>> did you talk to her in the courtroom that day? >> yes. >> what did you say? >> that i love her. that we miss her and that we finally got him and hopefully she can rest in peace and we can move on. this sunday president trump refusing to admit defeat. >> whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, i guess time will tell. >> republican allies reacting either with silence r -- >> senator, is it time to acknowledge that president-elect biden has won the election? >> or support? >> president trump should not concede. >> there will be a smooth transition to a second trump administration. >> as trump loyalists march in washington. >> usa! [ crowd chanting ] >> echoing the president's false claims of a stolen election. the administration withholding sensitive information from president-elect biden. >> i justin think it's an

embarrassment, quite frankly. >> my guest this morning, biden's incoming chief of staff, ron klain, and the republican governor of arkansas, asa hutchinson. also, record covid spike. >> this is kind of like standing on the beach and watching the hurricane slowly roll towards you. >> this surge is much more intense, widespread, and dangerous. >> we're heading towards a cliff. >> reporter: 49 states see a rise in cases. many cities and states finally cracking esdown. announcing a two-week freeze for the entire state. >> stay at home, unless you must go out for essential reasons. >> i'llut talk to a member of president-elect biden's covid transitionid team, mr. michael osterholm. joining me for insightel and analysis are nbc news correspondent carol lee, republicanl strategist al cardenas, maria teresa kumar, president ofsa voto latino, and jerry goer jeffrey goldberg, editor in chief of "the atlantic."

if it's sunday, " it's "meet th press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show inth television history, ts is "meet the press with chuck todd."ru and a good sunday morning. nearly two weeks after an election-day a contest won by j biden by more than 5.5 million votes, so far, and by a comfortable electoral vote margin, the country is facing two interconnected crises. one, the president of the united states refuses to concede the election, claiming falsely that it was somehow stolen. his attorney general is currently encouraging investigations into voter fraud, despite a lack of evidence that exists. the secretary of state is suggesting the president will be inaugurated for a second term. perhaps he was kidding. the president has fired his defense secretary and is filling the defense department with loyalists, some of whom traffic in conspiracy theories. if this were happening anywhere else, our state department would be issuing grim reports about the future of that country's democracy, but that country is this country. it's happening here.de making matters worse, the administration is atrefusing to allows biden's team access to

secure communications and classified briefings, including "operation warp speed," which covers vaccine distribution for thene exploding covid crisis. and in exfact, this is happenin as president trump is all but ignoring the pandemic, reportedly not having even met with his own coronavirus task force in at least five months. the pandemic is at its highest peak yet. in just the last week, 31 states have set records for new cases, and the last six states have seen the highest case counts nationwide. in sport, president trump is refusing to acknowledge two realities -- his defeat and covid-19. but the virus does not care, as it continues its march across the country doing exactly what experts have long predicted it would do. >> whatever happens in the future -- who knows which administration it will be -- i guess time will tell, but i can tell you, this administration will not go to a lockdown. >> president trump acknowledging for a moment on friday that he may not have won the election, even as he continues to refuse to concede. >> we're moving forward here at the white house under the

assumption that there will be a second trump term. >> mr. trump out of public view for most of the week but tweeting hundreds of times -- suffered a string of legal setbacks in pennsylvania, arizona and michigan on friday, as joe biden's electoral college win grew to 306 electoral votes, matching mr. trump's in 2016. >> we had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the electoral college. i guess the final numbers are now at 306. >> we are already beginning the transition. we're well under way. >> president-elect joe biden also largely out of public view but criticizing the president. >> i just think it's an embarrassment. >> as republicanst eyeing the coming senate runoffs in georgia, where they believe they need to mobilize mr. trump's voters, largely rallied around him. >> president trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options. >> the election's not over, by the way. >> the future ofno america is o the line in georgia. >> butth by thursday, cracks

emerged as republicans began to call for biden to receive intelligence briefings. >> for me, this is just an issue of saying, let's learn the lesson of 2000 and let's make sure that both sides are prepared. >> i think it's important that both continue to get those briefings until the electoral college makes its final determination. >> should we need a transition in the future, this would simplify that transition. >> the leadership vacuum of the lame duck period comes as the coronavirus pandemic is shattering records with more than 176,000 new cases on friday. cases are up over the past two weeks in 49 states and d.c. more than 69,000 people are hospitalized and deaths have risen in 31 states. >> this surge is much more intense, widespread, and dangerous. >> it ises spreading rapidly everywhere. >> we're heading towards a cliff. i don't know if the vaccine gets toe us before we have horrible things happening here in wisconsin. >> more states are issuing new restrictions, including a mask mandate in north dakota, and on friday, wyoming's governor said

