reporting a record number of now cases today. more than 170,000 and president-elect joe biden full steam ahead with his transition. pressing the trump administration for a robust and immediate federal response to the pandemic, writing in a statement, i will not be president until next year. the crisis does not respect dates on the calendar. it is accelerating right now. urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration starting with an acknowledgement of how serious the current situation is. this all comes as right now in georgia a recount is under way. nbc news pror jects joe biden apparent winner of the state expanding college elker to victory to 306 votes. meantime the president suffered multiple legal blows friday. in pennsylvania, arizona and michigan, creating even greater roadblocks to his last-ditch attempt to block biden's victory. now for more expansive look at what's happening, latest word from our team of reporters,

welcome to all. begin with nbc's ali vitali in ra horehoboth beach. >> reporter: alex, a blustering day here on rehoboth beach, here because joe biden is taking the next few days down. no public events. we saw him go for a bike ride with his wife jill biden. makes sense. it's a beautiful day here. speaks to the fact the transition is doing a lot of its work behind the scenes trying to figure on the staffing front what announcement they might make next. we don't think we'll hear about cabinet picks until after thanksgiving, later into november and december even, but on a staffing front, there are conversations happening about filling out what the west wing and the other key role there's might look like. we know that last week biden

announced ron klain chief of staff. it's a choice that makes sense. someone who's been around the former vice president. now president-elect, for many years. also got experience in dealing with pandemics and public health crises. he was the ebola czar under the obama administration, for example. sort of speaks, alex, to the way this biden administration in waiting is thinking about and prioritizing handling the coronavirus pandemic. something klain spoke about on "lawrence o'donnell" earlier in the week. >> a cove ed coordinator works in the white house, direct access to him and briefing him daily. that official will have a team of people he works with. someone coordinating, he or she works with, coordinating vaccine, fixing testing problems we're having and more. >> reporter: you asked, alex, about the flow of information right now to the transition.

you know the general services administration has not yet certified biden is the president-elect of the united states, which means he's not getting presidential daily briefings nor is his transition team having conversations on the agency level, staff to staff, about what could come next in the pandemic response. specifically, conversations around the potential for mass dissemination of a coronavirus vaccine's we mow that's something every american is really hotly anticipating. a lot of people waiting for that to become reality. the biden administration at least wanting to hit the ground running on that. because they can't have those kind of agency to agency conversations now, the flow of information is really slow. so we're told biden -- that doctors who are working with the biden transition now are coming up with their own plan for a potential mass dissemination of the vaccine including talking to farm sis like cvs and walgreens and talking to people like pfizer, coming up with the potential vaccine making sure they have technology to correctly store the vaccine and

get it out to the people when the time comes. >> a great setup. digging furtherer into the issues you brought up. thank you from rehoboth beach xbrsh. and several demonstrations taking place in washington, d.c. protesters claiming what was not a fair election. describe tenure of things and it looks spores but dense there in the distance? >> reporter: yes. could be a little of both. show you exactly how far. sorry. watching out for bikers doing this. look back here. the crowd. hard to see how far they go back through the buildings. take a look here. you can see all the flags gives you a sense how deep and far back this crowd goes. i met a woman here this morning who told me she drove from florida and wanted to be here to show support for president trump and also to protest what she

believed is a fraudulent, unfair, inaccurate election. you can e see all of the people gathered here. seeing a little on the perimeter of the group simply because not a lot of masks are being worn within the crowd. this is a crowd organized by a number of different groups. we saw posted on social media seemed to originate with a group known as the proud boys wanting people to come out to the rally. the name is familiar because president trump mentioned them in the first president's debate. a far right extremist group. we saw some sort of -- i'll show you. what it feels like here. the crowd is chanting "fake news, fake news." not fans of ours, you can tell. it's okay long as they give us a little space. they're following us and chasing us as we walk further back. they say that this election is

