we're not going to control the pandemic, we are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation. >> why aren't we going to get control of the pandemic. >> because it is a contagious virus just like the flu. >> less than two weeks after mark meadows made that admission, that the trump white house was not trying to control the pandemic, new overnight that meadows himself has now tested positive for the virus. meadows is not alone. yesterday the u.s. recorded over 122,000 new covid cases. again breaking the single-day record for a third day in a row. texas has now become the first state to record more than 1

million cases. and for those who argue that cases are getting less severe, yesterday there were more than 1,200 covid deaths, the third straight day the death toll was over a thousand. all a stark reminder that we're very much still in the throes of a raging pandemic as we cover the still yet to be called presidential race. ♪ >> good morning and welcome to a special saturday edition of "morning joe jt. i'm mika brzezinski and alongside joe scarborough and willie geist. we're still here, as we're waiting for key states to bring numbers in and the calls to be made, joe. >> four days, willie, we have one here, it is a long time coming but the network

consortiums are ready to make the call for the race for gerald r. ford. ford they are now predicting, though they're not sure yet. but they believe that gerald r. ford will be the republican party's 1976 presidential nominee. it is taken a while. but many things they were concerned about even after the death of ronald reagan, they still wanted to wait just a while longer to make sure reagan wouldn't have a late surge of voters 40 years later. >> well there is that vote in clark county and allegheny, so we won't call it yet for gerald ford. >> you can actually be certain though. and that is what is so frustrating, willie. >> this is the quiet part. >> we're going to say the quiet part out loud. either everybody has been lying on every net work and in every

newspaper to the american people for the past four days, about where these votes are going to overwhelmingly go and either the data has been lying to us, in every piece of data that we have seen or all of the networks are doing something they've never done before and that is they're ignoring the reality that is right in front of them and we could speculate why. last night i had somebody tweet at me that we want to make sure their in this bubble hermetically seals and free from pressure of network analysts and anchors. that is bull. it is pressure right now they're feeling from donald trump. this pennsylvania race has been over. it has been over, everybody has known it but they haven't called it. you remember that bobby knight scene where he was throwing

chairs across the gym floor. i got this just for you, willie. so this is donald trump and he's doing this to the referees. but the difference between what happened to bobby knight and what is happen now is bobby knight got kicked out of the game. the refs did their job. right now there are people that aren't doing their jobs across all of the networks. because this race is over and they know it but they don't want to upset donald trump. it is really -- i've been watching these things, i hate to admit, since 1972, and when you see trends this clear, and you also see it seems every day a new excuse for not calling this race. now we're to the provisionals. despite the fact that things are breaking six or seven to one. it is at .5 right now and still no calls, willie. there is a lot of reasons why a

lot of people are concerned this call has not been made. because if you look at the data it should have been made and all it is doing it provoking more unrest across this country and possibly more violence. it is irresponsible to not follow the data to its logical conclusion. >> well, first i'm impressed you have the bobby knight clip cued up on a saturday morning. >> did you like that. >>dy like that. very impressive. but the threshold for a recount is .5 and that is where wee need to be comfortable to call this race. well, we're there. we're at .5 right now and i think we'll get more votes in shortly. steve kornacki is going to join us in a little bit and we'll get more votes while we're on the air. so we may know more here. but there is an element to what you're saying of what happened to fox with arizona. they called arizona a couple of days ago and they heard from the white house and heard from republicans who breathed fire,

said fox news had betrayed them, some of fox news own anchors were going after fox saying you shouldn't have called arizona yet. so you're right, he may be tentative there. but to your point, we know that the vote that is out there, let's just focus on pennsylvania, because if he wins pennsylvania, joe biden, it is over. we know the vote out there is coming predominantly from philadelphia and we know from the vote so far joe biden is running away with that vote. so if that is the vote still out there, joe biden's lead is only going to grow from here. but you could see the spread right there. 49.6 to 49.1 now clearing the way outside of triggering a recounts and i suspect, joe, you may get your wish sometime today as more of this vote comes in. you could see joe biden winning philadelphia with nearly 81% of the vote with more vote to come. >> well, we've all grown up and we've one minute after polls