he is considering one as well. >> we haven't got our head in the game. we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off. let's get t serious. >> as the coronavirus continues to spread. >> i am announcing a two-week freeze for the entire state. >> total lockdown, if we don't start to get more serious and follow the rules. >> you know what's really uncomfortable and annoying? when you die. >> as you can see by this chart, the number of new cases has skyrocketed, more than doubling in recent skweeks. one person has been predicting this kind of turn in the pandemic since he first appeared on "meet the press" back on april 26th. dr. michael osterholm said then we were in the foothills of this crisis and had mountains yet to climb, and you can see that daily case count since the start of the pandemic. it looks like ant ever-growing mountain. dr. osterholm is, of course, an infectious disease expert at the university of minnesota and now is a member of president-elect biden's covidbe advisory board. dr. osterholm, welcome back to "meet the press." i thought it was important to get yourac perspective first i got to president-elect biden's chief of staff, ron

klain. so, letie me just simply ask yo this. we'ret seeing the exponential rise that you, sadly, predicted would happen in covid cases -- you and many others, this fall and winter -- here we are. are we going to plateau any time soon, or is this trajectory just going to keep going up and up? >> well, thank you, again. and letl, me just say at the outset that our t future's in o hands. and right now, for at least the next three weeks, because cases are already in, we would say f there pipeline, meaning that they're already infected. these numbers are going to go way up. our job is to imagine what the world could be like if we do make the change ams we need to make. we're going to be heading to a vaccine in thead next few month where we could start to imagine having summer baseball back, barbecues, et cetera. but in the meantime, we are in a very dangerous period, the most dangerous public health period since 1918, and if we don't basically take important steps like stop swapping air with our neighbors, our friends, our

colleagues, we're going to see these numbers grow substantially. >> so,numb what should happen r now? h i mean, i've talked to plenty of mayors and governors this week, and they all feel like that you can tell, they all want to do more and they're hesitant because of the fatigue, because of the economic impact, because of the lack of leadership from the federal government, perhaps the lack of money from the federal government. this is the situation we are in, not the utopia that we'd all like in governments working ke together. what do we dome right now? what does a local mayor do without the help of the federal government? >> well, it's critical that we do get the help of the federal government, and i can't make that any more straightforward than that. if we're going to control this virus out in our communities right now, we're going to have to support w those who are goin to be suffering economically. you know, we have a choice -- do you want to have schools open or do you want to keep bars and restaurants open? well, if you shut down bars and restaurants, they're hanging on by as, thread.

that single mother waitress that basically doesn't have any other income, we have got to support them and help them to do the right thing. they want to. i don't know anybody that doesn't want to. if we're going to help our health care system right now try to respond to this crisis, and we know that they are at a tipping point, we have got to have help right now. and so, i just urge that the last thing we do is support our governors. they are the front lines right now. there is no national leadership on this issue. they're trying. i don't care if they're democrat or republican, they're trying, and we have got to support them in these issues. >> look, now that you are a member of president-elect biden's covid advisory board, any comments you make are suddenly going to get put through a different prism, so i want to give you a chance to clarify what you meant by the four towh six-week lockdown, because you said even back in august, look, we've got to have some pause here and have some sheltering in place if we have any chance at bending this curve.ac

>> well, first of all, we've got to reframe this issue. we have gotef to understand, again, that what we're trying to do is get to the summer, when we have vaccines that can fundamentally change how safe it is to be in everyday life. and what wen need to do right w is focus on what's going to make that difference. and as i just said, it's very important that, first of all, we don't swaprs air with people. that's how this is being transmitted. and we have got to do whatever it takes to support that. you seeor the governor struggli rightth now. they want help. i've actually talked to five governors in the last two days. all of them said, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all at least be on the same page? but right now, my state's surrounded by four other states and theynd all have different recommendations. that by itself iser what we're talking about,lf standardizing w we're all going to approach this. this virus doesn't care what party you are, doesn't care where you live. we have to understand that that's what we have to work on right now. >> dr. osterholm, it certainly looks like the case count's onlt going to go up, the hospitalizations are only going