fraudulent. when i asked someone earlier today if there was anything that would make them accept these results they said they would maybe accept them once certified but still wouldn't believe them. this gives you a sense of the crowd here. no intention of accepting the election results and as you can tell from the jeering right now, not fans of ours either. >> you know what? i am. as are our viewers. alison barber, thank you. i can say about that is, hmm, how charming. joining us, host of a "zelina show" on peacock, and also senior fellow at university of virginia miller center and former spokesperson for the house oversight committee and senior advisers for the lincoln project. guys, fans of all three of yours. glad you're here as well. chris, to you first here. as the president has spread these baseless claims about voter fraud on twitter, and even while his lawsuits are being thrown out left and right, then he rolls past the crowd we saw

where alison reported there. at that maga rally. i guess to inspire the crowd. what's your interpretation of that? >> yeah. i think it's important to set some of the facts straight on this. studies of voter fraud going back to 2000 found you're more likely to get struck by lightning than find voter fraud. two, mail-in voting in this country in a number of states going back decades without would incidents of voter fraud. three, the most recent allegation of voting fraud involving mail-in ballots involve add republican operative in north carolina. finally, we always had human glitches and technical errors in elections. that's not fraud and often gets fixed. it's one of the reasons why the president's legal challenges have fallen flat on their face and also why when you dig into many of these complaints, they're really not even talking about fraud. the case in michigan, for instance, basically alleges their poll workers felt

disrespected and were treated rudely. the problem with all of this is that it not only impedes the transition process, but it just delegitimizes one of the most sacred things in our country. which is elections. as disturbing, not just the president making these allegations but the fact that it's being echoed by many people in his party, or at the very least they're not disavowing him. it's essentially the same delegitimatization that our foreign adversaries have been trying to do for decades. >> yeah. selena, curious who are the people in this crowd? what is the point of this? what would you tell them and would they even listen? >> well, i don't think they would listen to me, alex. i think if they don't think they would be particularly receptive to a black woman telling them anything. that's sort of the point here. to the reporting we just heard, a lot of these folks on the ground are members of not just an extremist group but a right wing extreme a white nationalist group.

that group will not listen to a black woman. to be clear, i have no message other than, yes, 70 americans voted for donald trump but more americans voted for joe biden. similarly to 2016 as they told us to get over it, they won. i think that they need to start the process of understanding that more voters supported a different candidate. and some of the people out here may be just upset and going through those, that emotional roller coaster, but some of the people out here also have an agenda, alex. we can't miss that point. some of the folks out here want to spark chaos and violence, an as well. >> to some, at least, say, hey, get over it. we won, talking from a democratic perspective and use that verbiage. that said, your last point, curious of your take from a former republican standpoint. this does not look like a

movement that will dissolve soon with a new president. is this the tea party newly re-invented for 2020? >> yeah. i think that's a perfect analogy, alex. what we're seeing right now, the origins of what we call trumpism in this radical transformation party beginning with the tee party in 2010. and those same elements and the platform they talked about, one of massive distrust of government, one of knocking down institutions like the media. one in which there was this belief immigrants and people are color were coming here to take things from white people. all of those elements are central tenants right now to trump imand what we see unfold today with people walking around washington, d.c. look at the crowd. no accident, it's all white people that are a part of this. a big tenant of this. the radicalization of the party wasn't something that could go away overnight when donald trump

lost. and for anyone who had been holding out hope maybe a reset to quote/unquote normal or the way it used to be, that's clearly been a fool's folly to think that. the republican party doubled down on trumpism. we know it by the way in which they refused to even embrace the peaceful transition of power, refusing to acknowledge that joe biden is the president-elect. the mandate is stronger than the one donald trump had in 2016 when you look at total numbers and the states biden one. electoral numbers the same. yet republicans are trying to circumvent the democratic process. there's no going back to the republican party and that's the ready in washington everyone needs to understand's not wake up, wrong all these four years. we're sorry. they're going to keep going down this path. >> comes to the tea party, viral lently against obama. anti-obama to the max, yeah?

