we know you hold down several jobs. it's been a fascinating week, hasn't it? >> it most certainly has. it's required a lot of patience from a lot of people who watch our show and a lot of people who support joe biden but i think joe biden and all those people would tell you they dance in the streets now it was worth the wait! >> and, mika, when you took your mother, your 89-year-old mother to vote -- >> don't make me cry. >> when she was voting she turned to you and you knew she was voting not only for herself but voting for your dad. >> yeah. i was proud of her. she hobbled into the polling booth and got that vote in. it's been great to cover this with you guys. we've had a long week. had a long four years, some would say, following this presidency and a new chapter begins now! that does it for our coverage

for joe and willie and me. thank you so much for joining us! lawrence o'donnell picks up the coverage now. good day. it's my honor to announce to you that nbc news is projecting joe biden as the winner of the presidential election. joe biden as the president-elect who will be inaugurated on january 20th. nbc news is projecting joe biden as the winner. the state of pennsylvania giving him those 20 electoral votes that enabled nbc news to make this call this morning. that puts joe biden -- that win will put joe biden above the 270 electoral votes that he needs to win the electoral college. joe biden now has 273 electoral votes for president.

donald trump has 214, as of this hour. five states have yet to be called. president-elect joe biden will address the nation tonight from wilmington, delaware. he will be joined by vice president-elect kamala harris. she tweeted this video of the moment she called joe biden to celebrate their win. >> caller: we did it! we did it, joe! you're going to be the next president of the united states! [ laughter ] >> celebrations are already happening across the country, including outside the white house where cheers erupted in support of joe biden and kamala harris. president trump is not there to hear it. the president is at his golf course. here are supporters of president-elect joe biden celebrating his victory.

>> we believed in our hearts that biden was best for the united states! >> we made history! [ cheers and applause ] >> short time ago, president-elect joe biden released a statement saying "i'm honored and humbled by the trust the american people have placed in me and in vice president-elect harris. in the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of americans voted. proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of america. with the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation." president trump released a statement saying, "this election is far from over." that's not true. this election is, in effect, over. nbc news correspondents are stationed across the united

states. we'll go to state's capitol in harrisburg. chris, it was pennsylvania, joe biden's home state, the state of his birth, that put him over the top. >> reporter: yeah, one of the first texts i got was "he did it!" pennsylvania, of course, the place joe biden is from but it's also the place he came to more often than any other state during this campaign. i've been getting reaction from people who worked hard to see that he got elected from union leaders, from activists, one texting me "scrappy win for a scrappy kid from scranton." they described jubilation, sweet victory. union members saying how proud they are and can they can finally breathe again. it's been interesting how quickly they made the turn to recognition about the road ahead for joe biden, which, in some ways, is epitomized by what is behind me. i think you can see a celebration that is going on. those are folks who have been on

the steps of the capitol every day since we've been here since the election day saying every vote has to be counted. but just minutes ago, there was also a large group of trump voters. those folks were asked to move to the other side of the capitol by police because they were blocking traffic. but i have to say, even though both sides were very lively, it was peaceful. that's what, when i talk to people, again, who have been following joe biden, who have been friends with joe biden for years, if not decades, are saying they want to hear from him tonight. they want to hear about reconciliation. they want to hear about how he's going to unite the country. as one of them put it, he's a decent, empathetic, nice man. all the things people said he was that were the reasons people thought he could not get elected to president are exactly the reasons why he's the perfect man for this time. i should also say that i'm also hearing from these people who, again, who have worked so hard on the campaign. many union members who have gone

door to door about kamala harris. one of the union leaders i talked to said she actually worked for geraldine. they thought they were moving into a new era it was going to be a breakthrough for women. of course, it didn't happen. it didn't happen with hillary clinton. now, as i'm hearing from a lot of women elected, they're saying to me, there are girls all across the country who are now looking and saying this is what is possible for me! and, finally, i would remind you, lawrence, about what happened on election day. joe biden made four stops in his childhood city of scranton. he went to his childhood home. on the wall of the living room, for the new owner of that home he wrote "from this house to the white house with the grace of god." signed it and wrote 11-3-2020. four days later, he's the president-elect of the united states!