close, when somebody is behind like by 40 percentage points, they look at the key counties and trends and immediately ready to call states for one candidate or the other. yesterday we have nothing but trend lines breaking in joe biden's direction. again, not like by 51% to 49% but overwhelmingly, six to one, seven to one, eight to one, even in washington county which is on the far western side, on the western border of pennsylvania, right next to ohio. a dark red county for donald trump, day of voting, and in fact all of the voting had gone for donald trump by over 60%. so the votes come in there, what do we see? joe biden getting over 60% in washington county. allegheny county yesterday reporting military ballots and damaged ballots and the belief that just maybe the military

ballots would break in donald trump's way. no. even with the military ballots by mail, they broke like four to one to joe biden. there is no data, there are no trends, there are no excuses for not calling the state of pennsylvania. and here is the deal. here is all i'm saying, if you're not going to use the same standards that networks have used over the past four decades, that is fine. just stop calling races. i'm totally fine with that. if we want to wait until the states certify it, that is fine. but we can't have one rule based on how you're going to call something early on tuesday night, and another rule three days later because you're scared donald trump is going to be angry with you. >> but joe -- >> no data supports this. >> another reason we're here is because of how certain states set this all up. and they could have been counting before, they could have

perhaps we could have been done this with election night. it is not just the calls being made by networks now, it is the way certain states set up the way they count the ballots and that was brought to you by the republican party. >> let's be very specific, and we're going to be talking to the supervisor of election in allegheny county soon. and i'm going to ask him about what happened in pennsylvania. because the pennsylvania governor begged the state state legislature there repeatedly, said what could i do so we could make these votes the days before the election so we'll know that night who won, the same thing happened in michigan, the same thing happened in wisconsin. the governor kept making the republican legislature deals they couldn't refuse and guess what they did. they rye fused them. because donald trump thought he was going to lose those states and he needed time to mount this

legal challenges he's mounting right now. and that is why willie and mika and i have been telling you over and over again, everything is not coming about by happenstance. this is all calculated by donald trump and republican state legislatures to drag this out, to give donald trump any chance of winning this election. >> or cheating. >> and look at florida. and cheating. you look at florida, florida has a republican legislature and governor. but donald trump thought he was going to do pretty well in florida. remember he said you can't trust mail-in ballots anywhere but florida. well guess what, florida then did the opposite and they front loaded the process because they believed they were going to win florida so they wanted the votes counted before election day so donald trump could get the big win. and guess what? you saw it unfold on this network and every other network,

pl florida, because it was reporting that night, dominating the first half of tuesday night and we're talking about miami-dade. what do you think what would have happened if michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania did what they should have done. >> we woe be done. >> we would be talking about detroit and philly and this race would have been over at 11:00 on tuesday night. this was all calculated by the republican state legislatures and wisconsin, in michigan, and in pennsylvania and trump got exactly what he wanted and now he's frozen every network scared to state what we all know is true. >> and this didn't have to be this way. like the freaking coronavirus pandemic, it didn't have to be this way. it is pretty simple. it is simple what joe just said. these votes could have been good to go on election day, look to your republican party and to your president as to why.

but we're still counting. and the call in many cases, when you look at the data, looks very good for joe biden and that is an understatement. joining us now, house editor for the cook political report dave wasserman and also with us white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. >> dave, there is a huge wall, between dave wasserman and me, so that being said, let's go through pennsylvania. what is remaining, an we know a big batch out of allegheny county where joe biden is doing extraordinarily well, a batch out of philadelphia where he's been doing well and we keep hearing about 100,000 provisional ballots and the way they're continuing to break, donald trump is not going to get close to joe biden. so set this all up for us. >> look, i've seen enough badgers of decisions and

statisticians because those people in the boiler rooms are doing their best to try to be sure of how provisional ballots are going to break and the eventual margin with respect to pennsylvania's recount rule which might land around a 35,000 vote margin. now, what is out is extremely favorable to biden in terms of the remaining mail-in votes for sure, between allegheny and philadelphia counties, late last night i did a deep dive into which divisions, which war divisions in philadelphia have substantially lowered reported votes cast than others and it looks like most of the votes out standing in philadelphia comes from some of the most democratic precincts in the city, perhaps. so we'll find out today on that question. as far as the provisionals go, when you model out the roughly ten or so counties that have reported their provisional ballots, they are four points friendlier to trump than the rest of the vote cast in the county.

