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

supreme court. they've just finished hearing virtual arguments in a case seeking to invalidate the affordable care act as virus cases surge to record levels. it's a busy day. but we begin with a live look at the white house and capitol hill where the president is pushing republicans to back him in challenging or trying to discredit the results of this election. so far, just four of the 53 senate republicans have recognized joe biden as president-elect of the united states. and the four that have are sort of -- we've gotten used to those four senators bucking this president, murkowski, collins, romney and in this case also ben sasse. here's why that matters. even though he's lost the election, the republican party is still acting like it's loyal to this president or being held captive by him. meanwhile, they both appear to be toying with a constitutional crisis. mitch mcconnell basically shrugged off the president's efforts to challenge the election results which so far have been rooted in false and

unproven claims of widespread fraud. they have yet to bring any case that has any legs. both republican senators from georgia facing runoff elections put out a bizarre statement calling for their own state's republican secretary of state to resign. they cite unspecified election failures and mismanagement. simply it's because you allowed the democrats to win georgia, you must be fired? that's about the only evidence they have to prove anything other than the release they put out. biden appears poised to win the state for democrats for the first time since 1992. inside the white house, the president has fired his defense secretary who ominously warned, quote, god help us all if his replacement is a trump loyalist. and attorney general bill barr decided to authorize federal prosecutors to accelerate investigations surrounding the election results even if there's no evidence. the justice department official tells nbc news they, already, quote, were looking into allegations of ineligible voters in nevada and backdated ballots in pennsylvania. it's not hard to see what is happening now and how it's eroding our democracy. the harder question to answer is

why is the republican party letting the president blow off some steam after losing the presidency? or is this a strategic effort to keep the trump base fired up as control of the senate hangs in the balance because, hey, trump is not on the ballot on january 5th in georgia or is it part of an effort to endeavor to overturn the election results and destroy the american democracy once and for all. joining me in wilmington, delaware, following president-elect biden is nbc's geoff bennett. carol lee is outside the white house. garrett haake is on capitol hill. and matt sanderson, the former counsel to mitt romney and john mccain. but let's start with geoff bennett with the president-elect. geoff, what is the -- i know what the public posture is of the biden campaign right now. behind the scenes, how nervous are they that it looks like the republican apparatus, perhaps led by mitch mcconnell, is going to allow donald trump to continue to call these shots on the transition, perhaps for some

time. >> well, chuck, look. campaign officials i've talked to say that they were prepared for this. they plan for any eventuality, including the one that we're living through right now. and they say that the biden campaign turned biden transition has a few advantages, even as the president and his republican backers have really thrown sand into the gears here. one is that joe biden himself, of course, was vice president for eight years. and he is surrounded by a team of experienced and by most accounts, competent folks who have been working on this transition for months. so if this delay persists for a few more days, that they can deal with. if days turns to weeks, then we have a problem because there is a real national security issue at play here. transitions are perilous times for the country at any sort of circumstance because the government isn't really firing on all cylinders. and joe biden has not received the presidential daily brief, in part because the general services administration, the

gsa, which functions as the hr department for the entire government, has not certified the election. and that's because president trump himself has not conceded, has not recognized reality and the trump appointee who leads that organization apparently doesn't want to get in front of her boss. so that is what the campaign right now is focused on. last night on a call with reporters, a campaign official said they have a number of options at play here, including legal options if the gsa, if president trump, if mitch mcconnell try to drag this out any further. >> well, when -- i understand they have these options, geoff. when do they plan on trying to exercise some of those options? are they giving -- are they giving the republicans another day to get donald trump to accept these results, another two days? what kind of leeway is the biden folks willing to give this?

