washington. there is a new weapon in the war against coronavirus even as the pandemic surges to unprecedented case levels across the country. moderna announcing this morning its vaccine is 94.5% effective after completion of their phase 3 trial with independent analysis board finding no significant safety concerns. this is similar to the pfizer vaccine in that injects cells, messenger dna that injects antibodies rather than virus. moderna does not need subzero temperatures, should make distribution far easier. dr. anthony fauci speaking with savannah today saying there could be vaccine doses available in high-risk categories by next month. >> do you anticipate that it will get emergency use approval from the fda and how soon? >> we all anticipate it will. i don't want to get ahead of the fda but data is striking,

savannah. now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. so i think this is a really strong step forward to where we want to be. >> fighting the coronavirus is, of course, priority number one for the biden transition team, but the president-elect and his advisers are losing valuable time as president trump continues his futile quest to stay in office. spending his weekend and this morning treating election conspiracies, false claims and victory and making it clear there will be no concession in the near future. joining me now nbc political reporter monica alba, msnbc political reporter ali vitali in delaware and cal perry in chicago where a new stay-at-home vifry radvisory in place. it's an advisory, not a lockdown. let's talk about the frustration of the biden team they have to wait until mid december with the electoral college to actually get a transition started. >> andrea, in this situation,

time is the one resource that you really can't get back. of course they want to hit the ground running. they need to see, in order to do that, a letter from general services, a letter of ascertainment, talking about people in the staff who are already in these agencies. they can already start planning a mask dissemination for a vaccine as we see these two companies now, pfizer and moderna getting ever closer to a vaccine put out in the early part of next clear. consider this, despite the fact joe biden said his first phone call would be to anthony fauci. they can't talk to dr. fauci because they are in limbo. newly chief of staff ron klain spoke about it on "meet the press." >> we now have the possibility. we need to see if it gets approved of a vaccine starting in december or january. there are people making plans to

implement that vaccine. our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible. 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, general services issue that ascertainment, so we can start to do the kinds of things you and i talked about a few minutes ago. >> no letter of ascertainment yet. the thing i'm wondering when we hear from president-elect joe biden today he speaks to this because he's going to be giving remarks on how to bring back the economy. technically it's in a speech on the economy, he's going to be speaking with everyone from union leaders to ceos. at the same time these are really remarks that are about the coronavirus and aides saying he's going to emphasize just how intertwined these crisis really are. >> and thank you. we understand also, of course, that kamala harris is supposed to speak as well to show their partnership and that ron clean news making issue was from "meet the press." monica, the president wants to

keep working at the white house but we're not sure how much work he's doing? the schedule those a lunch with the vice president. we know he's not been working on covid, everything we've been able to find out. >> that's exactly right, andrea. the president doesn't have anything else on his schedule except closed-door meeting with the vice president who does have more on his schedule as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. he'll be holding a call with the governors on the health crisis. that really just shows you where the president has been, or you could argue hasn't been on this in the last few months as it relates to the task force itself. he hasn't met formally with that group, according to my reporting, since april or may. he's briefed by the president and others in the orbit as well as controversial neuroradiology dr. atlas who sometimes gives him information who was in the headlines himself this weekend after elevating inflammatory rhetoric saying in response to some michigan restrictions after

spikes there to, quote, rise up, he later qualified and said that's not what he meant. but of course this shows you the disconnect between the closest medical advisers to the president and doctors like dr. anthony fauci who don't normally interact with the president at all anymore, andrea. >> and, in fact, there was that rally of trump support eers in d.c., not masked. thousands and thousands, very big crowd. then it broke into violence saturday night so there were a number of arrests as well when there were counter-protesters. calip perry, take us through th guidance with lori lightfoot, the mayor, where residents are told to stay at home as much as possible to slow the spread. >> essential travel only is what the mayor is saying. she's hoping it will focus efforts in chicago. it's an advisory, not a mandate.

we heard from the governor who said he could still put in a statewide mandate for people to stay at home. he hopes he won't have to take that step. when you look at numbers in chicago and illinois, they are terrifying. it's the speed at which things are getting worse that really did influence this order. we have doubled the number of hospitalizations here in the city of chicago in the past week. positive cases are up to 40% week over week. it's hospitals at 85%, doctors really begging people to stay home over thanksgiving, not to expand their sort of family circle, looking to do it virtually as doctors will be in these overflowing covid wards here on thanksgiving, andrea. >> thank you so much with concerns from chicago, midwest, really hot spots around the country. monica albie, ali vitali.