four to five points. and so if he were to extrapolate that out state wide you so say that trump might add between 5,010,000 additional ballots. here is why that might not transpire in trump's favorite. because a share of the ballots are likely to be from the cities, allegheny and philadelphia county and that potentially includes a lot of voters, including voters of color who have requested a mail ballot either unwittingly for the primary or actively, but decided for whatever reason that they were uncomfortable with the mail and they wanted to vote in person and if they did not bring their full ballot including both envelopes, or if they never got their ballot in the mail and showed up to vote in person, they voted provisionally. so there is a bunch of ballots in cities that ought to help joe biden. it is looking extremely good for him in the state right now. >> so, dave, let me ask you, could you name, is there any scenario that you have heard by

anybody at any network, in the any newspaper, any data analyst, is there anybody that you have talked to over the past three or four days that could draw out a scenario where donald trump has a chance of winning the state of pennsylvania? >> look, the remaining uncertainty is the nature of the provisional ballots. and although we have this limited data on the provisionals from some of the most rural counties in the state that have gotten done with their provisional count quickly. we can't know for sure that those proportions will remain true in the remaining 57 counties in pennsylvania. although, look, i think the trajectory right now is quite clear. >> and do you know anybody else, who believes donald trump. my question is do you know anybody who believes donald trump has the remotest chance of

winning pennsylvania? >> no. >> that is a no. willie. >> i've seen enough of this line of questioning. >> thank you. you can step down now. my co-council willie geist will ask another question. >> so in pennsylvania we hope to know vote at some point this morning, hopefully within our next hour or two while we're on the air here on msnbc. but let me ask you about nevada. because that state is looking good for biden as well with 90% of the vote out standing in clark county which is heavily democratic. do you see a call in that state, perhaps, today? >> i'm going to defer to our decision desk team on that. look, a 22,000 vote deficit is extremely difficult for the president to overcome considering that these are mail ballots from clark county. >> okay. so nevada is looking good as well. so jonathan lemire, let me turn to you from the president's

position. as joe said, this is exactly the way that donald trump advertised it was going to happen. he was going after for months mail-in voting as rigged and then he knew that he would have these three or four days after election day to fill the space with lawsuits and conspiracy theories. but they haven't gone anywhere. is there a single lawsuit that you've seen that has gotten any traction in the state in pennsylvania or wisconsin or michigan and what is the mood inside of the white house as these suits continue to fail? >> this is not a surprise. this is what the president told us he was going to do. he flat out said that they were hoping this would go to the courts. he said that he was going to make an issue out of mail-in ballots, those being counted after election day. in terms of lawsuits, yes, supreme court justice alito ruled in pennsylvania that the ballots that were received after election day had to be held separate, had to be segregated for those that were received on or before election day.

that is greeted in the moment by a win by conservatives but that actually all it did was affirm what the state was already doing. so the answer is no. none of the lawsuits brought by republicans or the trump campaign in any number of states have gone anywhere. they've already been dismissed. suits in michigan and georgia and others in pennsylvania have already been tossed out. so the legal challenges have not have any success yet but for now the white house and the president are going to stay at them. we've seen the president's tweets last couple of days reiterating he was going to court and wage his legal challenges but there is a growing sense of resignation in the white house and those around him. the president himself is certainly angry. he's flailing. did he snnot want to be perceiv as a loser or want this election decided or called but people around him recognize they have little to no path here. they're watching the vote counts. and they'll get there, whether it is the 35,000 vote threshold in pennsylvania or get more votes later today from nevada or

perhaps when arizona releases another batch this evening. there will be states that are called, none of them appear to be called for the president. and now, as he mounts this legal tries, as he tries to organize a fight, his chief of staff and several other top campaign aides have contracted the coronavirus hampering his efforts even further. >> i never saw that coming. somebody in the white house getting covid. so dave wassermann, i'm not going to ask you about at the white house run. that is like you asking me about wolf blitzer. >> we love wolf blitzer. >> we love him but let's talk about what you're paid to do and that is to track congressional races. the weekend before, i told everybody, i didn't believe polls and i didn't. and i tweeted it repeatedly because democrats were becoming over zealous.

