it's 4:00 in the east. i'm peter alexander in today for nicolle wallace. president trump is privately beginning to come to grips with the reality he won't be president on january 20th. it's the president who is a state of denial, despite the bluster and false claims that we see in his daily tirades on twitter and the flimsy legal challenges his campaign has mounted. a top white house aid tells me donald trump is very aware there's not a path to victory at all, acknowledging the president's battle is a form of theater, a performance for his supporters that president trump believes deserves a fight to the

finish. it's his insistence in carrying out that fight that donald trump is putting u.s. national security at risk, continuing to stall the transition that joe biden deserves, that american deserves. the state department under secretary of state mike pompeo who mused this week about the possibility of a second trump term is refusing to pass on messages to the president-elect from foreign leaders reaching out through diplomatic channels, leaving messages to pile up as u.s. missions abroad continue to wait for guidance. trump's administration still has not cleared the way for biden to receive the intelligence briefings he'll need to hit the ground running on his first day in office and is denying his senior staff access to classified material. today a group of nearly 150 former national security officials who served under trump

and other republican and democratic administrations signed a letter warning the government's delay in recognizing biden's victory poses a serious risk to the home land and urged the administration to officially recognize joe biden as president-elect with or without trump's blessing. now there are mounting signs that the theater of the post election stand off is becoming too much for even members of the president's own party to entertain. carl rove a pillar of republican politics, also a frequent guest on fox news, he is speaking out today in a new "wall street journal" op-ed says it's over. the election result will not be overturned. pouring cold water on the president's legal strategy writing the president's efforts are not likely to move a single state from mr. biden's column

and will not change the final outcome. james langford also now saying donald trump needs to let the transition proceed and if joe biden is not given access to the pdb he will take action. >> there's nothing wrong with vice president biden getting the briefings to be able to prepare himself. if that's not occurring by friday, i'll step in and say this needs to occur. >> the bottom falling out from under donald trump's last stand, that is where we start today. joining me former congressman david jolly of florida and "washington post" columnist donna edwards joins us. the president has been almost

exclusively out of sight for the last week since his remarks made about this time seven days ago minus the visit to arlington cemetery yesterday. he huddled with his top aides yesterday discussing the path forward. i'm curious what you're hearing with the president's aides and allies. one of them said to me the president's situation is unsustainable. >> what i'm hearing is much of the same thing, which is that there are republicans who are saying what carl rove is saying loudly. this election is over and the president needs to move on. one of the president's aides said what are we supposed to do? he needs to process this and move on. president trump is who everyone is waiting on. this frustration is courses through the white house and through many agencies. people are worried that they may

be part of this unconstitutional hold up of national security and there are people just worried we're waiting for the president's mood to change. that's never a good place for this administration. there are a lot of people who quietly will say, yes, the president needs to admit he lost. as we both know, peter, the president's biggest fear in life is being a loser. he does not want to admit that. i was talking to a transition expert who said in 2000 after bush delayed his transition, that imperilled the 9/11 response there. it's a tough position we're in. >> it's notable you say that. in conversations i'm having with aides they're saying look what happened in 2000. it wasn't a problem. george w. bush didn't get information until 37 days passed. it's hard to fathom we're all

waiting for the president to process this. what is it going to take? is it some cool meditation? why do we have to wait? when does someone say, mr. president, you have to move on? >> we have to wait because the president has republicans handcuffed by politics. they're scared of the president's influence on the base. they're scared of their re-election campaigns. they're scared of republican voters abandoning them in 2022 and 2024. the biden campaign said it's theatrics. it's about a party looking for a leader and saying this person is going to have a role to play in the party and no one wants to cross him. that's why we're waiting. we're waiting because the president has made an example of lashing out at perceived opponents and that's got a lot of people worried. they don't want to do anything that will cross the president. that's why he's continued to

tweet throughout his presidency without being reeled in. >> david, it feels like there has been some small cracks at least in this sort of process right now. some republican senators, only four of them publicly congratulated the president, it's 11 who say they believe joe biden deserves access to the pdb. where is republican leadership right now? i'm struck as you hear from kevin mccarthy and others who are touting the republican victories in all these seats. they're saying the president on the same ballot, that may have been fraudulent. we should keep going through this. >> peter, it's a damning moment that every republican that has spoken outfits on one screen on televisi television. it's time for republicans and republican leaders and a large portion of the country to stop

treating a 74-year-old man like a temperamental child. this is no longer about donald trump. it's about american democracy and the safety and security of our elections. we know donald trump the man. we knew he was going to do this. donald trump said he was cheated when he won. we could fully expect he would say he was cheated when he lost. this is about a political party defrauding the american people in real time. it's about a generation of republican leaders who are committing a fraud upon american democracy. they deserve the scrutiny and the dam nation and and the criticism we're focusing on donald trump. donald trump will be gone on january 20th. he likes to suggest i know there was fraud and you prove there wasn't. that's not the way the courts work. our republican leadership in washington is smart enough to know he's playing the american people for a fool. they're the ones that will

survive past january 20th. they should not survive past their next election. >> david, is this all about the next election, which is the run-off to take place in georgia, those two seats that will determine the majority in the senate? seems like that's why everyone is walking on eggshells. they know they need the president's political capital to keep him in a good mood to rally the troops in georgia? >> that's a nuanced argument for people interested in controlling the senate. for marco rubio, the tom cottons and for others that have eyes on their own re-election this is about coddling the devout trump base. leadership is not to coddle people when they're wrong. it's to lead them in the direction of the right. that's why it's fair to criticize republican leaders.

when donald trump is gone, you're going to see a republican leader try to move their voters towards them. i believe trump will try to keep control of the party, but he won't be able to. the collective ambition of the republican leaders left in washington, d.c. will tilt power towards them and away from donald trump. they're not ready to make that move yet. this is about satisfying the trump base so they don't create long term damage to their own careers. >> joe biden described it as an embarrassment. he said the president was not doing his own legacy any favors right now. i'm struck by that word legacy. as i talk to some around the president, they say the reason they're so frustrated he's doing real damage to the legacy of the last four years here. what does this do to the legacy

of donald trump? >> on day one it was annoying. by day three it was embarrassing. now it's just downright dangerous. for the president, for somebody who has ushered in this giant leap toward a vaccine for coronavirus just at the point where his presidency is beginning to deliver on that, he could have taken this time between now and the end of his time in the white house and begun to celebrate that and double down on making sure we can really tackle the coronavirus so that his legacy would not be the death of hundreds of thousands of people and millions of people who are sick. that's exactly what it is. i think very sadly the world has moved on from donald trump. the american people are moving on from donald trump.