the administration's efforts to fasttrack vaccines, doctor, thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. >> first of all, very important big news front-runner moderna today. clearly this is good news coupled with what we learned from pfizer. what does that tell you about your impact, the impact of these two breakthroughs in stage three trials for distribution to high-risk americans and population as a whole, the time line. >> these are exceptional data. it's remarkable we have independent confirmation of the level of protection achieved, for instance, in the pfizer vaccine with the moderna vaccine. these are using technologies that are very similar, so i think it increases substantially the level of confidence this data are real and true and will continue to be confirmed, i hope, as the trial is complete and the fda looks into the

emergency use authorization, which is planned to be submitted in the next two weeks or so and probably reviewed diligently by the fda, which will be advised by advisory, independent advisory committee. then we hope that these vaccines will both be approved somewhere in the first half of december pending the speed with which its prepared and fda review goes on. from there on we will be able to distribute vaccines once they are approved. we know we have enough vaccine doses between the two vaccines to immunize about 20 million people during the month of december in the second half of the month. going forward month on month about 25 more million individuals each time with two

vaccine doses. what's important is there are other vaccines following quite closely. two more vaccines in phase three trials, subjects recruited into them. one of them, the j&j vaccine is a one-shot vaccine, so it goes much faster. we hope potentially to have data from that vaccine somewhere in the second half of january. therefore, it may become available and approved in the second half of february and add to the number of vaccine doses we have and therefore to the number of people vaccinated. >> let me also try to get more information about the kind of vaccines. are these two the only ones this far in advance, messenger rna, new technology, where you don't inject the live virus. we are injecting these message

rna cells that precipitated antibody response. am i correct on that? >> indeed what this technology do does, you inject the template which make the viral protein that will then be produced. it's as if our bodies are serving as a factory to make the antigen. that antigen as it's made simulates our immune system, which makes an immune response that effectively we now see is as good as, if not sometimes better than that produced when we make the antigen in a fermenter, you purify it and inject it, which takes more time. >> do you think this new technology will help fight the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, if i may.

you're not injecting the live virus. perhaps this might be easier to communicate this to people? >> we're if the injecting the live virus. none of the virus in the portfolio has a live virus in the sense it is able to multiply and amplify itself. the protein made in the absence of the virus and the two vaccines that the virus reputation defective virus. it can infect itself but doesn't replicate. none of the vaccines we have is using covid virus or a replicating virus. therefore the safety is without any question. >> i want to turn to the transition. you told the "financial times" you hope nothing interferes with operation warp speed.

you expressed interest in contacting the biden team, you haven't gotten clearance. dr. fauci was asked about your comments today on the "today" show by savannah guthrie. let's listen. >> people are going to need to get these vaccines. that is the very period of transition in charge of vaccine administration for the trump administration has said he hopes and does not want to see it in any way. >> i totally agree very much so. the virus is not going to stop and take a time out while things change. the virus is just going to keep going. >> dr. fauci, we are reaching levels across the country. isn't it important for you to be able to communicate with the incoming biden team, with their experts, to have orderly

transition on the distribution of the virus. >> from day one, i said key for success of this is two things one is to have laser sharp focus on our objective, this is to save people's lives. the second is to minimize any political interference. i made sure to keep out of that. having said that, it's our focus to make sure we save people's lives. anything that may slow that process or create any disruption is something that worries us appropriately. >> now, on distribution, i understand the trump administration is planning to use the military. we've heard from the biden team they are talking to various drug companies, cvs, walmart. is it a combination?