democrats in pennsylvania are thrilled! they are celebrating that it happened here. lawrence? >> chris jansing, thank you. we're joined by a special guest who has been leading our election coverage all week. rachel maddow, of course, the host of "the rachel maddow show." i was so sure you were going to get to make this announcement to the nation of the projected winner of the election. what was it like at home when you got the word? >> i'm at home. i'm in covid quarantine. everything is bizarre. i'll tell you i had accidentally up ended my three-hole punch i used to make my research binder for election night all over my bedroom and i was dust busting up the little holes that fell out of the three-hole punch when it happened. and i thought i'm not sure this is the way i imagined i would

learn that donald trump was a one-term president but i'll take it! [ laughter ] so i was dust busting at the time. [ laughter ] >> rachel, i have to tell you, rachel has three-hole punch paper. i could have sent you. you don't need it anymore. you were guiding us through this coverage all week. this unprecedented week of coverage in this election. you've had to quarantine because you were exposed to covid but have tested negative so far. >> that's right. >> expecting you back soon. you look great and healthy. we saw this coming. it was a slow march. it was a test of patience all around, in a way. a test of media patience as people started to wonder why are they taking so long to count the votes. and why are they taking so long to project what seemed inevitable. yet there's something in this period that feels somehow necessary. it feels like the ramp the country needed to get to here.

>> yeah. i've been thinking about that myself, too. there's been so much frustration and as time went on, there was increasingly public lobbying including by influential people that the calls should be made. i find it comforting that, you know, at nbc news, just like all the major networks that make the calls and the associated press, they are not susceptible to lobbying. they don't listen to people like you and me and they don't listen to people harping at them when they think the decision should be made. it's a deliberate, rigorous, independent process and nobody can mess with it. that's the way it should be. that's what the count is like. to see those, i mean, for tv purposes, those boring shots that we had of the counting going on in philadelphia and the counting going on in detroit and the counting going on every place else we had a static camera in the corner of some big warehouse room while the poll

workers did the boring work. that's the way it's supposed to be done. election administration is tech karatic. it's not susceptible to threat, intimidation, bluster, can junior hi -- or pleading. that's right. and i wanted it to go faster, just like everybody else did, but i take comfort in the process. and, you know, the republican governors in some of the states that were late to be called or yet to be called, for the republican governors in those states to come out and say, listen, the count will be the count. we'll defend the integrity of the voting process in our state and don't mess with us and don't mess with our election workers. to hear it coming equally from democrats and republicans, even as the republican president went off into alice in wonderland territory. if you're an american, i think it's heartening and gives you confidence. >> rachel, if this were what we might call a normal election,

which is to say a campaign between a real tuffly standard-issued democrat for president and a relatively standard-issue republican for president, but kamala harris was on the winning ticket as vice president. that would be the lead of what we're talking about in american history today. this elevation of the first woman vice president. >> yeah. and, you know, in history, when history rolls around, whatever o' clock that is. that may be what today is remembered for. i think it depends on -- forgive me for putting this way, i think it depends on how much lasting damage the disastrous trump presidency is seen as having done to our country. if the trump presidency caused damage both to our civic ethos and our nation in a way that is hard to repair and, therefore, goes down as a historic

wreckage, then, you know, donald trump getting turfed out of one term will remain headline one. if biden and harris can undo and render to the dust bin the worst of the trump legacy, then this might be seen down the road as the day that a woman was elected to national office for the first time in this country, if you can believe it. the time that a woman was a woman of color was elected to national office for the first time in this country, and the first time we've ever had a person of color as vice president. i mean, all of those things -- nobody can ever take those away. and how they stack up on this day, you know, when we look back at it, i think it depends a lot on what the biden/harris administration is going to be able to do to get the country back on a normal -- on a

nondisastrous track, the one we're on now and will probably continue to be on until this is resolved and we've got a new inauguration. >> we always say that happens to be true is a presidential nominee's choice of running mate is the first presidential choice that person makes. i was thinking today, rachel, thinking back on the vice presidential selections made by men who were vice president themselves. i think of richard nixon in 1968 and when he makes his vice presidential choice, he chooses agnu. the next one to do it is george herbert walker bush who chooses

dan quayle and brings him into the white house. here we are with the next version of a former vice president choosing a vice president and it's a different choice from those two that have proceeded him. >> yeah. that's a scary set of historical parallels, mr. lawrence. please let this be the exception that breaks the modern rule on that. listen, i think that, you know, there were so many democrats who were running in the presidential primary this year because trump did seem like he was ripe to be a one-term president. he seemed like a vulnerable incumbent. every democrat who had a shot ran in the primary. you and i both interviewed most, if not all of them, certainly all of them between us. the thing about senator harris is that, remember, she got out of the running to be potentially president herself even before the first votes were cast in