to go up, and the death count is only going to go up between now and the beginning of passing out this vaccine. how close to the breaking point is our hospital system? and atos what point is that goi to be the point where the hospital system's going to forc us to shut down, we will all have no choice? >> well, i think you said it very well. you know, my worst fear is what we sawea happen in other countries, where people were dying on the streets. people literally were dying in the waiting room of emergency rooms after spending ten hours just waiting to be seen. that's going to start happening. the media will start reporting it. and we will see the breadth and the depth of this tragedy. that, i hope, will not be the way that we finally decide to reduce our risk, this idea of swapping air. we've got to stop doing that. and so, i think it is the health care system's breaking, literally, breaking, that will, unfortunately, bring us to a sense of reality of what we must do in the short term. >> and hown close are we to th point? >> well, you t know, the case w, numbers, as you've seen how

quickly they have been rising. i think that'se going to continue. and there are many health care systems that a few more weeks of this level of activity and that will happen. that will happen. >> dr. michael osterholm of the university of minnesota, we have you on here to give us the straight talk and you always do. appreciate your coming on and sharing your perspective and expertise. >> thank you. >> joining me now is president-elect joe biden's choice for chief of staff, ron klain. mr. klain, welcome to "meet the press." >> thanks for having me, chuck. >> the models indicate another 100,000 americans may die before january 20th. we may be sitting at case counts well over 200,000 by the time you take over in this administration. so, what do you do now in anticipation for what looks like is going to be exponentially worse in 60 days? >> yeah, chuck. i mean, it's a very grave situation. back in september, then-candidate joe biden warned that america was headed to a veryde dark winter, if the

administration didn't step up its action. and you u know, the very first business day of his transition on monday of d this week, the president-elect met with his covid task force and made a public statement afterwards, where he called on all americans to mask up. he urged governors to impose masking mandates now and reiterated that when he becomes president, he will impose one on a nationwide basis.mp and so, look, he's not the president now., there's not that much that joe biden can do right now to change things, other than to reiterate kind of the message you heard from dr. osterholm, which is that all americans andho our ste and local governments need to step up right now. if the president and the administration's not going to lead, that's where the leadership has to come from. that will change on january 20th, but right now we have a crisis that's getting worse. you know, we have never had a day with 100,000 cases in a single day until last week. by next week, we may see 200,000 cases in a single day. so this isin getting much worse chuck. >> what do yours -- i'm curious. with your coronavirus advisory

board, has there been any, even informal contact between the task force and your advisory board? has there been informal contact, for instance, between the president-elect and dr. fauci? >> unfortunately, chuck, we can't. we can't until we get that gsa ascertainment that authorizes us to contact government officials. and so, we can't have any of those kinds of contacts until we get to that stage of ascertainment. obviously, there's information that passes in scientific circles. the people on ourin task force, like dr. osterholm, are leading scientists. but chuck, i think you hit a key point, which is that joe biden's going to become presidentch of e united states in the midstin ofn ongoing crisis. that has to be a seamless transition. we nowea have the possibility - we need to see if it gets approved -- of a vaccine starting, perhaps, in december-january. there are people at n hhs makin plans to implement that vaccine. our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible so nothing drops in this change of power we're going to have on january 20th. >> have your folks been able to have any contact with pfizer at

all? and do you have a better understanding of just how soon the vaccine could get distributed? >> we're going to have meetings between our top scientific advisers and the officials of these drug companies, not justifieser,es but there are otr promising vaccines as well. we're going to start those consultations this week. but again, i think there are two issues here, chuck. what is the scientific issue around the vaccine. but i think i've been saying since april, the big issue will be the mechanics of manufacturer and distribution, getting this thing out., and that lies at folks at the health andie human services department. we need to be talking to them as quickly as possible. you know, it's great to have a vaccine, but vaccines don't save lives.li vaccinations save lives, and that means you've got to get thatea vaccine into people's ar, all over this country. it's a giant logistical project. >> yeah, you have said, in convincing the american public, youg said in a previous interview, in 2021, convincing

them to take the vaccine may be thehe biggest challenge we faces a country. but i want to stick with one more issue on the current covid crisis, which is, you've heard dr. osterholm, every expert has said, if we're going to -- we might have to have a temporary shutdown, but we can't do it if you're not going to basically pay these people not to open their businesses. can'tei do that without congres agreeing to something. how urgently do you think house democrats, senate republicans, they're at loggerheads. do you take what you can get now or do you support speaker pelosi holding out? >> well, the president-elect had a conversation with speaker pelosi and leader schumer on friday, and they talked about thean need to get urgent action. i mean, we need action during lame duck.d there is a lot of things that are going to have to wait until joe biden is president, but this is not one of them. getting help to people, getting help to state and local governments. i mean, it's not -- obviously, we need urgent help to individuals, but we're going to see layoffs of police, of firefighters, of teachers, in the next month, in a lot of

