suffering multiple blows. in court friday republicans faced losses in michigan, arizona and pennsylvania while another major law firm with drew from representing the president. still the administration remains in denial. the president his first public remarks since losing the election. he did not acknowledge his defeat nor the growing surge in coronavirus cases. the u.s. reported a record number of new cases yesterday. more than 170,000. with the projected 306 electoral college vote, president-elect biden is going ahead with transition plans. when asked earlier if he's any closer the making a cabinet decision, biden said, yes. more now on the days top stories. we have a trio of correspondents for you. we find nbc alison barber. we're getting an aerial view. they are pretty packed in here on this one plaza.

what are you seeing on the ground now? >> reporter: very big crowd at freedom plaza. i'll show you behind, we're at the tail end of the group. this still a really sizable crowd. they are making their way from freedom plaza to the supreme court. we're at the back end so this is kind of the thinner part of the crowd, if you will compared to the largest group that has already made their way sort of towards the front. it's hard to get a clear count as to how many people are here because every one is moving but the numbers are very, very high. thousands of people have made their way. many of them made their way but to also make it known that they do not support ore agree with the results of the election. you can see some of the signs.

not a whole lot of those folks out. we did see a small group of counter protesters earlier in the day come from freedom plaza. they were surrounded by trump supporters and chanted out of the area. you get a sense of this, more and more coming this way. signs saying audit the vote. i told you earlier when we talked to people and asked why some votes, some results from projeks from the media, they are accepting and some they are not. really didn't get a clear answer beyond the fact that the ones that have been called for president trump seem to be okay but the ones that have been called for president-elect joe biden seem to be what is an issue here. these people, the ones said they are here because they want people to see that president trump has a will the of support and make it known that they do not trust the results and that as you saw in some of the signs they think that more needs to be done to look into them.

>> in the noon hit with us, we watched you being harassed by the trump supporters. you mentioned you were staying at this part of the location because you didn't want the dense crowds. tell me how many people you think wearing masks. what kind of percentage are you seeing? >> reporter: maybe 10%, if that. i think that's probably a generous estimate. any time we're out covering the protests, the thing you feel at any sort of large gathering is you know there's a virus around you. it's something that you're hyper aware. what you're more aware of in this protest is the lack of masks. it is maybe one or two out of ten. we'll show you this one more time so you can see for yourself. not a whole lot. >> got it. okay. thank you so much. let's turn now to the president who is golfing right now, not surprisingly. no sign he's getting any closer to concession.

nbc news learned the president is weighing a 2024 presidential run. josh letterman is in washington again for us. what can you tell us about this? is this something that folks are taking seriously? >> reporter: well, certainly the people who are thronging to the streets of washington, d.c. to show support for the president are taking it very seriously. he will be surrounded on all sides of the white house by people egging him on many this fight including just behind me in lafayette square. what we're hearing from a person close to president trump and familiar with the discussions is while the president is not likely to ever come out and say he lost the election, it is likely that if the election results are certified in joe biden's favor that once that occurs president trump will announce plans to run in 2024 again which would freeze the potential gop field for 2024 and also create a situation in which

the president could continue building support, continue to put himself out there as a candidate for the country even while the reality moves forward he's not going be in office the next four years and this term of the presidency will have drawn to a close and you can already see some signs from president trump that he is seeking to put a better veneer onto what he has been able to accomplish over the last four years. particularly when it comes to his administration's response to coronavirus which has been so widely criticized by public health professionals. the president yesterday as he was speaking for the first time publicly in about a week touting the quick nature in which they were able to develop this vaccine and explaining how it's very quickly going to be made available in all 50 states with one notable exception. >> as soon as april, the vaccine will be available to the entire general population with the exception of places like new

york state where for political reasons the governor decided to say, and i don't think it's good politically. i think it's bad from a health standpoint but he wants to take his time with the vaccine. he doesn't trust where the vaccine is coming from. >> reporter: what trump is referring to there is some comments that new york governor cuomo made earlier in the fall suggesting that because of concerns about the political pressure on the fda to approve these vaccines, that he has an outside group of experts, public health experts who will be reviewing the data to see whether it's safe. now cuomo pushing back saying that's not true. he will be ready to tlideliver these vaccines as soon as they are made available to new york and as soon as that data is available for the public to look at. governor cuomo going onto say that president trump is trying to bully new york and the use government once again as a retaliatory tool. >> got to say i live in new york and i'm 100% certain governor

