good day, i'm andrea mitchell from washington with break news from the supreme court. the justices hearing oral arguments this morning on whether to throw out the affordable care act, president obama's signature legislative accomplishment, with 20 million americans or more bracing for a decision that could strip their health care from them in the middle of a pandemic. nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. what did you hear from the justices today? >> my guess is, based on the questions the justices are asking, they are not prepared to strike down obamacare. i don't think there are five

votes on this court to do what the 18 red states are asking the supreme court to do. so remember the history here. the supreme court originally upheld the law as a legitimate use of congress' taxing power. the argument was congress can't order you to buy something, so it's unconstitutional. the supreme court said in 2012, no, congress gave you a choice, buy the insurance or pay a tax. that's why it upheld the tax. then in 2017 congress said we'll set the tax as a zero. now the states say you can't say it's a tax so it's unconstitutional. i don't think there are five votes on any of the points the supreme court has is to decide. the first is, are the states injured enough to give them standing to bring this lawsuit. they basically said, well, we have to fill out some forms and more people have signed up for medicaid. several of the justices said, how does it make sense to say now that without a penalty more

people will sign up for medicare than would have signed up before the tax was repealed when they would have had to pay a penalty? that doesn't seem to stand up to common sense. secondly, is this still a mandate or not? several of the justices say, without a penalty, there is no mandate, this is just sort of like, as stephen breyer said, a law that says buy bonds or go plant a tree. it's suggesting what you ought to do but there isn't any mandate any longer. and i think the trickiest one for the states is this. the states argued, if you find the mandate unconstitutional, you have to say the entire law falls. here i think there are at least five votes, including the chief justice, including conservative brett kavanaugh, to say, no, the best evidence that we look at when deciding whether a law has to be struck down because part of it is invalid is what did congress say. and what they say is, in 2017, congress said all we're going to take away is the tax, they left

the rest of the law intact. in fact the solicitor where then from california said today, congress considered repealing the entire law and didn't do it. so for all those reasons, andrea, it seemed based on the questions and comments from the justices today that there are not five votes here, that obama will be spared. >> that is fascinating. of course amy coney barrett was part of this oral argument today. anything significant coming from the newest justice? >> i don't think so, for this reason. i think she was following the questions from the other justices. she didn't tip her hand strongly one way or the other. even if you score her as a dependable conservative who would be willing to strike down obamacare, you don't get to five, because you've got brett kavanaugh and the chief justice who will likely vote with the liberal justices to say, even if the states have standing to bring this lawsuit, even if the individual mandate is unconstitutional, we can still save the rest of the law, we

just cut out the mandate, which effectively doesn't do anything right now anyway. as a matter of fact, samuel alito, one of the conservatives, said, when congress originally passed this law, the individual mandate was seen like an essential piece of an airplane that would keep it in the air. now, he says, we know the health care law continues to work without it. so i don't think there's a majority of the court that's going to buy the states' argument here. >> that's so interesting, pete williams, thank you so much, as that argument is ending. news from pfizer about a covid-19 vaccine with more than 90% efficacy was met with widespread hope across the country. but the record settling spikes in coronavirus cases and more than 700 deaths yesterday alone are a grim reminder of the difficult road that lies ahead, depending on what the american public does. dr. anthony fauci is the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and a member of the white house coronavirus task force and joins me now.

dr. fauci, very good to see you at such a critical stage on what we're going to do in the case about the pandemic. let me ask you first about the news from pfizer. what more has to happen before the fda will give final approval to the vaccine for use? is there a plan to handle the complex distribution with refrigeration requiring storing at 94 degrees below zero fahrenheit and two doses needed? >> yeah, well, all of that has been -- will be accounted for, andrea. first of all, the process, so that the american public knows, an independent body, data and safety monitoring board, looked at the data when they reached a certain number of events, namely a certain number of infections, and examined the data and looked at it and said that the efficacy of this was really quite impressive. it was over 90%. they made that known to the company. what the company does now is that they look at the data themselves. they analyze it, because now