eventually those republican s y legislators are move on from donald trump. the fact that he couldn't figure out a way to talk about his presidency to leave a legacy is on him. i don't think there's much of a legacy when you have hundreds of thousands of people dead. that happened on your watch and it's continued to rage. that will be the legacy of donald trump, plus the legacy of destroying our democratic process and transition of government that we've always known. that is on him. a silly child, a foolish toddler is going to take himself to january 20th and really frankly begin -- end where he began his presidency, in the american carnage that he delivered to the american people. >> we speak about the potential risks to national security. there's also the risk to

american lives in terms of their health and safety as the coronavirus is now spreading at rates we haven't witnessed through the course of these eight or nine months. >> i want to ask you yamiche about joe biden. they say the biden transition will work around the blockade of trump's administration. biden transition team officials are working with prior trump administrations. it seems like that puts all of us at greater risk.

the president-elect isn't allowed to prepare for the job he starts. >> that's right. what hangs in the balance is not only american democracy, but hundreds of thousands of lives. more than 9.9 million americans, almost 10 million americans, have now been infected with the coronavirus. when i've been talking to people, they say one of the biggest things that could happen through this delay is that the coronavirus vaccine could be slowed. if we look up in 2021 and americans are not getting the therapeutics they need because president trump was not willing to give president-elect biden the information he needed in order to go full speed ahead to help americans, that's going to be a damning part of his legacy. when i talk to biden aides, they're doing as much as they can to move forward. they're saying that joe biden has a lot of experience in the government and that they are feeling as though all the

different agencies are doing the best job they can. it's a scary thing to think the coronavirus is killing a record number of people and the vaccine that could help them might be a victim of president trump. >> speaking of folks with a lot of experience in government and with a pandemic type situation, ron klain of course who has been announced as joe biden's chief of staff. the "washington post" writes biden's choice of ron klain signals rejection of trump era chaos. you know ron klain. what do you make of his appointment? >> i think it's really a clear demonstration of the seriousness of which joe biden takes his job. ron klain is smart. he's serious. he has broad relationships. he headed the team dealing with the ebola pandemic and he came

in at a time when the united states was in crisis during the great recession and leading of course through that time and negotiating a stimulus package. i think ron klain is an excellent choice. he'll be able to work on president-elect biden's agenda and will do that in a way that doesn't cause us to wake up every morning looking at a twitter feed. >> we can look forward to an administration that would learn from any mistakes. david, we learned today that corey lewandowski tested positive, one of at least six of those close to the president who attended that event in the east room on election night who now tested positive, as if nothing was learned from the rose garden super spreader event.

>> yeah. peter, donald trump is leaving joe biden a hot dumpster fire on the national stage. first and foremost in a pandemic. it remind me of the transition between herbert hoover and fdr. when fdr won the presidency, herbert hoover was leaving the world on the brink of collapse. fdr had to figure out a transition with the outgoing president. the two decided they couldn't work together. there was such animosity and the nation was so strained. fdr chose to largely ignore hoover, go about his own way like we're seeing joe biden do. his thought was the nation would see a clean break and see clean relief and optimism going forward the day fdr took office. we can see how hoover has been

remembered and how fdr was remembered. we can see that fdr was right. >> we appreciate you all being with us. when we come back, donald trump's refusal to concede could be a life or death situation. how some folks worry a vaccine distribution plan could be delayed because the biden administration is being forced to play catch up. as trump and his allies push uber substantiated theories, we're hearing from others on how it's not true. that and more when "deadline white house" continues.

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as donald trump fights for election fraud, a pandemic is still rages under his watch. the united states saw record numbers again yesterday. more than 144,000 new cases. just look at your screen. that is the graph of where we're going. it marks the eighth consecutive day of more than 100,000 new cases. this latest wave has doubled the wave this last summer and more than quadrupled the numbers from last spring. there's now a tangible impact from the administration ordering agencies to block joe biden's

transition team. members of trump's coronavirus task force admit that donald trump's refusal to cooperate with the transition team will result in more lives lost. officials working on operation warp speed who have been unable to cooperate with biden's new coronavirus task force on plans they have for distribution. current officials say that biden's team could face significant delays in getting the vaccine out to the american people. joining us now is dr. peter hotez dean at baylor college of medicine. dr. hotez, i appreciate you being here. the graph, to see where we're headed, just straight up

potentially approaching 200,000 infections in the course of the next several weeks, what worries you most? what's your biggest fear right now? >> well, we are in the beginnings of what's going to be a humanitarian catastrophe. we're looking at 100,000 cases a day. icus are getting overwhelmed. we have this extraordinary statistics that north dakota, south dakota, iowa, wisconsin and surrounding states represent the 'epicenter of the global pandemic. as intensive care units get overwhelmed, as nurses get exhausted, that's when we know mortality climbs.

if you remember back in march and april in new york city when we heard sirens day and night, that's when the mortality figures went up. we could reproduce what happened in new york city times dozens across the heartland of this country. some of the nicest people you'll ever meet and lives are being destroyed by federal inaction. >> dr. hotez, we talk about the federal inaction as we see the numbers rising, the president has been part of a coronavirus task force meeting in months. we know mike pence participated in one earlier this week, the first since october 20th. what concern do you have about the lack of cooperation between the outgoing trump administration and the incoming biden administration that could cost us weeks or perhaps longer in terms of their ability to get on one page, even if the biden administration takes up its own

policies from day one? >> i can't remember a time in our modern history when it's ever been so -- when it's been more important to have bipartisanship. maybe right after 9/11. this is potentially even far worse given the number of deaths. we're looking at 400,000 lives lost the week after the inauguration. that's more lives lost -- that's about the same number of lives lost in world war ii. releasing this vaccine, the pfizer vaccine, the going to be very complicated logistically. of all the vaccines in operation warp speed, it's great the pfizer vaccine is showing so much promise, but it also represents the greatest challenges because of the production methods. it's brand new technology and it requires deep freezer storage.