how do you see it proceeding to get this out to people, especially those who need in the pfizer case this subzero refrigeration. >> as you know, janel perna, co-leader with the operation with myself. he's particularly focused around the distribution of the vaccine and doing an absolutely stellar job of planning to the minute every step from where the vaccine is delivered to the operation, which are is either in warehouses for one vaccine or to immunization sites for the other vaccine and ensuring ancillary syringes, alcohol, swabs, et cetera, are available there exactly at the same time. there is an i.t. system that allows us to track exactly who

got what vaccine because they need to get two doses of the same vaccine and also working very diligently to ensure that there are other points of immunization and that's the agreement with walmart or cvs that you have seen. warehouse is very important, transportation is very important. on a weekly basis, we have detailed rehearsal events that really go into the minutiae to make sure things work without any issues. >> i also want to ask you about dr. scott atlas, who seems to have the president's ear now and the white house task force who has created more controversy with a tweet over the weekend writing in response to epidemic safety order from the michigan governor, the only way this stops is to rise up and get what you expect. freedom matters. step up. another tweet clarifying he was not talking about violence.

today dr. fauci told savannah he disagrees with dr. atlas's tweet and your stance. what's your reaction to what you're hearing from dr. atlas. >> i think it's very important that everybody understand their behavior impacts not only themselves and their infection but others around them and people they love. i hope people use judgment to, indeed, wear a mask, wash their hands, and keep their distance. >> dr. slaoui, let me reemphasize what you just said. even as they get distributed to frontline and elderly and other vulnerable people first, that does not mean for months to come we shouldn't be wearing masks, washing hands and keeping a safe distance. >> exactly. it's in addition to. the vaccine is going to help us get back to some level of normalcy. the vaccine will really become effective and we can go back to total normalcy when the

overwhelming majority of people have been immunized and the circulation of the virus will go down. >> finally, have you had any communication with the president recently? >> well, we had the press conference on friday. >> yeah. aside from that, has he been present at the meetings or anything else you've been working on? >> the president has never been very actively involved. as i've said many times, we've had no interference one way or the other. we have informed him from time to time. >> thank you. i think all americans are really grateful for these breakthroughs. thank you for everything. >> thank you very much. thank you for having me. >> coming up, at 3:00 eastern right here on msnbc, moderna's chief medical officer will join my colleague ayman mohyeldin. the security team blocking the

transition. former presidential candidate pete buttigieg joins me ahead. first, road to recovery. president-elect joe biden speaking about his plan to bring the economy back from the covid crisis. stay with us. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. is is "al reports" only on msnbc (gong rings) - this is joe.

(combative yelling) he used to have bad breath. now, he uses a capful of therabreath fresh breath oral rinse to keep his breath smelling great, all day long. (combative yelling) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores. therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. my bladder leak pad? i thought it had to be thick to protect. but always discreet protects differently . with ultra-thin layers, that turn liquid to gel. and lock it inside. for protection i barely feel. always discreet.

i feel like we're forglet me check.ing. xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored home security built around you. no, i think we're good. good. so when you're away, you don't have to worry. the tent. we forgot... the tent. except about that. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. hey look, i found the tent! get xfinity home with no term contract required. click or call today.

but before we sign i gotta ask... sure, anything. we searched you online and maybe you can explain this? i can't believe that garbage is still coming in. that is so false! frustrated with your online search results? call reputation defender today to join tens of thousands who've improved their online reputation. get your free reputation report card at reputationdefender.com or call 1-877-866-8555.

president-elect joe biden will face immediate leadership for covid relief in the lame-duck session as the recovery slows and cases surge. biden and vice president-elect harris meeting with economic advisers and will be speaking about their plans for the economy the next hour. joining me now, jason furman, obama's top adviser, professor at harvard at the kennedy school. thanks very much, jason. nice to see you. first of all, what should joe biden's economic address focus on today? >> one thing he could say, andrea, is what he has said before, we can't wait until january. people need help now. the economy needs help now. the second thing is he has consistently put covid at the center of his strategy for his campaign. he needs to make it clear how

that's going to be a win-win for the economy, more effective at addressing covid and do it in the right ways, we can also help the economy. finally, what is going to have to wait, what we need to do, build back better. just providing relief now is not going to get us where we need to go. he needs to flush out and talk about how he's going to do that next year as president. >> with all of the opposition to staged not lockdowns but retreats from restaurants, in restaurant use and thins of that nature, we're seeing advisories in chicago. we're expecting philadelphia in the next hour, some issues there. would it be better for house democrats to compromise, to do something despite the opposition to state and local relief and other key aspects going back to may for mitch mcconnell and

mnuchin and mark meadow. would it be better to have some stimulus rather than nothing. >> absolutely, andrea. no one gets any benefit when you end up with nothing but you can go on twitter and talk about how it was donald trump and mitch mcconnell's fault. by the way, it may have been donald trump and mitch mcconnell's fault. you can't eat that. you can't get a job through that. you can't support your family with that. you're going to need compromise from all sides to get something done and i want the biggest thing possible but something is better than nothing. >> the obama and biden administration inherited the most severe economic crisis in their first term. you were well aware of all that involved and it worked. there's such a lack of coordination now. they can't even reach out to people in the administration. how much does this worry you?

