and a good saturday morning to you. craig melvin here. it is 4 a.m. here on the east coast. 1 a.m. out west. and a reminder, the first big group of polls closed some 81 hours ago in this country, and right now while we still do not have a declared winner in the presidential race. in fact, let's start with where things stand at this hour. former vice president joe biden leading in pennsylvania, leading in nevada, georgia, and arizona. four critical states that are

still too close to call. let's take a closer look. in fact, we'll start in pennsylvania in the keystone state. here's where the race stands right now with 96% of the vote in. the difference between president trump and vice president biden, 28,833 votes. from pennsylvania to nevada we go. in nevada, here's where things stand in that state's battle for 11 electoral votes with 97% -- excuse me, this is arizona, not nevada. here's nevada. 23 nevada right now, 22,657. from nevada to georgia. here's a look at the state of the race in that state. in georgia, there is georgia with 99% of the vote in. still too close to call. in fact, razor thin margin

there, 7,248 votes. here's a look at just how tight the margins are overall. by nbc's count, joe biden has 253 electoral votes, president trump has 214. of course, the magic number, 270. that is where either candidate needs to hit. we have reporters in each of those states at this hour who are covering the vote total as it rolls in this morning. that's exactly where we start. msnbc's richard mui is at the big board. mark murray is standing by. richard, let me start with you there. where are you seeing the latest vote totals? where are we watching for more to come in. >> very good morning to you. we start this fifth day watching the results. 253 to 214. in terms of nbc news and where we're estimating the electoral vote to go. two states we want to watch closely today and that would be

because of the past victory for donald trump. each of them, pennsylvania you can see on the board here, will always stay lit. president trump must get these two states in order -- if he wants to be re-elected. let me get you to some of the data that we just got in on those two states to start for you, craig. let's go to georgia first because we just got in some data about the last three or four hours ago. we've been saying how the poll workers are working very late and very hard. that's going to be the numbers that came in from fulton county there in atlanta, georgia. we got 5100 votes. of the 5100 votes that came into this area here, only 21% went for trump. that is way below what he needs if he wants to make up that 7248 votes that right now joe biden is ahead. when you went to bed at 11 p.m., this number was about 4300 so they're still working at it.

the poll workers in georgia. let me show you where the remaining vote is in georgia. right there in fulton county. 95% is roughly the number here in terms of the number of votes that are in so far. you can see the numbers all around fulton county in terms of where that is. let's go over to pennsylvania for you. in pennsylvania this is of course the second state and the state that where if joe biden wins, he wins. he becomes the next president of the united states. if donald trump gets this, he's on his way but i showed you those paths a little bit earlier. when we look at pennsylvania, the difference of 28,833. the last data five hours ago from allegheny, six hours ago, excuse me, craig, from allegheny county. there's 90,000 mail-in votes currently to be counted today. that number that came in in this

county of allegheny, 22% the last tranch, the last batch for trump. if he wants to make up this difference, he has to come in around 55%, way below that water mark right now. the remaining vote, one last bit of information here. we are looking at allegheny county as you know. philadelphia county and the surrounding counties, all about 95% in. so when the next batch of results come in, craig, we're hearing we're going to get two, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. >> richard that's there in pennsylvania specifically. >> that's right. >> okay. mark, let's talk pennsylvania specifically here. provisional ballots. mail-in ballots. any idea how many ballots are left there in that state? >> reporter: craig, overall

there seems to be a universe of 200,000 ballots. richard was walking you through the mail-in ballots particularly in allegheny county. there were some that boosted joe biden's lead even further, but there's still even a bigger batch of votes from allegheny county that we are watching and i think that's going to end up giving us a whole lot more clarity. he mentioned provisional ballots. they're a different kind of group of ballots. election workers separate those out to make sure people were eligible. provisional ballots could be somebody who ended up getting a vote by mail. decided on election day to vote by person. they are treated as a provisi provisional ballot. people wanted to make sure they didn't vote twice. there is an assumption in the democratic areas like philadelphia and pittsburgh they might be democrats, but there's just so much uncertainty in this election about how people vote and their methods that we want to continue to see more votes to come in. looking at the provisional