it's the first time that they themselves have seen the data. then they present it to the fda. and the independent career scientists at the fda will, again, look at the data and then consult with an advisory board that they have, an advisory committee, the vaccines and related biological products advisory committee, and they will then advise them as to what to do. very likely they'll put in for what's called an emergency use authorization, which ultimately will be an application for full approval of this particular vaccine. that likely will take place over the next week to a week and a half. and then what will happen is that, end of november, beginning of december, if that goes through, and again, i don't want to get ahead of the fda, they're going to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but i believe, with the impressive nature of the data, that should go through smoothly, that by the

time we get into december, we will have doses available for people judged to be at the highest priority to get it first. the point you make, andrea, about the logistics, about getting the supply chain intact with the cold requirements, that's all been anticipated as part of the operation warp speed, particularly under the general from the army who has been responsible for making sure this goes smoothly. we anticipate, although there are logistic challenges, that it will be done successfully. >> how can you be sure that it will be delivered equitably? in the early testing, people who were well off had a lot of advantages over the rest of the american people. >> well, you know, that's an excellent question. and we paid a lot of attention to that, andrea. the first thing that you need to do is to make sure that there's distribution within the trial itself of people of various demographic groups, elderly, the

minority individuals, particularly african-americans, latinx, et cetera. what we have well-established in this country is that the ultimate decision of the distribution and priority order goes with the cdc. their advisory committee on immunization practices, the acip, traditionally, over the years, for other vaccines, has been responsible for advising them as to the prioritization of the distribution. that's being supplemented this year by input from the national academy of medicine that is going to weigh in on that. they will ultimately make recommendations to the cdc and the cdc will then determine the prioritization. hopefully, because this is such an effective vaccine or efficacious at least in the trial, that after a reasonable period of time we will get vaccine to everyone who wants and needs it, and hopefully that will be the overwhelming majority of the country.

because with a vaccine that has this potential, this together with the continuation of the public health measures really should get us out of this very difficult situation we're into. so the vaccine is a very, very important tool in ending this pandemic, both domestically and internationally. >> would you take it? >> well, i'm going to look at the data, but i trust pfizer. i trust the fda. these are colleagues of mine for decades, the career scientists. if they look at this data and they say this data is solid, let's go ahead and approve it, i promise you, andrea, i will take the vaccine and i will recommend that my family take the vaccine. >> right now, of course, the virus is raging across america. record daily cases, almost 134,000 cases, 729 deaths just yesterday. you predicted this would happen if people were not more rigorous

about safety precautions. is it accelerating at an even faster rate than you expected, and if so, why? >> it's pretty clear what's happening. when i made that -- i wouldn't say prediction, i didn't want to jinx us, but i said i would not be surprised, this was at a senate hearing four months ago, when i said when we were at 40,000 cases, that if we did not do something to really accelerate our prevention activities, that i would not be surprised if we reach 100,000. and unfortunately, very unfortunately, that was prescient, because as you pointed out correctly, andrea, we're over that right now. with a respiratory-borne illness, when you enter into the fall and winter, you do more things indoors as opposed to outdoors. and that's just another added ingredient to the risk you have with a respiratory infection. so we're going to have to

address that. it's very interesting, when dr. birx has gone around the country trying to get this message across, she has noted, and in my own intelligence network, because i connect with people in the different cities throughout the country, they are seeing now infections less in the big gatherings and family gatherings, friends getting together, eight, ten people for dinner in a social gathering, in which they feel, we know everybody here, we may not need to wear a mask, or we may not need to get tested. we need to know about the asymptomatic spread. it's important. we cannot deny it. there are people out there, innocently and unwittingly, who are infected, don't have any symptoms, who are infecting others. so much more widespread testing of asymptomatic individuals is going to be very important as we enter and go into these months of indoor type gatherings.