>> it definitely worries me. when he was running for preside president, obama talked several times to secretary paulson and several times to then fed chair bernanke. he was ready with the transition even before election day because it was such a complex crisis that it was considered important to be in touch with him even before the election. after the election, there was complete cooperation. we couldn't do things like auto industry, which was going bankrupt and might have ceased to exist in the country would it be to not have a smooth transition. this crisis is worse, and it worse me even morish the lack of communication. >> jason, as always, thank you so much for being with us. former president obama, speaking of obama, is urging donald trump to move on and help the country move forward. >> when your time is up, then it

is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego and interests and disappointments. my advice to president trump is if you want at this late stage in the game to be remembered as somebody who puts country first, it's time for you to do the same thing. >> but again this morning the president falsely tweeting that he won the election. that tweet was flagged by twitter. his supporters are not moving on either. this weekend as we've reported thousands gathered here in d.c., almost all without masks, to falsely claim the election was stolen from the president. they came from all over the country. it was largely peaceful until nightfall. after that there were violent clashes with violent protesters. twenty people were arrested, at least two officers were injured. joining me now former mayor of south bend, indiana, and 2020

presidential candidate mayor pete buttigieg. good to see you. >> good to be with you. >> how actively you were campaigning for joe biden. this morning the president's national security adviser robert o'brien did say if biden is determined the winner, and he used if, rather than making it ka conditional, obviously they look that way now they will have a smooth transition. that's not what we're hearing from the president, supporters, people misled by people and others around the country, 73 million who voted for him. many of them do not believe joe biden was elected legally. >> this is really unfortunate because we have a result, and the country needs to move on. so does the transition. now, the transition is a phenomenally talented group of dedicated public servants who

are doing their job as effectively as they can. but each passing day that this denial goes on, it has a real cost. it sounds from the language of the national security adviser and others like they are gradually trying to ease the president into recognizing reality. unfortunately whether it's on things like climate change, things like covid or things like his own election defeat, recognizing reality has not always been a strange suit over there. this really has implications for the ability of this transition to do what it needs to, which is work very swiftly in order to prepare the incoming president, the president-elect, and the american people for what's ahead. >> president-elect biden is still not getting intelligence briefings. how big of a concern is that to you? you're a former veteran -- you're a veteran, i should say, of afghanistan. >> yeah. it's a real concern. i think back to my days being involved in counter-terrorism. you really want to know what the

threat streams are, what's materializing now, what's anticipated for the near future. you want to know intelligence on what's happening, maybe nonpublic information, about what's happening in our relationships with other countries and other leaders. think about this. there are foreign leaders calling to congratulate the president-elect where he could benefit from context about those leaders or their countries that he's not getting. of course, we also know that the state department is not doing what it should by protocol and forwarding messages coming in from leaders around the world to the president-elect. again, look, the transition has people who have served in the intelligence community and national security community through many administrations, and they are doing the work they need to do to prepare policy structure, but they are missing a very important piece of this. there's a real national security cost to each passing day that the president-elect and his team are getting the information they

need. >> speaking of the state department, mike pompeo has arrived in turkey, on seven-nation tour. he left paris today rebuffed by any public events with the french leaders, although they said it was because of the covid lockdown. there's some question about that because they have come out and strongly reached out to joe biden. pompeo, notably last week, said there would be a smooth transition to the second trump administration. the leader said he was joking but he has projected around the world that he's one of the resisters, one of the deniers. how dangerous is that? the u.s. has historically been viewed as the leading democracy. as we speak, he's traveling around a region that is not going to fully been embraced. for him to clear up whether he's