>> well, i'll tell you based on my reporting from the white house, and not to steer too far into carol's lane here, people close to the president seem to think that this whole charade will end by the weekend, right? and i think that's generally what most people here in wilmington at the white house think. that the president, as soon as he gets this off ramp so that he's not branded as a loser, to put it in the words of one of his advisers, that the president wants to exit out of this experience, not being branded a loser, as soon as they find a way to do that, they are thinking this entire thing comes to an end, chuck. >> geoff bennett in wilmington for us. thank you. so carol lee, it feels like we're back trying to understand the president's behavior and trying to maybe predict it here, which is always dangerous. he may not want a constitutional crisis, but that doesn't mean we don't stumble into one. at what point -- i mean, is

there anybody that has told the president the truth, that he lost and he may have lost by a bigger margin than he won by four years ago? >> look, our understanding from our reporting, chuck, is that most of the people around the president in -- some of whom are really encouraging him to continue this fight and not saying to him you should back down. the writing is on the wall. this is a done deal. and there are others, however, who, frankly, the ones we've spoken to are just afraid to stick their neck out. as one of them put it to us, you stick your neck out, you get your head chopped off by the president. at the same time there's this acknowledgment and increasing kind of consternation bhind the scenes about how long the president drags this out. geoff said that they think it will end this weekend. i would say they hope it will end by this weekend because they just don't know how long the president is going to continue on. but we've had advisers talking to us who are saying, look, there's no path.

someone needs to have a candid conversation with the president. we just don't know who that is. and they don't know who that is either because the president seems very determined to continue down this road that -- and there's a number of things that still need to play out in order for him, as one of his allies told us, to be able to exit here and not be branded, in his view, as a loser. this is an exercise in that. so while everyone is around him, for the most part sees the writing on the wall here, there's not this concerted effort to try to walk him down. and i think that people are hoping that, if not this weekend, then early next week, that this kind of runs its course. that the lawsuits run their course and we can begin to start to move on. we just don't know if that's what the president is ultimately going to buy into. >> and how much of this are republicans appeasing him because they desperately need him for the georgia runoff since his name won't be on the ballot? i can't help but wonder, if there was -- if this election had been completely resolved and

we knew what the majority of the senate was going to be and there wasn't this runoff that is going to decide the actual power structure here in washington, whether these republicans would be appeasing trump as much as they are. >> yeah, look, the president is still, obviously, very popular within his own party at 70 million votes in a state like georgia, it's very close. so they need -- they can't really afford -- the feeling is you can't really afford to alienate any republicans right now as the senate hangs in the balance. and so that's part of why you're seeing republicans walk this line. the thing is, they were walking this line almost a week ago where no one wanted to come out and tell the president that this was over. and now we are -- here we are a week later, and they're still trying to walk that line. so at what point do they say to the president, we have a new president-elect. we're going to start moving in that direction? because, chuck, the world is moving in that direction. all the world leaders who president trump knows well,

including some he'd consider allies are calling president-elect biden and moving forward. and the president is the only one who is not. >> carol lee, at the white house for us, thanks. garrett haake, i want to begin by playing a sound bite from senator roy blunt who, this is before this lunch so perhaps is sets the tone of where senate republicans are going to be, at least as far as mike pence is concerned. let me play it right now. >> what we saw in this last campaign was that candidates really matter. but what you are for also really matters. that's one of the reasons that virtually every predictor of what was going to happen in the elections was wrong. the president wasn't defeated by huge numbers. in fact, he may not have been defeated at all. >> look, roy blunt who is not somebody -- who is somebody who

seems to straddle the fence between sort of the reality of a situation and what maybe trump wants to hear. you could hear him try to straddle that fence right there. but introducing the idea that he may not have been defeated at all. that seems to be, obviously, just trying to play to the president's alternative reality they're trying to create here. how many other republican senators are on board with this plan? >> what's the old washington tradition of gaffe. you saw the mask slip there to borrow a new 2020 phrase here from roy blunt. essentially saying the president may have lost. well, maybe he didn't. republicans are tiptoeing as carefully as possible around even the idea of a suggestion that donald trump may have lost this race, as he, in fact, has. the sense i get, though, is they are running out the clock. at that same press conference i asked mitch mcconnell about the idea of the biden transition and should they not get up and

running while these legal battles are still being fought? he said all this is going to happen at the appropriate time. i think the prism through which we have to continue to look at everything senate republicans do is the georgia race, right? they are trying to do everything possible to make sure that they maintain the majority. for now, that means they cannot throw president trump over the side because they need him in georgia. they need him to fire up his base voters. or at least they need him to not, you know, back away from this party. this is a president who even four years in has never been -- while he has control over the base voters, he's never really fit in with the elements of his own party. the rest of the leadership. and if the president takes his base and goes home, what are the republican elected officials down ballot left with? i think that's the concern that they're facing as they are staring ahead to this january runoff. >> they seem to be worried about those casual voters that only show up when trump is on the ballot that clearly was a problem. we now look back, 2018, 2020, we

