hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. president-elect joe biden -- i'll say it again, president-elect joe biden doesn't need donald trump's blessing to assume the office of the presidency just a little more than two months from now and despite trump's immediate efforts to obstruct the transition, much like he spent the last four years in office obstructing congress, obstructing justice, the rule of law and the basic functions of administrative norms, joe biden doesn't need donald trump's permission to begin leading the country through the crisis playing out as the pandemic reaches a record number of cases and americans await much-needed economic relief. today, joe biden hitting the ground running at the start of

his first full week since his historic victory. naming a covid advisory board first thing this morning. already receiving a briefing on the virus today and early this afternoon announcing a covid response plan that he says he'll deploy as much as he can even before he takes office. now emboldened by the gravitas of his newly besy toed title, president-elect. >> we'll follow the science, we'll follow the science. let me say that again. and we'll adjust to new data when it comes in. and we'll listen and work in cooperation with governors and leaders of both parties who are fighting this virus in their communities. this is a crisis that effects everyone. as i said throughout this campaign, i will be a president for every american. this election is over. it's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that's designed to demonize one another. it's time to end the politicization of basic,

responsible public health steps like mask wearing and social distancing. i won't be president until january 20th, but my message today is to everyone is this. it doesn't matter who you voted for, where you stood before election day. it doesn't matter your party, your point of view. we can save tens of thousands of lives if anyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. >> joe biden pressing forward on the crisis that's currently putting millions of americans in harm's way despite the defiance from his soon to be predecessor, who is refusing to concede and who his allies say might never concede, as members of trump's own administration embark on an extraordinary effort to deny joe biden access to the resources to which he's entitled in the runup to inauguration day. today's "washington post" reports this, quote, a trump administration appointee is refusing to sign a letter allowing president-elect joe biden's transition team to

formally begin its work this week, in another sign the incumbent president has not acknowledged biden's victory. and the trump administration, in keeping with the president's failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one. this could lead to the first transition delay in modern history, except in 2000 when the supreme court decided a recount dispute between al gore and george w. bush in december. donald trump's refusal to activate the levers of government to ensure a smooth transition of power comes as he begins to send his own administration into even more turmoil. today, the abrupt firing announced on twitter of his defense secretary, mark esper, who publicly broke with trump after protesters were gassed in lafayette square to clear the way for trump's photo-op in front of the church. and shortly thereafter, when esper told supporters, he did not support using the

insurrection act, something that trump left on the table amid growing civil unrest in the aftermath of the killing of george floyd. the already fraught transfer of power from president trump to soon to be president biden is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. john heilemann's back, nbc news and msnbc national affairs correspondent, cohost and executive producer of showtime's "the circus" is here. also joining under the circumstances us, ben rhodes. also here, nbc news correspondent carol lee, who has some new reporting for us. carol lee, how has this twitter firing of mark esper landed inside the president's inner circle? >> look, we've heard from people around the president who said that this is not something that they would have recommended, it caught some people, a number of people, offguard, both in the white house and certainly at the pentagon. and this is -- we've reported on the relationship over several months. this is something that while

expected, in the last couple of of days, there were some questions about whether the president would actually follow through with this when the transition was not yet clear, when he's still contesting the results of the election and according to our reporting, mark esper had a resignation letter prepared, so, the president wanted to get in front of him and do the firing himself, as opposed to have one of his top aides in his cabinet resign amid all of this that's going on, where he's questioning the results of the election and people are trying to convince him that maybe these legal fights are not something that he should continue to so aggressively pursue. we have new reporting that there are people around the president that hope these peter out by the end of the week, they are concerned he could be destroying his own legacy, taking the republican party down with him. and this adding to all that just raises the stakes for all of these concerns that we're

hearing and again, this is all happening against the backdrop of a new outbreak of coronavirus within the white house that has the president's own chief of staff sidelined. so, there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of tument and a lot of concern increasingly about where the president is heading on this and who is going to step in and tell him that it may be time to throw in the towel here, to admit the election results and that joe biden is the president-elect. >> carol, it's so interesting, when you hear of the kinds of arguments people are making to donald trump, they're about preserving his legacy, maintaining his dignity, they're never about the country. is there anyone with the country's interests in mind? >> look, i think there are a number of people around the president who are thinking about just the broader picture. the president, though, you know, if you're trying to convince the president to do something, you have to do it in a way that motivates him and one of the motivators for him is his own legacy and how people will see him. look, one person that i spoke

with told me that this is an exercise that's designed basically to get the president, to help him save face. that this is not -- the goal here is not to have legal battles that people think are going to wind up being legit and actually overturning the election results, it's that it's for the president, it's for him, it's to get him to acceptancacc ultimately, and that they want -- this person described it, the idea is branding him as anything but a loser. that's a quote. and so that's the exercise we're seeing playing out and we're starting to see this divide within the president's team about who thinks that he should continue going in full speed in this direction and those that really kind of want him to pull back and to go back to your question about defense secretary esper, that really kicked some of those people who may have been on the fence about this into the column of thinking the president has to stop. >> you know, john heilemann, i

don't know who else other than a loser ends up at the four seasons total landscaping parking lot next to a sex shop. so, i think -- i think carol is right in what she's reporting, but if they're trying to spare him from being a loser, the die was cast when his team, the moment that every network, including fox news was calling the race for joe biden, his top personal attorney was standing in the parking lot of a landscaping business next to a sex shop. >> yeah. any, nicolle, how are you? >> i'm great. how are you? >> hi. pretty -- pretty damn good, right? feels pretty good to be here on this monday. >> it does. >> just want to wallow around in that. the president-elect is putting together a covid task force and talking about how we shouldn't see masks as a political thing and we should really all pull together as a country to fight

the virus and not telling us we're just around the corner, not living in some fantasy land about this pandemic. i want to pause and just say, doesn't it feel great to have an incoming president of the united states who is going to take this virus seriously and try to bring the country together as opposed to divide it every single day? having said that, i think the nuance in carol's reporting, which i think may just kind of -- you got to parse this thing real carefully here. it's not that they can make him not a loser, he's a loser, he's lost the presidency and it's been called and he's -- he's lost. and some of the things like the four seasons landscaping thing add just that perfectly trumpian sort of absurdity to the whole thing. the thing is to try to get trump to think he's not a loser. his advisers have different motivations. some of them are really probably thinking that their election's been stolen and that he should fight to the last -- to the last day. >> who thinks that?

like, who thinks that? who thinks 40,000 votes were stolen in these states? who thinks that? >> nicolle, i think -- only someone who is totally unhinged and divorced from reality, but there's like a guy named mark meadows who works as the chief of staff for donald trump and who everything that's come out of his mouth in the time that he's been in that job has been that he's been a perfect kind of d donald trump mine knee-i-me. i don't want to rule that out, but most of the people recognize that president trump has lost and the game now is a psychological game. they know what would be best for trump, what would be best for the republican party and what would be best for the country would be for trump to move on. the question is, how do you get trump to do that? and you can't, to your question, to carol, you can't appeal to him on that basis. you can't appeal to him on the basis of party, because he doesn't care about the party. you can't appeal to him on the basis of the country, because he doesn't care. if you can get him somehow to

see it as being in his best interest to stand down on these challenges and on these acts of trying to slow down biden's ascension as president-elect and ultimately president, if you can get him to see that as being in his best interest, you might be able to get him to do the right thing for the party and for the country, but you can't make the straightforward appeal, because trump, if you said to him, this would be the best interest in the country, he'd be like, what, the country? so, you got to put it in a language he understands and the only language donald trump understands is the language of self-interest and the language of trump. >> well, and sadly, that is the language, ben rhodes, being spoken that's supposed to release money to the biden campaign. if you've worked in a change of president, you don't know how important that is, but what a