joking about orderly transition of power in a free and fair election in the united states of america, it's not just a setback for the perception of the u.s., that's a setback for democracy itself. look, he remains the secretary of state for the next 65 days at the pleasure of the outgoing president. but if he is going to travel abroad, it's really important not to be sending confusing or mixed signals, given that a lot of policies are likely to change when president biden takes office next year. and again, to have him going around saying anything other than what you would expect people who participate in a democracy say, which are is that we embrace and accept an lec, whether it's our side or the other side that wins. look, the ability of those who lose elections to handle that, it's actually one of the bedrock building blocks of democracy. and each day that they failed to do that, whether it's because of

president's feelings -- i don't know what it's about. even they clearly understand that he's not going to be able to somehow reverse the election and the will of the american people. whatever is motivating it, it is costly not just to the interest of the united states but to the interest of democracy itself. >> there are a lot of concerns that the president will order an immediate withdrawal from afghanistan before he leaves office. having served there, should he be doing that in this lame duck period after cleaning house at the pentagon and putting in his loyalists? >> again, when you're talking about something as serious as war and peace, it's one of the areas where it's most important for their to be some level of continuity or consistency, or at least communication between outgoing and incoming administrations. it's tough to know exactly what the president has in mind. he may simply be continuing to say what he always says, or there may be some intention of action behind it. sending mixed signals or making

precipitous decisions in the final days of an administration is not likely to be conducive to long-term or near-term american or regional security interests. we've got to have some coordination here, which is why it's all the more important that we take that first vital step, which is to recognize reality and get together. earlier on the program you heard the economic kind of equivalent, a story that's not often remembered, at least not remembered often enough, which is the way that the outgoing bush administration and the incoming obama administration really cooperated on rescuing the auto industry. their ability to do that saved countless lively hoods in my part of the country. similarly on matters of war and peace. you need to make sure you lay policy aside, put together some cohesive hand-off plan so countries around the world are not guessing on what the most powerful country in the world is about to do. >> their chiefs of staff were working in "the situation room" on inauguration day about a possible terror threat against

the inauguration as well. very quickly, have you been talking to the transition or would you accept a post in the new administration? >> so i've been honored to participate on the advisory board helping the transition do their important work and really focused on making sure the president-elect is off to a great start. i would love a chance to return to public service but that's for the president-elect to decide. this administration is going to have enthusiastic support from me whether i'm on the inside or the outside. >> mayor pete, thanks so much. it's great to see you. thanks for being with us today. >> same here. good to be with you. with the number of covid cases climbing, hospitals stretched to the breaking point. we'll talk to frontline doctor about what that could mean for coming weeks and months. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. s. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan.

as coronavirus cases surge across europe, new strict

measures have been ep acted in many countries to slow the spread. france has been under a second national lockdown since october after cases there reach the highest level since april. over the weekend french police stepped up lockdown checks in paris to ensure residents were complying. austria has one of europe's highest per capita prompting three-week lockdown there starting tomorrow. portugal has some of the strictest lockdown measures in europe with more than three-quarters of the population put under curfews. as england enters its second week of a new national lockdown, news that uk prime minister boris johnson is self-quarantining after coming into contact with an infected lawmaker last week. johnson had been diagnosed in april and was hospitalized then. chief correspondent richard engel joins me from london. hey, richard, good to see you. you are surrounded by a surge throughout europe. how are these measure impacting the population at this point?

>> reporter: well, there is a surge in europe and lockdowns in london and many european capitals have been in place two weeks. there is a sense of optimism and hope because the lockdowns have a goal, they want to save christmas. they want to save the holiday season. so when you listen to the public messaging from politicians and on radio and television they talk about getting through this, sacrificing now so there can be a holiday season. it's not just about christmas and the christian community, it's about reopening main street, allowing retailers to have the holiday shopping season. frankly, the medical experts know that many people are not going to respect the lodown loc

over christmas and they want to now. it's created a sense of cohesion, something to look forward to. if they sacrifice now, and a relatively short-term thing. these lockdowns are supposed to end at the end of november and then be eased up with the start of november. if they can get through just a couple more weeks of this and tamp down rates, then they can have more of a holiday season. it's probably too early to tell if it's having a significant impact. in france, as you said, numbers have been high and they are starting to go down a little bit, which is encouraging people. here in the uk the contagion rate, the r number, is starting to stabilize. in germany they are not quite happy with the progress, so they are considering right now tightening measures even further to allow a christmas holiday season. even sweden, which has resisted any kind of measures is