can see the difference there. trump on the ballot allowed some of those trump districts to go back to the republicans. so we get what this is about. but have they thought about the alternative of what they're doing? the more they are out there essentially calling for the disenfranchisement of a majority of voters, that could only feed the turnout efforts of democrats in georgia. >> or sure. there's a million ways this could blow up. you ask some of the republican senators who just got re-elected, john cornyn in texas, joni ernst in iowa. you ask them if they saw any elements of fraud? they said, not my state. my state runs fine. but there is this enormous risk by attacking the system you convince people by accident that their votes don't count. that's part of the calculation that we saw from georgia yesterday when senators loeffler and perdue went after the secretary of state down there who was perceived in some

corners to have bungled the primary election down there and might have made for a convenient punching bag. but you can't go too far because when your voters aren't going to show up to an election you said doesn't count and doesn't matter and won't be fair. >> yeah. garrett haake on capitol hill. thanks very much. let me bring in matt sanderson here. let me put up a piece of the memo that bill barr sent yesterday up here. let me read it and then hopefully you can help translate it for viewers. >> i authorize you to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions in certain cases as i have already done in specific instances. such kwers and reviews may be conducted if there are clear and credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual state. what made that memo so controversial and so unusual yesterday? >> well, it's a departure from

longstanding department of justice policy to stay entirely out of elections while the election is happening. but also after the count -- when the counting is taking place. so typically, the department of justice has stayed clear away from politicizing their prosecutorial efforts by getting involved in the heat of an election. now what the attorney general did there was reverse that policy and authorize him and streamline the process so that he himself is able to authorize investigations rather than have it -- have authority reside in a career official who would typically authorize those types of investigations in the public integrity section. and that career official who is usually authorized to approve investigations resigned last night in protest due to this policy change. that's how significant it is.

>> matt, if you were handed the evidence that the trump people are trying to find right now, do you have any -- would you be able to manufacture a case here? i mean, i -- the philadelphia ballots that they're -- the pennsylvania ballots they're complaining about, they've been set aside. those haven't been counted yet. i haven't seen any credible evidence of anything in georgia, arizona or nevada. and the nevada thing seems to be sort of your typical military folks and students who have residency in the state but are working elsewhere. have you seen anything yet? >> no. and the president and his allies keep promising that proof is right around the corner, if only we'll wait for it. the credible process starts with evidence and moves towards a conclusion. doesn't go the other way around. and so far, if you look at it, president trump's only evidence

for what would be perhaps the most significant organized crime in american history is an election result he doesn't like and a series of mistruths that have been unveiled in parking lot press conferences. and i think it's important that someone who is comparing an election to one -- an election held in the united states of america to a staged contest like they hold in iran or russia, there's a burden of proof. no serious person thinks that that proof is in the offing. >> matt sanderson with some blunt straight talk there, appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with us. thank you. before we go to break, we should note the secretary of state mike pompeo just told reporters he basically does not trust the election results either. when asked about the results he said, quote there will be a smooth transition to a second trump administration. wow. some real delusional stuff there from the secretary of state. up ahead, obamacare faces another test at the supreme

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welcome back. the coronavirus pandemic is arguably worse than it's ever been in this country. as we head into winter, which looks like a dark one. new daily infections are surpassing 100,000 a day. today will likely be the seventh straight day of more than 100,000 new cases. why the mortality rate is not rising at the same rate as the daily cases, we are averaging more than 1,000 deaths a day. and the national death toll now passed 240,000. unlike the spring and the summer when the virus spikes were largely regional, frankly cases are now surging everywhere. hospitals in north dakota full. the governor has taken an extreme step to allow covid

positive health care workers to keep working and only treat covid patients. the basically asymptomatic folks if you test positive and you're a health care worker, they need you working. amiss ad all that news, some go news. eli lilly has received approval and pfizer is on track to start distributing its vaccine by the end of this year. the vaccine is shown to be 90% effective in trials. >> 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. by the time we get into december, we'll be able to have doses available for people who are judged to be at the highest priority to get it first. >> joining me now is dr. kavita patel, former obama white house