>> absolutely. we saw that during my time there and it was the rise in 2009 the, 2010 that really fueled the republican takeover of the house and then obviously the senate going forward. 100% right, regardless who's in the white house we need to get past these divisions. the way the president-elect tried to draw a contrast over the past couple of days from where the current president is. i don't know if joe biden can be successful in bringing the country together but the tone is where most americans are right now, and i am optimistic hopefully something can get done in the next congress with divided government, because that certainly is what the american people want. >> speaking of president obama, i know you know he was asked about this in an interview with "60 minutes" and slamming republicans, in fact, in his answer for going along with president trump's baseless claims about election fraud. let's take a listen to this. >> they appear to be motivated

in part because the president doesn't like to lose and never admits loss. i'm more troubled by the fact that other republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. it is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming biden administration but democracy generally, and that's a dangerous path. >> white house chief of staff john kelly said in a politico interview donald trump will never admit defeat. so overall, zelina, what do you make of the republican party's role in this? how much longer can they continue until they have to contradict the president? >> i think they're likely going to continue until the georgia runoffs in january, alex. that's the reason they are doing

this. it's interesting to see mitch mcconnell and other republicans accept victory in the same election they are claiming widespread fraud. you know? new congresspeople showed up to orientation yesterday, alex. all of those people are going based on the results of their elections. and nobody's claiming widespread fraud. it you're willing to accept a victory and senate seats and house seats, then you need to also accept the results in the same election for president which put joe biden in the white house and donald trump on his way out. >> yeah. so there is new reporting, nbc news, that says that doctors close to president-elect joe biden's transition team are working to develop their own plans to mass distribute a coronavirus vaccine concerned that trump administration planning will leave them underprepared when he leaves office. how much could the administration's refusal to acknowledge biden's win hurt not only the incoming administration but the american people when it

comes to combating covid? >> well, that's really the dangerous thing about what we're seeing right now from trump. the refusal to allow the peaceful transition of power to begin. the gsa administrator to unlock government resources for the biden transition team means that they're not operating with the government -- not going to be able to immediately do the things they're going to need to do to address the coronavirus. all happening at the same time the coronavirus pandemic is getting worse in this country. record numbers of hospitalizations and illnesses and deaths. you would think under any scenario all politics aside that would be the first and foremost priority of the current president of the united states. so joe biden is happy to go in now and build a government effectively separate from one we have because he can't get the help we need, the research he needs, the non-partisan things that need to be happening and why i thought it was so

important, by the away, appointment of klain. lived through a pandemic, navigated us through it inin hardly any loss of life at all during that pandemic. we at least are going to have a return to competency, return to fact and science and truth, and i'm confident that the biden transition team with all the experience that they have are going to be able to do everything they need to do in spite of trump's efforts to sabotage the biden add m administration as well as americans health. >> once the election certified dp donald trump will announce his 2024 campaign there. thinking ahead. what are the chances he runs in 2024 and the chances the rnc would support him? >> i lararely ever agree with dd trump but he tweeted something to never bet against donald trump. i never bet against donald trumpen doing the improbable and i think if he tries to do that,

that really is sort of the republican party's worst nightmare. in their effort to move beyond to a post-trump world, all this does, tie them up the next four years and there is another generation of leaders down the road who would love to assert themselves. it's virtually impossible to do that with the giant shadow that is cast by donald trump. so should he do it it would keep him in the news and gives him leverage to start this media empire he's rumored to be doing and help branding for his hotels. historically, probably improbable, but that won't stop him from trying. >> okay. zuerlein na, chris, curt ux g, to see you. in about a week the president effectively said he could deny one state the vaccine and the governor of that state wasted to nitime firing back. we show the details next. ho w t

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in the coronavirus pandemic. daily cases increased every day this week. the u.s. add agz record 170,000 cases on friday and that marks ten consecutive days of more than 100,000 new cases in a single day. the surge is prompting states to put new restrictions in place. north dakota's governor mandated masks state wide. bars and restaurants operating at 50% capacity and closed by 10:00 p.m. new mexico begin as two-week state wide shut down beginning monday. only essential businesses allowed to operate and then at limited capacity. new york bars, restaurants and gyms must close by 10:00 p.m. mayor bill de blasio warned schools will go virtual if the infection rate rises above 3%. digging deeper what's happening in some of america's covid hot spots. joining us from el paso, texas, and also from oh claire, wisconsin and also staten island, new york. ladies, welcome to you all. first to wisconsin.