cuomo will not allow that to happen. thank you very much. let's now go to delaware. aly with the latest on president-elect biden. another welcome to you. how is joe biden moving ahead with the transition when the trump administration is placing obstacles in the way? >> reporter: slowly. joe biden hasn't been ascertained or certified add the next president-elect of the united states. that's not just a word choice. it's the reality of how information will now flow both to biden in form of potential presidential daily beliefings which he's not getting but on an agency to agency level. staffers are still trying to push forward. we know they are prioritizing things that will help them tackle the pandemic on day one that they are in office. things like potential decembissr

nation of a vaccine. mask mandates. all the things that biden campaigned on. this covid task force and other members are trying to put it into play. the reality is if the gsa does not certify that biden is the next president-elect that a lot of these things cannot start officially happening. the tone of the transition has still been their going to push forward with their work. maybe that means getting work arounds. for example, the doctors who are working with this transition team have already started making their own plans for,000 they would dget out the vaccine. >> we're not interested in having a food fight with the gsa administrator or anyone. we want to get access to intelligence information, to threat assessments, to the ongoing work on covid so that we can prepare to govern, bring the american people together and get the pandemic under control.

>> reporter: getting the pandemic under control of top importance. you also do that through staffing. one of the things that biden said -- >> i was just trying to get a better listen there to aly. we lost her audio. we thank her. joining me now abby livingston and daniel straus. daniel, you first here. you have been covering the biden transition. how worried are they about how the trump administration is planning to handle the coronavirus vaccine? is it a legitimate concern? >> this is their top priority in entering their adadministration. they want to come out with massive federal program for fighting the vaccine and since there hasn't been much coordination with the outgoing

administration there is a level of frustration in the biden orbit about this. it's not just the certification from the gsa. they also would like to see some level of coordination on the coronavirus as we enter these months where scientists predict there will be a dramatic spike in cases across the country. >> abby, with regard to today, the president took that deliberate around the rally before heading out the the golf lanes. the pro-demonstrations have gathered there. is this a nod to his supporters ongoing dissent? >> it reminds me of when he took the loop around the hospital when he had covid. as a resident of washington, d.c. and i think about when joe biden was declared a winner.

i think it's like the see the crowds. the idea he will have a second term but this feels very influx. >> what do you think, daniel? seeing the crowds makes donald trump feel better in wake of the loss which he has yet to officially acknowledge. >> he's always really liked being the center of a large crowd and large gathering. to an extent, this million maga march is supposed to be a reputation or a sort of analogous event to the massive gatherings after trump was first elected in defiance of his presidency. i think that's what the point of this is here. i am both surprised and unsurprised about the president taking a little figurative

stroll through the droudcrowds. he loves being able to say i was in crowds and saw millions and millions of people or whatever he will say about this. i think that's what's really behind this. truthfully, i think this is yet another sign that he knows that the days of his presidency are coming to an end. >> interesting. to that point then, abby, what do you make of donald trump floating the 2024 presidential run? is that meant to distract from his election loss? do you think the rnc would rally around him? >> i think it completely freezes the 2024 field. i think there's a lot of senator and governors watching this and wondering what he will do. they cannot make a move. this is his nomination for the taking. four years is a very long time. >> very true. daniel, the president is reportedly planning a slew of

executive orders in these final weeks in office. some on immigration, on trade, on health care and more. is there any damaging impact or can joe biden just undo it all on day one? >> i mean this is something we saw or general maneuver we saw with the transition in the last administration. the obama administration took steps to retain some of the precautions and efforts on climate change. i guess this is trump administration's version of that. there's not a sense of anxiety among the biden world that they won't be able to reverse these executive orders. i think here in same with the purge at the pentagon the 45th president of the united states is trying to assert his authority as the clock winds down for him. >> abby is there conventional wisdom as to how long donald trump can do without how long he

can go without conceding? >> i think -- he doesn't have to concede. i think if you read mary trump's book, this is family that does not like to admit to not winning or the other word is losing. i think it's the conventional wisdom he leaves without admitting he lost. >> i got to tell you, i spoke with michael cohen last weekend and he told me he thought, to my shock, that donald trump would con vi everything and go to mar-alago in november and says not return. he couldn't stand the thought of being focused upon by the cameras as the losers in this election. i mean, i'd like to say stranger things have happened but that would be pretty strange. it's good to see you both. thanks so much. covid cases in one state are surpassing the worst of times in new york city. that state's fight for live, next. state's fight for live, next [ thunder rumbles ]