it's not like you can leave the vaccine in the refrigerator. it's going to be carefully orchestrated. any interruption is guaranteeing it will reduce the likelihood of success. >> dr. hotez, last question. is there anything president trump could do or republicans could do that could help us at this moment or for the next 69, 70 days until inauguration or are we kind of on our own? >> hell, yeah. there's a lot they can do. we're looking at 150,000 american lives lost between now and january 20th. we don't have to lose those lives. we need a president in the white house being out there telling the governors to have social distancing mandates, mask mandates. look, we're not asking them to do this forever. vaccines are coming. we'll have a much better quality of life.

we can prevent 150,000 lives if we taking a gre aggressive acti. we have to do something. we need republican champions to help us. so many of these heartland states are red states. we need that republican leadership to really enforce on the governors that this is a humanitarian catastrophe. >> dr. peter hotez, we appreciate your expertise. nice to speak to you. thank you. when we come back, if at fist you don't succeed trump's efforts to prove he won the election continue to fall flat. the truth all pointing to a biden win. our next guest says the theme of authoritarianism are coming out

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nine days after election day with joe biden's lead and the vote count still growing, he now has more than 5 million votes than the president. arizona, just ahead of a hearing and a case in maricopa county, a major law firm representing -- the trump campaign provided no evidence of fraud in a lawsuit

asking a federal judge to block the state from certifying election results. the campaign provided hundreds of pages of affidavits with debunked allegations. one republican poll watcher complained workers were wearing black lives matter matter gear. she thought one of them had followed her too closely. another complained about the public address system. a third noticed when absentee ballots came from military personnel, many showed votes for democrats. she found that odd. let's bring in nick confessore and carol lee. the goal here it seems in this effort to pursue these legal challenges is help brand the president as something other than a loser. is that what this is all about? >> yeah, peter, as you know that's what people close to the

president have been saying. there are some that really believe that the president should continue the fight and are pushing him to go ahead, but that's the shrinking minority. most of the people around the president know it's a dead end. it's not going anywhere. it's not going to overturn the results. some are embarrassed by this. there's increasing frustration in the white house that they're not coming up with a plan to move forward. there's a sense that things are stuck and this is about the president, about figuring out how to make him come out of this looking as best as he feels he can. like you said, one ally told us the goal was branding him as something other than a loser because that's not something that he feels is going to get him very far in terms of whatever his next act is. so the sense is this is all an exercise in finding the president an off-ramp.

the question still is how long is that going to take? what does that look like? what happens in the meantime in terms of what we've been talking about, in terms of transition with president-elect biden? >> less anybody dispute these sources, the president said as much. he said when he went to visit his campaign last week, losing is not easy for me. this doesn't come out of nowhere these feelings they're echoing. nick the president tweeted today from 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes. if we can audit the votes cast, we'll easily win arizona too. the fact is that's not true. this is what the republican attorney general in arizona said just 24 hours ago. take a listen. >> it does appear that joe biden will win arizona. based on that lawsuit and the

ballots that are being contested and based on what we know happened in the past, there's no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe the election results will change. >> nick, you indicated there's an authoritarian bent to the president's legal approach right now. what do you mean by that? >> i'm listening to carol lee my colleague being talking about trump needing an off-ramp. that's the language we use about dictators and authoritarians. it's not up to him if he wants to leave. he will cease becoming president next year. it's over. what's worth for him from a legal perspective, if you give him all the votes he's contesting in courts across the country, he still loses. as carol says it's not about the election anymore.

it's about his next step as a king maker or his next step as a future candidate for president a second time. it's about him managing his own image. unfortunately the price is for him to convince millions of his followers that the election has been stolen, when it has not. >> i'm struck by you using the word king maker. a conversation i had with one of the president's allies they used that term too describing donald trump jr., he wants to be a maga king maker. carol, i'm struck by the hypocrisy. ivanka trump posted on social media congratulating dan sullivan on his win, a win on media projections.

the trump campaign put out statements saying the media projects us winning alaska and north carolina. what gives? >> it's self-explanatory. they're trying to latch on to things to fit their narrative and ignore things that aren't convenient to fitting with their narrative. the president himself in 2016 accepted that he was president-elect trump based on all the things that he is now saying are wrong. media projections, which are based on math, it's not just reporters sitting in a room saying it looks like biden has taken that state and trump has taken that state. he was fine to accept them in 2016. now he's saying it's not the case. he's also okay and so is ivanka trump to accept the projections when they're states the president has won.

that's the issue with the president's approach here from the start. he wanted the vote to stop in some places and continue in other places. >> all right, you both stay with us. when we come back, the president's hunt for a new and improved trump-friendly news channel is on. we'll look at new reporting on that. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can become

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and four years ago. i say fox. it's much different. >> that was the president just a matter of days ago. it's been clear for months and here in the last few weeks that donald trump is not happy with fox news. count them, 13 tweets and retweets having to do with the network including this one in which the president refers to himself as a golden goose insisting that fox forgot what made them successful. it makes sense given what axios is reporting today. president trump wants to start a digital media company to clobber fox news. we're back with nick confessore and carol lee. it's rich the president is dissing fox right now.

>> he's very mad that they called arizona, which i think was the first crack in the wall and the first sign that it was over. this is revenge. he'll punish them. the truth is it could work. the trump presidency is a media property. it has been from the second he started campaigning in trump tower. he understands that the theater of politics is what he's really good at and he can continue that in all kinds of ways. he can do it with a pack and starting rallies. he can do it in the way observati axios reported by starting a competing network. it's easy to do either of those things or both at the same time. >> carol, when we talk about the president having these conversations about the path forward. the path forward as i hear is less about political activities,

though it may include a run in 2024, but commercialization. one of the president's aids saying think about the opportunity for the president. there could be the trump moscow, that the president always wanted. is this ultimately a money play by the president the idea of starting his own network? >> in terms of what his next steps are he's going to be thinking about how he can make as much money as possible. one of the assets he has is this list of all of the people who signed up to attend his rallies and where that lives and what he does with that. that could be potentially very valuable. we know he might set up a super pack and he may leave open the possibility for him running in 2024 which would freeze the field for anyone else, including his own vice president, his own secretary of state, and other allies who want to run in 2024.

then there's the business opportunities. what's interesting about the axios report is he wants to do the digital operation because it's less expensive. it underscores nick's points it's a vengeance organization against fox news and the arizona call. i don't think it's something the president and people around the president are going to forgive him for. >> nick confessore and carol lee thank you. former president barack obama helped bring out the vote for his former running mate. what will his role be in a biden administration? we'll look at that next.