ballots, looking at the remaining mail-in ballots to be able to make a determination. the winds seem to be blowing in joe biden's direction here. there's been a marked change in pennsylvania in the last few hours. we need to see a few more votes in the mail-ins and the provisionals. >> mark murray, don't go far. let's move to pennsylvania. on the ground there is nbc's dasha burns in harrisburg and laura barrett is in pittsburgh. dasha, democrats are hopeful. what are you hearing? >> reporter: hey, craig. good morning. well, i got to harrisburg yesterday. i traveled here from the state of michigan. these are both states that i've been covering heavily for the past year for a county to county series. the juxtaposition here is really interesting to me. these are both states where this is their first presidential

election where they have no recent absentee voting. the first time they have mail-in voting as a mainstream way of casting a ballot. in michigan we got results on wednesday and that's largely because they were able to do a process called precanvassing. we watched them do that on monday. they were able to open the envelopes, do initial verification. the clerk told me that saved them a lot of time. here in pennsylvania i've been talking to election officials for months. looking at harrisburg and saying, please, let us touch those ballots earlier. let us get a head start. that did not happen so here we are now. everything that has unfolded in pennsylvania so far was frankly as expected. it's what we're reporting. it's what democrats have been hoping for. as soon as i landed here i met with democratic sources. they continue to be optimistic, hopeful. they are just playing the waiting game. the majority of absentee votes as we've been hearing from mr.

kornacki over and over again, they are overwhelmingly favoring joe biden. there are several lawsuits here in pennsylvania. i asked my democratic sources about any of those, if they are a concern. they said no. so far, several have been dismissed. other rulings that have come out haven't necessarily changed the game here. even last night justice alito issued an order. the republicans had been asking the supreme court to get this state to stop counting ballots that arrived after election day. the state right now has allowed any ballots that are postmarked on election day but arrived through 5 paump on friday, yesterday, to be counted. republicans want the state not to count them. what he said is those ballots have to be segregated, which is something the state has already been doing. the secretary of state said even if the ballots weren't counted, the likelihood that those few ballots would make a difference is very, very low. later today we do expect some

folks gathered here on the capitol steps behind me, more stop the steal rallies and counter rallies we've been seeing here over the last few days. overall, democrats playing the waiting game, holding on and feeling optimistic here, craig. >> okay. dasha burns there for us in harrisburg. dasha, thank you. we're waiting for thousands of ballots to be counted in allegheny county, home of pittsburgh. any update on the time line there? >> reporter: so, craig, this time yesterday we were waiting on about 35,000 remaining ballots in allegheny county. since then we've seen 9,000 come in. in the mail-in portion we're waiting for 26,000 more mail-in ballots. allegheny county is one of the democratic strongholds in pennsylvania. we've seen both of these mail-in ballots breaking for joe biden more so than in other parts of the state, but as we see, more

of these come and trickle in, basically what's going on, yesterday it took them a little longer than what we had seen initially overnight wednesday because these are ballots that had been damaged, couldn't go through the scanner. they had to go through these by hand. the next big chunk was 29,000 group of ballots that had been incorrectly sent to voters back in october. they had to send replacements. because of some court arguments the court argued that that count be counted until after 5 p.m. yesterday. that's where we're on. the workers got a break overnight. we'll be heading back over to the warehouse that i spoke to you from yesterday at 8:30 this morning as they get started again. so we don't have any time line in terms of the results coming in from that, but allegheny county has been so incredibly transparent with us as we've been sitting there watching the entire process.