states and localities, unless these local governments get the aid they need. i knowth that speaker pelosi's committed to that. i know leader schumer's committed to that. this shouldn't be partisan. by the way, these layoffs are coming notay just in so-called blue states, but red states also. this is a national crisis. it needs bipartisan national action now. >> has the president-elect spoken with senate republican leader mitch mcconnell yet about this issue or any issue? >> he has not. he has not spoken with senator mn cconnell about anything yet. we're hoping thatab senator mcconnell will accept the reality that is just the reality. joe biden won this election. kamala harris won this electionu and i think it's time for leaders in both's parties to ge to business of this transition, to get to business of working together, to start to plan out a legislative agenda for next year. >>t you said it's urgent for congress toai act in the lame dk and to -- are you -- are we to read between the lines that you're telling speaker pelosi, look, don't stick to your guns

completely, compromise where you have to? is that the message that you wanted her to hear? >> speaker pelosi has done a magnificent job of handling this. what i want herof to hear is th we have her back in handling this, but we have the backs of the american people. speaker pelosi, by the way, was in long negotiations with secretary mnuchin to try to find that compromise. chuck, it's not that she hasn't been at the table. the table.at we just now see the administration, the current administration, has walked away from the table. so, our message to speaker pelosi is keep doing what you're doing. to the republicans,oi let's get this done! i mean, this could be a first example of bipartisan action post the election. last thing i'll say, chuck, is i think the american people sent a pretty strong signal on tuesday, on the tuesday of election day, which is, they wanted to see -- a couple tuesdays ago now -- they wanted to see the people in washington work together to make progress. that's thege message i think th came out of that election. they want to see action. getting covid aid out there is at thed top of that list of action they want to see.

>> t well, the president this morning has tweeted something that a lot of folks are trying to interpret, because the first line is "he won because the election was rigged." >> yeah. >> and the president's tweet goes through all of his reasons, what he believes why this election was unfair. but it'son the first time he sa he won. and our own reporting, mr. klain, we've asked an official and said, is this the closest we're s going to get to president trumpg admitting tha joe biden won?en andad we were told yes and that this is the beginningld of a concession process. do you accept that as sort of stepat one here? >> well, look, i accept it as a further confirmation of the reality that joe biden won the election and not through any of the rest of that tweet, not through fraud or anything else the president is baselessly alleging. he won b because he got more votes, okay? that's why hemo won. he got more votes, in the popular vote by aor lot, and he won the same number of electoral votes that president trump

himselfat called a landslide fo years ago. but look, if the president's prepared to begin to recognize that reality,ar that's positive. donald trump's twitter feed doesn't make joe biden president or not president. the american people did that. what we really want to see this week, chuck, is the general services administration issue that ascertainment so we can start to do the kinds of things you and i talked about a few minutes ago -- meet with these vaccine officials, kind of get the intelligence briefings for the president-elect, the vice president-ele president-elect. that's really the measure of how this is moving forward this week, i think. >> finally, i want to ask you the importance of the georgia runoffs to the president-elect's agenda. look, joe biden, he ran on a pathway tora citizenship, repealing tax cuts on corporations on the rich,ta passing the equality act, taking aggressive action on the and on climate change. to what extent does that agenda, essentially, lay in the hands of voters in georgia and those georgia runoffs? the president's agenda get curtailed if you don't have control of the senate? >> chuck, it's obviously

important to win those seats in georgia, not because necessarily just because of joe biden's agenda or whatever, but i think we have betterwh senators in washington, we're going to get a better gtoutput in washington. if we have more people who support the kinds of things that joe biden supports, i think we're going to have, youbi know better, again, better government, better whatever. we're going to work hard to help win those senate seats in georgia. i think you'll see the president-elect campaign down there as we get closer to election day. we're going to put people, money, resources down there to help our two good candidates win. i'm very hopeful that we can win those seats, but we're going to work. one thing that i think joe biden's made very clear, you've talked about it, he's going to work with whomever gets elected, democrats, republicans, independents, peoplede across t country, people in civil society, people iny, all kinds sectors. and so, that's k what he's goin fog do. we want to win those seats in georgia. it would certainly be helpful. but we're not going to let anything deter us with moving forward with our agenda. >> but does your stack of executive orders decrease if