iowa. she peaked very early then her presidential hopes started dimming. she was down single digits in states where she wanted to be doing well. she cut it. she cut bait and she did not stay in there straggling and letting it go for a long time. she was out in december. at the same time, though, maybe it was because she left early but i think more likely because of her inherit characteristics, she never seemed like somebody who was out of the running for being in the white house. i mean, she -- even when she cancelled her presidential campaign, i don't think there was a day when she wasn't talked about as a potential vice presidential nominee. there's a perception she has what it takes. she has not just the wisdom and the experience, but the heft and the charisma and the character and the raw ability to do the job. you talk to anybody who ever had to make the decision about who

their running mate should be, they will tell you with grave seriousness, the most important thing they can do the job. people who have great regrets about their job, they said we didn't pick somebody who can do the job. i think on the mccain/biden team. we heard regrets they picked sarah palin and mccain stayed loyal until the end, the team knew she wasn't up to it. that's why they regretted the choice. i don't think that anybody thinks kamala harris couldn't do the job. >> one of the ways i watched all the democratic primary debates, especially at the beginning when joe biden was the frontrunner, was i was looking at that stage and saying has anyone ruled themselves out from the vice presidential nomination at any point in this process? and i never saw that happen. the only one, really, on the stage was ruled out was joe biden himself who was not going to be chosen by any of the other nominees as a potential vice president and wouldn't have

wanted it, of course. but think back to new hampshire and joe biden with those two devastating successive losses iowa and new hampshire. i remember being in new hampshire, rachel, and going into a high school gymnasium and seeing joe biden with a crowd of less than 100 people. this is the former vice president of the united states. there's bernie sanders down the road packing in giant audiences. there's pete buttigieg with lines going as far as the eye could see packing those halls. what i saw in joe biden was this persistence. he was the only person in the room in new hampshire during the biden campaign who didn't seem to know that the biden campaign was over. he was the only one who hadn't gotten that memo. forget about it. it's over. and here he is today. >> yeah. and, you know, our colleague nicole wallace, i think, has put it well. it was a little bit of a

tortoise and the heare situatio for joe biden. perhaps in the general and all though in the primary. all though more so in the primary that he, not only knows who he is and knew how he wanted to run, but was confident that the whole country knew him, too, and there didn't have to be a get to know joe biden moment. his most effective sort of repetitive speech lines, to my mind, he would say "you know me." and somebody would try to throw something wild at him trying to hang something from the democratic party that wouldn't hang on him. he said you're not running against those other people you're running against. i'm joe. you know me. that confidence is boring for having been in public life and having been barack obama's vice president for eight years is something that is priceless and that gave him such a firm footing for running an

absolutely steady, confident, unwavering race from the beginning. there were no, you know, tonal shifts or strategic shifts from biden. right. once he got that big boost from jim clyburn heading into the south carolina primary and ran off with it and then ran off with the rest of the primary season, the way he was going to approach the general election is win back the upper midwest. he won back the upper midwest. but he knew -- he knows who he is. he knows we know who he is. he knew how to run the race. i mean, hats off. >> rachel, i want to discuss one other very important woman in the biden campaign and that is jen o'malley-dylan who has entered the hall of fame of american politics. she's the least famous person in it. i think very few people know who she is. the campaign manager of joe biden's campaign. people don't know who she is because she refuses to do television interviews with people like us. she's not in it for the glory.

she's a mother of three who has been running what all professional observers have called a flawless campaign for president for joe biden. she has been doing it in a way that never asked for attention to herself. and, again, this itself is one of those giant stories that lives underneath the much bigger story of the biden victory. >> yeah. it's a very, very good point. and i will say that one of my favorite things about her and her leadership on the biden campaign is she did not care at all whatever the prevailing narrative was in main stream media, on cable news, on twitter, among online academic activists. she was never addressing any of those sideline conversations. she was never trying to be part of