hopefully by the time we get started we'll have a better picture. the only other thing i was talking about, allegheny county they said they have 17,000. they're expecting more. statewide we know it's only a partial report. we do know there are about 100,000 provisional ballots that are still going to be kained. they started the process. we don't have a clear picture on what they're reporting. still a lot of votes out there that could be impactful in pennsylvania so we'll have to continue to watch and wait as the counting continues. >> yes, we will. laura barrett, thank you. dasha burns, thank you as well. i want to turn to philadelphia daily news will marsh now. will, the question on everyone's mind is when are we going to have a full count reported out of pennsylvania? any idea on that question? >> well, it's taken a long time. i think your reporter really

said, craig, there are maybe as much as 200,000 votes out there and those provisional ballots as they mentioned are a big part of that. here in the philadelphia area and in the city of philadelphia we're showing on the screen now. the workers have been steadily diligently counting the votes and releasing, you know, another 10, 20,000 votes every day in philadelphia. it's a huge city. there's a lot of mail-in ballots. pretty much going the way they said it was going to go when those state legislators were keen to allow them to sort up the ballots early. they set up this system where we knew it was going to take at least three, four, five, six days to count the bulk of the votes and that's exactly what's happening. >> will, for folks that haven't been following all of the twists and turns there in pennsylvania, what was the thinking by state

legislators? why did they do decide there would be no counting of the polls unlike we've seen in other states? >> basic lit the state legislature in harrisburg, both chambers controlled by republicans, and they were very unwilling to give tom wolf permission to change the law. current pennsylvania election law requires that these votes not be sorted until election day and, you know, the thinking is that this played into president trump's political strategy, that he was always considering a challenge to the vote count in pennsylvania and by delaying the count of these votes until after election day, these were the votes that he'd be able to challenge. you know, for weeks it was predicted that president trump would come out on election night

and claim victory because the election day machine vote was going to be so heavily in his favor. that's exactly what happened, craig. the machine vote was in his favor. he did claim victory. there's been no legal victory from the trump campaign that would slow the count up and what we're seeing is what everybody predicted, which is the mail-in count which is heavily democratic for joe biden putting him in the lead. >> will, we've seen these images of folks in philadelphia dancing and celebrating and taking to the streets there in the city of brotherly love. >> yes. >> what's the mood like in that city as we wait for a final tally of the votes? >> reporter: yeah, i'm glad you asked about that, craig. that's been one of the more interesting. it's been a very philadelphia moment here. there has been a lot of joy, both because within the city of

philadelphia joe biden is very popular. i think -- i think philadelphia is really enjoying being on the national stage. of course i should note there is a flip side to this, which is there's also been growing concerns that this whole scene could attract violence. some of your viewers might be aware of this incident two nights ago where two men from virginia, heavily armed, drove to philadelphia in a humvee with qanon stickers and an american flag and they got a tip that they might have wanted to cause violence and they've been arrested. people are very much on guard about that. we also had a bomb threat in the area around the convention center yesterday that caused an evacuation briefly. it's this explosion of joy tempered with concern over the situation going on and on for

days. >> will, we'll have to leave it there for this morning. thank you. president trump is eyeing some illegal hail marys in two states as will eluded to, but how likely are they to change the trajectory of this race? election expert ted shaw is going to join me and talk about that. while you were sleeping, white house chief of staff mark meadows tested positive for coronavirus. we'll check in with our reporter covering the trump campaign next. our doctor about treatment options is key. today, we are redefining how we do things. we find new ways of speaking, so you're never out of touch. it's seeing someone's face that comforts us, no matter where. when those around us know us, they can show us just how much they care.

the first steps of checking in, the smallest moments can end up being everything. there's resources that can inform us, and that spark can make a difference. when we use it to improve things, then that change can last within us. when we understand what's possible, we won't settle for less. the best thing we can be is striving to be at our best. managing heart failure starts now with understanding. call today or go online to understandheartfailure.com for a free heart failure handbook.