transition is, is the incoming president gets government funds and government office space at hhs and dhs and they get to put a transition team in there and start understanding some of the policy issues and really the most important thing they start working on is personnel. to deprive joe biden of transition funds and the transition authority does not hobble him on day one, he still becomes president on day one, but it is another example of what carol's reporting and what heilman is crystallizing, this is a president that does not and never did care about the country he leads. >> that's right, nicolle. and transitions are set up to be the most efficient way possible to hand over this massive apparatus of u.s. government from one president to another. that means you have to do several things at once. part of it is mapping out personnel changes, from cabinet secretaries to the several thousands political appointees that need to be filled to the white house staff itself. you also have to get ready for your policy agenda. so, they have these landing teams that go into the different

departments, teams of people that would be normally working out of the state department of hhs, trying to get a handle on, what's the state of play here? what's the latest on the virus that's in the u.s. government that we need to know about as we're making our plans so we can have as seamless a transition as possible to january 20th. and this is an effort to kind of slow down those gears. but here's the thing. this is going to happen anyway, nicolle. the trump people seem to be talking like they have some agency here. we're going to have the pageantry of the president-elect announcing his advisory board. he's going to start announcing cabinet secretaries. the center of political gravity is shifting to joe biden. foreign leaders are already having phone calls with joe biden, talking about the agenda they're going to pursue january 20th. if that reality hasn't sunk in yet for people in the white house, it will sink in when they have to leave on january 20th. and they're going to be in for a rude awakening here. i was on the incoming side, where i felt the spotlight shifting to us in 2008 and i was on the outgoing side in 2016 when it was shifting away from

us to donald trump. that's just going to happen regardless of what they do. how much damage do they do? how much do they sow seeds of doubt? but they cannot affect the basic story here and joe biden won, donald trump lost and joe biden is going to be hiring a team and getting ready to take over the government on january 20th. they can make that more difficult for him, but they can't stop it. >> they can't stop that, but the truth remains, a lot of folks in your circles, in national security circles are very concerned that the most damage donald trump can do other than continuing to ignore the raging pandemic is in the national security arena. today, firing mark esper by tweet, but we know axios and others have reported that he has designed on firing the fbi and cia directors. other than the individuals, what is the impact of going on a firing spree like that as a lame duck president?

>> well, i mean, there's a short-term challenge, which is, events could happen. in 2008, during our transition, there was a war in gaza between israel and hamas. a huge terrorist attack in mumbai. the government still has to be the government and still might have to deal with national security contingencies. and it is incredibly dangerous to be hollowing out the leadership of the most important national security agencies. and this concerns me as a former national security official, they've already hollowed out a lot of these departments. the biden people want to get in there, because they want to determine, how much damage has been done here? what has happened at the office of the director of national intelligence where they've already gone on purges? what's happened at the state department, where they have gone on purges of officials? it's important that the biden people have an understanding of how broken these agencies are, because they're going to have to rebuild them. it's not just the people at the top, it's the entire front offices. it's how the pieces of massive bureaucracies like the pentagon,

how do those connect up to the office of the secretary of defense? yes, there's a short-term risk that he's creating vulnerabilities by clearing out these positions, but then there's just the question of, how deep is the rot at the heads of these agencies and the less than he lets the biden people get in there and see that, the harder it is going to be for them to hit the ground running in january and it just creates more uncertainty and instability for our country and government at a time when we should be preparing to move into a new chapter. >> carol lee, i can't imagine that anyone around the president thinking that he minds that joe biden is just going to move ahead and try to contain and control the coronavirus pandemic. the president has publicly and privately made clear he's not interested in that role. but was there any reaction to the caliber of individuals named today on the advisory team? >> well, in terms of the trump side's reaction to the whole thing, i mean, we did see a tweet from one of the president's sons when pfizer

came out and made its announcement about a vaccine, sort of suggesting there was something nefarious happening, all of a sudden we have an announcement about a vaccine. you know, coronavirus, in terms of a task force, is not something that we have seen this white house focus on, really for several months. they initially would meet regularly and then it just faded. and so i think if you're observing the president-elect and him pulling together his team, it's a very different image than what we've seen coming out of the white house, which is, we don't hear from the experts and the doctors in the briefing room in the way that we had initially, when all of this started, back in the spring, or late winter. and so, it's -- it's a contrast. and it's part of this broader split screen that we're seeing. we're seeing the president-elect move forward with pulling together a team, we're told he's going to make announcements this week on his day one staff, those

who wihe will have with him immediately to make policies and decisions. and then have to the cabinet. he's obviously, he had this meeting with his coronavirus task force and then you have the white house and we haven't seen the president since thursday night, we saw images of him on the golf course, but he hasn't addressed the public. we see a lot from him on his twitter feed, a lot of it is defiant. we've seen a number of his allies come out and hold these press conferences but there's not a -- even the way he fired the defense secretary, it was via tweet, it was not coming out, making a statement or saying anything publicly. so, you have this split screen moment in the country and it's worth noting that one of the things that a person close to the president told us, told my colleague peter alexander, when it really started to sink in for some people around the president is when internationally, world leaders started to congratulate president-elect biden. and we've seen some holdouts, but by and large, that's what's happening. and the feeling around the president from the members of his team is that he's

increasingly shouting into the international, global wind, that no one is listening to him. and that everyone's kind of moving on in screen one and here in screen two, you have the president and his twitter feed and he's stuck. and that's where you hear, we're hearing today, some concerns that we just hadn't really been hearing from people in the last couple days. there's a growing sense that it's time. >> one of those holdouts, of course, vladimir putin. carol lee, thank you for bringing all your reporting to us. ben and john are sticking around for much, much more. when we come back, president-elect biden moving aggressively today, as we've been saying, starting with tackling the growing pandemic. one polilace that might need hi immediate attention, the new super spreader event at the white house. more people close to president trump testing positive for coronavirus today. and as more election results come in, the scale of joe biden's victory becomes more clear and makes trump's fake

fraud claims even more fruitless. a flip to the big board with some incredible reporting on how we got here coming up. plus, that sound you heard saturday, a huge sigh of relief from 75 million joe biden voters. all those stories coming up. ng , got very quiet. we worried over loved ones, over money, over our planet, and over takeout. let's remember this time when so many struggled to feel secure, and build a future where everyone can. because when the world seems like it's standing still... that's the perfect time for us to change it.