>> what about masks? let's talk about masks. we've been told, of course, you're helping other people, protecting other people. what about protecting yourself? what is the value of masks as you now understand it and what do the american people need to know about wearing a mask? >> timely question, andrea, because a recent study came out literally in the last day or so that has examined all of the data on masks. obviously the data of, if you put a mask on, you prevent the exhaling of droplets that would infect others. so it's very clear you are protecting someone and their mask is protecting you. but recent data has now shown that as a matter of fact, there's also the added benefit to protect you from droplets and virus that's coming your way. so it's a two-way street in that. so the benefit of masks right now, as people examine more and more the data, it's very clear

that it is very helpful. and that's the reason why, whenever you get the cascade of four or five things that we talk about, that we need to do even more so as we get into the cool months, wearing of masks, keeping physical distance, avoiding crowds, doing things to the extent that you can with the weather, more outdoor than indoor, as well as washing hands, if we just did that consistently, as a nation, not some doing it, others not, we would be much better off. you put that together with a vaccine, and as i use it, i say, help is on the way, and vaccine is the help is and it's on the way. if we combine that with public health measures, we will be much better off. >> and the wearing of the mask, just to be precise, helps yourself as well as others? >> absolutely.

it was not clear about that, but recent studies have shown it's both ways, it's a two-way street. you protect others, their mask protects you, and your mask also protects you. >> how big a deal -- we've been hearing a lot about the therapies -- is the fda approval of a monoclonal antibody treatment, regeneron was helpful to the president, how big a deal is that? as i understand it, it has to be given intravenously and early in the infection in order to be effective in preventing it from getting a lot worse. >> it's an important first step in the development and distribution of interventions that are given early in the course of disease. that study that triggered the eua, the emergency use authorization, were predominantly in outpatients, individuals to prevent them from going to the hospital. as you know, i've discussed with

you on your show, andrea, some time ago, that we have quite good things now, interventions for people who have advanced disease, who are in the hospital, who are intubated, who are on ventilators, who require oxygen. that's good, we need more of those. but we have some of them that are working well which likely is contributing to a decrease in the deaths that we see when people do go into the hospital. what we need more of is what the question you just asked me, we need more of those interventions that prevent people from going in the hospital. the monoclonal antibody from lily that was just given an eua is one of a group of these types of interventions early on. there are monoclonal antibodies from companies like regeneral other on, there are direct antivirus that we're working on. we just had a workshop yesterday or the day before in which we're trying to galvanize activity to

do the kind of drug development that we did years ago for hiv and aids which has been extraordinarily successful. there's a lot of activity, what you mentioned is just one of a number of things we're doing to looking at the disease from early on and prevent people from being hospitalized. >> i want to ask you about what happened on election night at the white house, we saw another packed indoor event. it has all the hallmarks of another super spreader. at least three prominent attendees, chief of staff mark meadows, david bossie who is leading the trump legal positive, are all covid positive. was this another super spreader event as you described the event in december? >> i don't know if i would call it that. i hesitate, as you know, to get involved in specific events and commenting on that because it often gets taken out of context and is not helpful. what i can say is that generically, broadly, and i've said it hundreds of times, that

when you have congregation of people, particularly indoors, without masks, that is risky, and that's something we have to be careful of and avoid to the extent possible, which is the reason why you hear me saying every day, masks, distance, avoid crowds, outdoors better than indoors. it applies to anywhere, any place. it doesn't matter where you are. >> you said in late october, we're in for a whole lot of hurt, it's not a good situation, we're in the wrong place going into the fall and winter season. i think you said you could not possibly be positioned more poorly. after you said that, the president told a campaign rally he would wait until a little bit after the election to fire you. do you have any concerns that he may be pressuring francis collins in the near future to try to fire you? >> well, i hope not, andrea. i don't think that would be helpful to the common goal of all of us, no matter who you