just hours ago joe biden addressed the nation calling for an end to partisan warfare. he says he's going to win this race. president trump did not have any public events on friday, but we are learning that mr. trump's chief of staff, mark meadows, has tested positive for

coronavirus. nbc's josh lederman is in d.c. covering the campaign. nbc's ali vitali is covering the biden campaign in wilmington, delaware. josh, let me start with you. first, what do we know about what's happening in trump world with the covid test? what do we know about the campaign strategy moving forward? >> reporter: good morning, craig. a grim situation for the president politically made grimmer overnight that the president's chief of staff, mark meadows, and a trump campaign aide have both tested positive for coronavirus. we don't know exactly when mark meadows tested positive, but he was at the white house in the east room at that celebration the president had on election night. he was seen kind of working the room while wearing a mask and he was at election headquarters in virginia as the election results were coming in. mark meadows there at campaign headquarters with the vice president as well as jared

kushner. an ominous reminder that even though we may all be preoccupied with pennsylvania and georgia, the coronavirus is not taking any break for the election as the u.s. notches its third straight day with more than 100,000 covid cases. the president, meanwhile, pressing ahead with his legal fights in the states whose outcome could determine the result of the presidential election. the president continuing to tweet baseless allegations about voter fraud and fraudulent ballots that have no backup in actual evidence. the president also tapping david bossey, his 2016 deputy campaign manager, to be the face and kind of the head honcho for his legal team as he pursues those legal fights. craig, the fact that the president is sort of building the plane as he flies it with his legal team despite telegraphing for weeks really that he intended to litigate this election through the courts if need be is raising real

questions about whether the trump campaign has a team in place to really do something here. >> bossey being tapped to be the james baker -- >> right. >> -- if you will of the 2000 recount there. ali vitali, i think that was probably the speech joe biden didn't want to give last night but they have been projecting optimism. what are you hearing behind the scenes? >> reporter: you would imagine right, craig. that was not the speech that the former vice president wanted to give last night. it also really underscores just how fast moving this has all been and how fragile this situation is, because over the last 24 hours we've seen the full range of emotion from the biden team from feeling just optimistic then to having outright jubilation as soon as they saw the vote totals move him ahead in pennsylvania. we started hearing talk yesterday that he was going to speak yesterday. the parking lot behind me, new

cars were coming in, supporters coming out around wilmington, around the perimeter here because they thought joe biden was going to declare he was the next president of the united states. we know that didn't happen because of all of the gray states still on our map. the biden campaign team trying to come up towing that line. he stood on stage with his running mate kamala harris that he thinks the way things are going that they are going to win this race. he also pointed out that he's leading in a lot of those key states that eventually could put him over the top to victory, nevada, arizona, also talking about the fact that in places like georgia, democrats haven't won there for decades. of course, that all important state of pennsylvania, one of the key ones for them, because a win there puts him over the top for sure. so a lot of talk here about the fact that they think they're going to win and they keep using words like imminent. i keep saying this, but we're really stretching the meaning of what that means especially when in a lot of these states as

we're waiting for votes there's no clear time line. so biden last night speaking to time and the fact that this process feels slow, but it's important. listen. >> i know watching these vote tallies on tch 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 exercised their fundamental right to have their voice heard. what's becoming clear each hour is that record number of americans of all races, faiths, religions chose change over more of the same. >> reporter: craig, i've described these last few days as an emotional roller coaster from consternation of democrats the morning after, jubilation yesterday. right now you can hear the collective foot tapping of democrats who really just want this race to be called.

>> ali vitali, thanks so much for that. josh lederman, thank you both for getting up. almost 4:30 a.m. here on the east coast. pretty impressive you are so sharp this morning. president trump has filed at least ten legal challenges in several states as he continues to make baseless claims about election fraud. i want to bring in msnbc legal analyst ted shaw, professor at the university of north carolina. mr. shaw, let's start with the supreme court order that we received late friday. justice samuel alito ordered county officials to comply with a directive from the secretary of state, requires them to separate the mail-in ballots that arrived after election day but before friday at 5 p.m. it does not order the state to stop counting them as the republicans wanted them to. what are the chances that those ballots don't get counted?