in some of those other streams i was discussing about how biden was running off with it and trump was going to be subjected to a, you know, a barry goldwater style loss and it was going to be what a jen o'malley dillon very quietly say via twitter, very quietly said actually we believe this is going to be a very close race. we think this is going to be much closer than people on this website, meaning twitter, think it's going to be, and we're going to need everything we can pull out of the deck in order to do this. and she was -- i mean, i don't know that calm is th it was focused and unswayed by the ambient discussion. that's exactly what you want in a campaign manager. you know, it may be that that was conservative and biden's win

may not end up being that small. i was somebody, to be honest, that thought are trump was going to get reelected. i felt like the only person i was hearing anything from in that tiny voice that she was utting out there not in the mainstream, the only person who i felt like was taking biden's risk of losing as seriously as i was was biden's campaign manager. if you'res biden, that's what u want. >> i made the decision early to believe jen o'malley dillon pretty much all the way through, and especially this week, especially this week on wednesday when she had a conference call that explained exactly the wait she saw the rest of the states that were uncalled at that time and what she saw as the inevitable biden win, that was the decision point for me of what was really happening here and what was going to happen here. rachel take a look forward on the -- i think it's 73 days or

so between now and january 20th at 12:00 noon when joe biden will take the oath of office. >> you know,oa i wanted to ask your i take on that a little bi lawrence. one of the things that i'mle finding it hard to get my head around is the -- there's a large distance between all discussion in advance of the election about what would inevitably happen if joe biden won and donald trump would inevitably say, oh, no, he didn't, i won. it was stolen from me and everybody should riot or whatever he's going to say. there's always that discussion in advance and we're now seeing the president saying that biden hasn't won and he secretly won by a lot by some magic means we can't understand. there's a great distance for me between what i expected to be the impact of those words from the president andf what they fl like today. i think i thought it would be scary or at least it would feel likele it was sort of shaking t

foundations of the republic for a little bit for the incumbent president who still is the commander in chief of thees military, who still commands the executive branch of the united states government. for him to defy an election result and say, no, no, no, i'm still president, i thought that would be big and ominous, and nowmi trump's, in fact, doing i with biden as president-elect, and it just feels laughable. it just feels small and pitiful and irrelevant and i mean here's at his golf course. of course he is, and you know, you saw trump a folks out in th streets today awaiting the election being called the way that weec all were, they kind o seem to have melted away, at least for now when the election was called and biden supporters are out in the streets. how do you feel about that?he i mean, i'm surprised at how i thought about that yesterday versus how it feels yesterday. >> well, you've chosen what have been my adjectives all along about this, small and laughable.

i always knew that he was going to exit with a whimper and that there was nothing to be worried about ine any of this. it was just kind of, you know, old o hollywood scenarios, the notion that the american military has anything to do with what would happen now. it's the secret service, first of all, for the people who were wondering exactly, you know, how it would work if for some reason donald trump was saying, you know, he wasn't going to leave the white house. one of the most important things that happened this week was -- and i think it was as early as wednesday or wednesday night when theor secret service made e decision to send an extra security detail to wilmington, delaware, that is the president-elect's security detail. they decided days ago that joe biden was the president-elect and they were adding to his secretdi service detail. he already had two. he already had the former vice president's secret service detail added to that was the

democratic nominee's secret service. >> lawrence, i don't know if you can still hear me, but i have lost audio connection to you. uh-oh. is this the wonders of the internet? ♪ ♪

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and we're back with our technical difficulties solved in our special coverage of this election in which nbc news is now projecting that joe biden has been elected president of the united states, will be elected president of the united states when all of the votes are

counted, and we are back with rachel maddow who is joining us by skype. rachel, this was a rare technical difficulty because not only did we have technical difficulties on your side, which is understandable because you're at home, but i'm in an nbc studio, and we're not supposed to have technical difficulties here, but we got them on both ends this time, and i just wanted to get -- i wanted you to pick up wherever you were in your comments before we crashed into that commercial. >> i'm sorry about that. first of all, i will say that i was so sure that there couldn't be technical difficulties from an nebc studio that i just assumed it was me and hung up, which happened live on television, which is completely my fault, which is not a technical problem. it's a tv host problem. so i apologize for that myself. lawrence, what we were talking about before we were untimely ripped was the threats from the president today from president trump that he doesn't accept this and that he's got some rabbit to pull out of a hat