tightening up. >> richard engel, congratulations to you and your assignment team for more awards for your work. congratulations, richard. right now we are seeing, i believe, president-elect joe biden and kamala harris, vice president-elect. they are meeting with advisers. dr. gupta will be with us momentarily. let's hear him listen to his team. stand by. >> falsely optimistic -- [ inaudible ] >> i think he is off mic, so we will be hearing his remarks in about an hour. dr. gupta, let's talk about the critical care you know so much about as a pulmonologist and affiliate assistant professor at the university of washington. first of all, the good news, moderna, what's your announcement to joining pfizer on prim nary approval for

emergency authorization use. >> good afternoon, andrea, great to see you. the information we have, it's a press release in terms of granularity we have publicly. it wasn't evaluated by an independent vaccine data review board, so that's encouraging. what is different from pfizer last week is there does appear to be protection against severe infection with covid-19 based on the data they have released in the press release. that's number one. number two, this is going to be really critical for the american public and all your viewers. it only requires storage in a fridge that goes down to minus 4 fahrenheit versus negative 100 fahrenheit for the pfizer vaccine meaning existing cold chain, existing frirnlgs in doctor's offices, rural settings can handle the vaccine for longer periods of time up to 30 days than the pfizer vaccine. that is a phenomenal difference

between pfizer and moderna's vaccine. let's hope the data and adverse effects profile not concerning. >> even vaccines for first line responders and really vulnerable in december going into january, we're not there yet. we just had a million new infections in just a week. is the vaccine news likely to cause people to hunker down more or people will stop being careful, especially the lack of leadership from the top in washington right now compared to what we've just heard from richard engel in most of the european countries. >> andrea, i certainly hope not. so for all your viewers out here, the way to interpret this news from moderna and pfizer and other news is there's potentially light at the end of the tunnel, that 2021 is not going to look like 2020 for its full entirety. this vaccine news is not going

to save us in the worst of the coming months ahead. these coming months are estimating an additional 200,000 american souls lost by the beginning of march. that's because of environmental considerations, that's because we have so much virus already circulating. we have icus stressed in utah, arizona. this is not where a vaccine will be a magic bullet but light at the end of the tunnel medium term. please mask, quality mask if you can get your hands on it. hand hygiene is vital. soap and water ideally. avoid nonessential travel. those are three cogs here to keep you and your family safe. >> dr. vin gupta, such an important bit of advice from you. thank you very much. just ahead, minding the gap, former president barack obama speaking out about the deepening divide between americans right

and left and what has to be done to unite the country again. stay with us. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. reports" on msnbc. at fidelity, you'll work with an advisor to help you build a flexible wealth plan. you'll have access to tax-smart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. who knows where that button is? i don't have silent. everyone does -- right up here. it happens to all of us. we buy a new home, and we turn into our parents. what i do is help new homeowners overcome this. what is that, an adjustable spanner? good choice, steve. okay, don't forget you're not assisting him. you hired him. if you have nowhere to sit, you have too many. who else reads books about submarines? my dad. yeah. oh, those are -- progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. look at that.

we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible

enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪ iwith vicks sinex saline nasal cmist.tionp...at nothing. for drug free relief that works fast. vicks sinex. instantly clear everday congestion. former president obama

appearing on "60 minutes" to promote his new memoir and speaking out about the polarization of our politics, dividing the blame in part between politicians and the way voters are influenced by partisan news our politics, dividing the blame in part between politicians and the way voters are influenced by partisan news media, especially social media. >> we're very divided. it's not just the politicians now. the voters are divided. it has now become a contest where issues, facts, policies per se don't matter. as much as identity and wanting to beat the other guy. >> in a separate new interview with "the atlantic's" jeff goldberg obama slammed republicans for caving in to president trump, saying "what the republican elected officials have done is to say to themselves that in order to

survive we have to go along with conspiracy theorizing, false assertions, fantasies that donald trump and rush limbaugh and others in those echo chamber have concocted. joining me now is editor in chief of "the atlantic" jeffrey goldberg, who conducted that interview. and yamiche alcindor, white house correspondent for pbs news-hour. jeff, first to you, talking about the former president, not holding back now. he certainly wasn't holding back in the closing weeks of the campaign. but he's also -- he compares president trump to richie rich, for instance. what surprised you most in your conversation? because it strikes me that he's also very self-reflective as to whether he was too restrained as president and even the first years of the trump administration in not coming out strongly against trump and his supporters. >> right. that's a good question. one of the things he mentioned to me and one of the things that emerges in the book is this idea, this question that he asks himself, was i too restrained, was i too slow to call out some