a then my sources high up in the republican party started telling me that their polls locally in the congressional races, the ones that you watch, said that showing such a blood letting for republicans that they thought they were going to get wiped out. in fact, one high place republican in house leadership said they had never seen numbers as bad in suburban areas. and we're preparing for the worst. republicans, any way you cut it, had a really good night in the house and outperformed expectations in the senate. have you had a chance to dig in and figure out exactly what happened with those? because media polls are one thing. but those local polls on the ground, you're right, you're always right on this, those are the ones to watch. what was so wrong with them this time? >> yeah, joe, look, we're going be unpacking the polls for months and years. i think it is reasonable hype

o -- hypothesis that they are less likely to answer a survey and vote for republicans. to dive into that we'll need very intensive sociological studies in the area. but on the down ballot, our blind spot as analysts was essentially that trump being atop of the ballot is really good for down ballot republicans. not only does trump drive out a lot of low propensity voters that otherwise would not show up for congressional republicans they think of as the swamp in a midterm. but the fact that the president was on the ballot allowed independent voters in the suburban districts that we thought were going democratic to vent anger at trump at the top of the ticket and subsequently vote for a republican that they liked down ticket. we saw a number of ticket splitting and by the time we calculate all of the votes at the district level and, look,

the other thing about it is this complete disaster for democrats in low income hispanic areas. especially cubans in miami and then you look at south texas. there were races sided by single-digits in the solemn democratic column there south texas. you look at the 23rd district from el paso to san antonio and down to eagle pass, they thought democrats would pick that seat up after coming within a thousand votes of beating will herd in 2018, they didn't come within a couple of thousand of votes of winning that district. so look, there is a real grassroots versus elite problem whether it comes to connecting with the votes that democrats need to address. >> dave, you're exactly right. there are so many people that i talk to all of my friends, and members that voted for trump, and they would say the same thing. listen, i don't like him. in fact, i loathe the man. but i don't trust the democrats.

but those races that you're talk, about people did things actually logically, that sometimes we in the media suggest they no longer do. some people split tickets. like you said in the suburbs, listen, i'm going to vote against trump because i'm conservative but i can't stand the man, i think he's bad for america and constitutional norms but i better put a republican in there to check biden. and that is a sort of ticket splitting that we may be seeing. >> yeah, the other thing is as we move closer to the election, it is possible that more voters believed that biden would win and ajusted down ballot preference accordingly because they didn't want to see one party control or democrats going too far left. >> all right, still ahead, georgia on everyone's mind this morning. the state playing a decisive role in the presidential election and could now determine

control of the u.s. senate. we'll talk to one of the atlanta's top political reporters straight ahead on this special saturday edition of "morning joe", covering the 2020 presidential election. ♪ [ thunder rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

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sent out a statement on tweet this morning that i think you've all gotten and beyond that i don't have anything to say on that. >> well i've talked about it. i sent out a tweet this morning, it covers my thoughts about the national situation. i think it is ultly going to decided exactly what i said in my tweet. look, i've already covered the subject. i told you i sent out a tweet

this morning that covers my view of where we are. >> oh, well good. let's look at that tweet. because that will give a lot of answers don't you think, joe. here is the tweet that the senate majority leader kept hiding behind and he wants us to read it now. here is thousand this work in our greet country. every legal vote should be counted, all sides pu get to observe the process and the courts are here to apply the laws and resolve disputes, that is how americans votes decide the result. >> so let me say this. >> wait a minute. i thought there was supposed to be information in there. >> well there is information in there. what he did in that tweet was he said we're going to follow the rule of law. everything that mitch mcconnell said in there was correct. count all of the votes and let people observe the counting of the votes, if there are any illegal votes you throw them out and then if there are any court challenges, have court challenges. that is actually -- >> that is what is happening. >> you call that following the

rule of law. right. so when people look at that and say why does mitch mcconnell come out and say, that in and of itself is mitch mcconnell distancing himself from donald trump. who has tried to stop this vote repeatedly and has put up bogus claims. >> but that is not answer what he really thinks of what donald trump is doing right now. >> but, listen, i don't care about a one-off. i want to know that people who are in charge, right now at this point, are interested in following the rule of law more than they are in a former reality tv host who is about to lose. mitch mcconnell did exactly what we want all of our officials to do. say we want all votes counted and we want transparency, we want to make sure that if there are any votes that were improperly counted they get thrown out and if there are any challenges we take it to the court. that is transparency. that is what every american should want. and i just want to say one other

