing mention that they contracted this and moved on. further extension of this idea that republicans in large part and president trump are not living in same reality the rest of us are forced to because of the pandemic. and it's getting worse. u.s. had over 100,000 coronavirus cases in a single day, greatest number so far. winter is coming, things are only going to get worse and we don't have a plan for the way forward under current leadership that's being articulated. that's reflected in polling that shows that majority of the

american people trust joe biden, who is not president, doesn't have hand in implementing policy to deal with this, they trust joe biden to handle this pandemic more than donald trump who is currently handling it. that's reflected in the way he talks about it or doesn't, and folks around him contract the virus and continue to move about life in normal way without taking it seriously. >> these two guests, both friends of our brought, have run gamut from law to politics to current pandemic. thanks to alexie and barbara. still has to answer for the michigan/michigan state game. >> too soon. just ahead for us, as we mentioned, one of the president's closest advisers confirmed to have tested positive for the coronavirus. we will ask our own dr. vin

gupta about that. as this special edition of "the 11th hour" is just getting started on this consequential friday night. ial friday night when you switch to xfinity mobile,

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in the midst of this historic election, another grim milestone in the coronavirus

pandemic. nbc news confirming another single day record, a grim one, over 122,000 cases reported just today in our country. death toll is now north of 236,000 souls. back with us again, dr. vin gupta, critical care doc specializing in these illnesses and university of washington's institute of health metrics and evaluation. as i like to remind him to embarrass him he has degrees from princeton, cambridge, harvard and columbia med and serves our country in the air force reserve. losing over 1,000 souls a day. over 122,000 of a new caseload just today only. i get our attention is elsewhere, a presidential campaign centered around an uncontrolled pandemic in our

country, but these numbers this week really underscore that word "uncontrolled." >> good evening, brian, good to see you, you nailed it. this is -- i know there's a universe, reality we've come to expect from our current elected leaders still guiding our response until january 20th. here is the alternate reality that americans maybe don't see as often. there is a health care worker shortage, respiratory therapies, isu nurses are in short supply. talk about icu bed capacity on the dakota plains where they're issuing emergency licenses for emergency docs. massive lockdowns, el paso military personnel are getting

deployed. we're in the middle of a disaster and need our leaders to act like it, brian. estimates from my home institute, we're exhausted talking about it but in worst of it now and need leadership and public's attention most focused. >> take you up on that, snap back the public's attention to just dealing in this pandemic, what could we do this week that would be a deposit on bringing the numbers down? >> as always, demo. if you don't have it all right, any department store, all americans should move up from cloth mask to three-ply surgical mask, can get at any department store. we think it's better than the cloth mask, which is good but this is better. standard is n-95, we don't have

enough of those. reconsider any thanksgiving plans where you're convening in home. household gatherings, heard anecdotal tales that's a close contact situation. worried about people getting on planes now. i used to think might have been safe haven but seeing data from europe, even masked and wearing eye shields you're exposed. ireland people in plane came down with infection even doing all the right things. caution on holidays. three-ply surgical masks and demand every american should make of the government. i hear how do you travel safely, live safely, everybody should have access to home test. need fda to prioritize the studies for rapid testing at home to be a reality if not near

term by end of q1 2021 so we can normalize life as vaccine is rolled out. get these masks and rethink holiday plans. >> our friend dr. vin gupta, thank you so much coming on tonight. it's important to keep attention on this topic no matter what else we're covering. more of our special edition of the 11th hour tlt after this break. hour tlt after this break.

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we have the numbers people have been tracking almost in their sleep, pennsylvania race, the pennsylvania vote count, of so much importance, getting so much attention because in that one state that happens to be the state of joe biden's birth, if

he were to be awarded the commonwealth of pennsylvania, he would go up over 270 and be named president-elect. let's talk about it because standing by in harrisburg we go back to our senior national correspondent chris jansing, since everybody asks us and wants to know where the decision is from our decision desk, i get to ask you what is taking so long with the count from pennsylvania? >> reporter: if i had a dollar for every time i was asked that question today, let me tell you, tried to do a deep dive in allegheny county. one of the many reasons it's important is start of the day today, accounted for about a quarter of the outstanding ballots across the state. we've seen the votes come in, 5600 first, and steve updated with another 9,000.

here's what's going on throughout the course of the day and what elections officials want you to know what the workers are dealing with. when our folks were looking, about 80 people sitting and working diligently. started with 5,000 ballots, combination of the ballots that essentially were damaged and had to be recreated. that means this is the painstaking work. if there's something torn, something scrunched up, you have to recreate the ballot in order for it to be counted. then after that was done, they went back and started to take in some of the overseas and military ballots. as you know those can continue to come in until tuesday. then those were fairly straight process. then after that they started canvassing of the 29,000 other ballots. these are the ones, brian, again a completely different process, where there was a printing error.