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we always agree with one another. it doesn't matter who you voted for. we are americans and our country is under threat. >> president-elect joe biden on the urgency of the coronavirus pandemic here at home, as grim new milestones over the weekend prove it is only getting worse for us. the united states has officially surpassed 10 million cases, about one-fifth of the total infections across the globe. our third peak of the virus continues to grow. now at a level nearly double our second peak in july and triple our first peak back in april. we're now at a record average of more than 109,000 new cases per day. almost 6,000 americans have died since election day. as this country nears 240,000 souls lost to the coronavirus. there was some promising new today. american pharmaceutical giant pfizer says its vaccine is proving to be more than 90% effective. much more successful than many

experts expected. pfizer has been very adamant in its position of not taking any money from the trump administration's operation warp speed program for research and development of a vaccine. the two have agreed on a production and distribution plan starting at 100 million doses once the vaccine is approved. let's bring into our conversation dr. vin gupta. he's served as an adviser to the biden team. ben rhodes is with us, as well. dr. gupta, first of all, on where we are right now, i think that people thought that the worst was behind us and that while winter would drive people inside, i think that most people, no matter where they live, are startled by how bad it is, how early. >> good afternoon, nicolle. i think that surprised some of us to some degree. that's why it was so important to try to get the virus under control in the summer.

we knew if we entered the fall at a high base line level of cases, with people tired, with schools reopened, with open table suggesting that indoor reservations for restaurants across the country are at a peak in 2020, society is normalizing life, just as this virus is getting more and more out of control, in addition to the colder, drier air, which we know is ripe fodder for any respiratory virus. it's the perfect storm here, nicolle. so, why this is surprising to some degree, i think it's mainly surprising because we're fatigued. there's a lot of events conspiring to why this is happening the way it is. >> you are always so good to bringing it back to sort of news we can use, what we should still be doing. let me put up a couple more headlines. new york city dangerously close to second wave, mayor says, as new rules loom. utah governor declares emergency, issues mask mandate. we cannot afford to debate this issue. 46 states and washington, d.c.

have seen case percentage increases of 10% or more over the last two weeks. seven states seeing over 100%. how -- i don't want to ask how much worse it can get, because that seems like a doomsday scenario, but i always want to know where the off-ramps are. how can we change this trajectory? what should and could we do? >> i think the immediate few weeks, nicolle, let's talk about the here and now and what people should expect. i've said this over the last few days, but if you can, go to any department store and buy yourself a three-ply nonmedical mask. the truth here is, i was just on an air force drill, i saw a lot of my colleagues using that, that neck goiter sort of covering to cover their nose and mouth and we know that is ineffective. i was stunned by seeing how many use that. it is not safe. there is a lot of variability in the s mask.

use that three-ply mask. a lot of department stores have it. number two, there is now emerging day that if you wear an eye shield, wear a mask, do all the right things, and if planes make that middle seat open, any kind of air travel seems like it's fraught right now, even with ventilation very good on airplanes. we have studying suggesting that there's one out of europe suggesting that those types -- that type of travel can be potentially risky, can be the site for a super spreader event. so, i would suggest all american families to snuggle up at home, minimize nonessential travel. it's just not safe right now. it might have been safe if we had gotten things under control way back when, if we had high quality masks for everybody, but right now, stay home. and then finally, what i would say, eye shields. if you are a teacher, an essential worker, we do have better data now, there's actual data coming out suggesting that high quality masks with eye

shields might prevent transmission. so, for all those teachers out there, for anybody in an inclosed space, because that's what your work tells you you have to do, put on an eye shield. those are some actual advice. >> tell me about the vaccine news today from pfizer. >> i think it's promising. we're going to have safety data come out in two weeks. hopefully we don't have anything untoward there. i think the key piece here is, unlike, for example, some competitor vaccines, the gizer vaccine requires cold chain. what does that mean? it means it requires minus 100 degree temperatures for storage. so, it's not -- and right now, we don't have enough cold storage fridges for the entire country at every health site that it's going to require these vaccines. so, we need to figure out a way for logistics to account for cold chain and right now, we just don't have it. and it's going to be a double dose. a day zero and one at day 28.

there's a lot of complications ahead on logistics to make sure everybody gets this vaccine, but ultimately good news. >> what would be the earliest point where you could have it tested and produced an distributed and have those two doses in enough of our bodies to protect us? >> so, there's going to be a priority system and the national academy of medicine has determined who is going to get it first and who is going to get it later. i would say for every american to get the two doses, quoting dr. anthony fauci here, probably looking at the middle to end of q-2, 2021. so, sometimes in the summer of 2021. but i'm hoping we'll see priority groups get the vaccine towards the end of this year and into early next week. >> ben, you mentioned being involved in presidential transitions, when wars in the middle east and extremely difficult economic crises were

going on. let me read to you what "the new york times" said about this. mr. biden is in line to inherit one of the most serious and complicated times a president has ever faced. while other presidents have entered office during an economic problem, not since harry truman in the final months of world war ii has a new president faced a situation as complex and multiheaded as the pandemic, according to bruce schulman, a political historian at boston university. i want to bring in your sort of knowledge of joe biden and how he governs to sort of share a little bit of what you understand from behind the scenes of how he's like loy ly tackle all of these intricate d moving pieces that dr. gun that is describing. >> history kak knowledge in 2008 is right.

president obama and vice president biden will tell you, they did not fully comprehend the depths of the financial crisis until they got those transition briefings. there is information in the u.s. government that is unique, that they'll want access. in terms of how to approach it. if you look at the advisory board today, joe biden looks to experts. these are experts across the board. they all have a medical background. none of them have a credential because they were on fox news. these are people who are there because they know what they're doing. they're also, by the way, diverse, which i noticed. but what's important is joe biden will want to listen to the best people and he has with them not just that advisory board, he has a guy like ron klain who ran the ebola response out of the white house that is now one of his closest advisers. who does ron klain know how to do? he worked with the state and local governments across this country to figure out, how do we get out the best information to you? how do we get out guidelines? how do we solve problems? bejust heard about the challenge of cold storage. that's the kind of problem that

the federal government will want to come in and solve. what joe biden is going to do, he's not going to make the calls himself. he's going to get from the experts, okay, what is this situation, what are the calls i need to make, what resources do you, the experts need, to get the job done. my job as president is to go to congress or move things around in the executive branch or get on the phone to that governor and make sure a problem gets solved. that's the kind of leader joe biden is going to be. somebody who empowers the experts as much as he can, but then he's the decision point or the action point, to make sure if we need to surge resources, to get a vaccine disseminated or work with states to make sure their guidelines are improving, he will get that done and i think he started that process today and modeled the kind of leader he's fog to be. >> and just to end on something john heilemann said, this will be the first time since the pandemic came to our country that we'll have a president trying to solve it nationally. they settled on a strategy of leaving it to the states and donald trump basically became a heckler, tweeting "liberate

virginia, liberate michigan." you have reassured me on a topic that terrifies me. dr. gupta, ben rhodes, thank you for your time. up next for us, results from suburban parts of atlanta, philadelphia, showing how the growing rebellion against donald trump got us to where we are with president-elect joe biden. steve kornacki is back. don't go anywhere. ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. [ engine revs ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. [ engine revs ] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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after nearly a week of counting votes and watching steve kornacki count votes, we are now getting a much clearer picture of the 2020 election. nationwide, joe biden leads the popular vote by more than 4 million. that number is likely to growing a votes in democratic-leaning states like california and new york are still being counted. all of this amounting to a pretty convincing win for joe biden and a decisive rebuke of president trump. detailed new reporting in "the washington post" explains just how we got here. it paints a portrait of two very different candidacies a steady, disciplined biden, against trump that couldn't help but get in his own way. the same impulses that helped lift him to victory in 2016, burn it all down, the fiery and controversial rants, the false reality, contributed to his undoing four years later. exhausted voters in michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, who

once gave trump a shot, turned on him tuesday. for this conversation, we have nbc news national political correspondent steve kornacki back at the big board for us. plus, democratic strategy basal snickle and john heilemann is back. steve, extraordinary week for viewers in chief. i've been dying to talk to you since saturday, how all these pieces we're watching so closely fell into place and what a win looks like now that we know what it is. >> thanks, nicolle. you look inside some of these states and what swung them. at this point, biden could certainly still get arizona, could still get georgia, but at this point, we're talking about, he flipped the three, we spent four years talking about them, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. and it's really interesting, when you look inside these states, take pennsylvania, the one that put him over the top on saturday, you know, the lead