democrats win both of those georgia senate races? >> well, we're going to have to work all that through. what i'd say is that we have a big stackth of business for day one already. we're going to rejoin paris. we're going to protect the dreamers on p day one. we'rers going to take other actn on health care on day one, the president-elect's talked about during the campaign. so we've got a busy, busy day one on-ready scenario here. >> and of course, the pandemic. ron klain, it is a busy and a large inbox as the incoming chief of staff. appreciate you coming on. i look forward to morenc conversations like this as we go forward, sir. >> you bet, chuck. thank you very much. >> you got it. come back, most republicans have been either silent oric supportive of president trump's false claims that the election was stolen with a handful trying to acknowledge reality and appease the president. in a moment, i'll ask the republican governor of arkansas, asa hutchinson, who he thinks would be the election. rkansas, asa hutchinson, who he thinks would be the election.

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biden the apparent winner in georgia, meaning the results are close enough that the outcome could depend on the recount that is currently under way. that's when we use the word apparent, whenever it can slip into recount territory. as we mentioned earlier, presidejoe biden has matched the president's count of four years ago. the president refuses to concede, just reiterated again on social media, and republicans have either backed his false claims of fraud or remained silent. we invited every single republican senator to appear on "meet the press" this morning. they all declined. but are pleased that governor asa hutchinson is joining us this morning. welcome back. i hope to talk to you as much about covid as we do about politics here, but let me get the politics out of the way. who do you believe won the election? >> i expect joe biden to be the next president of the united states. it was good, actually, to see president trump tweet out that he won. i think that's a start of an acknowledgement, and it is very important that joe biden have

access to the intelligence briefings, to make sure that he is prepared during times of transition, our enemies have an opportunity to try to take advantage of us, and we want to make sure that there is a smooth transition, particularly when it comes to the vaccine distribution, the coronavirus, that everybody understands what we're doing there and what the plan is for the future. >> are you concerned that the next president of the united states, joe biden, is going to have a large chunk of your party's rank and file not accept the legitimacy of this election because president trump keeps beating false narratives out there? >> well, it is important that we accept the outcome of the election, and there's a process to get there. there are some constitutional assertions in pennsylvania. there's a recount in georgia. it is important that those processes go through and that

probably is the reason the president does not want to undermine those legitimate processes by jumping ahead and conceding the election. but we still have to start that transition. in the end, you're absolutely right, we need to come together as a nation. there is not -- our department of homeland security indicated this week that there is not any evidence of rampant fraud in the election that would undermine the result. we need to accept the result once that process is completed, come together and recognize we've got new leadership, and we need to pull together as a nation. >> and you're a former dhs veteran there. i assume you trust those folks there? >> actually, it's chris krebs is one of the team members who made that finding this week, and i was briefed by him on the election security issues probably ten months ago. and it was interesting that, as

he briefed the governors, that he said, patience you have to have, but we have systems in place to make sure that we can have an honest election, free of fraud this year. there's always some challenges, but we have a great system in our democracy to work through those. so, yes, i have confidence in what he has done and his statement. >> i'm going to put up a graph here of cases for covid. you know the graph well. you've had a mask mandate going for a while. cases are rising. rising everywhere. you're not alone here. what do you need from the federal government now that could help you deal with this? because i do get the sense -- you heard dr. osterholm. i think you're all at your sort of -- people could argue, look, you could do "x," you could do "y," but there are some things that you're limited in doing without the support of the federal government. what do you need? >> well, it's very important to understand, and this was a little bit offensive, the implication in previous interviews that nothing's being

done currently. and i'll be having a meeting tomorrow with the white house coronavirus task force. they're very engaged. they're providing support for the states. we're dependent upon them in terms of our reagents for our antigen, our testing capacity. that supply is coming and it's increasing. so, a lot is being done. we're coordinating with them on our vaccine distribution, which is critical to have in place very quickly, because once they have the emergency use authorization, i expect that vaccine to be out for our medical care providers within 24 hours. what do we need? we need to make sure that we have the support in those terms and that those resources continue. we're not going to be able to put restrictions on our economy to get us out of this. it is wrong to tell people, you're out of business, without giving them financial support. i think that point was made by

dr. osterholm, that you know, you cannot do that without providing compensation, because it's a taking of government, and that's the last thing that we need to do right now. >> what are your advisers telling you would be the best way to start to get this to plateau in your state? because it does seem as if we can't get this surge to plateau right now. >> well, it is very, very worrisome, and as you know, i've put together our winter task force, primarily looking at the hospitalization issue. that sort of governs everything that happens, because you want to have the hospital space for covid patients, but also for others that have needs that require elective surgery. and so, we are engaging that. what has to be done is everybody do simply what the medical professionals, our scientists say nationally, and that is to protect yourself and others by following the public health