so they had to send people a second ballot. these have all been segregated. they have to make sure that the ballots that were actually submitted are the correct ballots. that's what the folks have been working on well into the night. just got information a little before 11:00, probably while we were all watching joe biden, those folks, many of whom had been working all day, worked through their lunch, although were told to take a break. have gone home, going to come back and start in the morning. looks as though statewide, the numbers not always easy to track, less than 90,000 mail-in ballots to be counted. this is exhausting work and this gives you idea it's not like at the factory doing the same thing over and over. i don't know veetta vita vej min came into my head, really late

and i'm tired, thinking of lucille ball. but people doing tasks one after other after another, then move on. that's one part of the reason. talk to the democrats, if we had been able to start before election day as we asked the republicans to be able to do, wouldn't be in this position. that's a political argument. this is where we are now with people going in every day to do the jobs and multiple jobs, brian. >> why we're calling them public servants doing this thankless work. we'll cling on to that number of 90,000. waiting for the big number, it's better than 100,000. chris jansing, senior national correspondent tonight at pennsylvania state capital in harrisburg, thank you so much as always. unexpected wait across the

country tonight in reliably red state of georgia. joe biden talked about it tonight. he's slightly ahead at this hour, recount is planned there, one of the states we're watching for you. welcome back to our broadcast, jenna arnold, activist who was organizer for the women's march on washington, and author of the latestest book "raising our hands." we also welcome back bair atuned day thurston. the host of the podcast how to citizen. good evening and welcome to you both. jenna, begin with you a question that may sound superficial. given the news and season we

think we're approaching, how often have you had of late to think back on the fast moving events that gave birth to the women's march, an event that exploded beyond anyone's wildest imagination and took over the press coverage and helped form the narrative for the early part of this presidency? >> indeed, it was the largest protest in human history and one of the things i've continued to think about over past couple of days when i've been taken aback how close the race is, what does the next chapter look like for all of us extraordinarily concerned about the direction of the country, irregardless of whatever side it is, i think about 557 marches organized

around the country by people who had never organized marches before. individual marchers, and somebody like stacey abrams, who many people are crediting for getting georgia over the line for the democratic party, not just registering another 800,000 voters but doing that at base of mountain that was sheer voter suppression. i'm hopeful and enthusiastic and excited to see how citizens mobilize moving forward. >> baratunde, we were all doing fine until we learned leslie jones is watching and listening to every word. it's channelled our behavior, we share her rapture for steve kornacki. having established that, the great political philosopher and better than average guitarist little stephen van zant said on

twitter last night, think about the results of this election, what it means is every other person you pass on the sidewalk, we know numerically, doesn't agree with you politically. what have you learned about your nation in the aftermath of this election? what's been reconfirmed for you about what you already knew? >> thank you brian, good to be back here and remind anyone watching, today is friday, which i forgot, days have lost all meaning in confusing time. i literally tweeted out what day is it. i have learned in part to celebrate everyone in this moment. we did our jobs. we turned out across every race, every place, we voted in record numbers. and now we're waiting patiently and calmly, as a real leader has asked us to do, while the election officials do their jobs. i'm grateful to my fellow

americans and these public servants as you eloquently put it and people like stacy abrams and the activists on the ground shouted out to make sure the process works with integrity, honor and highest version of our country. checkmyballot.net, you can check your provisional ballots, make sure it counts. i've been reminded we're still the nation we were founded on, in terms of devastating history of white supremacy and racial division and we've got a lot of work to do. at least now we have a fighting chance to get back to making this union a bit more perfect. >> ask you both the same question, starting with you,

baratu baratunde. 70 million of our fellow citizens voted for trump. how does that in a practical matter affect the way you approach the world? starting tomorrow, affect the way you walk through your country, knowing how divergent the two sides are? >> it's a project that i've taken on in the show, on the podcast "how to citizen," trying to live to with open heart and mind, still firmly gripped to my values. i think we have a hard road ahead. i'm not of the opinion we go out of our way to deny who we are as progressives for example and pretend not to believe what we believe. but all of us, left and right, old and young, have the opportunity to focus on what we have in common, what we all want for our society, listen more than we pronounce, ask more than

we declare. i want an opportunity for us to recommit to the process of citizenship. not as act or legal status, we can get past that and try to be the nation we said we wanted to be when we wrote it on pretty paper a long time ago. it's never going to be perfect. >> we have to hand it to the guy, podcast is called "how to citizen." >> longest math class i've ever been in. one of the things we have to remember about this country, we've had such influence globally in the 21st century not because of political leaders but because of our soldiers and people who run manufacturing plants to support their efforts. and the trenches aren't what we traditionally think in europe, in cul-de-sacs, elevators of