health policy director and nbc medical contributor. dr. patel, let's work our way backwards. by the end of 2021, will everybody in this country who wants to be vaccinated be vaccinated for the coronavirus at the rate we're going? >> we hope so, suck. and that is contingent on the current data from pfizer as well as safety monitoring. i'm putting a lot of caveats on that for a good reason. this is very hopeful, but for all americans, including young kind of healthy americans to be vaccinated, we need to see more analyses and pfizer alone is not going to be able to produce enough doses for the entire country. so we'll need multiple manufacturers which are in phase three trials now to have similarly successful results. and hopefully all that can happen given the record time that we've had to produce the vaccine. hopefully we can do that by the end of 2021. that's a more realistic time

frame for americans to expect a vaccine. and at least two doses, by the way, that they can get. >> no, i saw that. and this is my other question about this. so we have -- we know there's a couple of other vaccines. also we think will get through this the last phase of the clinical trial and also be seen anywhere from 70% effective to perhaps as high as 90. and we know the fda was okay with anything 50% or north. what is more likely in the spring that we have two or three different vaccines, the pfizer one is one but we might have one or two others that may be slightly less effective, but because of the need for speed we use them, too. is that where we're headed? >> yeah, think of this as, you know, there will be several options. we also will be looking at stability. the pfizer vaccine is one of the most difficult in terms of storage. it requires negative 70 degrees for storage which most clinics

and hospitals just don't have. look for the other vaccines to not have a significant storage requirement which means that they will be more stable and potentially easier to distribute. so you're right. there will be several options. but here's the glitch. if you need more than one dose, there's a logistical nightmare in and of itself. you can't go and get the first shot from pfizer and then the second one from moderna. all those information systems which are not traditionally something that i think of as, you know, an asset of health care, are going to be in place as well. and on top of that, you made a comment about the antibodies. i see all of this working together. we might have a mechanism where we give patients an antibody injection, as well as a vaccine and think about having these work together. but while we're talking about that, i can't stress enough we need the mitigation. we're ripping through the country, hundreds of thousands of cases a day. so all of these things are on the horizon, but we have to work through today to get there.

>> i want to ask you about that actually. so, look, we know that the incoming administration that president-elect biden wants to find a way to implement a mask mandate, however that can be done. there's going to be -- probably state by state, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. is it possible to basically start over on testing and tracing or has that ship sailed and we should focus on mask wearing and vaccine distribution? and then that ought to be the priority when team biden comes in? >> yeah, no, chuck, listen. i think that it is possible to think about testing for a couple of reasons. there are more technologies coming online to make testing easier. chuck if you and i can test ourselves in the home before we think about entering schools, workplaces, restaurants, et cetera, that will give us a lot more information than we have today. and we have had supply chain limits to doing that as well as cost implications. a test right now is about $130 a

test. that's not feesible asible to d day. we can have a national testing strategy. we have given up on contact tracing, but we shouldn't. we should apply the contact tracing to where it matters. you covered months ago some of the farm workers, some of the meat-packing plants. we need to do contact tracing in these high-risk areas that we should not give up on that. and then third is really creating just -- we need an information campaign to be consistent and clear in our messaging. the task force and the staff can do that. and along with that is trying to do with the fact that, chuck, half the country still doesn't believe we should wear masks, and about one-third of the country thinks that vaccines are not for them. no matter what the data shows. so we have to fight that by giving people data that they can understand. >> dr. patel, we have so many misinformation problems. not just on the virus. now on the election. and on voting. i tell you if you've got a vaccine for that virus, we could

solve a lot more problems and a lot quicker. anyway. sorry. it's been very frustrating to watch what we're watching. dr. patel, thank you for your expertise. i know. i know. thanks for your expertise. speaking of the pandemic, the supreme court heard oral arguments in a case that could decide the future of the affordable care act. let's turn to pete williams. he is following the case and knows the ins and outs of this. pete, first i'd like to know what -- how the oral arguments went and all the tea leaf reading that everybody likes to do there. the second question, are we really going to have to wait until june to find out what they think? >> they'll spare the law and, yes, is my quick answers to your questions. i don't know. maybe we'll get it a little earlier than june. but these tea leaves are pretty big and apparent. so little background here. congress passes the affordable care act. it's immediately challenged as unconstitutional because it says everybody has to go buy something, namely insurance, and the opponents said congress