are, regardless of administration, we all want this pandemic to end. my entire activity, every minute of my life right now is devoted to trying to end this pandemic. so i would hope that i'm allowed to continue to do that because i think i do it well. i've been doing it for many, many years. and i've done it under many different circumstances including six administrations. so to me, i'm focusing like a laser beam on the job i have of ending this epidemic and really preserving the health and the welfare of the american public. >> there was another coronavirus task force meeting yesterday, i think the first one since mid-october or late october. were you invited to that one? >> yes, i was there physically. it was a good meeting. it was chaired by the vice president as he usually does. we spent a lot of time talking about what you and i are talking about right now, particularly the issue with the vaccine. it was very exciting news and we are all looking forward to what the ultimate effect that would be. so yes, there was a meeting, it

was a good meeting. >> i want to ask you about thanksgiving. you talked about smaller family groups. a lot of college students who have not been tested on the way out are coming back from on-campus settings. what is your advice to the american people going into thanksgiving? >> i think each family is going to have to make a risk assessment about what the risk is benefit of what we all feel is such an important tradition that we've had since the beginning of our nation, is thanksgiving. it's an important family holiday. i mean, every family is different, andrea. if you have someone in the family, an elderly person or person with an underlying condition who, whatever that underlying condition may be, diabetes, cancer, auto immune disease, you really need to make a decision. do i want to put that person at

an increased risk by having people coming in from all parts of the country, usually in a crowded airport, without necessarily knowing if they're infected, without having time to get tested or time to do quarantine? make your own decision. what kind of risk are you willing to take? i can tell you that -- and i've said that publicly, and i'll say it again as an example, i have three adult daughters who live in three separate parts of the country, all over. so they're going to have to obviously, if they want to come in for thanksgiving, get on a plane, come here, and they do not want to put their dad at risk. you say, what do you mean? i'm an elderly person, and i would be at an increased risk. they've made a decision, my wife and i are going to have dinner together, a quiet dinner, we're going to get on zoom and we're going to talk and smile and laugh and drink and eat with our children who are doing it distantly and virtually. that was just a decision we made. i'm not saying every family

needs to make that decision. but quite frankly, i'm proud of my daughters that they were really concerned about their, quote, elderly dad, i hate to use that word, andrea, but it's the truth. >> well, we don't think of you as being elderly at all. dr. anthony fauci, thank you so much for your advice. thanks for your service, your continuing service. >> thank you for having me. thank you. >> you bet. and just ahead, mitch switch. why senate majority leader mcconnell has a different take now on the road to 270 this year than he's had in previous elections. but first, roadblock. how the biden transition team is preparing to fight the trump administration's refusal to let them start preparing for a transfer of power. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. you'll work with an advisor to help you build a flexible wealth plan. you'll have access to tax-smart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. personalized advice.

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president trump is still refusing to accept the outcome of the election, continuing to push baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud and now stopping the intelligence community from cooperating with the incoming president. in 2017 president obama welcomed president-elect trump to the office. the trump administration is refusing to cooperate with the

president-elect's transition team. several world leaders including emmanuel macron and boris johnson spoke with joe biden today to congratulate him on his election. joining me now, nbc's mike memoli covering the biden transition in delaware, nbc white house correspondent peter alexander, co-host of "westbound today," and phil rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post." mike memoli, from your reporting, the president-elect is not getting the presidential daily brief which was in fact given to george w. bush during the protracted recount during bush v. gore. that was more than a month, and before certification, i should say. >> reporter: that's right, andrea. you know, as we were first really diving into this, quote unquote, ascertainment issue with the general services administration, a lot of the early focus was about simply just how it would impact biden and his team's ability to hit the ground running. they couldn't get office space.