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♪ here. ♪ when the middle of nowhere, is somewhere. the all new chevy trailblazer. making life's journey, just better. the country remains in the grips of a global pandemic and the accompanying economic crisis. with more than 178,000 americans dead. business is shuttered and millions of people out of work. across the nation, people from all walks of life have poured to the streets to protest the deaths of unarmed black men and women at the hands of the police. perhaps most troubling of all, our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis. a crisis rooted in a fundamental contest between two opposing visions of what america is and what is t should be.

>> that is president obama laying out the challenges facing this country and its next president joe biden in an excerpt from his new memoir. with his former running mate set to take office in less than 70 days what will the role be. he brought his star power stumping in several key states and now politico reports that georgia democrats are hoping to use him and not president-elect biden in their efforts to win a pair of senate seats in january. joining us now, guiliani, if he was able to help to earn the democrats would more seats and a majority in the senate, that could be crucial? >> it could be crucial. but it is also would be a kind of corrective. if you remember during his eight years in office, one of the

lesser known but highly consequential developments was just the cratering of the democratic party in terms of the state legislatures. and there was tremendous and also losing the number of congressional seats that they lost in the 2010 midterms. and so there have been a question prior to him leaving office about what kind of coat tails barack obama has. and we've seen how crucial he has been to the turnout and to motivating voters and articulating the problems with the current administration on joe biden's behalf and allowing him to remain above the fray, the inversion, typically the vice presidential candidate does that sort of thing and barack obama was there to get his hands dirty on joe biden's behalf. so you kind of see this georgia senate race works out the way

that democrats want, you kind of see maybe a punctuation on that sentence. >> just riffing off that topic, i'm struck that we didn't see michelle obama in the waning days of the election. and joe biden was able to win it and is now president-elect, do you have any sense why michelle obama was not involved. >> that is a good question. i don't know why she wasn't more involved. but the democratic party is keenly aware that their fortunes rise and fall with black women voters. i think that is one of the reasons that stacy has been so successful, she understood and that was not shy about pointing about that out and acting accordingly. so and perhaps they will kind of deploy michelle obama to those areas. but i think the fundamental thing for certain is that everyone will be, every democrat

around, will be trying to motivate black women who live in the state of georgia. >> i want to share another excerpt from a promised land. this is barack obama's new book. this is from the preface on joe biden's election. he writes i'm encouraged by the record setting number of americans would turned out to vote and have an abiding trust in joe biden and kamala harris and their character and capacity to do what is right. but i also know that no single election will settle the matter, our divisions run deep, our challenges are daunting. it is classic obama at the same time that it is optimistic, in a way, it is also sobering acknowledging that the arc of our progress is long. >> well he would know. you know, if you remember, his presidency began with a real kind of idealism was founded on idealism. he campaigned on hope and change. and then we saw just eight years of every kind of obstacle and

road block being thrown in his path from the opposing party, the republican party. and even things that were extra political, like the birther campaign and then the plot twist no one saw coming of the primary proponent of birtherism exceeding him in office. i think all of those things have gone into at least complicating if not chastening barack obama, at least complicating the way he views these things and recognizing that progress is very often a circuitous route and not a direct route between point a. and point b. that is what he's articulating there. >> if there was one lesson that joe biden could learn from the president, what lesson do you think that is that barack obama would share with the president-elect? >> well, i mean, i don't know if this is barack obama's perspective, but as an observer is that moderation won't save you. barack obama tried over the

course of eight years to kind of find ways to pivot and bring republicans on board and he did that on climate to no avail. he did that on immigration to no avail. did that with merit garland to to no avail. and i think that the idea of reaching out to republicans is noble and in the kind of small desense democratic but in reality there is an incentive mechanism for republicans to be oppositional. and i think the better -- the sooner people recognize that dynamic, the better the administration will be. >> as mitch mcconnell communicated in the opening days of the obama administration. we appreciate your expertise and your insights, thank you very much. that will do it for me. the next hour of "deadline: white house" with my friend katy tur starts right after this quick break. ht after this quick break. we did it.

americans from both parties. turned out to vote in numbers like we haven't seen in a hundred years. and election officials counted those votes carefully, transparently and in accordance with the law. so, no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot, or counted them. thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong.

we have one candidate for president who is undermining the message that dr. redfield gave. dr. redfield today said masks are more important for vaccines for the rest of the year. the president of the united states is undermining faith and confidence in the need for masks. his challenger is delivering a clear message that everybody ought to be wearing masks and that one difference could save more than 100,000 lives before the end of this year and that is just one of the differences between two the candidates for president. >> hi, everyone. it is 5:00 in new york.

i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace nor the second hour of "deadline: white house." an end to the madness, that is what president-elect joe biden is signaling with the choice of ron klain as his chief of staff. a man with decades of experience in washington has a long history with joe biden. including servings a biden's chief of staff during the first years as vice president. and most recently as a senior adviser to the 2020 campaign. "the washington post" writes that with this pick, the president-elect is, quote, sending an early signal that hein it ends to rely heavily on experience, competence and political agility after a trump presidency that prizes flashiness and personality. choosing clain reflects beyond that chaos driven presidency. it will revert to form with a single manager surrounded by senior officials who have a direct relationship with the president. he coordinated the obama administration's response to the

ebola outbreak in 2014. making him a natural fit for an administration tasked with taking on the covid-19 pandemic. which is currently moving in the wrong direction as we head into the colder months. yesterday the country set a new record for cases, over 140,000 and we also reached an all-time high in hospitalizations. many governors are warning new prevention measures could be near. and already new york is taking steps with a new 10:00 p.m. closing time for bars, restaurants, and gyms. that begins tomorrow. as the virus rages on and joe biden beginning to announce who will make up his administration, donald trump is still unable to accept the results of this election. his refusal to admit defeat is hampering joe biden's ability to smoothly transition to the office in just ten weeks. from "the washington post," the transition team are under strict orders not to have any contact with current government

officials, each back channel conversations according to people with knowledge of the situation. biden transition team members are instead making contact with recently departed government officials and other experts to help them prepare for the new administration. and they're relying on a team led by former senior state department official to handle an influx of calls from foreign leaders. all without the benefit of a secured government line or language interpretation services provided by the current state department. this comes as more republicans are acknowledging biden's victory and the push back against donald trump's claims of fraud is growing. joe biden looking forward to a calmer and steadier administration is where we start this hour. joining us now is kate beddingfield, and communications manager for the biden campaign, also with us is contributor charlie sykes, from the bulwark, and tim o'brien, senior column industry for bloomberg opinion.