there ticking up near a point right now, actually, 45,000 votes right now for biden. remember, it was 46,000 for trump in pennsylvania four years ago. so, it's come around. where did it come around in pennsylvania? one of the big answers here, the suburbs, the collar counties right outside philadelphia. these areas have been trending democratic for awhile and that trend has really accelerated in the trump era. here's chester county. take a look. joe biden wins this county. it's a big one, right outside philadelphia. he wins it by 17 points and you can see right there, he wins it by 52,000 votes. now, this was a democratic county already. it was a democratic county in 2016, but check out the difference between what democ t democrats got out of this county in 2016 and what they got out of it in 2020. in 2016, clinton won it by ten and her margin was 25,000 votes. this time, the margin was 52,000 for democrats, biden doubled the margin, the raw vote margin that

hillary clinton got, went from 10 to 17 points. and you saw similar progression throughout this area. 23 becomes 26 in delaware county, you take a look in montgomery, 22 becomes 26, you know, bucks county was razor thin in 2016, still close, but again, biden wins it a little bit more decisively. it's a close race statewide and there are areas of this state that held very strong for trump, but what you saw in pennsylvania, you saw it in wisconsin, you saw it in michigan, you see it in georgia, you're seeing it in arizona and maricopa county, particularly these suburbs, these metropolitan areas. higher turnout and more movement, much more movement, even relative to a couple years ago, 2018, from the trump republican party to biden. makes all the difference in states like this. >> have you had enough time, steve, with the exit polls, to understand what it was that repelled suburban women, and some men, from trump?

>> i mean, look, it just seems like a continuation of the four-year story. in some ways, i look at what happened here, again, not to stick too much on the philadelphia suburbs, but i just remember how democrats talked in the runup to the 2016 campaign. there was this famous line from chuck schumer, the democratic senate leader, who was asked in '16 if he was worried about pennsylvania, particularly trump's rural strength and his line, well, for every vote we lose in the rural part, we're going to get two in the suburbs, and he was wrong in '16 but it was kind of a delayed thing, because i think what democrats were looking at when they saw maps in pennsylvania and other states like it in 2016, they got in 2020. so, they believed these were the kinds of voters who were always ripe to move away from trump, to move toward them. it started to happen in 2016. i think it really happened in '18 in a lot of places and then trump back on -- arizona's a great example of this, by the way, not to jump from state to state, but you think of trump

winning arizona in 2016, then you go to 2018, democrats get the senate race, why? the phoenix suburbs. and now 2020, biden's clinging to that lead in arizona, i think very good chance he can hang onto that. why? the phoenix suburbs. >> yeah, john heilemann, i sort of had this epiphany about six weeks ago that we had done this incredible disservice by focusing so intently on the trump base voter, the kinds that go to rallies and are such public sort of enthusiasts of trump and everything he ushered in and we didn't pay enough attention to the frailty of the 2016 trump coalition, because it seems based on steve's data, that fell apart possibly right after the election, i mean, that could have fallen apart with, you know, all of the mayhem of the first two years, the two-year long mueller investigation, the jailing of children, migrant children and asylum seekers at the border,

the muslim ban. they could have been turned off from day one and i wonder what you think about that theory. >> well, i -- i want to -- i mean, if you don't mind, nicolle, i'm going to loop kornacki into this if he can hear me, just because i know he knows the data better than i do at this point, but i think it's not so much that the trump coalition fell apart, it's that, you know, i mean, trump, if he got 8 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 and he continued to be a dominant, dominant force in rural america. that's just a reality. and that's one of the things that i think democrats were stunned by a little bit, that the victory that joe biden showed is a bigger victory that people understood over the course of the week, it's become clearer to people that biden, how substantial biden's victory is, number one, but number two, the fact is, the trump coalition didn't really fall apart. in some sense, donald trump got more votes than he got last time and not by a little. in the places that were the core of the trump coalition, as i said, rural, he not only got his 2016 totals, but managed to turn

out more people. they did what they said they had to do is go and find more white noncollege voters, a lot of white noncollege voters that didn't vote in 2016 and turn them out. they did that. their problem is that the growth in the -- the growth in the population and the demographic change that's happening in america right now gives the upper hand to democrats, whose coalition is increasingly driven by more educated voters and voters who therefore are sure ban and suburban. what happened, as steve just described it, and this is the question i have for kornacki, has a lot to do with the nonwhite vote. my sense is that basically biden had the kind of turnout with black voters across these states, in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania, that clinton did, that he way overperformed her in the suburbs and his overperformance in the suburbs was so great that it compensated for the growth of trump's vote in the rural parts of the country, it's just biden blew out the suburbs to such an extent that it allowed him to

win. that's my perception of what happened, which is a slightly different thing, i mean, trump had a little bit of support in 2016 in the suburbs and that's the point you are pointing to, nicolle. he did damage in a close race, he hurt himself in some of those places where he'd done well enough in 2016. >> right. >> and that was part of the story here, but a lot has to do with biden overperformers in the suburbs around america in these battleground states. >> what say you, steve? >> let's go to wisconsin, because i think that's really a perfect illustration of this, because wisconsin is a state that, you know, it actually didn't budge much, you know, like john is talking about here. the map, this is the 2020 map in wisconsin. joe biden wins by 20,000. look at all the red counties there, you know, the blue counties in population centers. let me show you 2016. looks pretty similar, right? got to look very subtle here. there's two counties here that change hands between 2016 and 2020 and by the way, they are small counties that barely change hands.

we're talking about biden, 50/48 in a county that with a 47/47 tie. why did biden win 20,000 votes in wisconsin when trump gopt it by 20,000 last time around? and this is, you know, it is the suburbs and it was a critical piece of the trump coalition in 2016, because ultimately, he needed all the rural, he needed all the blue collar, he needed all the support in northern wisconsin in 2016 to get the state, but he also needed in 2016, trump did, those densely populated traditionally republican suburbs just outside milwaukee. the wow counties, they call them. he won them in 2020, but let me show you. here's waukesha county. trump wins, basically, by 20 points. check out what happened in 2016. 27 points. that's a drop. it's still red on the map, but if you want to know why trump won wisconsin by 20,000 in 2016 and is going to lose it by 20,000 in 2020, it's the

counties right outside milwaukee, traditionally republican suburbs and trump did not get traditionally republican levels of support. >> so interesting. it does bring the whole conversation back to turnout, turnout, turnout. that is where we are turn on the other side of the break. our retirement plan with voya gives us confidence... ...so we can spend a bit today, knowing we're prepared for tomorrow. wow, do you think you overdid it maybe? overdid what? well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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years have been really hard for parents and i feel like we've created a better opportunity and a better world for our children. >> awesome. excited. a cloud is lifted. >> you could hear them cheering in the streets on saturday morning here in new york. ask any democrato or any member of the biden coalition and you're likely to hear the same answers, relieved, euphoric, joy and perhaps an ability to exhale. brazil, your reaction to this protracted counting and call on saturday? >> you know, it's four very difficult years that this country has had, especially if your a democrat with donald trump as president and this last year has been so devastating on so many levels for americans. it was good to be able to eke out a victory and i think that is the emotion that you're seeing pouring on to the

streets, it was cathartic. you had a year of wanting some radical change both in terms of our health, but also the racial unrest. and so it is no wonder that people just felt this sigh and said this exhale, like waiting to exhale was a political movie, this would be it. and to sort of tie it to the earlier segment, when you have in increased urbanization which is a phenomenon occurring across the globe where many more people are moving to urban areas an the suburbs are more zdiverse and yu look at the mayors, particularly the black women that came to the forefront during the racial unrest, we're mobilizing in ways that we never did before and it is incredible to see. if you have any doubts, just think about how on message we were when joe biden and the ticket said vote early and make a plan to vote. when have you seen so many

democrats do exactly that and have such an incredible sort of impact on this election. down the road, i think that rural urban divide either complicates or supplants the red state/blue state, but if you think about what a lot of voters in the densely populated areas were experiencing and across country, they were talking to each other and sharing stories an this is a sign that, you know what, elections have consequences and if we come together, if we organize together, we could make substantial change and that is exactly what you saw. >> pick up on john heilemann's analysis while the coalition doesn't look the same, joe biden turned out more of his vote. they plan their vote. but what sort of -- turnout isn't a science.