the virus is spreading so rampantly the state's health department create add new category to describe case activity. and on the ground there in eau claire for us, cori, welcome. what is this new category all about? >> reporter: pop up the map for you, alex. good afternoon to you. for all viewers watching, kind of break it down what it means. the state went from every single county being in the category of very high, which is 350 people testing positive per 100,000 people, to now critically high. that means over 1,000 people testing positive for every 100,000 people and what that means, really, is epidemiologists say at that high of a rate it is all but impossible to contact trace. the rate is just too high making it extremely difficult and all but seven counties in the state of wisconsin have now hit that benchmark, alex. the latest numbers, 300 and nearly 20,000 people in the state testing positive.

2,600 people lost their lives and the positivity rate here in the state, 37%. when you put that in perspective for the stay of new york at its peak in the spring, highest was 25% positivity rate. wisconsin just blowing past that. we're here at the mayo clinic in eau claire and spoke with frontline worksers what they're seeing and experiencing. listen in. >> we're stretched. stressed in the state of wisconsin right now as far as icu beds. seeing referrals from places we've never had before and so that says that across the state people are looking for intensive care beds wherever they can find them. >> we have ramped down significantly on totally elective care. care that can be delayed two to three months and what we've significantly cut back on so those staff is aid in taking care of the in-patients. >> reporter: and alex, they tell us that the current capacity rate is 92%.

that's how many beds overall including regular, normal patients and then covid patients altogether. that number is fluid. at capacity last week altogether. so something else they tell us they're doing when it comes to staffing is pulling and reaching from other parts of the country agency far as arizona. neighbors in minnesota. bringing earn out here to brace for this upcoming surge that they're going to get. >> absolutely brutal numbers there in wisconsin. okay. co cori, thank you for that turning to texas. brutal there, more than 1 million there. most of any state in country. joining us from el paso and appeals court ruled the county cannot enforce residents to stay home and businesses to close. what's the latest on this, valerie? >> reporter: good afternoon, alex. hearing a lot of frustration from business owners on one side of this issue and the judge ricardo you the county

administrator who ordered shutdown of non-essential businessing back on october 29th. that order was set to expire this past wednesday. however, the judge hoped to have it extended until december 1st. as you mentioned, a district appeals court rejected that order. businesses, of course, against that order frustrated with lack of financial money they were bringing in. worried about further financial losses, but the judge was here at the hospital with us today where more refrigerated trucks were delivered to handle overflow of bodies to give you a sense how dire the situation is here. the judge says he's hoping that 12 trucks will be in place by some point today as we were speaking to him earlier, one truck was pulling up behind him to the office of the medical scamm examiner's building. here's what he had to say. >> i think if people understood where this could end up, that's what i need to get people's attention, that when you have a truck like this coming in because we need to fill it with more bodies, and we've got 350

bodies, under investigation at this time, it's a matter of time that we're going to see the 30s, 40s a day of, you know -- it's 1% of your total. so you've got 1,100 on one day. that means 11 people might die from that, from that that will come out three weeks from now. that's where we are. we're dealing with the impact it's having on our health care system. the impact it's having, and then more than anything, the indignation. this is the indignation -- >> reporter: and the judge says there is good reason for concern. the city is now reporting 756 people dead. that is 15 more people than yesterday. now reporting more than 31,000 active cases near el paso. >> thank you for that from el paso. to new york city, everyone. where cases are rising especially quickly in the borough of staten island.