somewhere, and you were saying that you have felt all along that those threats from him were small and laughable. i was more worried about what that would feel like in terms of the sort of threat to the basic civic foundations of the country. i was more worried about that until it actually happened, and the size of the biden victory, the lack of any significant irregularities anywhere, the lack of any significant legal challenge, i mean, the -- the sort of dog that didn't park here is that the trump campaign did immediately out of the gate threaten lots of lawsuits. i mean, you'll remember that the president threatened lawsuits over the outcome before people had even gone to the polls on election day. and they did file this lit flurry of lawsuit, but they were lawsuits in name only. there's nothing to them. they were allegations without any evidence. they didn't have anything to complain about except in some cases literally the number of feet between the republican election observers and the poll

workers they were watching and like their great victory in pennsylvania on that one was by getting their observers four feet closer to the people they wanted to watch and breathe on. like, okay, congratulations, you got that. their big substantive challenge is about the tiny sliver of votes in pennsylvania that would come -- that were postmarked before election day but received wednesday, thursday, and friday, and those election -- those candidates -- excuse me, those ballots have been segregated and there's a question as to whether they could be counted as they're segrega segregated. biden's going to win by tens of thousands of votes and he's going to win other states, clearly, you know, he's going to win michigan by what is it, 150,000 votes or something, where there's just no -- there's no point materially to these legal challenges, and there's no bark. there's no bite behind the bark from the president here, and it doesn't seem like there's anybody other than, you know,

ted cruz, lindsey graham, and kevin mccarthy, god bless him, who have decided to go down this rabbit hole with the president of defying the results of what appears to be a lawful and orderly election. i don't know what price those guys are going to have to pay for having jumped in there with the president. they're still in office and he's not, and something should trail them home about that. >> rachel, one of the reasons i've been completely confident all week about what was going to happen in pennsylvania is because i was watching senator bob casey on twitter deliver his short video talks about what he saw happening in pennsylvania all week, and when i introduced him in our coverage last night, i introduced him as the mr. rogers of pennsylvania political analysis because he did it with such calm and grace and so beautifully convincconvincing, rachel, stay with us as we are joined now by senator bob casey from pennsylvania who guided me

through all of this. he's got his pencil map behind him. he's got the mr. rogers sweater, and raich chel, you might want ask senator casey how he knew all along where we were going. >> senator casey, how did you know all along where we were going? i will say that you are -- you have long been known as the calmest man in politics. you and chris coons are constantly vying for that. it's such a calm race, nobody can tell who's ahead. despite your predder natural calm, you did see confident about this from the beginning. why was that? >> well, rachel and lawrence, it was not clairvoyance, i'll tell you that. it was probably one-third kind of pennsylvania election data nerd, but two-thirds heavily reliant upon the voter project and their team, kevin mac was leading a team of number crunchers, so i wasn't just guessing, no, i think the

analysis you've done of the race is right on target in terms of just how close this was and how difficult it was, difficult so defeat an incumbent president, but our state was particularly difficult, but what a great day for the country. i just can't even -- it's difficult to put into words. lawrence, you and rachel might remember years and years ago -- i just thought about this in the last half hour, joe biden used to quote a hymn, eagles' wings, and the line in that hymn he would quote over and over again is a line that talks about he will lift you up on eagles' wings and bear you on the breath of dawn. a beautiful hymn. when you think about where joe biden was until james clyburn, the people of south carolina and especially black south carolinians and then ultimately black americans, they lifted him up from where he was and made

this possible. i can't stop thinking about what jim clyburn and black americans did to make this moment possible. >> i'm so glad you focused on that moment in this campaign, senator, because i have never seen anything like it. i don't think american politics has seen anything like it. rachel, that candidacy, the biden candidacy, as we recall, kind of stumbled into south carolina where it had to be lifted up, and i don't know -- i don't know when we knew that that was going to happen. i don't think there was any real solid clue to that, rachel, until they actually started counting votes in south carolina. >> well, when james clyburn came out and gave that endorsement, and he is such -- he is so clearly the dean of south carolina democratic politics, but also, somebody who has an

unbelie unbelievably keen ear for the the black electorate. he is a good listener to the african-american electorate and knows what they want to do particularly in his own state, and cory booker, african-american, excellent senator from new jersey and ran a very good presidential campaign, kamala harris, excellent california senator, ran a good but short lived presidential campaign, now will be the next vice president of the united states, two strong african-american candidates in the running among all those primary contenders, and it was clyburn who knew that it didn't necessarily take a candidate being african-american. it took a candidate who african-american voters in south carolina and beyond knew and trusted and would come out for no matter what, and clyburn knew that and was able to speak to it, i think, with heart, that and having been barack obama's vice president was an unshakable