everybody welcome. kate, i do want to start with you and focus on what we could expect in the next few months but also in the first days of the trump -- or excuse me the biden presidency. he's named ron klain as chief of staff. i think it is pretty clear the signal that he's sending he wants to take the coronavirus seriously. we just heard a moment ago ron talking about mask wearing. could you tell us about any of the measures that joe biden will take on day one of his presidency in terms of combatting the virus? >> yes. so the mask point is a really important one. it is one that he spend the duration of the came leading by example on and making it clear it would be a priority as president. it is significant for the president of the united states to work, to help encourage people to wear a mask and reach out and to work with governors and mayors, rather than using the virus as a political

football with states that he views as red or blue states, he's going to work with leaders in these states to ensure that doing everything to encourage people to wear a mask and work to get relief to people economically to people who need it across country. he's very focused on ensuring that we provide money to schools and to small businesses, to ensure that they have the resources that they need to be able to reopen safely. and he's going to work to set up a national testing program so we have the resources that we need to ensure that we know who has the virus and people could quarantine and inhibit the spread. so there are concretes steps the first day in office and through the transition as he's led across the course of the campaign and encouraging people to wear a masks, to socially distance, and to be responsible about the virus. >> so there is going to be some limitations for what he can get

done without congress if he's talking about funding he needs congress help on that and mask mandates and he needs help from governors and local municipalities if they want to impose a mandate and not highly recommend them from the federal position. what is the biden team doing right now to try and find a way to work with what might be an antagonistic congress, senate, we don't know yet, but what might be and also governors from some of the red states who been just not that into forcing their residents or asking their residents to wear masks at all times in order to protect everyone. >> well, joe biden is somebody who has spent his career listening. he has shown himself to be a listener. he knows how to reach out to work with those even though who disagree with him. he has a record of being able to, for example, get republican voters for major priorities for things like look at the recovery act in 2009 when he and president obama came into

office, at a time of economic crisis in this country. not dissimilar to the one we're facing now. he has a record of being able to persuade republicans and because he believes fundamentally in unity, he believes in consensus and in finding ways to make progress. so he's beginning across the course of this transition. he's already reapi-- reaching od having conversations. 'announced his coronavirus, his covid-19 task force this week so he's surrounded with some of the best public health experts in the country to hear their advice and get their expertise and have that help inform his plans. so that work is underway. and he's moving forward. >> i know you guys have said that there is only one president at a time. i know you're trying to work around the transition process and the gsa hasn't officially certified the team and given them access to transition resources. is it going to be easy or are you having a difficult time

figuring out exactly where we stand when it comes to testing, when it comes to the resources we currently have in stock in terms of personal protective equipment, do you have good visibility on either of those things? >> well, a lot of that is public information. so what i would say to that is i guess the first thing i would say is i want to be clear that nothing is happening that is inhibiting our ability to move forward in the transition. are there pieces of transition work that we need to be able to do and we need the gsa to ascertain biden as the winner of this collection in order to do, yes. it is important. but broadly speaking it is not preventing us from being able to move forward. for example a lot of relevant covid information is public data and also vice president biden, president-elect biden is surrounded by public health officials who have -- it is -- old habits die hard, it is surrounded by public health

officials are tremendous expertise and their own long careers and history in this space and who have expert knowledge that they're able to impart to him. so that work continues. we obviously are very hopeful that the republican party will come to their senses and acknowledge that joe biden and kamala harris overwhelmingly won this election. but the work of the transition goes on. >> are you saying nothing is inhabiting but but national security clearances do take time. that process should be getting started soon. do you have a drop dead date for when you need to be able to start that process in order to have your best team in place as quickly as possible? >> there is no drap dead date, no. obviously the sooner the better. and our expectation and our hope and i think the hope of people all across the country who voted for joe biden and kamala harris to be president and vice president is that the republicans will accept the results of this election and move forward. people all across this country

overwhelmingly voted for change and the sooner that this process could move forward in full the better. but again, would you stress it doesn't mean that we aren't able to do the work of the american people and we aren't able to move forward, which we are doing. >> on the cabinet, i know you're not going to get ahead of the president-elect on this. but can you give us an idea of what the cabinet might look like? should we expect to see somebody who might have been on the campaign trail with joe biden over the last year and a half? >> well, i think look at how joe biden has governed his whole life and how he campaigned. his cabinet will reflect a diversity and it will reflect a divot of opinions and he wants to hear from opposing view points and wants to hear from people who have ideas and opinions that he might not have considered. so you could expect that his cabinet will be a diverse cross section of experience and

political opinion. and i think it will inform the kind of government that joe biden and kamala harris are going to lead in this country. and that is one where voices are heard, opinions are respected, expertise is respected, science is respected and then they take that information and make the best decisions on behalf of the american people. so you could expect a diverse cross section of people to be partners to joe biden and kamala harris in change in this country. >> can we expect any of these nominees to be household names? >> perhaps. it depends on your house hold, i guess. i think certainly will there will be people who have been incredibly important and powerful leaders in this country who joe biden will want to be part of this government, absolutely. >> kate bedding field, that is about as much as i'm going to get out of you. thank you so much and congratulations. we appreciate your time.

and let's bring in charlie sykes and tim o'brien. gentlemen, it is good to see you. let's start with the transition. there is a lot that kate is trying to get around there by saying they already have an experienced team in place, they're adding more experience. and they could do a lot because of all of that experience. but, charlie, without getting the gsa to hand them over the transition resources, without the president of the united states acknowledging that joe biden has won, there is going to be limitations and not only they could do fiscally and functionally, but the kind of trust that they could build with the american public. >> yeah, i have to say that kate lowered my blood pressure a little bit there. but it is ironic and potentially tragic that we are being held hostage by this petulant bitter narcissistic and delusional man that everybody is standing back and say we need to be concerned

about donald trump's feelings here, while we're in the middle of a pandemic and an commission crisis. i do think the biden folks have something going for them. they have a lot of experience and knowledge. they're not coming in as amateurs. so they start with a head start. but if anything about this delay impacts national security or interferes with the distribution of the vaccine, then it is -- then it is criminal negligence on the part of the viegs. so i know that republicans are sitting back and they've gotten sort of used to enabling this president and rationaling this president and i think they're waiting for the off-ramp. if this is a litz mus test of loyalty that you have to pretend that he doesn't lose the election and you have to look the other way while he delays this transition, then things are going to go from bad to worse.