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now the latest facts on coronavirus pandemic. the u.s. added a record 170,000 daily cases on friday and that marks ten con sec tifr days of more than 100,000 new cases in a single day. the governor of new mexico says the state has had a breaking point and will begin a two-week statewide shutdown on monday. only essential businesses are allowed to operate. north dakota governor issued a statewide mask mandate. bars and restaurants must operate at 50% capacity and close by 10:00 p.m. new york bars, restaurants and gyms must close by 10:00 p.m. schools will go virtual in the infection rate rises above 3%. that could happen as soon as monday. let's go long distance to wisconsin where the virus is spreading that the state's

health department created a new category to describe the case activity. all but seven counties fall into it as we look at this map that you'll describe in further detail. >> reporter: health officials are flabbergasted at this point. the previous very high category was for 350 people infected for every 100,000 people. every county has surpassed that. so much so they had to add this next one which was critically high which is 1,000 per every 100,000. like we said, only seven counties have not hit the threshold yet but they are very close. this state hitting record highs when it comes to hospitalizations, cases and deaths. all three is a triple whammy here in the state of wisconsin. on top of that is the soaring number of positivity cases coming back from all the tests.

it could be as high as almost 37% in this state. think about what happened in new york in the spring. at its highist the positivity rate was coming back at 25%. this completely blew that number out of the water here in wisconsin. really these front line workers are feeling the brunt of it. we're here which is it's number 11 on the new york times list of hot spots in the nation. here at mayo clinic they are really feeling it. we talked to them about how it is for them day in and day out. listen in. >> it's been hard. our staff are stretched. they are working coming in on w off. many of us can leave from our offices but as a nurse, i lead beside my staff.

i'm out happen helping, answering light, helping the take care of patients. what i hear from the staff is they want fprovide that great care but when they get in their car, that's when tears and emotions come. we're taking care of families at different levels of care and watching families die. that's the hard part. >> reporter: it's heartbreaking to hear. one of the biggest issues here in state of wisconsin is a lack of any sort of statewide response. the governor tried to put in those executive orders in place early on. everything got changed and he was steam rolled by the gop. he cannot have any specific statewide order that is specific to the laws but he is urging wisconsinites to stay home now. >> let me tell you, o claire,

wisconsin being the number one hot spot in the country. keep your mask on. let's go to new york where the burrough in staten island has the highest numbers. >> reporter: testing, encouraging mask wearing and restrictions. right now there's a positivity rate of 4.6%. here in staten, island, new daily hospitalization increases. restrictions are limiting out door gatherings to no more than 25 people. indoor, 10 people. houses of worship, 50% capacity. if you go out to eat, you can't have more than four people at your table. the rest of new york city also

under restrictions. bar, gyms have to close at 10:00 at night and indoor gatherings are limited right now to 10 people. you mentioned the poblssibilityf largest school system in the country shutting down. that's if the infection rate creeps closer and closer to 3%. the mayor warning parents to prepare that decision could come as early as monday. some point to covid fatigue. others say people aren't wearing masks but with the weather getting colder and the holiday ko coming up, the governor has a st stark warning today. >> i think the holiday season is going to be a natural accelerant. i think that social activity will increase in way they don't predict on their charts because it's human behavior. if those numbers go up, we stand

ready to tighten the valve. >> reporter: soy ri aborry abou. i lost communication with you. i want to show you the testing facility. they are offering free, no appointment testing. line is shorter than it was a couple of hours ago. if things get worse here, they will have to move to the orange zone which would mean further restrictions. catholic schools already went remote here as of thursday. we are going to be watching to see if that happens to schools across new york city. >> okay. thank you. thank you again to you corey. joining now an infectious disease doctor. welcome to you.