they couldn't get the funding being appropriated to them. they couldn't begin to get access to the agencies to take stock of what needs to be done. increasingly we're hearing from the biden transition and democrats on capitol hill about the very real national security implications of the fact that the gsa has not given this green light for both the intelligence community and the white house itself to begin interfacing with the biden team. we remember post-9/11, one of the after-action reports was that perhaps because of the gaps of the transition from president clinton to president bush with that long recount, that may have contributed to the security environment that led to 9/11 happening. now, of course joe biden has a very veteran security team around him. he has had access to some classified information over the past few months as the nominee of the party. but not the full access you would get to the presidential daily brief. so that's why you're hearing the biden transition even raising the prospect of legal action in order to force this issue.

they say they have a number of levers they believe to be at their disposal to force this issue and legal action is just one of them, andrea. >> and arguably, that he should not have to speak to macron, to trudeau previously, to boris johnson, without knowing the latest intelligence about those leaders. this is establishing his relationship with them going forward. peter alexander, president trump has no public events today. he has not spoken publicly since last thursday. the vice president is going on vacation today to florida after going up to the hill. what's going on here? are there people trying to talk to the president about what he should be doing? is there any disagreement among the white house staff? >> reporter: andrea, it's clear the president is still defiant or perhaps, better said, in denial over his defeat. even this morning on twitter in all caps saying "we will win." i'll tell you, while those that are immediately around the president right now, some of his closest aides and allies appear

to be sort of going along with this, i've been speaking with other folks close to the president and they say frankly there needs to be a candid conversation with president trump. they say there is no path to victory, in fact it does not behoove him to drag this out any further, to use the language of one of the president's allies. among their fears right now is that what he's doing isn't just distracting from his legacy, they fear it's destroying his legacy, that it's marginalizing him right now when at least those allies of the president, republicans, say there are a lot of things in his legacy he should be proud of at this time. so i asked how long this could last. they said something has to happen by week's end. specifically about those legal challenges, one of the president's allies told us that effectively, what they're trying to do is brand the president as anything other than a loser, as if that is the goal of what they're doing here. then when i asked a separate adviser of the president's, you know, whether they thought there was any chance of success, this person said to me, all you need

to know is that vice president pence is going on vacation. and perhaps that summarizes it best, they recognize perhaps, even the vice president, that, you know, the president may fume, he may complain, but at the end of the day he's going to have to hand over the reins at some point. >> but the question is how much damage is done in different directions by then. phillip, phil rucker, the contrast in how presidents obama and trump is handling this transition could not be more stark. yet republicans are standing firmly behind the president. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, it's a really different approach that trump is taking here. but he won 70 million votes from the american people. and because of that, republican leaders, including mitch mcconnell in the senate, are fearful of crossing the president. so we're seeing, you know, mainstream republicans coming out and talking as if there were still a path to victory for the president, as if there was credibility to these arguments the president is making of voter fraud and the legal process he's

pursuing. there of course is no evidence of that voter fraud. but people like mitch mcconnell and others in the senate leadership and in the senate republican caucus are standing firmly behind this president and denying, publicly at least, the recognition of joe biden's victory. >> and do you see any intervention, anybody in the white house team who has the standing to go to the president and would do that? >> reporter: nobody has yet. certainly that could come in the next few days. but there seems to be an all-out effort among the white house staff and the president's advisers and family members to try to coddle him, to soothe what appears to be a fairly fragile ego, and get the president into a better emotional state to get him out of this situation. >> mike memoli, peter alexander, phil rucker, thank you all. attorney general william barr is authorizing federal prosecutors to investigate,

quote, substantial allegations of voting irregularities if they find them. this coming before the votes are certified and despite a lack of evidence. just hours after barr's announcement, the top career justice department official who oversees investigations of voter fraud, election fraud, richard pilger, resigned from running the election fraud unit in protest, this as the trump campaign is suing to block the pennsylvania results. if that lawsuit gets a hearing it could force a delay in certifying the pennsylvania vote. joining me is democratic senator chris murphy who serves on the foreign relations committee. senator, thank you very much. first of all, do you see a national security concern here, especially with the presidential daily brief being denied to the president-elect? >> i see a number of national security concerns in this interregnum period. the first, as you mentioned, is the denial to president-elect biden of national security briefings. there are a number of crises that are festering around the world right now.