it is a art and science and ground game and it can't all be bought. some of it has to be knocked an walked and just talk about the winning formula that joe biden landed on. >> well, you touched on it earlier when you referenced that article. because in that article it also said that this year, the trump aide said this year this pandemic really cost him. i actually think it was the two weeks from the debate performance to him getting covid and the behavior after that, i think it lost -- he lost a lot of independent voters and a lot of swing voters as a result of that. and you know what, joe biden predicated his campaign on bringing back those exact same voters. and being able to step into the rural communities that have gotten older and more pocks of poverty. so his ability to do that, but also, again, this is -- i always say that voting it a form of protest. so if you think about it as a continuation of what we saw over the summer with the racial

inrust, there is no wonder that you're going to have the turnout that you had. it is a little scary and jarring that trump's numbers went oup, that he got more voted from 2016 but on the democratic side, that is not in isolation. that is a summer's worth, a year's worth of saying enough is enough and this has to be the year where we make a stand. >> steve kornacki, john heilemann, basil smikle, to be continued. thank you sore spending time with us here today. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts offer a quick break. don't go anywhere. k break. don't go anywhere.

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it was so important early on to say to the president, if you're base is for not conceding is that there was voter fraud, then show us. show us. because if you can't show us, we can't do this. we can't back you blindly without evidence and that is why i said what i said on wednesday morning an thursday night. and i'm hoping that more republicans move in the direction of saying, not that we don't support the president. he's been a friend of mine for 20 years but friendship does not mean that your blind. friendship means you'll listen to somebody and give them their opportunity and if they don't come forward with the proof it is time to move on. >> hi, again, everyone. it is time for donald trump to put up or shut up according to chris christie. the president still over 48 hours since joe biden became president-elect, unable to

accept reality of his own defeat and a republican party with only just a couple of noteworthy exceptions all too eager to follow him down a rabbit hole of baseless legal claims. it is the fourth straight day of no public appearances. he's been vocal on twitter and falsely claiming victory was stolen from him. his claim so inflammatory and unsubstantiated that twitter has had to attach warnings to them. if the face of the denial, the republican party former standard bearers are adhering to tradition. george w. bush congratulating biden yesterday, the call and a statement, quote, i extended my warm congratulations and thanked him for the patriotic message he delivered last night. though we have political differences, i know joe biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country. and senator mitt romney, the party presidential nominee eight

years ago warned that history handles moments just like thes., >> clearly people in the past that have lost elections have gone out in a way that said, look, i know the eyes of the world are on us, the eyes of our own people are on the institutions and the eyes of history are on us. >> however most currently srveing top republicans have yet to free themselves. "new york times" reported this, quote, more than 24 hours after his election has been declared the vast majority of republicans have declared to -- as mr. trump defied the results and vowed to forge ahead with long shot lawsuits to overturn them. legal battles that are not going away. quote gop leaders and confidants of president trump tell axios his legal fight to overturn president-elect joe biden's

victory, which they admit is likely doomed, could last a month or more. possibly pushing the 2020 political wars toward christmastime. meanwhile axios is reporting that at same time donald trump is privately mulling a presidential run in the year 2024 which they note is the clearest indication that trump understands he lost and even if trump never formally concedes the election, does not assist president-elect biden with the transition, and does not attend joe biden's inauguration, he will still need to leave the white house. that is 72 days away and already we've seen trump swinging his lame duck cudgel around, firing mark esper today. that is where we start this hour with our favorite reporters and friends. peter bake. >> "new york times" chief white house correspondent is with us and also a political analyst and author of the book "the man who

ran wash", also joining us steve schmidt one of the founding members fts lincoln project, and olivia troy who worked on the trump administration coronavirus task force as an adviser to mike pence and counter-terrorism and now works with the group republican political alliance for integrity and reform. peter baker, i have worked for winning presidential candidates losing presidential candidates and i was on 2000 recount. and i've never seen a president dig in in a way that is so immune from sort of his oneco chamber. fox news pulled away from a kayleigh mcenany briefing and my 4:00 p.m. neighbor neil cavuto on fox said -- do we have the clip, control room? we don't have the clip yet. as soon as we get it i'll show

it to our viewers. but it said without any evidence, i cannot air this. i cannot show this to you. chris christie has been saying really since wednesday morning when trump came one this strategy of alleging massive voter fraud on a scale that election -- legal election experts in both parties say just simply does not exist, that if donald trump can't show the data, he can't claim that he won. what do you make of the fact that donald trump doesn't seem to be influenced any more by the voices on fox news, the voices of chris christie, he was probably never particularly swayed by mitt romney or george w. bush. but it seems that his circle is tightening. >> yeah. he looked increasingly isolated. this is a president that told us from the beginning, told us months ago that is what he would do if he lost. woe accept no outcome that didn't result in him winning and

anything else would be declared to be rigged and false and he made that declaration before any vote was cast. so we shouldn't be surprised because he told us what he would do no matter what. there are no facts that would suggest that the election has been stolen in the way he describes. you wouldn't have tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots multiple states and multiple counties and cities with untold people supposedly involved in this far-reaching conspiracy that he basically implies is happening there. and so you left the republican party that doesn't want to go down this hole with him but didn't want to cross him either and they're straddle line is well the president has any right to pursue any legal remedies he wants which of course is true. but they're not embracing most of it any way, the farfetched claims but not congratulating biden and hoping everybody will leave them alone while this is settled. >> are you alleging fraud in the down ballot races or is the

imagine air fraud just fraudulently made up some result in the presidential line? >> well it is remarkable that the democratic conspirators decided not to steal the house or the senate. the democrats lost five seats i think. they didn't capture many of the senate seats they thought they might capture, somehow i get that got left on the side for whatever broad conspiracy there must have been out there. look, this is very damaging. the problem is it is sort of part and parcel of a president who traffics in conspiracy theories. but we're left with a certain part of the population will believe the election wasn't legitimate. he wants to say i was stolen or frauded and i think people believe him and that has lasting damage to the system that has relied on faith that the election basically are fair and

free. even after 2000, the tough recount with bush and gore, they came out of that and said we believe in the system, we believe that this outcome, even if we were disappointed, was a free and fair one basically and we believe in democracy. and you're not hearing that from the white house. >> and not just a segment of the population, half of the voting public. i mean millions and millions of people are being conditioned to believe that joe biden century a legts president in the same way that donald trump wants millions of people to believe that president obama wasn't legitimate. it is incredibly damaging. i want to bring you in on this point, steve schmidt, but i also want you to pick up on the progress, i guess, that donald trump has made in selling the lies and he's really only meeting minimum resistance. mitch mcconnell is on the floor today nodding along with the lies. as i said, neil cavuto just pulled away from the lies. it is revealing almost like