there's a lot of debate over coronavirus restrictions as you well know. >> lockdowns and shelter in place are last resort epidemic control measures. as we're seeing raging pandemic across the united states, these are measures that have to be taken to reserve hospital capacity, save lives and ensure that less number of people are becoming infected. this is something we'll prepare for. you'll probably see more of a shelter in place in the coming weeks. this pandemic is not slowing down. one american is dying every minute. you're also seeing that out of -- looking at last week's data you're seeing one american is being diagnosed with covid-19 out of 1 in 378 over last week.

these numbers are underestimates. we know it will get worse. we need to start curtailing what we're doing now. >> soebering comments. the next step appears to be the vacci vaccine. what is the time line to what is available to we're not going to be talking about lockdowns ever again. they will not be made available until the end of year. we should not be banking on having a vaccine right now in the most crucial moment in this pandemic. i think we node to continue these primitive measures. we are seeing good news from different pharmaceutical companies in terms of efficacy of their vaccine but this will not be made available right

away. it's an entire process of when the application will be submitted to the fda. it will take some time to review and then that's have a vaccine available for the first group. >> would that happen in december as has been reported? >> i do think the health care workers on the front line. you'll see those icu physician, nurse, doctors. anyone working will have access. along with first responders. that will be the first pry your tie group along with groups that have co-morbiditieco-morbiditie. thep they will move on from there in terms of the donor population. it will take time for actually having the vaccine and putting

it individuals arms. >> please come see me again. i appreciate your insights. slipping majority. why democrats ended up losing seats in the house this year and could their edge there be in danger the next time around? can actually attract pet hair? with new bounce pet hair & lint guard, your clothes can repel pet hair. one bounce mega sheet has 3x the hair fighting ingredients of the leading dryer sheet. simply toss into the dryer to bounce out hair & lint. look how the shirt on the left attracts pet hair like a magnet! pet hair is no match for bounce. it's available in fresh scent & unscented. with bounce, you can love your pets, and lint roll less.

the second day in a row. you're looking at live stream of the process. this comes after nbc news predicted joe biden the winner in georgia by a razor thin margin. now the ballot audit begins. wa are y what are you seeing there and how long could this take? >> reporter: counties have until 11:59 p.m. on wednesday to complete this audit. it's a recount of the presidential race and they are going through the ballots. i'll let you take a look at what's going on here. we just got an update from the georgia secretary of state's office. you see some local reports.

we're trying to confirm this for ourselves but you're seeing in multiple local reports about 50 of georgia's 159 counties have already completed this auditing work. they have gone through ballot by ballot looking at it, confirming that the result has been the same and then coming back and counting those individually. here in fulton county where they will be counting about 528,000 ballots, they are expecting to complete this process by some time monday. you're hearing different things each county depending on the amount of poll workers and auditors to help them with this process. they are looking at the presidential race now but we know that georgia will be heading into this senate run off. both of georgia's senate seats up for a run off. listen to what some of the candidates had to say while on the campaign trail yesterday.

s >> we proved that georgia is not turning blue. >> this is the team assembled here today that will change georgia. change is coming to georgia. change has come to america. retirement is coming for senator david purdue. >> reporter: you're seeing different strategies in the republican candidates and the democrat candidates. you're seeing the republican senators campaign together almost as a unity ticket saying this is about saving the senate. the democratic candidates are campaigning separately but have similar messaging. they are talking about the coronavirus and how to best deal with that. they are talking about health care and expanding the affordable care act. a lot of money has come into the state of georgia. we're already seeing a lot of campaign ads. this race is going to be one that is highly contested and a lot of interest focused on the senate race because it does

control who will have control of the senate come january. >> absolutely. >> looks like till january 5 you'll have a will the of work ahead of you. thank you so much. democrats are poised to maintain control of the house but their majority is shrinking. they will get 224 seats. republicans 211. democrats held 232 seats going into the election. joining me former california representative and author of she will rise and host of the new podcast, naked politics. welcome back to the broadcast. first i want to ask about the plans with the president. he has no plans to concede the presidency. he had some choice word -- you've had some choice words for him on twitter. what do you make of him not accepting that he lost? >> i think this was completely predictable. he's been signaling this for as long as i can remember that he