thing, too, because i haven't given any of my opinions on any topics this morning. >> please tell me how you feel. >> if you're a politician or want to run for office, study that mitch mcconnell clip. that is actually what you do. you put out a statement and when people badger you to try to get to say something, you don't have to answer and because you'll never please them and never make them happy an that is my lesson for young budding politicians for today. >> it is avoiding the one part -- i know. >> it is not. >> it is avoiding what trump has been doing all night. okay, which is dangerous. >> but i don't, again -- >> i'm not saying what mitch mcconnell is saying is dangerous. i'm saying that trump is pushing the country in a dangerous direction. >> but jonathan lemire, the country for the most part is not listening. yes, i know you'll have 15 or 16 people outside of like a vote counting place and cameras will get really close and down low

and oh, my god, it is a thousand people and wait a second. they're 15 people and a hound dog. so it is not that big of a turnout. donald trump wants mitch mcconnell to come out swinging for him and fighting. he wants other republicans to do that. they're not doing that right now. not elected officials, not leaders, they're saying we have to count all of the votes right. donald trump has to, at this point, be concerned that republicans aren't speaking out more aggressively for him wanting to undermine our democratic process. talk about your reporting to those realities. >> there is no question, john. in fact a lot of it is playing out on twitter. trump has put out another diatribe of tweets making baseless claims about voter fraud but i'm interested in what his son, donald trump jr. calling out republicans by name

saying why don't you have the back -- have my father's back and supporting him. you wrote him in good times, why aren't you there when he needs you and it is perceived both inside and outside of the white house and in the power chambers in the republican party as a litmus test about 2024. because even if donald trump were to be defeated, later today or january 20th joe biden takes the oath of office, donald trump is still to some degree a force in the republican party. we don't know how much. we don't know how that will play out. even if the institution of the republican party turns their back on him, he certainly will still have supporters who will have votes, who will want to be courted and that is the signal that don jr. is sending to the 2024 hopefuls. but in the short-term, you're right, the president has not gotten much support from republicans including mitch mcconnell who is keeping him at some distance. and as one person in the trump inner circle put to me just yesterday, we have said on this show and others many times, that

watergate ended when it was republicans, when it was republican senators went to the white house and told richard nixon it was time to go and it is not a one to one comparison here but this person told me that is possible here, too. that trump will only get the signal it is time to back down, even if he never officially concedes and most people don't think he will, but to stop the fight a mcconnell who does it or this person pointed out powerful people at fox news do it. those are the voices that he would listen to and those are the ones that would finally cut bait with this president. >> willie, you know what mitch mcconnell is really good at? counting votes. the guy knows how to count votes. he knows that donald trump has lost the presidency. he's also smart enough to know that this is really been because everybody has been so concerned about interference, both internationally and domestically in this election process. this is been the most

transparent election in american history. and so mitch mcconnell also knows that legal challenges are not going to be enough for donald trump to win. so, since mitch mcconnell knows joe biden is going to be the next president of the united states, what is mitch mcconnell focusing on? he's focusing on two races in georgia that will determine whether he is the majority leader or not come 2021. so donald trump doing all of this, attacking his senators, donald trump is making mitch mcconnell's job of saving the senate for the republican party that much more difficult and at some point i can't believe we aren't going to get some sort of message, maybe it is quietly, that donald trump needs to back off because republicans are in danger of losing the senate. yes, it is a stretch. but if donald trump acts abhorrently over the next month or so, before this election, it

could spell bad news for republicans and make two races they should win fairly easily much more difficult. >> those runoffs aren't until january 5th so a lot could happen between the two months between now and then. and to your point and to jonathan's about mitch mcconnell and other republicans, there has always been a republican palace guard ready to ride to the defense of donald trump and we're just not seeing that in this case with the exception of ted cruz, lindsey graham, some members of congress, tommy tuberville, the incoming alabama senator as well. >> of course. >> but they're not riding to his defense because, as you say, they're look at the votes. they know what is coming in pennsylvania and nevada. they see where this election is headed and there is a sense publicly and really privately when you talk to them, they don't have to stick up for him any more. if he is not going to be here, it is not worth sticking their necks out and put in danger our democratic process to defend a guy that is not going to win an