deal, and it did turn everything that day. it was just the rest of the race just turned off skps, and it wan off to the races, and when the races arrived, when it was time for the general election, it was african-american voters in huge numbers and with incredible skill and organizational talent who brought it home for vice president biden, now president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris. it's not just the soul of the democratic party, it's the spine of the democratic party. >> senator casey, reflect on vice president-elect kamala harris, your senate colleague, what you saw in her campaign for vice president and what she added to the biden/harris campaign. >> well, lawrence, i think you know what she has brought to the senate in representing california, but in the campaign, you just saw it, just witnessed this when i was with her on monday, we went from luzerne

county, pennsylvania, and not far from here in scranton where it's a tough county where they're able to cut the margin. just the energy that you feel in a crowd when she's -- when shaes speaking, wh -- she's speaking, when she's interacting with people, that alone brought all kinds of intensity to the campaign in the general election. but i think what people also saw in her is someone who has not just the intellect and the experience to lead at a time of crisis but also her ability to engage with people. i think that's probably an underestimated or underrated quality that she has. she can cross-examine well, but she can also be very collegial and engage in consensus, so i think they're going to see a lot of her as part of the process of

governing at a time of real crisis, and as you both know, when a president faces crisis, one of the great things they can do is turn to their vice president if they have confidence in them like joe biden has in kamala and just say, i need you to take care of this. take on this big assignment and please, you know, report back when you have a resolution. so i think you'll be able to place heavy reliance upon her because of that combination of experience as well as her ability to bring people together. >> senator casey, there was a lot written about various kind of doomsday electoral scenarios, including one particular focus on pennsylvania and the notion that somehow the pennsylvania legislature would name its own slate of electors, which of course, it could not possibly do because they would have to pass legislation signed by the

governor in order to do that, and then we see what happens this week where the republican pennsylvania legislature, as far as i can tell, does absolutely nothing obstructionist and does not in any way lift a finger to try to influence any of the processes going on in pennsylvania this week. i assume you were not even slightly surprised by the way the republican pennsylvania legislature accepted what was happening in pennsylvania this week. >> no, i wasn't, but i was also heartened somewhat, and i'll qualify that, with some of the response that republicans gave when the president was making all kinds of allegations against the people of philadelphia and all of the hateful demonization that he was engaged in. and look, a lot of it was just pure racism. he was just trying to do what he always does. i was heartened that some republicans were saying, well,

there's no evidence of fraud or any kind of a problem and he's got to be able to demonstrate that. but once in a while, lawrence, as you've highlighted often, once in a while the system works and people -- people do the right thing, but it's been particularly disspiriting, i think, and frustrating and enraging really when republicans have kind of genuflected to donald trump in a way that's harmed the country. i hope some of that is in the rearview mirror. >> senator casey, before you go, i'd like you to take us in the room with both vice president-president-elect harris and president-elect biden, and by in the room, i mean in the governing chamber where it really happens, in the oval office, in the cabinet room, in those rooms where the door is closed and there are no cameras and there are no reporters because the people who really do that work get it done there, and that's the version of the elected official that everyone really scores them on, as you

know. that's the way you're scored as a senator. your colleagues in the senate don't care very much about how good or bad your speeches are. they care what you're like in that room when the decisions are made. i have my own experience in the room with joe biden in the united states senate in the '90s when i was working there, all very positive. you have experience with both, with vice president-elect harris, with president-elect biden, in that room with the door closed when they are getting advice from people, when they are making decisions, what is it like with each of them in that room? >> well, first of all, lawrence, you know and rachel knows that one of the hall marks of a great leader is someone who's secure enough to surround themselves with very capable people who will not only add different perspectives but also will challenge them and might know a lot more about a subject than they do. and i think great leaders do that. that's one of the reasons i

think joe biden chose kamala harris because he knew on a lot of days she might know more about a topic. she might have a totally different perspective, and as he had that understanding with barack obama to be the last one in the room so to speak, that will prevail hear as well. i think that kind of dynamic, that willingness to be open to another point of view or that willingness to listen to folks who may not tell you what you want to hear i think is -- it will create a strong foundation for decisions that have to be made at a time of real crisis. i can't think of a time when we've had as much on the plate of a president and a vice president coming into office, but they are prepared, and we're just going to have to help. >> democratic senator bob casey of pennsylvania, thank you very much for joining us on this historic day, and thank you very much for guiding us all week in what was happening in pennsylvania. your guidance was invaluable. thank you very much, senator.