it is now a coronavirus yellow zone. its positivity rate highest in the city at 4.6%. msnbc's lindsey reiser is there with the latest. welcome. how did this become the hot spot and what's being done to curb the spread? >> reporter: so good to be with you. a lot of people wonder why staten island? kind of strange to think that wearing masks has become a political issue, but we also know that staten island tends to differ ideologically from the rest of new york city. so tends to be a republican stronghold at in point positive reluctance to wearing a masks. ant anecdotally, people wearing masks, but i'm at a testing point. this is a yellow zone. no outdoor gathers of 25 or more. no indoor gathers of 10 people or more. houses of worship at 50%

capacity. eat at a restaurant. no more than four at your table. new york city in general, that ruling seven-day average of infection rate now is 2.83. nowhere near the peak cori mentioned, when we peaked in the spring, but it is nearing 3%. that's the marker where they will shut down the schools. possibly as early as monday. so new york city also has new restrictions. restaurants and bars and gyms have to close at 10:00 at night. again, indoor gathering limited to 10 people. i asked a gentleman why he felt staten island specifically is seeing such a spike. >> on social media a lot of parties going on. like i'm 19. i know everything going on basically. everybody that i know most of everybody that i know just going outside and partying. going ober to houses. meeting up with old friends and stuff without masks or anything. i guess that's really touching the -- >> people hear about a vaccine say, well, the end is near. i can start to relax.

you can't. i don't think we'll ever get back to where we were. i don't believe it will ever be that bad again, but we want to save as many lives as possible and we want to keep the economy functioning and that's the balance we're working to reach. >> reporter: so, alex, right now we are at, as i mentioned, the staten island ferry terminal. free, no appointment necessary testing. the line is pretty long here on a saturday. you have to wear a mask when indoors. really trying to use contact tracing and testing to get a hold on this here in staten island. if they don't they have to go into orange zone meaning more restrictions. all eyes on the school system as city leaders decide whether or not to close the largest school system in the country. >> could happen soon as monday. thank you. and thanks to msnbc's reporter in el paso and reporter

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right now in georgia workers recounting nearly 5 million ballots by hand for the second straight day. the historic undertaking helping to decide control of the u.s. congress after nbc news was finally able to project joe biden apparent winner in georgia by a razor-thin margin. joining us from atlanta, shaq, welcome. how long might this recount take? >> reporter: well, the secretary of state's office said a deadline of 1:59 p.m. wednesday for all the counties to go through their voting process and this audit process retallying votes. in this county, look at the

election workers going on. this is actually lunchtime. you see some lunches going out to audits here. they're going through about 528,000 ballots just in this county alone. of course, 5 million ballots across the state of georgia. what these auditors are looking at is just the presidential race. of course, nbc news also projected yesterday the race between senator david perdue and jon ossoff enters a runoff january 5th. on january 5th you'll see both senate candidates facing off in a runoff. both david perdue and jon ossoff on the campaign trail and listen to what they're telling supporters. >> we proved to the rest of the country that georgia's not turning blue. i've already won this race one time thanks to you. beat them by two points. the problem is we have a lot to get over 50%. 13,000 votes short and have to

do it again. >> this is the team assembled here today that will change georgia. [ horns honking ] because change is coming to georgia. change has come to america. and retirement is coming for senator david perdue. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: the other race between kelly loeffler and raphael warnock, with this, a lot of money poured in. already seeing the campaign ads and a lot of the mobilization happening in the state of georgia. i'll tell you, election officials behind me will be very busy for the next few weeks. >> i got to say, warnock has quite a lead at this point. though it's very, very early. ask you about the recent back and forth over signatures and signature verification. what is creating controversy over that? >> reporter: you saw a tweet from president trump this

morning. it was flagged by twitter for having some misinformation, but even as the audit process going on and officials are going through and checking through each ballot, he's already alleging that crimes are taking place and that there's cheating going on. his problem and you hear from his officials, doug collins, leading his campaign's effort counting the ballot, saying they have an issue with the signature verification. democrats and the secretary of state's office already pushing back on that. it's this back and forth going on. president trump not happy with what he's seeing. of course, he's behind right now in the vote by about 14,000 votes behind joe biden. >> kudos to you, my friend. road warrior miles you logged took you straight into an nbc news correspondent. glad you're doing that. >> reporter: thank you. and former democratic presidential candidate and repeat guest on the show happy to say. welcome back, congressman.