doesn't have that power. the supreme court upholding the law said in 2012, no it actually just gives americans a choice. either buy insurance or pay a tax and, therefore, it's a legitimate use of the taxing power. then congress said, okay, in 2017, when the republicans were in control. we'll set the tax at zero. now you can't defend it as a tax anymore. there are three questions before the court. do the red states that are suing have the standing to sue? are they injured enough by this to really have a case? secondly, is the mandate unconstitutional, and thirdly, if it is, does the rest of the law have to go with it? and i think, chuck, there are at least five justices who will say that you can't -- even if it is unconstitutional, the rest of the law has to be intact. chief justice john roberts expressed that best when he asked this question. >> i think it's hard for you to argue that congress intended the entire act to fall if the mandate were struck down, when

the same congress that lowered the penalty to zero did not even try to repeal the rest of the act. i think, frankly, that they wanted the court to do that, but that's not our job. >> well, mr. chief justice, i would respectfully submit that it is the court's job to follow the text of the law as written. >> and brett kavanaugh said much the same, chuck. >> and, obviously, it's brett kavanaugh is the fifth justice here, if you are looking to find five votes to keep this law intact. three liberals, roberts who has been there before. kavanaugh is the fifth in this case. the swing justice. >> right. during her confirmation hearing, everybody thought amy coney barrett would be the key to this. but it appears from the argument that she won't be. >> sure does. pete williams covering the court for us as always, sir. thank you. up ahead -- the fallout from the news that broke just as we were coming on the air

yesterday. president trump's firing via tweet, of course, of the secretary of defense. what does it mean for our national security in the final months of the trump presidency? is there something more nefarious going on, and are more firings on the way? water? why?! ahhhh! incoming! ahhhahh! i'm saved! water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio.

welcome back. nbc's ken dilanian reports president trump's firing of mark esper is raising fears that trump will fire other key national security officials in the coming days, including fbi

director christopher wray or gina haspel. prompting concerns about national security in the final weeks of the trump administration. and the pentagon is facinging more upheaval today. james anderson, the defense department's top policy official resigned over clashes with the white house. that could clear the way for anthony tata to take over. he had his nomination pulled from contention because of islam phobic tweets. joining us now is courtney kube. so what is the mood inside the ring right now, and how concerned are they that this stuff, while it looks like it may be just grudge grievances of the last two months, is a bit more nefarious than that? >> so that's the big question right now. one thing i was really struck by, after yesterday's surprise tweet at the pentagon was how senior defense officials were

desperately trying to reinforce the fact that this was a smooth transition. secretary esper was immediately terminated and his successor, acting secretary of defense now chris miller was immediately brought in. that there was no break in the rule there at the pentagon in the leadership of the pentagon. when the acting secretary came in, he immediately started getting spun up on current operations. he got the nuclear codes, probably some sobering briefings to get ready to take over the job. but the undercurrent is a question of y now? it's not a surprise that president trump, he and secretary esper have been clashing for months. it was very public over the summer. it's not a surprise that president trump wanted to fire him. and before the election, there was a lot of speculation that esper would be out the door whether it was being fired or being forced into resignation, as early as the wednesday after the election. but then the election didn't exactly play out the way most do. we have a decision on tuesday

night. instead it dragged out through the week. president trump still hasn't even conceded that he's lost. there was this sense around the pentagon that maybe esper would stick around a little longer. maybe the president was too preoccupied to get rid of him. and then this surprise tweet which i should say was a surprise to secretary esper and other senior officials at the pentagon. esper found out only moments before when he got a phone call from mark meadows saying the president is about to tweet this. so the question then is, why now? and the concern, again, this is a general concern i'm hearing from defense and military officials. it's not yet backed up with any kind of fact yet. but the concern is that, did the president do this to put someone in who might not push back on some of the things that secretary esper has in the past? does he have plans to do something that he wants to have someone in the position who will green light his ideas, chuck? and that's what we just don't know. >> what's -- what tact is