>> thanks, lawrence. and rachel, senator casey just mentioned the last one in the room, the last one in the room with joe biden is now going to be vice president kamala harris. that is going to be such an important dynamic. >> yeah, and it's -- that was -- you know, part of the obama administration, i mean, it wasn't -- they were no drama obama, right? it was a very low drama -- there wasn't a lot of palace intrigue in the obama administration. they had their share, but less than most presidencies. they had about 1/1 thousand gazillion less than the four years of this president, but what we learned about how that administration worked at the highest levels is that they had a deal, obama and biden where whenever an important decision was being made the last person

president obama would speak to at the end of the meeting alone would be vice president biden and he would be involved in all those crucial decisions and that's a real partner in governing including the highest level decisions that have to be made by the president alone. and when biden announced that harris would be his choice, he said that he would like to have the same arrangement with her. they've both talked about that on the trail since then, and that is not something that presidents have to do. certainly there have been presidents who have ignored their vice presidents entirely, given them only jobs to do that they don't really want done or don't care if they're done, and in the case of this current president, he's treated his vice president as somebody who expects to clean up after him and compliment him on cue like he's a pet. biden and harris have signaled from the very beginning that they're going to be a partnership. i think that was also part of biden promising that he didn't see himself as the future of the democratic party. he saw himself as a bridge to the future of the democratic party, and i think he sees that

bridge abutment as kamala harris. >> joining our discussion now is president obama's former national security adviser, susan rice, former ambassador -- that's not susan rice, that's ben rhodes who's also standing by. but there's susan rice. we have the entire obama national security team ready to go. let's start with susan rice. ambassador rice, first of all, your reflections on this historic news today. >> i'm just -- i'm full of joy. i'm full of pride in our country. i'm just awed by our resilience and how we have come to a moment of saying we need to take a different course and have done it rather resoundingly, but now we have to come back together and heal, and that's why joe biden and kamala harris are so much the right leaders for this moment. i have in my own household

people of different political persuasions, particularly my young son who's in his early 20s, but other members of my family as well, and you know, we, i think, represent in a microcosm what we face as a nation, which is to recognize that we have the love and the bonds of family and of country that have to be stronger than anything that divides us. we can't survive otherwise, and i'm just grateful to my core that joe biden, who knows in his soul how important unity is, how important our collective strength is, is now the man to lead us forward after a period where, you know, our differences have been sadly exacerbated.

>> susan rice, it's rachel maddow here joining you from my covid quarantine cove. i apologize for any technical difficulties. it's a little weird right now. but i wanted to ask you, i can hear that you're moved by this moment in your voice, and i know you are a tough and even keel person, but let me ask you on the national security side if you are worried about the weirdness, and the fact that joe biden is the president-elect, and are you concerned it could be a fragile national security for us? >> rachel, i am not that concerned at this point. that could change, and i certainly have had my moments of concern over the last few weeks. here's the thing. the world knows joe biden will be the next president of the

united states. there's no ambiguity to that, and it's clear to any adversaries that would think of testing us, and i would break faith and confidence in our law enforcement, our u.s. military to keep us safe in this very important moment. donald trump, no doubt, may behave in a fashion that is chaotic, that is disruptive and counter productive over the next two months. i hope that's not the case. i hope with the light of day and the opportunity to reflect and those around him with caution a different path, and if he does, we may have a rocky couple of months, but we have light at the

end of the tunnel, and we know where we will be and that's in safe and competent hands, and leadership with integrity that cares deeply about this country. we will have leadership that puts the interests of the united states and its people first, and that is an extraordinary blessing and outcome. i think it will help us stay steady and stay on course through what may be a rough couple of months, but maybe not. let's hope for the best. >> ambassador rice, take us inside one of the transition traditions that is not just a tradition but is very important, and that's foreign leaders with the contact president-elect, normally coming in the form of