election and he's suing on the basis of nothing state by state. let's recap, challenges to stop the counting or direct the processing in michigan and georgia, dismissed on thursday. the arizona effort to have voters fix sharpie marked ballots and be counted does not have a hearing scheduled as counting continues there but the sharpie-gate scandal has been dismissed. and in nevada, stop using scanning machines and verify all signatures was yesterday and the supreme court set aside late arriving ballots in pennsylvania but did not stop the counting. joining us now, chair and constitutional law net foley, an election law analyst. ned, great to have you back with us. we talked about some of the lawsuits filed across the country by the trump campaign. let' bring everybody up to speed. has there been anything lately that mayors o -- that merits ou

attention and may get any traction in a court of law? >> no. just the opposite. the lawsuits seem to be diminishing in significance there. they're kind of disappearing, going away. nothing has emerged that would threaten the outcome in any of the states as far as i could tell. >> especially this most recent supreme court decision with justice alito, what do you see in that? you could flesh out what he said and what exactly it means? >> sure. i mean, the most significant point is what you just said, the counting could continue. it is true that the counting of some ballots needed to be separate from the rest of the ballots. but it is not stopping the counting. and frankly i don't think the number of those ballots is going to be large enough to make a difference. and as we talked about a couple of days ago, i don't think that the u.s. supreme court is going to invalidate those ballots any way. and finally if it urns out that president trump is behind in pennsylvania, then i'm not sure what his legal strategy is

trying to disqualify those ballots because if he's behind he needs to catch up. >> and jonathan lemire, it doesn't happen that as you pointed out the president is tweeting this morning more wildfire conspiracies that are factually incorrect based on the law in the state of pennsylvania. >> no question. and the intellectualin coherency, stop the count in pennsylvania but keep the count in aerds. that is not going to help either. ned, my question is this, there is the idea, and this is someone in trump world put this to me, voiced this concern that they feel like, yes, the plan has always perhaps to get this to the supreme court to have them make a decision. but it would be one thing if it was about one state, right. let's say if they did in fact make pennsylvania the ground zero for the legal challenges. well if joe biden ends up winning all of the states he's currently has leads, he doesn't need pennsylvania. co win the election anyway if he's able to pick off nevada,

georgia and othersch and would that perhaps make the supreme court reluctant to go after one state when the one state won't change the outcome of the entire race? >> i think that is right. i think the supreme court has discretionary jurisdiction. they don't have to get involved if they don't want to. and it is not pivotal to the, that diminishes the significance obviously. people that have been comparing this year to florida in 2000, but it is different and one of the reasons why it is different is because multiple states are involved this year. whereas 2000 was focused just on florida. >> all right, the chair and constitutional law at the ohio state university, ned foley. i'm sure we'll be talking to much more as the days going on. thank you so much. mika. >> joining us now, professor at princeton university and author of the book "begin again." eddy glau jr. and senior adviser at the lincoln project, susan del percio joins us. and i want to set the stage here

for our conversation. here is the latest editor allen titled "the presidential endgame." this is the board of the "wall street journal" making the point that trump has the right to fight in court but he needs the evidence to prove voter fraud and they write in part this, trump has every right to demand recounts if the states are close and to go to the cores if relief if there is evident of fraud. mr. briden should also want the recounts and legal process to play out for the sake of his call to heal the political rancor. as for fraud, the trump campaign will have to prove it to prevail in court. it won't be enough to charge that philadelphia is historically corrupt, though it is or that state officials are partisan, if mr. biden has 270 electoral college votes at the end of the counting and litigation, president trump will have a decision to make. we hope in that event he would

concede gracefully. mr. trump hates to lose and no doubt he will fight to the end. but if defeat comes, he will serve himself and his country best by honoring america's democratic traditions and leaving office with dignity. >> so, susan del percio, we're hearing the same thing from the very conservative and at times maddeningly pro-trump editorial page and i say maddenly, when they move away from the traditional conservative philosophies that i've actually followed and read for most of my adult life. but here you have the "wall street journal" editorial page and just what mitch mcconnell said, hey, we have to play it by the rules. we have to count all of the votes. if they're bad votes, throw them out. if you got problems, take it to the court. but you just can't bitch and whine and say oh, they're so

corrupt. no, you have to come forward with evident and that is what most republican leaders are saying, that mitch mcconnell said. i don't need mitch mcconnell to attack donald trump right now. i just need mitch mcconnell to be someone who wants to uphold the rule of law in this instance and that is what he and the "wall street journal" editorial page ben sasse and a lot of republicans are doing right now. >> of course, you want to protect the essence of our democrat and counts every vote. but you know what else doesn't want to see shenanigans go on, pennsylvania republicans who are currently leading in two of the three state wide elections there, joe. they have two races. the attorney general and the state treasurer. which are both leading their democratic opponents by 100 and 200,000 votes. it is clear that pennsylvania has split and that is going to jiefd and the state republicans