joe biden apparent winner in georgia and in arizona now. president-elect expanding his electoral lead to 306. despite that, the president continues to deny election results. in fact, a person familiar with the discussions confirms to nbc news that trump has told some advisers, if you election is officially certified for biden, of course we expect it to be, will announce a 2024 white house bid afterwards. thoughts on that? >> well, not surprised. i mean, he wants to stay in the limelight. it's more about him really than anybody and what we're seeing that, it's playing out right now with the virus. he's paying zero attention to that, and i saw your previous story down in texas s, same happening here in ohio and across the country and that's talking about himself. that's not wearing well over the next four years. you and i know the last three months i feel was four years. i can't imagine how long four yearless feel and i think he'll

be out of theic cher by then. >> felt like a long time for folks in lordstown in your district. rolling stone article said broken promises. how trump betrayed auto workers of youngstown, ohio, detailing how trump made a pledge to workers he could save their job and city instead's massive auto plant shuttered and 44 people left unemployed. despite that, trump defeated biden by a larger margin than in 2016. what's your reaction to this? >> i think part of it was that the biden campaign didn't play a whole lot in ohio. they came in at the end, but not a significant month-long ground game in some of the programs for voter contact, et cetera. they weren't in play in ohio. i think they took a shot at the end. the right thing to do. could have been a knockout punch elenction night.

worth the money put in. trump maintained a lot of support he had in 2016 here. i wasn't completely surprised. he's connected to a lot of people who have a lot of economic issues. that's why i think joe biden changing the brand of the democratic party more along the lines of, you know, lunch bucket workers, people who take a shower after work as we like to say, people who haven't been able to really gain any economic ground. worried about their pension. worried about health care. biden deeply connects to those people and he didn't play here as hard as trump did, and so the numbers ended up reflecting that but stayed focused on michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. those voters, could have turned in ohio but stayed focused on the states they needed to win and changed those voters and broke the wall. >> and congratulations to you for winning re-election.

not it was a big surprise, but some of your democratic colleagues not as fortunate. house democrats held the majority by a narrow margin after losing several seats. since the election progressives and moderates trading blame over results and some believe the defund the police movement cost them. is it that or is there more to it? >> that was a big one. i mean, i think we all have to be very, very honest with ourselves. that was a big one. the law and order issues around defund the police hit home. they were hitting state rep candidates in my congressional district around defund the police, and the candidate was a former prosecutor. so they used it across the board, and it was very, very effective, and you know, i was able to push back. i was down a number of points from my previous election. i think just on that issue alone, and we pushed back hard on it, and i think -- we've got to have a national response to

that. i think joe biden's speech in pittsburgh is good architecture how to build forward with trying to, again, rebrand the democratic party, and solve both the issues that are real around, you know, communities of color and policing, but also saying, look. we respect and honor good cops who put their lives on the line every single day and their spouses and kids and parents worry about them every time they lace up boots and put on the badge. we've got to take the temperature down. joe biden's going to do and heal. but we've got to get away from, as congressional clyburn said sloganeering. may sound well on twitter but doesn't work well on the ground and that's why a lot of candidates couldn't beat it back and trump to his credit used it as a bludgeon and it was effective. >> yeah. what about coronavirus cases? your well aware they are surging across this country.

house speaker nancy pelosi and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell at odds, in fact, over the size of another relief package. what is it going to take to actually break this impasse? any chance this gets done before the holidays? >> god, i hope so. when you see the numbers in some of these states and you see the economic situation, we had a number of people here in ohio get letters from the, or a ruling that the department of labor issued through the state of ohio saying that they wanteds $20,000 in back pay. for some of the pandemic unemployment assistance that they got. which is crazy. i mean, these folks are hanging on by a thread. and so it's the public health piece and the economic piece, and we have to address both of them. look, if the package isn't as big as we want were i think we got to move forward with something. i'm telling you right now, constituents of my worried about

getting modest amount of christmas gifts for their kids, worried about getting evicted or paying the rent. it's scary. a number of people texted me in the last couple of days ready to have a nervous breakdown. i can't blame them. this is scary stuff and washington's got to work. may not be everything we want but we've got to get something out of the door to help these families especially around the holiday season, raising big kearns. thank you so much. good to see you. >> always good to be with you. >> thank you. president trump fired the secretary of defense and part of the reason might be because of a classified memo sent to the president about u.s. troops coming home. we'll tell you about the reported contents of that memo. the smallest of businesses right in our neighborhoods. we created the 5g business impact challenge to give them the tools for them to come back stronger. the things that folks are doing today to survive during the pandemic will help them become more resilient into the future and technology like 5g