contkpwrapb congre phone calls, and who is managing what in the way those calls come in to joe biden, and with vladimir putin be calling joe biden with a congratulations call? >> i am not here to speak for vladimir putin, so i can't give you an answer to that one. but the normal is that a president-elect has a smart and competent team around him or her one day, and they field the requests that will come -- i am sure are already coming from leaders around the world to congratulate the president-elect. in a normal circumstance, those calls would be logged and there would be an order devised as to how the president-elect returns those calls and there should be

notes taken in an ideal world if there's cooperation with the outgoing administration, those calls might be fielded through the state department operation system, which would be ideal, so i know the team biden-harris is prepar prepared for this, and they will handle it with the professionalism and confidence and transparency that will be the model for the biden/harris administration. one thing that rachel and i have been wondering about is the possible turbulence of the transition, mostly by people who are in these positions in the trump administration not being cooperative or being anti-cooperative, whatever level that tension might reach. what do you anticipate in that? if things have to be overcome, how would you expect that would

be dealt with if there were challenges like that in this transition? >> lawrence, look, it's too soon to knowledge if this will be something that approaches a normal transition or something that will be a complex and complicated transition. i know the biden team is ready for either one. while it is so much better for our country for there to be a responsible transfer of power as we have had and certainly tried to have in every previous transition in modern memory, if that is not the case, we will be fine and the country will be fine. joe biden and kamala harris have around them extremely experienced competent players on their team, and they themselves represent that confidence and integrity. we will get to january 20th. we will be prepared to hit the ground running and the country will be in a better position to confront the coronavirus, the

economic devastation that it has caused, our kids, many of them still not in school, and the racial justice challenges we face and climate change. all of these issues are front and center on their plates. they will be ready. i know that they will be ready to handle them. >> ambassador susan rice, thank you very much for joining us on this historic day. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence and rachel. >> rachel, ambassador rice has set it up kind of perfectly for us right now in terms of what is coming ahead. she talked about the pandemic, getting control of the pandemic and the white house's response to that pandemic, and all of that changes, all of the white house posture on everything begins to change now during the transition. >> that's right. and it shouldn't go without notice, i think, lawrence, that

there's a pretty good likelihood you and i were just speaking with the next secretary of state there in susan rice. i think everybody expect she will be a contender for that. she was a real contender as for the vice president slot herself, and she and biden have a deep and trusting working relationship, and a lot of people felt like it was a real shame that she did not end up being secretary of state in the obama administration, but particularly if democrats get those senate seats in georgia, she would be atop of anybody's short list to be the secretary of state, and the reason to hope for a peaceful and ordinarily transition is for the sake of the country's stability, and also so the work you are describing can start to get done, and part of that will be naming high-level appointees, nominees very shortly, and including some cabinet positions. we should be expecting to hear about that within a week. >> joe biden is somebody that has gone through a process in

the transition of president-elect joe biden before, and he brings more experience to this. >> and the george w. bush transition, they know it was not only a good transition but helped given the economic free fall that we were in when biden and obama took over in 2009, so they know how to do it and how important it is to be done right. i don't think the trump folks know either of those things, and let's hope they find their better angles for the sake of the country. >> and they didn't understand how many jobs had to be filled. joe biden, i think, has the 5,000 or so jocbs in his head a he is walking around today, and

certainly has a personnel infrastructure that has been built over so many decades in dealing with this. >> that's right. and the democrats, they have a good bench. one of the things that is materially nice about making donald trump a one-term president, you have not had democrats out of power in washington for eight years, and the democrat bench is that much more available to you, because if there were political jobs in the obama/biden administration who were the best people for that job, they are probably still around. and susan rice is that kind of caliber of person that can step back into government now if that's the right person for the job if that's what they want to do in addition to all the new talent the democrats have developed over the last several years. >> rachel, the screen right underneath you says joe biden

elected 46th president up on the screen has been you speaking that graphic, and that is a graphic and image that so many people have been waiting all week to see. racial mad yo -- >> this is the image. >> yes, there we go. yeah, i am going to leave that up just long enough for people to freeze it and capture that picture. >> here's the bunny selfie. >> thank you very much, rachel, for guiding our coverage to this point and getting us to this finish line and for the four years of coverage that you delivered so flawlessly every night during this term that has been so difficult with so many people with a majority of americans standing in opposition to this president see from day one. thank you very much for joining us. appreciate it. >> back to you, lawrence, too. thank you, my friend. thank you. >> thank you. ase