from pennsylvania don't want to have the two wins put in jeopardy. >> yeah, in a year, in an election year where democrats are expecting to do much better than they ended up doing, one of the bright spots for them has been georgia. remarkable turn around. stacey abrams deserves so much of that credit. barack obama went the last weekend and there is no doubt that going there most likely made the difference in pushing joe biden over the top. talk about georgia and the blueprint that that might be for states like, i don't know, florida. >> well, you know, first of all, we need to simply give a shoutout to not only stacey abrams and fair fight but also black voters matter, project south, organizers on the ground doing the hard work, the blocking and tackling. also, trying to -- stacey abrams

have made the argument early on in the came that we needed to shift our focus. we need to shift our focus to kind of diverse voting block that we needed to kind of think about a broad platform that we needed to shift, in other words we needed to shift from the kind of old dlc strategy to a strategy that reflected the obama coalition and how to appeal to them. and she was saying this to the democratic party not only as a strategy in georgia but as a national strategy. and we see it working. right. we see it working. although we want to em facize what david wasserman said in the last block, this led to an increase in white voters. although we're seeing the success with regard to georgia and potentially with regard to georgia and joe biden, the state house didn't flip. and we need to be mindful of this split ticket decision and what that means. >> eddie, let's have the bigger conversations, i know you

haven't been here the last couple of days of what the elector at told us and what is said that some of the disappointment in the house races, some of the disappointment for democrats in senate races and how some of these states either were too close for comfort or joe biden or in the case of florida for example where he lost it altogether. what did you see, what do you read into the big picture of what we saw on election day? >> well, look, you guys saw me have a full blown anxiety attack in realtime as we were reporting florida. i'm a little bit better now in terms of i'm excited about what we saw milwaukee, what we saw in detroit and atlanta, what we saw in philadelphia, what we saw in arizona and nevada in terms of the culinary union and lucha and other organizers on the ground. so so i want to lift up those successes. but this election is not a referendum, it is part of the reckoning we're experiencing as

a country and we've been talking about that moral reckoning and relationship to george floyd and the like but this election also revealed to me at least, willie, that we are profoundly divided and those divisions are rooted in some very insidious things. we've had four years of donald trump. the evidence is clear, four years of incompetence, over 230,000 dead, four years of mend asity, lying every single day. corruption and graft and people still voted for him. in fact, more white people voted for donald trump in 2020 than they did in 2016. so the reckoning that we're experiencing as a nation, at least to my mind, shows us that race, selfishness, greed continued to threaten the very life of our republic and we have to acknowledge as that as move forward. at least in my opinion. >> all right. and keeping in mind the back

drop of this all, the coronavirus. which is breaking records right now in deaths an cases. and word overnight mark meadows now has covid as well as some other folks who work in the white house. >> i have to say, though, as far as covid goes, part of what happened and we need to talk about this some more in the coming weeks, is that when covid hit democratic organizers for the most part got off the street, republican organizers stayed on the street, continued organizing. >> rallies. >> the rallies were reckless, but i said you could knock on the door, wear a mask and stand six feet back. aoc was saying the same thing yesterday. saying that a lot of the people that won and won handily continued campaigning through the pandemic, wearing a mask, socially distancing and reaching out to people. i think that is an important note to make on really the

reason republicans organized as well as they did. >> at 48 past the hour we'll take a quick break. we have new votes, new numbers coming in from pennsylvania in the next hour. and steve kornacki is back at big board. he's hanging in there. does he sleep? we'll be right back. needles. essential for sewing, but maybe not for people with certain inflammatory conditions. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz. the first and only pill of its kind that treats moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or moderate to severe ulcerative colitis when other medicines have not helped enough. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections, like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms,