a conflict in armenia and azerbaijan, a hot war on the eastern edge of ukraine. china pressing further into hong kong. president-elect biden has to be ready to go on day one. it is true that we've probably never had someone so experienced with respect to foreign relations. but he hasn't been getting these detailed briefings for four years. the transition is only ten weeks long. and if president trump denies joe biden access to this information, it frankly provides an avenue for our adversaries around the world to try to take advantage of this vacuum of an administration that may not have all the information it needs. second, the firing of mark esper yesterday is incredibly concerning. the fact that we don't have stable leadership at the top of the department of defense, that the heads of the cia or the fbi may be next, also provides ample opportunity for adversaries around the globe to take advantage of that change in

leadership, that instability of leadership. this is a very dangerous moment. the president's delusion, which is being enabled by congressional republicans, is jeopardizing american national security. >> and in a recent interview with "the military times" published just yesterday, mark esper said, quote, who is going to come in behind me? it's going to be a real yes man, and then god help us." so that's a real concern as well. could there be precipitous withdrawals from afghanistan and iraq, without working out the ramifications of that? >> listen, i think mark esper is trying to rewrite his own personal history. you're going to have all sorts of leaders in the trump national security team claiming that it would have been so much worse had they not been there. i can't imagine that it could have been much worse. we have shattered the relationship with our allies. we have become an unreliable, unstable presence in the world. so many corners of the globe are on fire right now.

so mark esper may try to claim that he was standing in the way of all sorts of terrible behavior by this administration. i don't see much evidence of that. >> there are reports, as you just alluded to, that fbi director chris wray, certainly that was signaled by the president, even cia director gina haspel, could be next. your concerns about that? >> very concerned, especially when it comes to an attack on the fbi. we already have news, as you mentioned, of the department of justice essentially being sent on a fishing expedition. let's be clear what barr is doing here. the campaign, the president's campaign, cannot find any evidence of voter fraud so he has now instructed attorney general barr to find it for him. chris wray may not be a party to that. in he doesn't oblige, he may be gone within a week or so. what we worry about is the department of justice and the fbi being turned into fishing

expeditions for voter fraud in order to populate these cases that the president has brought with actual evidence. that's a really dangerous turn with respect to the impartial arms of american law enforcement. >> there's reporting in the israeli press that secretary pompeo is going to try to ramp up sanctions on iran and try to tie president-elect biden's hands going in to reenter the iran deal. have you heard anything about that? >> it wouldn't be surprising. obviously this administration is going to, you know, try to take steps in the closing 60 days to cement the mistakes they have made in the middle east. they will likely make it harder for biden to reenter the nuclear agreement. that would be disastrous for the world if iran got even closer to a nuclear weapon over the course of the next 60 days. but as we have seen just in the last 24 hours, they are also plan to go move forward with

massive arms sales in the region, in particular to the united arab emirates during this lame duck. i don't know of any precedent, at least in the time that i've been in washington, where presidents who are literally on their way out of office, who have been voted out of office by the american public, are trying to sell this amount of arms into dangerous regions. so this is par for the course from this administration. they no doubt are going to try to make it harder for joe biden to repair the mistakes that they've made. and i wish that congress would step up and do something about it. i wish congressional republicans would at the very least say to mike pompeo, if you want a future in republican politics in this country, you need to stand down and give vice president biden a chance to rebuild our reputation around the world. >> thank you, senator murphy. this morning for the third time, the future of obamacare was argued before the supreme court. joining me next will be the person who led the effort to penning the affordable care act

with a coalition of 20 states plus washington, d.c., california attorney general javier becerra.