>> well, it's hard to tell at this point. the order to separate these ballots i think takes account the fact that if they're not separated, once they're counted in, they're in the stream and you can't go back and undo that. so i guess that's trying to have it both ways, to preserve the status quo with respect to the ballots that might be in question and at the same time continue to count. >> it would seem as if, professor shaw, the campaign strategy so far from a legal standpoint is to continue counting votes in some states but to stop the counting in others. is that an oversimplification? or is that in essence the strategy? >> well, it seems to be -- i'm hesitant to use the word strategy because i don't know

that there is a strategy, but i think the game plan right now is to try to continue counts where they think it's going to help the president and where they think it won't help the president they're trying to stop those counts. that's the closest thing to a strategy i think they have. >> they're asking for a recount in wisconsin and several other states so for, the vote is very tight. do you expect recount s and how long will this take to play out? >> because the election is so close in a number of states, states that are unresolved, yes. they'll try recounts. i think there's an air of desperation settling in. they'll try anything they can. although in georgia, for example, it's so close that i think a recount is to be expected. but i think they're going to try

everything they can. you know, i don't know that this is a matter of strategy. as i say, it's an air of desperation. >> professor shaw, just to put a fine point on it, historically speaking, recounts, legal challenges, do they change the outcomes of elections? >> not historically. historically the recounts, they bring in enough votes that, you know, a few trickle in, but they don't change the outcome. that's not been the history with respect to recounts, but we have more mail-in ballots than we've ever seen before. this is -- this election is sui generous. we haven't seen anything quite like this, but i still don't expect the outcome to change dramatically because of

recounts. >> professor ted shaw, we'll have to leave it there. thank you, sir. thanks for your insight on this saturday morning. we are going back to richard lui and mark murray in a moment. how much of arizona's outstanding ballots does president trump need to catch joe biden? and the state's most populated county say they will be done counting ballots this morning.

as we come back on the air at 4:35 on this saturday morning, a look at just precisely where things stand right now. joe biden at 253 electoral votes, president trump at 214. both trying to hit of course that magic number of 270. in pennsylvania mr. biden up by nearly 29,000 votes. in georgia, just over 7,000.

in north carolina president trump up over 76,000 votes. in arizona and nevada, mr. biden up more than 20,000 votes and in alaska, keep in mind alaska technically still has not been called yet. president trump is winning there by more than 50,000 votes. there are still a lot of votes left to count. we are keeping a close eye on arizona this morning because we expected arizona, a new batch of votes to close in just a few hours this morning. let's go to maricopa county specifically. maricopa county includes phoenix. it's expected to host another vote count at roughly oh, about 6.5 hours from now. 11 a.m. eastern. nbc's morgan chesky is in phoenix on the ground where there were protests again there for a third straight night. first of all, morgan, what are those folks protesting?

>> reporter: craig, we had a chance to speak with several of those hundreds of people who gathered in the parking lot outside of the maricopa elections department. when i asked multiple people here, what brought you outside? why are you out here in this parking lot today, some said they felt like this election was being stolen from them. others said they wanted to demand transparency and make sure every vote was counted and others came to witness this debacle of sorts that started to play out here now that arizona may be turning blue for the first time in decades. so the good news to record is despite some shouting matches that have been going on back and forth here with this crowd that was here earlier throughout the day, there's been no serious i guess violence per way. we do know maricopa county sheriff's department has been on hand trying to keep peace. people in the crowd have shouted

it down. others trying to incite some unrest. this isn't why we're here. we don't want to be remembered as the people trying to do that. in fact, others have led the group in prayer at some points in time. it's been a pretty dye ma'am mi dynamic group here. everyone looking for the drop of ballots in a few hours. >> thank you. let's bring back richard lui, mark murray. let's start at the big board with you. where do things stand in maricopa county right now? >> good morning again to you there, craig. why arizona are we watching? biden, the nine ways he's going to be elected president, three go straight through arizona. if you're watching arizona, as you were mentioning, as well as the reporting there, you have to watch maricopa county. maricopa county, if there's a theme for it, 2/3, 2/3, and that's because roughly 2/3 of

the vote in arizona is in maricopa county around phoenix. when we look at what is outstanding statewide, roughly estimate 164,000 votes to be counted. when you look at it -- one of the things when you look at the vote difference, 29,861 has not changed in the last nine hours. you were just talking about that vote release. we'll see what's in it. the problem if you're donald trump though, craig, it's trending in the low 50 for donald trump, he needs to be in the high 50s, 59%, to make that up. >> mark, when we do get this new batch of votes at 11 a.m. eastern is my understanding and not local but 11 a.m. eastern, what will you be looking for? >> reporter: yeah. richard was just pointing out the margins president trump is