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so goes allegheny county, so goes the country! >> as goes allegheny county, so goes the country. that was joe biden stumping last year in that key pennsylvania battleground. we'll talk to allegheny county's top elected official about the fight for pennsylvania. >> as we listen to "i got you

babe," today does seem like yesterday, doesn't it? and, willie, the day before and the day before? >> this day is going to be different. >> going right to "ground hog's day," punxsutawney phil. >> exactly. >> steve kornacki, how are you holding up? where do we stand? >> i'm doing pretty good. pennsylvania, we're stand where we stood late last night, 28,833 is joe biden's lead over donald trump. allegheny county, they still have about 20,000 mail ballots to go. they released several batches of them last year. joe biden was winning 78, 79, 80% of those ballots. entirely consistent with what

we've been seeing elsewhere in the state. the mail-in ballots heavily favoring joe biden. 20,000 left there, if he continues at that pay, he would bid that lead statewide and would expand to over 40,000 at this rate with the remaining mail ballots in allegheny county. there are also remaining ballots in philadelphia. they could extend biden's lead further. we didn't hear much in terms of reporting from philadelphia yesterday. perhaps we will this morning. perhaps we will today. again, anything we get from there i think very likely would expand that biden lead statewide. there are outstanding mail ballots from some other counties as well around the state. joe biden's been winning three quarters of all mail-in ballots cast statewide. anywhere we get mail-in ballots today you can expect joe biden's lead will expant. just what they're telling us in terms of allegheny county, that

alone you would expect would push biden's lead to the 40,000 vote neighborhood so what then? mathematically is there a path to donald trump if indeed you finish counting the mail ballots and he's 40,000, 50,000 more, there is this pool of provisional ballots that are out there, something like a hundred thousand of them. there's one more zero in a hundred thousand. something like a hundred thousand of them out there. typically when you say provisional ballots, this is typically a very democratic vote. normally if the democratic candidate was leading at this point and you saw just provisions left, you'd say that's it. however, this is an unusually high number of provisional ballots for pennsylvania to have. one of the things here you might be seeing is just because of the nature of the new mail-in voting laws in pennsylvania. you might have an unusually high number of republican voters here. an example would be they got a

mail-in ballot at their house, theyity sided, no, independent going to vote on election day. they don't bring the ballot with them. when they show up at the polls, the poll checkers find out they got a mail-in ballot and they have to vote provisionally in that situation. that might be part of why there are more provisional ballots than usual in pennsylvania. i think critically when you start looking at where the pro investigational ballots are, they got like 17,000 in al gainy cou -- allegheny county. the heavily democratic areas have a lot. maybe in pennsylvania there's republicans ballots, more than usual, but there's a lot of democratic provisional ballots, too. the bottom line is if biden is

emerging from the mail-in count, then when you get to this pool of pro investigational ballot, donald trump doesn't need republicans to do better than they normally would, he doesn't need to draw even, he needs to win them to overcome the kind of deficit here, he would need to win them by 40, 50, 60 points, something around those lines to erase the kind of lead biden is assembling here. did i hear you say coming into the break that you're going to be talking to the allegheny county executive? >> yes. >> we are going to. also, steve, you missed it earlier this morning. you're certainly welcome to also speak to the county executive. we'd love for you to since you're so much smarter than i am. you missed it earlier today. we also while we've made some

slow calls this week, we did call the 1976 republican convention for gerald r. ford. so we are ready to make that call this morning. hold on one second, though. i just want to underline something, i'll say it, steve, even though you can't. the numbers coming in from allegheny are overwhelmingly for bide wrenn. we even saw it with military and damaged ballots yesterday, the numbers coming in from philly overwhelmingly biden. you look at the fact that the provisional ballots are in allegheny and in philly, that maybe half of them are there. it's going to be extraordinarily hard. let me just say it, impossible for donald trump to catch up if he gets the sort of 40,000, 50,000 cushion that you're talking about before we get to the provisional ballot. so let's do this right now. let's bring in rich fitzgerald, who is doing a hell of a job in allegheny county right now. rich, thank you so much for being with us today.

i know it's been quite a week for you. what can you tell us? what's going on in allegheny county right now? >> it's going in the right direction. allegheny county outperformed four years ago by about 40 to 50,000 votes. hillary clinton won it by 108,000, looks like joe biden will win by around 150,000. even in the counties surrounding us, the rural counties, he ticked it up just a little bit, he cut of margin to a half a point to a point and a half he also did a lot better in eerie county, lucerne. provisionalis will run a little less. >> when they are coming in? what's the timeline? >> it a little slower as we get later on. thes