joining me now to discuss today's supreme court arguments on obamacare, the attorney general from california leading the coalition of 20 states plus the district of columbia who were fighting to defend the aca. general becerra, thank you very much for being with us. tell me what you heard in the argument today and how encouraged or discouraged are you about what you heard. >> andrea, thanks for having me. i heard some very tough questions for both sides, that's the way it always is. but i came out of that argument feeling guardedly optimistic. what i heard was skepticism about trying to stretch this definition of standing. in order for you to be able to go to court, you have to show you've been harmed.

the way the texas and federal government plaintiffs have tried to explain how they're harmed when the basis of the action is the individual mandate which has been zeroed as a tax, so there's no payment, so if you pay nothing on a tax, how you can be harmed and how you can show that you have standing to go now before the court and ask for some kind of relief, was kind of tough. i think given some of the arguments, i think my team and i feel very good about how we came out of this. >> now, what would be the impact if the affordable care act were struck down? we're in the middle of a pandemic, i don't have to tell you, and all that california has suffered as well as the rest of the nation, of course, 23 million americans could be without health care. >> andrea, lives are at stake, there's no other way to say it. now with covid, it's become more than obvious that if we didn't have the affordable care act in place, not only would we lose lives but we would have millions of americans, some 12 million

americans lost their insurance because they lost their job. because of the affordable care act, many of those people have now been able to secure insurance again because they qualify. without the affordable care act, there's no guarantee. it's interesting that the federal government in court today argued that the law must be struck down as unconstitutional and, and, that the protections against preexisting conditions must also fall as well, which is contrary to everything president trump keeps saying in court, that no, he's going to save preexisting conditions protections. today, he instructed his people to argue on behalf of getting rid of the entire aca including protections that keep us from falling prey to preexisting conditions. >> of course you became attorney general after kamala harris left that post and became a senator. now there's an empty senate seat in california. would you accept, if governor

newsom named you to that seat? >> it would be tough not to accept a call to duty like that. just the way i accepted the call to duty by then-governor brown to serve as our state's attorney general. you don't often get those kinds of opportunities. at the end of the day, andrea, that's a call strictly for governor newsom to make and i'll respect whatever decision he decides to make. >> have you heard anything about it yet? >> i've heard a lot of things, just as you have, but i do not know what -- >> from the governor, i should say. you have not been told that it's coming your way? >> i have not been told anything of the sort, no. >> okay. thanks very much, and we hope you'll give us a call or we'll give you a call when and if that should happen. thank you very much, attorney general becerra, very good to see you again. >> thank you. and flip-flop.

at mitch mcconnell backs president trump's effort to challenge the election results, his own words come back to haunt him. what the senate leader said after past elections is coming up next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. nly on m, we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪

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only four senate republicans have congratulated biden, their former senate colleague, on his victory. as senate majority leader mitch mcconnell continues to defend h previous elections. listen to what he said on november 9th in 2016, when donald trump got the electoral votes but not the popular vote against hillary clinton. >> the american people understand that if you get 270 electoral votes, you're president. the election is over. we know who won. and we're going to move on from there. >> president trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities. let's not have any lectures. no lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results. >> joining me now are adam jefferson, former deputy chief of staff to harry reid and

brendan buck. thanks very much to you both. what do you make of mcconnell's stance now compared to what he said in the past, the day after the election, long before it was certified where here he's supporting the gsa holding it all up. >> yeah, i mean, the hypocrisy here is undeniable. of course, this comes only a month after mcconnell rams through a supreme court nominee after saying in 2016 that no nominee should be confirmed in an election year. the hypocrisy is historic and undeniable. what's important to understand, though is that mcconnell doesn't care about being called out as a crip cr hippocrat because he'll do whatever is best for him to maintain and acquire power. what he's doing here is trying to keep trump voters loyal and enthusiastic in order for them to turn out in the two georgia runoffs that could control the