was not going to raccept the results. he was teeing it so vote by mail would be discredited. so there was as much doubt cast on the process and on the election itself so i'm not at all surprised. i don't think any of us should be surprised. that doesn't mean it's acceptable. it's the reason that we had to win by such a big margin so that the when he disputed it, it couldn't go anywhere. we're going to see these recounts. we'll let it go through the process and the end of the day he's going to have to leave. >> five million popular votes win for joe biden wasn't big enough in this case to avoid what we're going through right now. can you explain the damage that this might be doing for the transition? >> right now is a crucial period for any administration to set up their staff. make sure they are getting the security briefings. make sure they are preparing the transition a coordinated national response for a pandemic. worst pandemic in our lifetimes, by far but none of that able to

happen. he and his team aren't able to get access to the most basic things. it mean there's going to be a huge delay. i'm confident that especially since joe biden has been in the white house before that it's going to make it easier than if you're somebody who is completely new coming into it. yeah, it's totally damaging. that's just par for the course with this current president. >> given the lead of only 13 seats by nbc projection for the democrats than republicans. how concerned are you that this slim majority might do some damage two years from now and could turn things then. >> we're going into restricting. that means that over the nec couple of years people aren't going to know what their districts are or how competitive these seats will be. it makes planning difficult. we need to be doing that on the ground, door the door out reach starting now. it can't wait until campaign season especially when we know

we lost ground with latinos. we had trouble getting people to vote down ballot. i think that's really a signal for us as we go into the next couple of years that we're going to have the fight tooth and nail to keep the majority in the house. >> to what do you attribute the loss of ground with the latinos. i know wem as well. it's state that has large latino population. overall, what was missing from encouraging latinos to vote for joe biden. >> i think the biggest thing missing and i don't want to speculate on the ideology or anything like that. i think the biggest thing was on the ground organizing. democrats decided to stop knocking on doors because of pandemic and it's a reasonable thing. if we can go to grocery stores and interact socially distance then we need to find a way to do that. republicans never stopped. any lower propensity voting population whether it's latinos

or younger people or from poorer communities that requires a more direct person to person out reach. we just know that. we know that to be the case. we'll have to make sure we do it next time. >> just a little south of you in orange county republicans took a seat from democrats there. three others that are on track to do so. up with of them your former seat but the difference is only a couple of hundred votes at the last count. how do you explain this shift? >> the shift has to do with -- there is a tendency among the american public to whether we say we like it or not to vote for divided government. i think a lot of people, especially in places like orange county, they knew or had a feeling that joe biden was going to win. i think there's -- we're going the see the dissection of the data as we move forward to figure out what happened in each of these places but we know that

turn out was incredibly high among base of trump voters that we -- i guess just pollsters didn't predict again. i think that's going to -- we're going to have to see how that shakes out. a slimmer majority makes gov governing harder especially when you have this ambitious agenda that biden does have. keeping the caucus together and ranges in views from the most progressive to very, very blue dog kind of views. that's going to be a trickery thing for the majority leadership to navigate and wrangle. >> former california congresswoman. come see me again. thank you so much. why president trump's efforts to delay the transition of power could have big consequences for national security. someone who helped two presidential transitions with an alarmi ining look at this. alarmi ining look at this what are you doing?

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new alarm as president-elect joe biden transition team goes without updates from the white house. the wait hurts national security. my next guest shares that concern. joining me is msnbc senior foreign affairs analyst. brett, welcome to you.

i know you're new msnbc opinion piece says trump is undermining a pres dent set by both parties in the wake of one of our country's darkest days. you served through two presidential transitions. put in perspective how unprecedented and careless this is. >> thanks so much for having me. i served with george w. bush and barack obama and into the trump administration. both post- 9/11 transitions. george bush set a precedent that as soon as the election was over, and in this case before the election, everything we do in positions of public trust, we're caretakers for the next team. we have to make sure that major decisions we do in consultations with the incoming team and the incoming team has all the information we have. all classified information. all information as a 9/11 commission report said on covert

activities military activities. president obama carried forward that. those officials holding the public trust do so with caretaker mentality. president trump is shattering that tradition. what is so dangerous is everything going on that we don't even know about. military, covert intelligence which is incoming team would not know about until they are briefed on it. in the middle of covid and with the role out of a vaccine p, this is the equivalent of a major military operation. you should have a right seat, left seat consultations going onto make sure that goes smoothly. it's not surprising that president trump is being petulant in defeat but it's shocking he's holding this norm of transfer.