guidelines. we have a mask mandate, because you cannot have a mask mandate -- it does send a great signal, it does increase compliance, but there is never 100% compliance, and that's a challenge that we have right now. >> before i let you go, on january 21st, who's the leader of the republican party? >> on january -- well, first of all, i've been through that situation before and we'll elect new leadership, but there will be a lot of different voices. clearly, president trump will have a voice for a long time in the party. anybody that can generate those kind of crowds, that's had the accomplishments that he has had in office, he will have an influence for some time to come, but there will be other influencers, and there's going to be a significant debate as to exactly the direction of our party. our fundamentals are sound. this election was a good election for republicans. we just did not make the presidency. but overall, governors, house,

senate, legislators, it puts us in very, very good position for the future. the public still embraces the republican philosophy that we have put forward. we'll continue to debate how that has to be refined. >> governor asa hutchinson from arkansas, always appreciate your willingness to come on here, and you're always very respect rektful. i appreciate that. thank you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. many of president trump's supporters marched in washington yesterday, echoing the washington's false claims that the election was rigged. so, what's president trump's no-concession strategy? is it a strategy, or is this a tantrum? the panel is next. is this a tantrum? the panel is next.

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welcome back. the panel is with us. nbc news correspondent carol lee, republican strategist al cardenas, maria teresa kumar, president of voto latino, and jeffrey goldberg, editor in chief of "the atlantic." carol lee, i'll start with you, because you were doing some reporting in realtime. i'm asking ron klain questions about your reporting in real time, and as soon as we're done, the president puts up this tweet. so, we were told that the "he won" might be the beginning. well, no, no, no! he wouldn't in the eyes of the fake media. i concede nothing! we have a long way to go. this was a rigged election. so, i guess for ten minutes there, we thought the president was beginning the concession trail. i guess he concedes nothing, carol. >> yeah, a bit of whiplash this morning, chuck. as soon as he sent that first tweet that said biden won, i heard from a white house official who said it looks like the president is admitting that

biden will be the next president and that this could be the beginning of the president's version of a concession, which we've been told all week would sound something like what he tweeted, and then 90 minutes later, the president comes out with this other tweet saying, "we will win" and then going on, again, to make these accusations that are unfounded. and the same white house official said he doesn't believe that. but this is where we are. and you know, we've heard from a number of officials that the president is not necessarily fully dug in privately on his belief that this is something that he can actually turn around, but he's fund-raising off of this. that's part of potentially what's motivating him. and what aides have been saying to him is they don't even use the word concession, chuck. they call this a conclusion. so when they talk to him, they say, well, maybe we can get to this conclusion, and the conclusion that they've been proposing to him in recent days is something like what he tweeted. he'll never admit that he actually lost fair and square. an then he'll say he's running

again in 2024, and that is designed to keep the money flowing, to keep him relevant. it boxes out a lot of republicans. but when he gets to that point, officially, formally, and it's consistent, we just don't know. and clearly, today doesn't seem to be the day. >> al cardenas, it's one thing for elected republicans to start to accept that joe biden won the election. how do you convince the rank and file? >> well, you convince the rank and file with reality. i mean, we're in the midst of a meltdown on so many different areas. now, the political meltdown we're going to live with. the governmental meltdown, we cannot. i mean, joe biden needs to start his transition. i lived it in 2020, when george bush was not able to start it, and when he was sworn in on january 20th, he didn't have his team ready, and that hurts. this time around, they're in a real crisis, where biden has to have his team ready.

ron klain is great, he'll do a great job putting it together, but he needs a runway, a transition runway. then the other part of it is, the president can have a political meltdown, but he needs to agree sooner rather than later to a bill that would allow the government to assist the private sector in getting through this covid crisis, and that cannot be part of a meltdown. so, you know, we'll live with the political side of it. the government side of it is something that is inexcusable. >> jeffrey goldberg, i want to read you something matt lewis wrote. he doesn't understand why the republican party isn't kicking trump now. instead of kicking trump while he's down, these republicans think they can finesse and co-op their way to the top. they've been making the same mistake for years. they think trump will eventually reward loyalty, that the old man will retire and turn the store over to you to run. it never happens, right? all of this is right now, this appeasement is this georgia senate runoff strategy.