senate. it's not an excuse. it's a further indictment of why he's doing what he's doing, but that is what he is doing here. trying to keep trump voters loyal, enthusiastic behind senate republicans. >> and brendan, you, of course, know georgia better than anyone. you said it was going to go democratic before anyone else did. how do you see those two georgia races right now with, in fact, a war with both of the republican incumbent senators attacking the republican secretary of state and saying that the elections -- that their elections should not have been that close. they shouldn't be in runoffs. >> yeah, when the senators put out a statement yesterday calling on the secretary of state to resign, my eyes about bugged out of my head. but i understand why they are doing it politically. adam hit on a pretty important point. the two senators racing a ton of pressure from donald trump and his allies to go along with this

fantasy that there was some type of irregular action in the voting. there simply wasn't. but donald trump has taken hostage republican voters, particularly in georgia. those two senators know that donald trump turns on them and goes after them. he's -- the bottom is going to fall out with their support. this is going to be a base election. you need a bunch of republicans to come out because you know a bunch of democrats are going to come out. now i'm sure these two senators will be much rather focusing on their two opponents. i think jon ossoff and raphael warnock are not particularly well suited to win. the republicans should be favored here. while the state went blue, these aren't two joe biden democrats running. these are two really progressive liberals who are running. but donald trump, because he won't drop this crazy obsession over election fraud won't let them focus on who they should, their opponents. so i'm really concerned that a race that republicans should win

could be lost because the president is probably not going to give up on this any time soon. >> and what are you hearing from republicans in georgia and republicans in the senate in terms of the discomfort some of them may feel? they know joe biden well. he's a friend of many of them. >> yeah, people are frustrated. they want to move on. in georgia, they are really confused as to what's going on. now it's becoming clear. you already are seeing reports that in fact, trump people have put pressure on the senators. i think that nobody really, you know, there is a senate majority at stake here. and i don't think anybody wants to risk turning trump's ire towards them and again, it's not necessarily they're afraid of him. they're afraid of his voters. if he turns on them, they know they'll stand by him and not these two senators. and there's a lot at stake here. 50/50 senate could go to -- would go to democrats, and that's a huge deal. they're not willing to risk that. >> adam, you worked, of course,

for harry reid, the majority leader, and you know the senate so well. what is your take on how this is going to go, and what issues are going to be most important for the democratic side now? >> i think brendan is right, there are a lot of x factors in this race. under normal circumstances these runoffs a runoff like this would not benefit democrats. however, there are very unique circumstances here. i think we don't know what's going to happen with republican turnout. this is a question -- this is going to be a test of the question, will the republicans turn out in droves when trump is not on the ticket? and if they know he lost? i don't think republican leaders can maintain the fantasy that there's any tension here long enough to get past the january 5th -- get past the runoff election date. they'll have to concede that some time before then, i think. and also there's enormous enthusiasm on the democratic side to take control of the senate away from mitch mcconnell because democrats know if mitch mcconnell is in control of the senate, he's going to block everything that joe biden wants

to do. there's a lot of question marks in this race. it could be very interesting. >> well, thank you so much, adam. thanks for being with us today. brendan buck, thanks to you. and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online on facebook and on twitter @mitchellreports. chuck todd is up next with "mtp daily" only on msnbc. look at this human trying to get in shape. you know what he will get? muscle pain. give up, the couch is calling. i say, it's me, the couch, i'm calling. pain says you can't. advil says you can. [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain.

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if it's tuesday, one week from election day, the biden transition ramps up, but more and more republicans are backing the president's efforts to challenge the results. welcome to a very busy tuesday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. we're monitoring a number of developments at this hour at the state department. we have mike pompeo who is expected to hold his first press briefing since the election. he's expected to be pressed by reporters as to whether he accepts the results. on capitol hill, senate republicans have been arriving for a meeting with vice president mike pence which is about to begin as the republican caucus looks to the white house for evidence to back up its inflammatory and unproven claims of widespread voter fraud. we've heard from a number of republican senators. none have acknowledged biden as the president-elect. you are look at the steps of the