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new today a strong signal from the new acting secretary of defense christopher miller that u.s. troops may soon be withdrawn from iraq and afghanistan. it's a move to fulfill a campaign promise by the president. miller sent a memo to defense department workers yesterday saying "ending wars requires compromise and partnership. we met the challenge, gave it our all. now it's time to come home." joining me, admiral, former nato allied supreme commander, msnbc news chief diplomacy analyst and author of this book. sir what a wonderful accident, a happy accident it was. i saw you shaking your head at that one. what's your response to that headline? >> it's a big mistake, and it's

obviously president trump trying to build up his talking points for his, i guess, his run in 2024. you know, there's always going to be an emotional appeal, alex, to bring the bring the troops h christmas but, hey, here's a news flash, we already brought home the vast majority of troops when i commanded that mission as the nato commander, we had 150,000 troops there. we're down to about 8,000 american troops. so 95% have come home. the vast majority on barack obama's watch, by the way. that last 8,000 troops is what is holding the peace process together, and if we just pull them out suddenly, that peace process, which is looking pretty promising, is going to collapse and we're going to end up with a vietnam style collapse. it's the wrong move. >> there's something else of concern here from the washington post reporting saying that mark esper sent a classified memo to

the white house days before the election saying he was not in favor of the president withdrawing troops from afghanistan during christmas. i should add that trump has not given a reason for firing esper, but what concerns you most about this? >> well, let's back up to lafayette square. this is where mark esper's problems began, when he did not come out forcefully in support of the president after that debacle where we saw troops used to wipe away peaceful protesters. and after that he was never going to make it with donald trump, and you began to hear a great deal of commentary from inside the building and inside the white house about how he was undermined for not being part of the true believers in the trump mission. then you come along to afghanistan, alex. again, he simply wasn't supporting the president sufficiently. president trump took out a knife and stuck it in his back.

>> is it safe to say that esper was undermined, really, for telling the truth? >> absolutely, in both cases and for, in my view, taking the right policy approaches for the nation, he was sacrificed on that altltar and i commend him r standing his ground. >> christopher miller, is he seen as a loyalist like some of the others? >> yes, very much so. and just to put it in perspective, four out of the top six civilian leaders were fired in the last five days. that's really quite remarkable. colonel miller, who was retired army colonel, credible career in special forces, but he was many, many layers down in the chain of command, and he's been just pulled up to be the secretary of defense. you can only assume because of

his loyalty to the president along with the new acting under secretary for policy, retired one star named tata, and a couple of other real trump loyalists have drifted into these positions in an acting capacity. the good news, alex, is they've only got a couple of months here. i think the biden team is going to sweep into power and do a very good job in the pentagon. >> but until that happens, explain to me why your concerns about christopher miller exist? because as you say, he was well respected. he was the head of special forces, correct? what is it that he's missing that in his vault after being secretary of defense you think is going to fall through the cracks? >> number one, he is not briefed up. he's not in the flow tactically. every week a secretary of defense has to sit down and direct where u.s. military forces go. number two, he's a special forces guy.

he's got a very narrow view based on that experience set rising to the rank of colonel is a real achievement. it's not like being a three star, four star officer say general mattis. he doesn't have that broad view of the world. should a carrier battle go to the arabian gulf or south china sea? those aren't the things that being a colonel prepares you for. third and finally, he is inexperienced in the strategic side of this thing, as in doesn't know how the nuclear codes work. just doesn't have the background or experience to take on this job during a transition, along with no other support because all the people just below him were cleared out as well, alex. we are being a bit concerned about this over the weeks to come. >> i'm glad you reiterated what you laid out in your "time magazine" op ed. i appreciate that. >> admiral, so good to see you.

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