but as matt lewis lays out, if past is prologue, we know how this ends. >> right. i mean, the interesting thing here is that trump's behavior is completely predictable in this regard. the thing that i would add to what matt lewis wrote is this -- president trump got 70 million -- more than 70 million votes. president trump is extraordinarily popular with his base. they love his transgression. they love his no concession, no conceding kind of policy that he's taking on these days. and he's formidable. and you know, you and i both talked to many, many republican office-holders who will say to you privately, in fear of his tweeting, they live in fear of his most mobilized base. and so, he has extraordinary power over people, and so, no one is going to step up and say, you know, look, thank you for your service, but you can leave the white house now and retire to mar-a-lago and we've got this

from here. that's not going to happen. >> you know, maria teresa, i was asking ron klain this governing challenge, if you will. when you're going to have a large chunk of the country that isn't going to accept joe biden as president, and you're going to have republican office-holders who can't publicly treat him with respect -- or they think that they can't treat him respectfully, for whatever reason -- how do you govern? how do you handle that if you're joe biden? >> well, and i think that this is where we have to recognize that president trump has these autocratic tendencies. and so, it's not a surprise that he's not conceding, and it's not a surprise that there's rumors that he's going to announce that he's going to have a conclusion of had i conversation of his presidency but that he's going to announce his 2024 presidency. the danger in that, though, is that he starts siphoning and creating a shadow government, that he will always have over the republicans -- and we keep hearing the republicans saying, well, we're just humoring him. well, we've been humoring donald

trump for the last four years, and he has really created shock waves throughout our institutions, through our government, and through our population. and this is where there might be an opportunity for joe biden to actually bring in, not the die-hard donald trump base, but some of the individuals that voted for him. let's not forget, chuck, 58% of white voters voted for donald trump. 55% of white women. but they still believe in the voting process. is there an opportunity, longer that he basically says that biden did not win, despite the fact that the department of justice said that this was our most secure elections -- is there an opportunity for joe biden to bring some of those people back into the fold of, at least moderation and recognizing our democratic institutions? >> well, it's certainly, i think, the mandate he has to try to accept. very quickly -- i'm not going to ask any of you to respond to this, but we put together a fascinating -- the trump campaign has sent out 200-plus emails since election day, from

november 4th to the 14th, all claiming to somehow be about the recount. but just so you know, the trump's leadership pac, according to the fine print, keeps all the money up to $5,000, basically, until a donor gives more than $8,300, does any of the recount funds actually get money to focus on the recount there. just wanted to get that out there, clarify it for folks. when we come back, the battleground map changed again. what it could mean for both parties in the years to come.

welcome back. "data download" time. you've heard us say it before, we are in the midst of a political realignment. so we want to take a look at how the political battleground map has shifted since president george w. bush's re-election in 2004. 16 years ago, 11 states were decided by five-point margins or less. with five of those states based in the great lakes region. 2008, barack obama won by such a large margin that he changed the map by pushing the battleground into some republican territory. look at montana there. but it didn't stick. by 2012, there were only four states decided by a five-point margin or less, when we saw some southern battleground states emerge, like north carolina and virginia. by 2016, trump's strength in the industrial midwest became clear when pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin, all close, were in his column. but this year, the map seems to show the battlegrounds may be transitioning for the next few cycles, especially when we see

battleground map newcomers georgia and arizona. so, let's take a closer look at the last two presidential re-election cycles, 2012 and this year. as i said, by 2012, obama's 2008 strength had waned and we were back to the more traditional competitive states. only four were within five percentage points -- ohio, virginia, north carolina, and florida. notab notably, wisconsin and michigan had moved off the map entirely. now, compare that to this year's outcome among those close states are the ones making up the blue wall. recaptured by joe biden in the midwest. plus, north carolina is back on the list, and very narrowly in the red column, while both georgia and arizona flipped blue, barely. and just off the list of closest states this year, texas, which trump is currently carrying by about 5.7 percentage points. add it all up, and the 2020 battlegrounds largely straddle the industrial midwest and the sun belt, with the latter region gaining momentum and the road to

the presidency looking different than it did just a few cycles ago. when we come back, democrats have waited for decades for the latino vote to come in. it just did, but not in the way they expected. that's next. they expected. that's next.