carrying. we're seeing arizona the exact opposite of georgia and pennsylvania where joe biden has been increasing his lead. the direction has -- the votes have been in his direction. in arizona you've actually seen president trump chipping in to joe biden's lead just by the nature of the votes and how they're being counted. over the last 24 to 36 hours, the votes out of maricopa county and the states as a whole have been leaning more in president trump's direction. he was winning them at a 58% share. that actually yesterday went down to 54%. the problem for the president is the unrelenting math. for the about 160,000 total votes that we're still expecting for the state, because president trump hasn't been hitting that mark, now all of a sudden all of the remaining votes, maricopa county as well as rural areas that both president trump and joe biden are doing pretty well in, president trump needs to win roughly between 60 and 70% of

the remaining vote. so, again, for us to be able to see how this vote breaks if the president is getting close to that, but that becomes the unrelenting math for the president if he wants to be able to draw even with joe biden. >> mark murray, we'll check in with you in a bit. richard lui, thank you both. joe biden urging unity as his lead grows in the presidential race. we'll look at the contrasting messages we're hearing from the biden campaign and the trump campaign. first though, take a look at these election celebrations in new york city. hundreds of people dancing, singing, cheering hoping that a joe biden win will be called soon. heart failure causes nearly two hospitalizations every minute. understanding how to talk to your doctor about treatment options is key. today, we are redefining how we do things.

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there will be a recount in

georgia, that's according to the secretary of state there because that race is so very close. here's where things stand. too close to call, 99% of precincts reporting the difference between the candidates 7,248 votes. this is a state, we should remind you once again, that democrats have not won since 1992 when a governor of arkansas was on the ballot. katie beck is live for us in atlanta. katie, while we wait for the new votes to post in georgia, any idea when a recount process could start there, when it would look like, how long it would take? >> reporter: good morning, craig. lots of people are asking those questions here. they want to know how long until we get to the finish line. unfortunately, the answer is it could be a while. first task up for georgia is to finish counting the outstanding ballots they still have.

that could take a few days. once that is finished, it could be another three weeks before a recount is complete. we're hearing somewhere around november 20th to have a recount completed. so at this point i think most people are focused on that slow drip overnight total that's been coming in edging up for joe biden, but certainly these updates have not been huge. they have been small amounts of votes. we've been seeing that number gradually keep growing but the 99% has stayed at 99%. what we know is that the votes that are being counted right now, the votes that are left, i suppose we'll have an update sometime this morning on exactly how many votes that is, are military and over seas ballots due at 5:30 yesterday and also provisional ballots. yesterday there were 14,000 provisional ballots and then overnight different counties will be going through those provisional ballots. the thing about provisional ballots, it requires an extra

layer of checking and verification. it takes longer to make sure those votes are eligible to be counted so that is why perhaps this process is going a little slower than some would like at this stage. no longer opening up the envelopes and scanning, they've got to do some work to make sure those votes should count. craig? >> katie beck on the ground in atlanta where we expect more votes to be counted but more vote totals in just a few hours. let's go to nevada where we expect new numbers to be posted in a few hours. here's the state of play in nevada. there's a look. too close to call. the difference between the two candidates, 22,657 votes, however, mr. biden winning there. the former vice president up by almost 2 percentage points. jay core is in las vegas, clark county. we've seen protestors outside

the election offices all day and night, are they still there? what are they telling you? >> well, craig, at this hour, a little before 2:00 in the morning local, they have gone home. boy, they went on and on through the day and into the night. protesters there waiving trump flags, talking into megaphones and generally trying to make their voice heard even after the county election offices had closed. we spoke to several of them. one protester had this to say about why they've shown up. >> the whole point about this is i can't understand how they have not been able to tell us who won when we've all voted and why all of a suddenly they're coming out with all of these new ballots out of the blue. >> reporter: you know, craig, obviously in an era of incredible unlimited information, it's understandable people would look at this and