invisible ink under the light, who is still interested in running and wanting to have the trump voter vote for them and who cares about the country and it is stark and it is a sadly small pot of people who care about the country. >> this is an authoritarian moment, nicolle. what we're watching here is people from the senate majority leader on down that are being unfaithful to the fundamental idea of the country. which is that the american people are sovereign, the american people decide who the leader of the united states are. and they decide that through an election process. and this election was won by joe biden. the former vice president is now the president-elect of the united states. he won a decisive victory. and so what peter said about faith and belief or what fueled democracies like the united states, and they're assaulting the faith and belief of people

in the system. and forever more we'll have -- and we know this before the election but 30, 35% of the country will never accept the results and follow donald trump down this rabbit hole. but everybody who is not speaking out about this, i mean, there are no senate republicans who believe this. every one of them believe this is totally nonsense. >> it is b.s. they think that trump is crazy yet his grip on them remains vice like. and all it took was a threat from donald trump jr. on the 2024 republican candidates, the freighto of the trump family, to tear apart, right, any of the republican members faithfulness to our system of elections, to democracy, to the rule of law, all of it. it is just tragic to watch. but we need to be clear about what we're watching. we're watching the mask slip

away. and what is left are people that are happy to maintain somebody in power that has lost the popular will of the people. we've never seen this before in this country's history. a sudden breaking of the faith with american democracy by a significant percentage of the elected leaders to federal office in the country. it is a horrifying, tragic and embarrassing se embarrassing spectacle and it is dangerous for the future of american democracy. >> it is such a dark quota, olivia to what has been a dark four years. i asked i think three and a half years ago the bottom is calling and it wants to know if we're there yet and how foolish was i. but i want to read you more from

axios. he planned to publish on bit yu airs of those that votes that are dead. let's start at that. that jumped off the page and stabbed me in the heart when i heard him he haven't heard him stand in the oval and read an obituary of a nurse, a doctor, firefighter, a cop that has died from covid and he's going to waive around obituary of those. >> i think that is repulsive. i think it is in keeping with the way this person behaves repeatedly and i think it is awful to basically use someone's passing for yet again a political moment which is what these people have done repeatedly. the more trump focuses on his lawsuits and his lies right now, the more we delay actually focusing on the pandemic

response at hand that they have botch from day one. and that, to me, is what is kaermd incredibly upsetting. >> peter, i want to come back to you on the tweet, this is the "wall street journal" editorial board joe biden's time to heal. he'll have to over turn biden's lead in pennsylvania, georgia, arizona and nevada and that is a very long shot. the deadlines for vote kouptsing are fixed in law and mr. trump isn't owe blythed to concede, he was an outside who would disrupt the political class and but in the end he lacked skill to persuade a majority that the disruption was worst the cost of political divisions and the risk of a second term. character does count in a president. it is a remarkable thing to come from the "wall street journal." and again, just to this sense

that olivia is talking about, it is this reprehensible lack of human, a lurch toward authoritarianism, but we lurched already but it is standing there on the mark. do you think anyone is going to be influenced by the kinds of -- i mean anyone that used to matter in the republican party would care what happened on fox news an the editorial page. do you see any weak links in all of those standing with donald trump? >> well, i don't think that they really -- are they standing with him, yes. >> mitch mcconnell went to the senate floor and echoed the trump kids' message. >> well, i agree. but what they're waiting for is the course to hand down verdict saying this is all nonsense and then they'll say the course of the rule. >> we have on 0 for 7 in the courts. >> sorry. >> they've gone 0 for 7 in the courts. >> exactly. that is why we shouldn't expect

them to change. you can't overturn the results in four or five states or anything like that on the level he's talking about. it is not even a long shot which is what the "wall street journal" just said it is a long shot. there is no reason to believe this could happen. in bush v. gore, after five weeks of legal fights all it changed was about 1200 votes you're talking about changing tens of thousands of votes in multiple states, not happening. so republicans trying to wait out trump and give him some room to come to conclusion on their own. a lot people think they should say something but i don't think they're fooling themselves into thinking that the president will be president on january 20th at noon. >> i want to ask you about mike pence because you were his adviser on the coronavirus task force. do you think when joe biden rolled out a plan that mike pence thought that the work he had been a part of was better or the work that joe biden announced today was better? >> i don't know what the vice

president is thinking right now. what i do know is that his behavior recently tells me that he's just checked out and not paying attention to the pandemic. so, one could say that joe biden is in a better position to actually respond to this pandemic because he doesn't have donald trump as his boss. >> yeah, that is such an interesting point. are you surprised, olivia, when you see that not even a pandemic that is entering a third peak which is double the second peak, triple the first peak, that that doesn't get the attention of the folks in the white house and doesn't change their approach and say maybe we could do something or send more tests or see if dr. fauci will still take our call or do you think there is no crisis for the people that is dire enough to get their attention over the fraudulent e recounts? >> i don't think there is anything that will take away from the focus on trying to convince people that the election, so to speak, has been stolen from them and quite

frankly they threw a big election party in the white house that ben carson attended that mark meadows attended and infected its own staff. so we have another outbreak again in the white house. so i think that just says it all right there. they don't even care about their own people, why would they care about any of us. >> dave chapelle made that point on snl. i want to show you neal cavuto putting away from kayleigh mcenany. >> you don't oppose an audit of the vote because you want an accurate counts. you don't oppose our efforts at sunlight and transparency because you have nothing to hide. you take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal voting. our position is clear, we want to protect the franchise of the american people. we want an honest, accurate, lawful count, we want maximum

sunlight, we want maximum transparency. we want every legal vote to be counted and every illegal vote. >> whoa, i think we have to be clear. she's welcoming fraud or illegal voting unless she has more details to back that up, i can't continue showing this. but maybe they do have something to back that up but that is an explosive charge to make. >> so a person with a conscience who understands not just those are flagrant lies but the counting is ongoing and a lot of the officials at the state level, georgia and other places, are republicans. so these accusing a whole bunch of people that have absolutely no reason to be in on some massive nonexistent conspiracy of things they have no incentive to do. but that should be the human reaction of everybody and it is remarkable because it happened

on fox news. do you think something contagious over there? >> well, look, i'm happy he did that but he did not go far enough. watching kayleigh mcenany talk about honesty and transparency is an obscenity in this country. she's a serial liar with no credibility who is part of his regime that has done terrible damage to america. neil cavuto knows the answer. there is no widespread electoral fraud. it does not exist. and we have enough information right now in this moment in this space time continuum to understand that. so we ought to stop saying that if there is evidence, there is no evidence. right. this is a fantasy. we're watching a conspiracy theory being woven in realtime. and every person in this country should be outraged over it. the capital dome was constructed in what might be the greatest act of optimism in the country's

history. lincoln insisted that it be built during the middle of civil war so there would be a temple under which the country's democracy could rekons crate itself in the shadow of arlington, the heros that saved this country and gettysburg and on normandy and the lincoln memorial, the washington monument, the jefferson memorial. under that dome we have members of congress refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of an election result who are complicit in the fabualism coming out of the white house and we think it is okay for them to play politics. for how long? days, a week, months, where they poison the american policy with this b.s. it is the last outrage but whether we look at all of the assaults on rule of law and decency, on common sense, the

actions that led to this pandemic raging out of control, hundreds of thousands of people that will be dead, not because that otherwise would not be. this is the worst thing they've done is this. this is is. the greatness of the country is bound up very directly to the peaceful transition of power that follows an american election. and this election, like the elections before it, was a free and fair election conducted across the states in the american people have rendered their verdict and they threw donald trump out on his ass. and whether he liked it or not, too bad. that is the result. but to see senior leaders, elected to federal office in this congress, would took an oath of office to the constitution of the united states, playing games with this