and i'm hoping that there are saner voices in the white house, won't say in the presidency or pushing him to say look you need to acknowledge reality here, there is a country to run, there are human lives to be saved. >> you know, that is like acknowledging, asking them to acknowledge something that it seems like they haven't been acknowledging for the past four years, charlie. when we're talking about the transition, i know kate is trying to put everyone's minds at ease but at the same time, this is a vulnerable period for the united states. it is always a vulnerable period whenever we transfer power from one administration to another. a and the 9/11 commission, they pointed to the 2000 transition and the delay because of the recount partially being responsible for us being so vulnerable on 9/11 because the necessary people weren't in place quickly enough because they weren't able to get their national security clearances

quickly enough. so, tim, that sort of thing is really weighing on a lot of national security officials minds that i have spoken with. is that something that is ever likely to get through to the president? >> no, you know, there is just no way that donald trump is going to look at any of this stuff, katie, other than how you hoco build a moat around him of excuses that allow him to sort of fob off responsibility for an electoral loss and responsible for any damage he's done. he's been doing this for four years and he's been doing it his whole life. and don't think the republicans got in line and said mr. president, enough, you have to pay attention, that he would then go ahead and do the right thing. and it is not just a national security concern we have here.

the economy is also in play. i think the federal government needs to come up with a successor to the cares act, american workers livelihoods depend upon it. we have infrastructure problems. we have climate change problems. in addition to a pandemic and national security concerns, all of these things require the federal government marshalling forces and operating like a mature highly functioning organization. partisan politics or ideology come aside those things will come into play and they matter and they're how power is exercised but at a base level you just need the federal government to run like a mature organization and that is not happening now and it is not going to happen i think as well as it can for the entire time that donald trump is still in office. >> charlie, what about the role of right wing and conservative media when it comes to

acknowledging that joe biden is the president-elect and getting those 70 million voters who voted for donald trump to accept that. i'm not saying that all don't accept it or even most don't accept it, but if right wring media started calling spade a spade and not backing up the president's fanciful ideas, what do you think that would do? >> well, it depends on which conservative media you're talking about right now. because there is an alternative reality out there, if you spend time on talk radio or listening to rush limbaugh or his fill-insk you get the sense the election was stolen and it was fraudulent and they have a interest in ginning up the sense they are victims. here is the danger long-term. look, short-term, the president is not going to be able to over turn this location. there is not going to be d-- th is no alternative to joe biden being sworn in on january 20th.

long-term and medium term what they are doing is advancing their brand by delegitimizing our democratic process and institutions. this is always the danger with somebody like donald trump. and tim is absolutely right, when you're dealing with somebody who only asks what is in it for him sfself, he doesn' care what damage he's causing to the country or the institutions and when you think about the fact that we've had more than two centuries of bipartisan consensus about the necessity of maintaining faith in our democratic process and the integrity of our elections and donald trump is trashing that and he's doing this with the support of his supporters in the media. and i think there is going to be a break. one of the reasons why he's so mad at fox news because they haven't bought into everything he's talking about and so no there is a move to even further right, where there are things that you would have to go to alex jones or some conspiracy

website to hear what you're now hearing on conservative radio. so this whole window of delusional bizarre fab you'llism is spreading. and so donald trump is going to leave behind a lot of americans who frankly won't believe the results of this election. >> charlie, i keep going back to that op-ed you wrote in 2016 after the election where the right went wrong. it led to the book you wrote as well. just talking about the role of conservative media in tearing down the truth and the main street media over the years and how it led to donald trump, i suggest everyone go back and read it because it is so spot on. where the right went wrong. it is a 2016 op-ed. charlie and tim, good to see you. and when we return, as the coronavirus pandemic hits new record highs, will americans do what the experts say is necessary to stop the spread

until a vaccine is ready? we're going to ask the governor of new jersey, a state hit hard early and is now seeing an alarming rise in cases. plus donald trump's refusal to concede on the republicans enabling him. a member of the house intelligence committee about the damage being done to our democracy and the threat it is creating to our national security. and with a recount underway in georgia, and the vote count wrapping up in arizona, we're going to have the latest from two surprising states that may well end up padding joe biden's victory. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. r? comparing plans? oh yeah. they sure can change year to year. i found lower premiums - and lower prescription costs. and those new insulin savings! hundreds of plans, $35 a month. that'll save you money. so uh, mark? on medicare.gov now. open enrollment ends dec 7th. comparing plans... ...really pays.

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help is really on the way. you know, if you think about it metaphorically, the cal varvary coming. vaccine will have a major positive impact. if woe could hang in there and do the public health measures that we're talking about, we'll get this under control, i promise you. >> hang in there. wear a mask. social distance and limit gathers. dr. fauci this morning on the very real coronavirus fatigue now facing the worst numbers we've ever seen. yesterday the united states recorded more than 144,000 new cases for another single day record. and the eighth consecutive day of more than 100,000 new cases. so for mar than 10.5 million americans have been sickened and more than 243 through lives have been lost. all but four states have seen case trends increase by more than 10% in the last two weeks. and news out of chicago today that the mayor has issued a

30-day stay-at-home advisory that will go into effect on monday. meanwhile, in texas, now the first state to reach 1 million cases, the situation in el paso, a hot spot within a hot spot, is so bad a team of 60 military doctors and medical staff have been deployed to three different hospitals to help take on a surge in patients. let's bring in nbc's morgan chesky live in el paso, texas. it is striking where you are standing this morning. it didn't look like the united states. it looked like you were covering something out in a different country. especially when you juxtaposed it with the images of the military hospital and mobile morgues, it is hard to take in this is happening in the united states. talk to me about what you're seeing there and how the community is reacting? >> reporter: yeah, katie, absolutely is heartbreaking to see. and if you talk to the military doctors who are working with the most critically ill patients inside of the hospitals, some of them will very much liken it to

being in a war-time experience. they're saying the surge of patients come in, they don't have any control over that and just focus on the task at hand and pry to provide care to people who need it and tpatient keem on coming. driving home the point, rather, in el paso county alone, they are looking at case wise nearly 70,000 cases, more than 700 deaths. and that number is going up each and every day. and that is why we saw the county judge here issue and then extend that shutdown here, that closed all nonessential businesses and that currently faces a legal challenge from restaurant group here in el partly sunnio that is backed by the attorney general of the state of texas saying this count judge despite the raising cases has acted out outside of his authority and hurting the