say, boy, this is taking so long. something nefarious has been happening. the thing to remember here nevada is moving slow and steady. the registrar of voters saying that every vote will be counted, that right now across the state and across this city certainly they're looking at every corner to make sure not a single ballot has been missed. if they pick it up, they bring it to them, don't let the election offices come to them. a slow and steady process. there are at least 30,000 mail-in ballots waiting to be counted and a vast majority of those are from where i am from right now, clark county, las vegas. two counties out of 17 voted in such a way that favors biden. at first glance you think, two counties. those are clark county where vegas is and washo county where

reno is. those are favored democratic counties. from everything we're hearing here, mail-in ballots seem to favor biden. what we're talking about is another few hours awaiting. >> jake ward on the strip there for us in sin city. very early on this saturday morning. jake, thank you. let's turn to jenna arolda and sir michael singleton, contributor for the washington examiner. big thanks to both of you for waking up so early. let's look at mr. biden's speech on friday night. the former vice president repeating that line, we are going to win this race. leading the vote total in several states including nevada where we just were. he's not the declared winner. jenna, i'll start with you. your thoughts on how mr. biden is handling this extended wait?

>> in a very presidential manner. good morning to both of you. i'm enthusiastic about the theatrics of protocol here, both from the biden campaign and also from the voting -- the ballot counting centers themselves. i think this is a demonstration of exactly how we can be disciplined and laser focused on making sure that all voices are heard, all votes are counted and to the example of the woman who was protesting in las vegas, it's unfortunate that she has received a tremendous amount of misinformation, but when she gets on the other side of that she'll be very grateful for the process that we're all going through now. >> shurmichael, contrast that with what we've gotten from

president trump. no public appearances since the press conference where he made baseless claims about election fraud and now you've got the chief of staff, mark meadows, testing positive for covid-19. the task force hasn't met formally in more than two weeks. what about the state of where things are with regards to the president's strategy? >> good morning, jenna and craig. the president is striking a very different tone than former vice president biden who as jenna pointed out is being presidential. the president is the chief prop pagan da who are just ignorant of the process. why is it taking so long? there must be something nefarious going on. you have provisional ballots, absentee ballots. every single ballot is counted

differently. if the president is to do his due justice of informing the voters why this is taking so long, it will be easier when joe biden is considered president-elect. the president is playing a very, very dangerous game, craig, that will make it very difficult for this country to come together once this process is over. >> do you think, shurmichael, that at some point the president makes a concession speech? >> absolutely not. he's incapable of doing that, craig. in his mind it's impossible to fathom that the american people did not vote for him. with 200,000 people dead, it is clear an overwhelming majority of people said we want to go in a different direction. the president received 65 million votes and i applaud him

for that. it's not enough to cross the finish line. like his predecessors in the past, he has to accept that it's over. he is likely not going to be the president of the united states. when that point comes, he's to let the president-elect have a smooth transition process. >> jenna, it should be noted again that there's no constitutional requirement that the loser provides some sort of concession speech, but, jenna, if the president doesn't concede, how far does that go in terms of continuing to sew that doubt in our election system on president-elect biden? >> i think the delegitimization comes from not necessarily how we're going to remove the trump

family from 1600 pennsylvania avenue and make sure that we swear in the president-elect and the vice president-elect, but it is all about what ultimately is going to happen in our cul-de-sacs, lobbies, grocery store aisles that gives me the greatest concern. i concur, i do not think president trump is going to go out easy. i think he's going to do whatever it takes bring down a country with him. this is a man who has never heard no. this is a man who's never faced the grieve and shame and embarrassment that comes with defeat like so many colleagues have. this idea that they're going to be able to find a way for him to gracefully exit i think is a very, very tall order. and it's on us to find ways to bring in those people who are protesting, bring in those people who understand that -- or are very confused about what

ultimately is happening with the ballot counting process. >> jenna arnold, we'll leave it there. thank you both for waking up so early on saturday morning. at the top of the hour, we'll go back to the big board and check the latest vote totals. also, a special edition of "morning joe" coming up at 8 a.m. eastern only on msnbc.