pretty significant shifts not only in ideological sorting in america, what the conservative movement was doing, but also how people were getting information. he talks a lot about the tech companies and how they create these echo chambers. he does believe that he might have been a little bit slow to put the pieces together. but to be fair, i think everyone was somewhat slow to understand how politics was changing. i would also say that he is still somewhat restrained. this is barack obama we're talking about. he measures every word, and he speaks in whole paragraphs, which is not necessarily something we're used to in a president these days. but he's always somewhat restrained. but yes, he is also having a good time. he did note to me that as an ex-president he doesn't quite have to weigh his words the way he used to. he's not running for anything ever again, one assumes. and so he is unleashed to some

degree and he is very, very upset about some structural changes in american politics and in the way we consume information and he thinks that those are very, very dangerous for the future of democracy. >> especially with 73 million people voting for donald trump and many of those people believing the conspiracy theories now. yamiche alcindor, obama on "60 minutes" also spoke about what he described as truth decay. let's watch. >> what we've seen is what some people call truth decay, something that's been accelerated by outgoing president trump, this sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth but the truth doesn't even matter. >> yamiche, you watch this every day at the white house. you face him down at these briefings. it's no longer what we used to expect since the nixon white house from the white house podium or from the state

department at all. >> that's right. and when we think about the trump presidency, there are two things that really are the foundation of president trump. the first is kellyanne conway saying that there could be alternative facts. she said that very, very early in the presidency. and then rudy giuliani, his personal attorney, saying truth isn't truth. both of those statements were said on nbc news, and both of those statements get at the heart of the trump administration, which is that they had a war on the very idea of truth. they had a war on the media. they said that they needed to make the media the opposition so people wouldn't even believe reporters when they were off telling the real things that were happening in this country. and now as we're all living through a pandemic that's scary, right? it's so scary that the president has continued to downplay the virus when he wants to talk about it, which now is very few and in between. but there are people out there, millions of them as you noted, who voted for president trump, who only believe what he tells them. i was in miami a couple days before the election and i was talking to people and they were continuing to say the coronavirus is just like the

flu, it's going to be fine. and i had to tell them no, if you look at the statistics from our own country, you look at scientists, it's not the flu. but so many people only believe what certain networks tell them and what the president tells them, and that is the biggest problem in this country. and president obama said that very clearly. he said the biggest problem is this idea that we don't have a baseline idea of truth that we can all then argue about. >> jeff, from reading the memoir which is coming out tomorrow and interviewing the former president, was part of his reluctance to challenge and confront some of this the racism that he knew was systemic and that he was reluctant to deal with or confront? >> well, you know, he has a very complicated relationship with this issue, obviously. part of it is dispositional. one of the interesting things here is the difference between the way he views race issues and the way his wife views them, i asked them is that sort of a

hawaii-chicago split? and he said sometimes it's just temperament. but he has not changed in one important way. he believes that these issues you can overcome, these issues of racial divide and racial animus. he's not -- he's not kidding himself or kidding anyone else about the persistence of racism in america, and he speaks very vividly about some of the racist attacks that were launched against him. and obviously, the current president of the united states came to power on the back of birtherism, which was a racist, xenophobic idea. but he deals with it in a very typically measured way but he recognizes that it's there. >> jeff goldberg, as always great to see you. thanks for that and the interview. and yamiche alcindor, it's always great to see you. thanks very much. and that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." kasie hunt is in for chuck todd with "mtp daily" after a short

break. we did it.

americans from both parties. turned out to vote in numbers like we haven't seen

in a hundred years. and election officials counted those votes carefully, transparently and in accordance with the law. so, no matter who you voted for, if you cast a ballot, or counted them. thank you for showing the world that even in times like these, america is still going strong.

♪ welcome to monday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm kasie hunt in for chuck todd. we're following a number of major developments this hour involving the coronavirus pandemic. as our country enters an extraordinary split screen, wher