is a disgrace for the ages. >> they want me to go to break but i can't let you stop. tell me what we do next? >> well, we should demand that every one of these elected officials is seen to the reality that donald trump has been defeated. he's been defeated. we should give no quarter to this fantasy world. it doesn't exist. these people are damaging, damaging in a profound way pillars of american democracy that require one side be willing, be able to look in the mirror and say we lost. we'll get you next time. it goes to the heart of the legitimacy of the system. but we need to stop playing around with this. you know, with all respect to peter and i think peter is entirely right, they'll come

around in a couple of weeks. by after how much damage? they already know the result. and we should insist on that they stop it. nobody gets time to deal with their feelings here. this is the presidency of the united states. we decide. if this was going on in another country, what would we call it? this is autocratic behavior. this is unacceptable in this country. and it is unacceptable for the senior leaders of the republican party to be doing what they are doing. joe biden has won. pick up the phone and congratulate the president-elect of the united states. and do better in four years. maybe if there is a nominee with a modicum of competence and isn't crazy, they won't have such a decisive defeat next time. >> peter baker, your name was invoked, and i know we need to get to break but i don't want to leave this hanging but i do want

to keep going here. tell me if there is any concern among people that you've covered like john bolton or dan coats or gina haspel that donald trump is creating a national security issue or domestic security issue but conditioning 70 million americans to not accept the legitimacy of joe biden when christopher wray has testified that radicalized white supremacy and domestic terrorism here in america is the greatest threat to the homeland. >> you seif john bolton and he wrote a op-ed saying this this election was over and that it was important that the president not be for all things steve just said, not be allowed to delegitimatize it through false conspiracy theories. and i think there is concern among a lot of institutionalists in both parties even if they're not saying it out loud, but no question about that.

this is been the threat we've seen since summer when the president first tried to suggest that they should delay the election, then when that didn't go over well, started saying immediately that this is going to be rigged no matter what, passing a verdict saying that mail-in balloting was corrupt and didn't wait for any facts to declare it and still isn't waiting for any facts. this is what we saw, my wife and i were correspondents in russia, we saw regimes that would put forward assertions without any evidence whatsoever and then the evidence was somehow at some point followed up to because it was orred up. i don't think that will happen in this case because there is no evidence, nothing that would overturn these elections and i think there is a credibility issue. whether it is 48% or some lower number, certain number of people in this country will agree that there was wrong with this election when there is no evidence of it. >> well now, peter baker, you've blown my mind. to draw on your experience of

moscow as a parallel to the 2020 presidential election, everyone should be gobsmacked. why aren't there more people saying that and saying what steve schmidt just said? >> well the russians right now are chortling. they've having a great time watching this. and they're using this to say we told you democracy doesn't work and it is just as corrupt there as it is here. we told you that you shouldn't put your faith in western democracy as a institution and as a tradition. and they're using it both to undermine any opposition to vladimir putin in russia, by saying, see, there is no alternative and using it to destabilize us at home and with our allies around the world. and i think there is a consequence to this, to this uncertainty and the idea that a president of the united states would call into question the very institutions of the democracy he provides over. >> olivia i'll give you the last

word. because out of the four of us, you've been in the room. do you share the concerns, there is no check on trump's autocratic impulses. >> absolutely. and i think that i have a community of over 500 national security officials that have stated this openly and repeatedly to the american people prior to this election. there is no doubt his rhetoric and misinformation that he continues to push is dangerous. it is dangerous to our democracy, certainly very dangerous to domestically here and we should all be really worried about it. >> peter baker, steve schmidt, and olivia troy. thank you so much for starting us off this hour. when we come back, a t -- it may be president-elect joe biden's biggest challenge on how to heal a divided country. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. n't go anywhe? i don't have silent. everyone does -- right up here.

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i would implore everybody who is celebrating today to remember it is good to be a humble winner. remember when i was here four years ago. remember how bad that felt? remember that half of the country right now still feels that way. please remember that. you have to find a way to live your life. you have to find a way to forgive each other. you have to find a way to find joy in your existence somen spite of that feeling. >> he's a brilliant man that is dave chapelle on "saturday night

live" with a harsh truth, we're on the verge of something new in america, but the partition and the resentment didn't evaporate and it is still there. joe biden ran a campaign on restoring the soul of the nation, certainly has his work cut out for him. but from what he's saying and how he's acting, it would appear he's up for the challenge. >> for all of those of you who voted for president trump, i understand the disappoint tonight. i've lost a couple times myself. but now let's give each other a chance. i'll work as hard for those who didn't vote for me, as those who did. let this grim era of demonization in america begin to end here and now. >> joining our conversation,

eugene robinson, pulitzer prize column post analyst and erin haines from the 19th and the msnbc contributor. erin, did you see dave chapelle on saturday night live and i like that through line of folks saying, just keep the other side in mind. do you ve-- you don't have to change what you do, but keep the mission what joe biden set out for himself of keeping the country in mind. does that move you. >> i think dave chapelle always had his pulse on the temperature of this country and his delivery on saturday night, that monologue was something that he encourage all americans to watch. i thought he delivered a very good message that a lot of people need to hear. look, as you mentioned, nicolle, joe biden got into this race saying that this was a battle for the soul of america and frankly this election was only the beginning of that battle.

70 million americans voted for trump and the good sportsmanship that dave chapelle alludes to is something that will have to be practiced by all americans for all of the talk that i hear about biden supporters need to show empathy and try to understand the trump voters. i think that we also need to be having a conversation about the trump voters and how they feel about the results of this election. i know that we have a lot of republican leaders that are refusing to accept the results but what about republican voters, are they ready to move forward and unite with fellow americans. i think there are questions that we need to ask in this moment when we talk about the potential for unity and healing on the other side of a very contentious election in the middle of a divisive political environment for this country, that preceded frankly president trump's term, although it was certainly exacerbated by it. >> eugene, to play the devil's

advocate here, on the other side, they need to accept that they lost so i'm not sure what sort of open heart to go to them with. donald trump hasn't accepted the result of the election and if donald trump said something, his supporters usually believe it. >> right. well, let me associate myself with everything that steve schmidt said today in the previous segment. >> there is a lot of that today. >> i mean, look, the man can talk and he laid it down. and here is the problem, right. it is i'm not hearing biden supporters attacking trump voters. nobody is attacking trump voters. nobody is attacking people who for whatever reason put their hope and trust in donald trump. people are -- in donald trump because he is -- because of the damage he has done to our democracy and the damage he is doing to our democracy and i

hope people also attack his quibbling like mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham and ted cruz, who know perfectly well who won this election and know perfectly well that these margins of tens of thousands of votes will never be over turned by any court case or any recounts that that doesn't happen. they know this. and the pretending other wise. but it is not just on trump to say okay, i lost. it is also on his supporters to also, you know, stay bought into the idea that we have a peaceful transfer of power in this country and that sometimes one side wins and sometimes the other side wins and we all accept that and move on. just as it was a very bitter pill that a lot of us have to

swallow four years ago but we swallowed it and it is incumbent on them to take the medicine now. so it is not -- so nobody is attacking them. but we're waiting for them and anticipating that they will, you know, continue to be full participants in our democracy understanding their role. and understanding who won the election. >> erin haines, when i hear joe biden say and he's really been saying it for months that he is running to be an american president, he's a proud democrat running to be an american president. some of what i hear is that he's going to solve america's problems and the biggest problem right now is a raging pandemic nearing the third peak which is three times the size of its first peak and then he's going to repair the economic devastation that ensued when a pandemic ran rampant in our country in a way that made us a world leader in not a good way. a leader in infections and a

leader in this uncontained spread and one of the countries to still be debating in month nine whether to wear a mask or not. what do you hear when you hear joe biden talking about being a president for americans? >> well, nicolle, i think on the other side of this election we're still seeing a contrast between president trump and president-elect joe biden. we have not seen the president come out and say anything about the record numbers of people who have contracted coronavirus during election week. and yet we see president-elect biden coming out today showing that he plans to governor for all americans and to look out for all americans in the midst of the pandemic which he is taking seriously, announcing that coalition of folks who to advise him on what to do about this global public health threat that is still affecting far too many americans as we head into the thanksgiving and christmas holiday. you know, this is what

president-elect biden seems to be focused on while it is not really clear other than, you know, the spector of voter he fraud without evidence seems to be the main thing that president trump is focused on, if not golfing and taking advantage of a good weather weekend in america. >> right. a rage tweet and get in some golf. i want to turn to another subject. one of the things joe biden needs to confront relates to one of the darkest chapters of the trump presidency and nbc news is reporting that lawyers working to reunite families under the trump administration child separation policy could not find the parents of some 666 migrant children separated from parents at the border. that is more children that we were told by the government. let's bring in my colleague jacob soberoff, tell me what you're learning today?