general milley taking? >> general milley is sort of the first line of defense against this idea that we'll take, for instance, the idea that the president could invoke the insurrection act. that was a big concern last week at the pentagon. that there would be unrest surrounding the election, massive protests in the street. that the president would invoke the insurrection act and they'd move in to stop protesters. if president trump wanted to invoke that, secretary milley would still be there at the pentagon to provide his best advice. it's very clear at this point he's against the use of the insurrection act and would presumably provide that advice to the president. one thing we have to remember is, general milley at the end of the day is an army officer. and if he's given an order by the commander in chief and it's a lawful, moral, ethical order,

he's going to carry it out. so while there are failsafes still at the pentagon like general milley, the president has the authority as the commander in chief to provide them with lawful orders. >> lawful. the moral and ethical part is the part that might force a resignation even if it's lawful. and i guess that ultimately would be the test probably for general milley as there's the lawful part but if it meets the law, then the question is, is it moral and ethical? which perhaps is another type of test for himself. we'll see. courtney kube at the pentagon, reporting on the pentagon for us. up next -- it's republican versus republican in georgia. at least today.

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welcome back. with two senate runoffs that we expect could be decisive in which party controls the senate,

we'll be watching georgia very closely in the coming weeks. today republicans are kicking off the runoff fight by fighting amongst themselves. as we said at the top of the show, kelly loeffler and david perdue are calling for georgia's republican secretary of state to resign. this came from pressure from trump world trying to find a bogeyman in georgia to go after. and the secretary of state is that person. brad raffensperger pushed back saying the voters of georgia hired me and the voters will be the one to fire me. as a republican, i am concerned about republicans keeping the u.s. senate. i recommend that senators loeffler and perdue start focusing on that. joining me, priscilla thompson in atlanta with the latest out of georgia. priscilla, now that we've had a day here, have senators loeffler and perdue come up with any sort of specific reason or allegation at what the secretary -- that the secretary of state somehow ran this election in such a way

that it, you know, he should resign over it? what is the reasoning for that? what i'm searching for is a rationale to call for this resignation, other than joe biden won the state. >> right. i think that's a key question that everyone here is asking. they sent out this release yesterday making the sort of broad claims around mismanagement of the election and a lack of transparency, but they didn't cite any specific evidence or examples. and beyond these statements we have not seen any of the folks involved in this coming out on camera to make statements or anything like that where we can get more information about these claims. but as you mention, the secretary of state here has pushed back very strongly against that messaging and had pretty strong words for those candidates there. i will say, this morning, the trump campaign and their recount effort, which is being led on the ground here by

representative dave collins came out and said that they are requesting a recount by hand. the representative was on fox business earlier today saying that there are no sour grapes here, that they are just asking for the secretary of state to do his job. and so it is very interesting that you have these republican senators calling for him to step aside and resign and meanwhile, we're hearing doug collins, who is leading this effort on the trump side of things now saying that they just want him to do his job and to stay in this seat and just do his job. so we'll be anxiously awaiting to see what more we get on that, chuck. >> we know what the republicans decided to spend the day talking about yesterday. they want to relitigate the election itself. maybe that's a way to keep the president engaged, which they need to get out those casual trump voters. what's the democratic campaign done in the last 24 hours? and i'm curious, are we going to see warnock and ossoff be

attached at the hip in the same way loeffler and perdue seem to be showcasing that they will be? >> i think you likely -- we likely will see a sort of joint effort on the behalf of ossoff and warnock, but the interesting thing is as these conversations are taking place around recounts and the possibility of the secretary of state resigning, jon ossoff was here this morning holding a press conference talking about the affordable care act and kicking off a statewide bus tour. democrats are out campaigning right now, chuck. >> well, that's the question i have. the candidates that are looking too far backwards, will that look like a distraction to the voters they need to win over? priscilla thompson, thank you. up next -- senate republicans back on the hill today getting pressed on why they have yet to congratulate the president-elect. we'll show you what they are saying. but how do we make sure the direction we're headed is forward?