>> something you pointed out it's how the 20,000 election impacted national security. nearly three years after the september 1 terrorist attack, a bipartisan group of experts determined the delayed transition from president clinton to president bush contributed to making america vulnerable. how long was that delay in 2000 and how soon do things need to change to make sure that kind of national security risk is eliminated? >> if you read that report it says one of the contributing factors may have been the they given month or so legal challenge with less than 600 votes in florida. it makes a specific recommendation. it says as soon as possible the outgoing administration should transfer to the incoming team a document with all classified military operations, covert operations, major decisions that are about to be made. you discussed earlier in your

show about major military decisions that might be now on the plate of the new president. the acting secretary of defense wrote a letter to the pentagon last night suggesting that some major decisions may be coming on afghanistan and out going add mgs should not be making major decisions and tieing the hands of the next administration like that. it shatters the norms and traditions that have been in place. >> bottom line, can the biden tr transition team make up for time. >> president-elect biden knows what he is doing. his team is incredible bly experience. they don't have the classified information and the intelligence they node to get that knowledge. the transfer had to start now. this is bipartisan. every chief of staff for the last three presidents including john kelly says this has to

happen. >> sure does. thank you. come see me again. i appreciate you. coming up next, a familiar face journey back in time and the surprise she found along the way. e and the surprise she found along the way. - [announcer] welcome to intelligent indoor grilling with the ninja foodi smart xl grill.

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i'm very proud to carry on her story. all: her story -find their stories. -make them count. at ancestry. nbc's simone boy traced her family history. she didn't know what to expect. researching both sides of her family finding surprises and tragedying going back to the 1800s. here's more. >> as a black biracial woman may identity has been a giant question mark. my dad's side of the family is predominantly from the uk.

i haven't really learned that much about where my mom's side of the family comes from. unfortunately i think that's just the nature of being african-american, and i would say that that is the biggest mystery to me. >> for the answers to my burning questions, i looked to ancestry genealogist nika smith. >> this is your ethnicity estimate, all the percentages for your people, everywhere. >> you've got cameroon, congo and western bantu people 13%. 11% nigeria, and togo 10%. >> she introduced me to a distant relative on my mom's side, a name i'd never heard before. rebecca gordon. >> she is your great, great, great grandmother and she was born in march of 1840 in virginia. there's a strong likelihood rebecca and her husband george gars garson were enslaved. those free were documented on

the census but enslaved people by and large were not lied by name before this. >> historians believe rebecca was probably trafficked to mississippi through the slave trade where she eventually settled down after the war. her husband george likely became a sharecropper, essentially trading physical chains for economic ones, many sharecroppers were former slaves who worked someone else's land to make a living. rebecca had 13 children, but by the year 1900 she's lost seven of them, along with her husband. >> i can't imagine losing one child, let alone several. it's -- gosh, that's devastating. >> rebecca overcame insurmountable odds, working as a washing and ironing woman and eventually purchasing a home. one of her daughters became a schoolteacher, and another a nurse. so what can our history and my family's history teach us about this cultural moment we're in

now? the presence of systemic racism is undeniable. according to missy jones, a mississippi college history professor -- >> do you see a connection, a through line between the wealth disparities that existed in the late 19th century and the wealth disparities that exist today? >> it's crystal clear to me, it absolutely exists. you cannot come to places like mississippi and not see it. >> in those rural mississippi towns where my great, great, great-grandmother lived more than 40% of county residents remain below the poverty line. >> what's fascinating is that cl the county is -- a product of the civil war. >> emancipation brought the promise of freedom but safety was another luxury all together. what do you think my ancestors did to escape the stress of the

time that they were living in? >> one of the ways that they coped was to create their own communities. they would have had to almost wear two different masks. one mask that they would be themselves around each other. and another mask that they wore around people who were white. >> today, we call that code switching, and it seems like, from what you're telling me, code switching was a mode of survival for them. >> the realities of black american history, my family's history, are not easy to digest. >> i want a happy ending. i mean, i guess in some ways i'm the happy ending, i'm here, and i'm telling her story. >> indeed. well, part two, the other side of simone's family history, next week at this same time, we look forward to hearing the rest of her story. that's going to do it for us, this saturday edition of weekends with alex witt, see you tomorrow at noon eastern. up next, yasmin vossoughian,

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