economy and the judge is saying if they have any hope at all at silver lining or a glimmer of hope in the future they have to have the shutdown go into place in order to drive some of the numbers down. 51%, 51% of patients in el paso hospitals right now are being treated for covid-19. and so as it stands right now, this is absolutely the darkest days of the pandemic for this community. we know that those medical personnel are continuing to arrive here. and unfortunately we saw firsthand the mobile morgues arrive and by the end of the day there are expected to be ten of them in el paso and could the number go even higher as this virus continues to rage on in this city. katie? >> scary and deeply depressing. morgan chesky, thank you very much into and many state and local officials are imposing new restrictions and curfews in hopes of controlling the spread,

including in new jersey, where 3,000 cases were reported yesterday. the wave is approaching the record set back in april. this week governor phil murphy imposed new restrictions that go into effect today. that include halting indoor dining at bars, clubs and restaurants at 10:00 p.m. but perhaps murphy's harshest delivery of reality was this answer a few hours ago to someone asking him what he would say to people tired of wearing masks. >> you know what is really uncomfortable and annoying? when you die. that is my answer. and this is not a forever and for all. we're in a sprint right now and i would just ask people to bear down. governor phil murphy of new jersey joins us now. it is great to have you on. you're spiking in new jersey. we're spiking all aaround the rurnt. and this coronavirus fatigue has been -- but it is more important

to die than to wear a mask but how do you get people to take it seriously into the holiday season as people want to gather with their families? >> it is good to be with you, katie. there is to question, there is fatigue. we see it in new jersey, we see it everywhere. we just got to plead with people to remember the extraordinary job they did in the spring and into the early summer. new jersey, as you know, we've talked about, this got clobbered as much as any american state. we've lost over 14,000 confirmed lives. we just need people to reach down again. tony fauci, who we talk to all of the time, i spoke to him most recently over the weekend and i think made the case of the tape you showed a short while ago. it is not forever here. we're in a sprint for i think it is measured in single-digit, maybe four to six months, maybe even shorter than that. we just have to beg people to not let their guard down, especially when we could enforce

compliance if in the public square, but we're talk about private gatherings in one's homes. that is where you really need folks to bear down and not let their guard down. >> well what was his advice to you, dr. fauci's advice to you if things get keeping worse in new jersey? >> well he said they're going to get worse and that is saturday and we've gotten worse. we have another 3500 cases today and 18 more losses of life. our fatality rate is dramatically lower than it was buzz people are still dying. he endorsed the steps that we were taking and made the point that you have to plead for responsibility, civic responsibility to people's enlightened self interest and the well being of those around him and that is what we're trying to do. >> do you go beyond that at some point? do you start imposing fines if they're own enlightened

self-interest doesn't get you far enough. >> well, we do that already. my guess is you'll see more of that. could we take more steps? absolutely. indoor gathering limb ipts is something that we're looking at right now with the close eye. we want to make sure that we're balancing both mental health and physical help and long-term care facilities. our school situation, two and a half months in has been a bright spot. so that is particularly given that we have hundreds of districts that are at least in hybrid, some are still in remote. but that is a bright spot. but all things remain on the table, katie. >> well, i'm glad you brought that up because there are parents out there wondering if they could rely on the school system staying open throughout the rest of this year and into next year. >> listen, i sure hope so. we have over 600 school districts and so in the spring

when they shut, we let them do it one at a time. we reviewed their cases and then at a certain point we shut all, as we reopened in the summer into the fall, we -- same thing we worked with each district and reviewed their plans and some of them remain all remote, but they've got a plan as to what they're going to do to figure out the reason why they're remote. i sure as heck hope we don't get back to the spring. the data does not support that. we've had 50 something in-school transmings over the two and a half months in school. that is led to about 190 something people getting covid positive. that sounds like a lot except that we manage over 3,000 buildings and again we've had 52 of those buildings that have had an incident and most of them have been cured. so we're hoping we could stay at it and get as much as the in-person educational experience that we can as long as we could do it safely and responsibly.

>> governor, i want you ask you about the incoming administration. have you had a conversation with joe biden on anyone on his team about what you're state needs when joe biden is sworn in as president of the united states? >> yeah. we talked to them all of the time. ron klain and i went back and forth overnight. he's somebody i've known for over 20 years. he's a good friend. he's been an advise to us privately on covid as you know, we had the ebola oversight experience. but their team up and down the line, it is a first rate team and we're in constant touch with them on covid matters. >> what you have told them you need? >> what is that? >> what you have told them you need? regarding covid? >> we need a national -- we found common ground in desperate hours with the trump administration and for that we'll be forever grateful but we need a set of policies, face coverings and vaccine

distribution, basically doing it at the national level what has been left to governors to do and we need, by the way, big financial federal stimulus still and i know the biden administration will support that. i sure as heck wish we could get there sooner than that. >> governor phil murphy of the new jersey, governor, it is always good to talk to you. thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. and when we return, national security concerns are growing every day donald trump holds up the biden transition. we'll by joined by a member of house intelligence committee next. committee next whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand. and i'm gonna put lisa on crutches! wait, what? said she's gonna need crutches. she fell pretty hard. you might want to clean that up, girl. excuse us. when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built

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he couldn't be behaving the way he is today if there weren't leaders within the republican party in congress and elsewhere going along with him. this is how democracy is smothered, it isn't always shot in the back it dies over suffocation and it is inexcusable what these enablers are doing. >> the new chapter of the donald trump presidency, the lame duck portion in which the president refused to accept the reality of the situation while his aides indulge his volatile whims including a wave of new hires an fires particularly at pentagon. nbc news could confirm a cybersecurity official was asked to resign his post and has done

so. that move reported earlier by reuters. another top security official chris krebs debunking the claims of voter fraud is thinking of losing his job. congressman himes is a member of the house intelligence committee. it is good to have you. from a intelligence standpoint, what are you most concerned about right now? >> well, you know, what you're watching, katie, in this very, very lame duck, is the decapitation of the american national security apparatus. we saw somebody who had not been in the pentagon replace the secretary of defense. we've seen senior level turnover there. apparently we're now seeing this at the department of homeland security. the people that you were just mentioning are the people who are on top of our cybersecurity. so rumor is or the discussion is that maybe gina haspel, director of cia may be on the list.