apartment buildings, aisles of costco. to dr. vin gupta's point, put on the three-ply mask, walk across the street, knock on neighbor's door, say i'm here if you need something. start there. this idea, we know how to take care of each other, irregardless of the political sign on our front lauchbwn. we have to lean into that to become all we desire to be. >> do you envoy the work ahead of joe biden and kamala harris? it's one thing for the three of us to have this conversation, yes, it gets jenna out of her online math class, it's another thing to be handed the keys to this country right now and said go lead, you have 74 million votes. >> i do not envy them. but i do believe in their

ability to work with us, to bring us to a better place. joe biden has been through everything we're going through. he's lost family to health crisis, he's lost family to accidents, he's been through tough economic situations. and i don't work for joe biden. technically he's about to work for me. and i just respect the journey he's been on and humanity and empathy he's brought to this. he's done -- again citing dr. gupta, jen and i on the same wavelength here, he's taking this seriously, in disaster moment we need leadership to rise to that. he understands there's no economy without covid being handled and something he said about the votes, they're not just numbers, they're the votes of our fellow americans. that's the same with covid and the economy. those are not numbers, those are human beings that we live with,

love with and that we depend on and who depend on us. i cannot imagine someone more emotionally suited to this moment than joe biden along with soon to be vp kamala harris. >> terrific answers and strong call backs on the previous guests. cable news loves that. thanks for bringing it. another break for us. final thoughts on the week we've had thus far from presidential historian and author michael beschloss after this. we're helping change the future of heart failure. understanding how to talk to your doctor about treatment options is key. today, we are redefining how we do things.

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welcome back. as i mentioned we have news out

of the white house tonight, and it is the kind of news that especially this white house does not seek and does not like. it pertains to the chief of staff to the president. going on a titular basis, the guy who is designed to be close to president on the right of your screen, mark meadows, the former congressman from north carolina. i'll read this. this is from jennifer jacobs over at bloomberg. she says along with trump's chief of staff mark meadows at least four other white house aides currently have coronavirus. per sources. pains were taken to keep meadows' illness a secret, i'm told. and people around him who knew were told to keep quiet. direct quotes from the twitter feed of the white house correspondent jennifer jacobs with bloomberg. but, again, it underscores the

subject matter that is bumping up behind us every day and every night. we are waiting for results in this election. the driving issue in this election has been the out of control pandemic that we are dealing with. we're losing over 1,000 people a day. just today over 122,000 of our fellow citizens received a coronavirus diagnosis. well, as promised back with us tonight is our friend, the dean of presidential history on twitter. but the long time presidential author and biographer, michael beschloss. his latest book for your reading list is "presidents of war." michael, to piggyback on the last conversation we had this afternoon, talk about the contrast between and let's for the purposes of this -- let's go ahead and assume joe biden gets

bumped up and over 270. >> i think we're allowed. >> perhaps -- let's think in the next 12 hours. what normally goes on in the circle around a president compared to what we know from terrific reporting is going on in the circle around this president? >> well, normally you'd have people around a president, you know, who go to a president and say, you know, you've lost the election. that's what george h.w. bush was told on the night of the election 1992. and he quickly went out and he said i congratulate bill clinton, and he said that he was going to get in the grandchildren business, and usually the two candidates unite. even richard nixon who's not really known as a paragon of civility and conciliation, the night of the 1960 election when he conceded tentatively to john kennedy in los angeles he said one of it great features of democracy is that we have these contests, they're very hard fought.

and once the decision is made we unite behind the person who's elected. >> talk about the lessons of fdr. this president is not a consumer of history. he's not a reader. would that he were he would perhaps know the leadership lessons, how fdr used bad news, didn't sugar coat it, didn't hide it, but used that to marshal the spirit of the american people. >> absolutely. you know, it actually helped roosevelt's credibility and he knew it. he went onto radio just after becoming president in 1933 at a time of enormous crisis at in a way as an earlier echo of what we're dealing with right now with the pandemic and the economy and a racial justice crisis that has gone only 400 years. and roosevelt was trying to deal with the problems of the banks,

and he goes on radio and says, you know, this is going to be a hard time for everyone, but after a while i'm hoping that my policies will work he said to paraphrase. the same thing in world war ii. after pearl harbor he didn't say this doesn't matter. he said we're going to have a lot of bad news, it's going to get worse before it gets better. but as he said in his address to congress after pearl harbor, we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us god. >> instead of denialism, the president could use it as a rallying point for the american people. >> absolutely. >> michael beschloss, joining us this evening in easily the most beautiful and fitting reading room since thomas jefferson. thank you so much. always a pleasure. as we like to say have a good weekend unless you have other plans. that's going to do it for tonight and for this week as far as this broadcast is concerned.

obviously continuing coverage of the 2020 presidential election without end. it continues with my colleague lawrence o'donnell at the top of the next hour after this quick break.

. >> evening, this is night four. we are entering the fifth calendar day of counting votes in america to determine the winner of the electoral college. we already have a winner chosen by america's voters. joe biden has now won 4 million more votes than donald trump. that is an insurmountable lead only going to increase. the final electoral college vote will be determined by the