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>> i have not. >> do you believe he won the election? >> we need to finish all the votes. all the votes need to be counted -- not votes but we need to have all the votes counted, so i look forward to that being finished. >> welcome back. nose are a few senate republicans in just the past half hour on their way into a lunch with vice president pence, who for his part ignored the question about whether it was time to concede. with me, debora cutter, who ran the convention for the biden/harris ticket, and carlos car be carbello. you and i number of just recent former republican elected officials sent a letter essentially calling for people to accept the results of this election. so, carlos, let me start with you, which is, so we have the esper decision, you have what mike pompeo said, we're looking for a smooth transition to a

second trump administration. at what point should we be concerned that this is more than just playcating an individual who can't accept the results of the election? >> chuck, i think it's going to come down to mitch mcconnell. at some point mcconnell has to go to the oval office and say, mr. president, you won't have the 270 electoral votes you need for a second term in this country. when we lose elections, people leave office. that's just the way it works. i think that's what it's going to come down to because the president and his team are going to drag this out as long as possible. >> stephanie, you know, i think the biden team right now seems to be publicly fine. you want a little more space? we'll give you a little more space. at what point should they start pushing a lawsuit, perhaps, or pushing this a bit or simply just start to put together the administration and ignore the

shenanigans trump is pulling? >> well, i think they are pushing back on these false allegations of fraud because at every turn they're getting knocked down by the courts. they're getting embarrassed by the courts. and i think the biden campaign and the dnc are pointing that out because it needs to be pointed out. in terms of gsa and the transition, i think the biden team right now is just moving forward, doing the work they need to do to put together a government to deal with multiple challenges this country is facing. if the -- if trump continues to deny them, the gsa funding and all of the access that is critical for a good transition process, and i've been through two different transition processes, one from inside the white house and one on my way out of the white house. these are pro forma. you know, these are not political. this is the transition of power

from one administration to the other in the best interest of the country and the protection of our people. so, the fact that they are politicizing this peaceful transfer should be no surprise. in is part of the chaos and crises we have dealt with over the past four years of the trump white house, but i think at a certain point the american people are going to say enough because it will have an impact on what happens over the next couple of months in terms of a vaccine, in terms of deploying a vaccine, in terms of getting our economy stood back up. all of the challenges that were on the ballot in this election need to be dealt with and we can't do that as long as the trump campaign and president trump himself continues to play games. >> you know, carlos, i saw that senator marco rubio seemed to lament that 70% of republicans don't think this election was free and fair. and he seemed to suggest the burden is actually on the rest of us to prove to the 70% that

the election was free and fair when i might argue the only reason they think that is because the president of the united states is incorrectly creating false narratives constantly. why is the burden on the rest of us to prove it was free and fair? is it the burden on the republican party to tell its own supporters this was free and fair? >> chuck, the burden is on elected leaders to speak simple truths. and it is frustrating, it is difficult, painful to watch republicans continue to be in the posture of not offending anyone, of speaking words without saying anything. it's the same high-wire act i watched for two years, the first two years of the trump administration where republicans were asked questions and would try not to offend donald trump and not to offend independent swing voters, and it's very difficult to lead when you can't speak simple truths. >> stephanie cutter, this is yet

another added challenge to a president biden's table is that he will have now two-thirds of the other party believing this nonsense that the president is selling. again, i don't hold that -- i don't hold the voters as accountable as i do the leaders for misleading their supporters in this, but what are you going to do about it? >> well, i mean, hopefully republicans will take some responsibility and it's donald trump and it's fox news that are just pumping this information out every single day. and they also have to realize if there's something illegitimate about the presidential election, there's something illegitimate about all those down-ballot races they're touting as big successes. pull the string and it's all going to fall. ultimately, in election was a repudiation of donald trump. people voted for biden, yet still voted for a down-ballot republican. so, the longer they stick with

him, and i know they're afraid of him and he's not going anywhere and he's got quite a twitter following, they're going to stand up and have a backbone and do what's right for this country. at some point we have to govern. >> we shall see. i assume that at some point comes. i think we all have patience. we're all just seeing how long that patience will hold. stephanie cutter, carlos curbelo, thank you both. thank you for being with us. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." msnbc's coverage continues with katy tur after this break. er th. [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

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get started today. i'm katy tur. today is all about health care. at the supreme court this morning, representatives for 20 republican attorneys general and governors gave their case to overturn the affordable care act, a move that would kick 20 million people off