welcome back. as we teased, we wanted to make a deeper dive on the hispanic vote in america. and maria teresa kumar, "the new york times" framed, i think, the conversation that i want to have pretty well. for years, many democrats have

presumed demography is destiny, believing that latinos would come to vote for them with the same kind of consistency that black voters do. that dream ran into reality in this election. the latino vote is deeply divided and running as not trump was always going to be insufficient. so, where do you begin when you look at the mistakes that the democratic party made on its presumptions with the hispanic vote? >> so, first of all, chuck, let's all -- you know, you and i had these conversations before. >> yes. >> you can't have -- demographics is not destiny if you don't have strategic infrastructure investment. that's the bottom line. and when you look at the map of how, you know, where the future is of growing -- you mentioned the sun belt. the reason that north carolina, the reason that georgia, ariz a arizona, they're on the map, is because of that 4% to 20% of the latino vote. that did not exist even ten years ago. but the challenge is, is that you have to be able to invest in that. the reason arizona flipped, georgia is on the line, and north carolina, is that you have

wonderful grassroots organizers that are there year round. the democratic party, when they start seeing fault lines in florida, we flag, but people didn't realize that trump never stopped talking to the latino community in florida. there was a real apparatus of misinformation and disinformation. and when we talk about, well, why was that not caught on a broader level? facebook did a fantastic job of catching it, for the most part, in english, but not in spanish. >> yeah. >> so, this is an opportunity for us to say, well, how do we take a step back and how do we communicate with the latino community continuously? but even in texas -- texas is interesting, because even though it didn't flip -- first of all, it's not supposed to, but even though it didn't flip, you had a 600% increase in latino youth vote from 2016. but you can't pack your bags after an election and expect people to come back. you need to continuously talk to people. you need to create investment and you need to run candidates. >> al cardenas. i'm going to put up what maria teresa was just talking about, the spanish-language-targeted

advertising misinformation there, showing smiling faces of maduro and joe biden together, which took place at the inauguration of a previous president of brazil. and the numbers in miami-dade county. i mean, 200,000 of donald trump's 330,000-vote margin statewide came out of his improvement in miami-dade county, where he lost it by 30 points in '16, only 7 points now. how much was that disinformation impactful on joe biden now? >> well, look, i think there's some reasons to give the trump campaign some kudos there. jeffrey's colleague, anne applebaum, wrote a book recently about the seduction of authoritarianism. and frankly, the trump cult really hit hard on the hispanic community there. most people came as exiles from countries that were used to authoritarian figures. a second thing is, the socialism

stuck hard and the democrats never fought back, and trump had a four-year investment in miami. that's 3.1% of the total hispanic vote, and it was very peculiar and it hit hard. it was probably half of a winning margin in florida for donald trump. but you know, taking on a little bit of jennifer's article, there are 15 million hispanics, more or less, who voted, and about 30% voted for donald trump. historically over the last seven or eight presidential elections, you know, the margins have been between 25% and 40% for republicans, so he was kind of on the lower side. the net gain for biden was 6.5 million voters in the miss panic community. and frankly, he won by 5 million votes. so, if you're a latino organizer, you could say, hey, we got him a net polarity which exceeded the national polarity.

i think there were just a few places in texas that were an outlier. >> jeffrey goldberg, i look at our coverage of the hispanic vote, and in general, the broad, mainstream media's coverage of it, and i think it has been a bit short hr-sighted. it hasn't gone into the we kuehl yarts as we do with the white vote and guess what, it's just as diverse. >> that's the thing, even the expression latino vote is a little bit of a misnomer. >> yes, it is. >> you know, there is a cuban-american vote, there is a mexican american vote. there is one in texas and in the rio grande valley. those are much different votes. we need to do a better job of diving deeper into the complexity and enormity of this portion of americans and try to understand where they're headed. i would add one thing, that smart republican strategists will do the very same thing because you know, you do have certain through lines there -- religion yosity,

entrepreneurialism, a community filled with small businesspeople who want to be big businesspeople, family, and all of the rest. and the republicans always have this opportunity never fully realized. >> carol lee, you've been talking to some republican strategists who view this as the future of broadening a republican coalition, if they can basically be the party of the working class, regardless of race. >> yeah, that's right, chuck. and the trump folks feel like very proud of this. they've worked very hard for it, in their view. they spent not just the campaign was focused on it, the white house was focused on it. there were events focused on latino entrepreneurs. you had mike pence speaking to latino evangelicals. they tried to use some of biden's comments about oil refineries in texas against him. the question is whether or not they can continue this and build on it, chuck. >> well, i plan to do more dives on this going forward, which means i look forward to more of this conversation with all of you, but that's all the time i have now. that's all we have. thank you for watching.

we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." ♪ what is your advice in this moment for president trump? >> well, a president is a public servant. they are temporary occupants of the office by design. and when your time is up, then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego and your own interests and your own disappointments. >> former president obama says it's pastime