maybe the attorney general. you're seeing the decapitation of the american national security apparatus. now i'm of the opposition party so not all of the people thrilled me all of the time. but imagine that, imagine if you knew that the united states and you're some guy in yemen or the chinese or the russian or the iranians or the north koreans and you knew in this moment the head of the united states has been removed. would you be tempted to do something that you might not otherwise do. and you would note that the incoming team, because of the temper tantrum being thrown by this president who has lost not narrowly but obviously, would you know that the new team coming in will not have had a chance to get into the technical and detailed aspects of what it takes to run the national security apparatus in this country that keeps us safe. >> what about the apparatus in place underneath the top officials that could get the ax

and you mentioned them, we mentioned them as well and you also included gina haspel at the cia. is the apparatus below them strong enough to with stand the next two and a half months? >> yeah, it is a great question. you know, and i've watched as somebody who has charged with over sight of the intelligence community day in and day out, the civil servants, and the intelligence officers and the uniformed milt do the right thing and stay unpolitical. it is a lot harder to fire those people. and so, yes, i have a lot of confidence that our military will not follow illegal orders. that is not what our officers do. and i have a lot of confidence that below at pointy level at one one of the agencies people will continue to do their job and do something that president and his people and his enablers in congress have stopped doing long ago which is remember their oath to the constitution and the notion that we are a constitutional democracy.

not a cult of personality centering around one man. >> let me read you something from "the new york times." that paper reports one of the things that trump is trying to do is de classify documents related to the russia investigation risking sources and information. here is what they write, the hires come as mr. trump and some of his aides have been pressing to de classify documents that would describe sources of information inside the kremlin. the president's advocates have long argued these could prove that four years of allegations about the 2016 actions by president vladimir putin of russia in support of mr. president trump's candidacy were a hoax despite the justice department has indicted russian military intelligence officers. how bad would it be if he started de classifying this information? >> well, and i've got a fairly specific sense of what that may be. and you frame it exactly right. trump's own department of

justice has indicted russian intelligence officers for the attack on our election in 2016. this is not a debatable point any more. this is ego stroking around a president who has never been able to let go of the fact that at the end of the day, the mueller investigation, though it found lots of misbehavior, did not find chargeable conspiracy. we all know that owe me true. but your question is the key one. it will not be hard, and it is not hard for the russians or anybody else, if you know what we know, it is nod hard to figure out how we know it. let's imagine that we got a read out of a meeting and there were only four people in the meeting in the kremlin. it is really not hard particularly if your the russians and you're willing to do things that we're not willing to do here in the united states to figure out who our source is. and so there is a reason gina haspel is opposing this, which is that once the president make this is public, first of all, that intelligence source which would be very important to our

national security in the future, for man than what ego gratification he might get by releasing classified intelligence, that source is no longer available to us and probably getting a bullet in the head if it is a human source. if it is not a technical source, technical source goes away and we are that much more vulnerable and and -- andin secure because of it. >> if you paid any attention to our government and our national security app rats us you know that revealing sources and methods is one of the highest crimes and most protected secrets. thank you for spending some time with us. and when we return, to two red states joe biden could be on the verge of turning blue. the latest from georgia and arizona when we come back. it's all about the bedroom. and with caspers black friday sale, you can save up to 30% and make yours a winter slumberland.

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the game could soon be over for the trump campaign in georgia and arizona. the two states where the winner

of the presidential race has yet to be projected. soon georgia will begin the hand recount of the nearly 5 million ballots cast in last week's presidential election. joe biden has a lead of about 14,000 votes there. and in arizona, trump's packed victory has dwindled as the state counts the final ballots with joe biden holding on to his lead. joining us now are two of the our reporters on the ground in georgia and arizona. as the counting continues. nbc's priscilla thompson is live in atlanta and vaughn hillyard is here from phoenix. i'm saddened to see you're not wearing your turquoise bolo tie. it seems like you might be nearing your last days covering the campaign in arizona. what are we waiting for tonight and what is the expectation? >> reporter: well that is what we thought on sunday, katie, whether we talked. that we were near the end. but here we are. we're still here. and i think we should raise the stakes that if we finish before georgia does, i think priscilla

is hosting thanksgiving later this month if i may, because we are getting close. and we should know here in arizona there is just about 24,000 ballots left out standing to be counted and we are expected to get another major drop in just about 12 minutes from now. out of the tucson area, pima county, right now joe biden has a lead of about 11,500 votes and it is hard to make up that margin with just 24,000 votes left to go. and the lawsuit was heard today brought by the trump campaign which would impact 180 ballots here so i think tonight is very telling, not only in ten minutes from now, this pima county drop but also this maricopa county drop because what we've seen is joe biden set himful up to win the state of arizona. and when you look at map, the story is maricopa county where he shifted 89,000 votes so far

and that would put him in the position to pull off here this state. >> vaughn, you've been saying all along, watch maricopa county and you've proven to be right. that is why it is good to have somebody from the state reporting from the state. priscilla, you have been spending a ton of time in georgia. there's going to be a hand recount. the secretary of state there is getting a lot of blow back from republican who officials who feel like, i guess, he hasn't been fair to them even though he keeps saying he's been fair to the voters and this is what the votes say. what is the expectation for one, how long this hand recount is going to last and two, what the results will be? >> yeah, well the secretary of state signalled he does not expect the recount to change the outcome of the race in any dramatic way. it really is to help ensure greater confidence in these results sort of a second layer

of confidence, if you will, and it's interesting because they have been preparing all day for this recount. counties have been in trainings and we're learning late this afternoon that the secretary of state's wife has tested positive for covid. so now, he is quarantining and all of his staff that works in the capital has been told to work from home until they get test results. the state said this recount is happening largely at the county level, and they do not expect this to impact that recount or this timeline in any way but counties are going to begin counting starting tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. they are going to be able to work until midnight on wednesday to get these nearly 5 million votes counted and then the state will ultimately certify those on friday. katy? >> nbc pra liscilla thompson. when we return, remembering lives well lived. we return, re velis well lived ♪

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thank you for being with us and trusting me as i fill in for nicole. "the beat" with ari melber starts now. nice to see you. >> how have you been, katy? >> not bad. getting a little extra sleep the next couple days now that the election is decided. >> everyone had wild hours, including our steve kornacki but i believe you had some late nights, overnight vibes. >> but steve was with us during the overnights, so he was really the king in terms of getting no sleep. i love the gap has seen a spike in sells for khakikhakis. they should call them steve