>> so last month we brought toern the news of a court filing that the lawyers searching for parents of separated children could not find 545 parents associated with children separated by the trump administration. it turns out that number is actually far greater than we had initially thought. you just said it. 666 children whose parents were taken from them. they are unable to locate the parents of those children. and on top of that, according to a source familiar with this data, one-third of those children at the time of their separation were, and almost hard to say, toddlers an preschoolers at that time, under 5 years old. and again we've talk about this at this point throughout the duration of the trump administration through the last three years. department of homeland security and the department of justice and health and human services, there were career officials that warned their superiors this is the exact scenario we would find ourselves in and today again we

find out it is even worse than we previously thought. >> so 230 of the separated children were babies and toddlers. where are they right now? >> we don't know for sure. they're with either sponsors inside the interior of the country, which are family members or people who have brought them in through a process with the office of refugee resettlement and taken in once they were brought into the department after the separation but the parents may have been deported or here in the interior of the country and not able to be located, by the federal government. but that number continues to expand as the lawyers searching for these kids an there has been plenty of great reporting on the ground in central america that have been looking door-to-door. the lawyer simply cannot find them. and as they've gone through the data, what is new about this is that the number continues to grow as they search through it. and again, for the first time we're learning that a tlird of

the those kids were preschoolers at the time they were taken from their parents by the trump administration. and i should say, nicolle, president-elect biden has said one of his first acts as the president of united states will be to set up a task force to reunite children and we're waiting for word from the president-elect's transition team about how they would handle this scenario. >> eugene, i want to bring you in. the propublica take and i think they were the first to have the awe yo tape of the babies wlaling at the detention center became the soundtrack of the horrors of the trump presidency and this is new information to me, that there are 666 kids that remain separate and 230 of them were babies and toddlers at the time. it seems to me that maybe the reason trump doesn't want to transition is he doesn't want landing teams inside of the agencies because once you open up the doors to sunlight, to

normalcy, to people with integrity, it would appear that there is a whole wrought around the justice department, around the homeland security department of people that allows for 230 infants and babies to be ripped from their parents. what is joe biden walking into? what sort of vastness of cruel policies implemented incomp incompetently await him? >> we don't fully know. but we have some idea. so we're going to continue finding rot and decay and just -- i mean, this is -- you know, one of the traditions in our democracy, is that a new administration from the other party takes office and we don't try to prosecute or pursue the previous administration, people in the previous administration for

wrongs they committed. generally speaking we don't. i think that is a tradition frankly we're going to have to take another look at. because every time, and jacob soberoff, and jacob in particularly, the reporting on this has been so fabulous but it makes me so mad and so angry that the torturing of these children, ripping them from their parents and in this way, deliberately as a show of cruelty to deter others from coming here to seek asylum is just -- people should go to jail for that. people absolutely should go to jail for. because you can't do that and not know that it is wrong. that it's criminal, it's immoral, it is just wrong. and 666 now, i think -- i don't

know that the number will climb. but i'm guessing that it will because they didn't care about these kids. they just didn't care about them. and it is just -- it is stunning. now that is, you know, in one department, what else we'll find when biden gets to sort of look under the rug and in other departments, we have no idea. >> it is unbelievable. i associate myself with the comments of eugene robinson. erin haines and jacob soberoff, thank you for the great reporting. it is so important. when we come back. what does america look like to the rest of the world as trump fired his defense secretary, spreads false claims about the election and refuses to concede. our friend keir simmons jones us with global reaction when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. h continues after a quick break.

so with an incumbent president refusing to concede and an election he lost offer the vote were counting slowly and carefully. what does american look like in the eyes of the world. joining us is keir simmons. i want to give you a two-part question. what does this debacle look like in the eyes of the world with mitch mcconnell and other senior republicans going out and going along with trump's lie. but i also want you to talk about who is taking the trump side and who is acknowledging

reality and congratulating. >> you want to ask me about putin. >> yes. you got it. >> nicolle, there you go. i'm just going to come out and say it. look, putin lost this and in some ways in a counterintuitive way. because when you think back at 2016, at this point we were all talking about how russia meddled and managed to divide america. america now i think recognizes that the polarization in america wasn't caused by putin, though he managed to mix it up. that president putin really isn't that powerful. you know, also, i would say this. despite everything that you're seeing domestically, i do think america is giving the world a demonstration of democracy. a left-wing lawmaker here in the uk used to say one of the things he wanted to know first about a politician is how do i get rid of them. that was one of his tests of

democracy, and i think ultimately america is going to demonstrate that it does have the capability, that it has the system that does allow it to get rid of a leader through an election. and, of course, for president putin, that is not the kind of question that he likes to see being asked and being answered. so, you know, i think there are mixed reactions around the world, clearly. the europeans, the western europeans are falling over themselves with delight, i think for the future president biden. he has an advantage, which is that he begins with a very low bar. simply re-entering the paris climate coordinate. pre-negotiated over iran the way the western europeans want. people may not have noticed but joe biden promised next year a summit for democracy, bringing people around the world together to talk about democracy. i mean, that is music to the ears of western leaders in germany and france. a little note for -- about the british here, nicolle.

it's tough times for the british. they're having to talk about whether or not the prime minister here will even get one of the first phone calls from the -- from joe biden. it's a little like, you know, when you are close to a boss and then that boss gets removed and a new boss comes in who knows that you were close to the old boss. that's kind of how -- right now boris johnson feels, i imagine. >> that's so interesting. i want to hear more and more and more. we're going to have you back. nbc's keir simmons in london, thank you for spending time with us today. >> we didn't even get a chance to talk about china. >> we'll do that tomorrow. same time, same place, tomorrow. >> you bet. >> when we come back for us, as we do every day, remembering lives well lived. i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. hm. i'm thinking... will i have enough? should i change something? well, you're asking the right questions. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay."

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we're grateful. "the beat" with my friend ari melber starts right now. hi, are. >> hi, nicolle. there is much i could ask you about, but i'm curious what you think about donald trump after all the threats and the bluster doing literally nothing since saturday. >> you mean except golfing and sending rudy out to the poor landscaping company? >> yeah. >> well, i think it's very on brand, right? and i started my time here today asking if there's anyone around them with the good of the country in mind. because it seems that we've talked about the rubber meeting the road. this is really where rubber/road, right? and i am just dismayed at the shabbiness of the character of the people surrounding donald trump. it says so much. and we've wondered. we posited. you've had lots of his legal advisers on your show over the course of the presidency. it says something so disturb