>> reporter: and maybe that's the hardest part about the whole sordid affair, trying to understand marjorie, rothstein, barnes and the rest. fractured intellectuals, broken souls who lost their humanity on a descent into evil. this sunday, the threat to democracy. >> i won, by the way. we'll find that out. almost 74 million votes. >> president trump and his allies making baseless and dangerous claims about nonexistent voter fraud. >> it is inaccurate to say there is widespread voter fraud in the state of georgia. >> the president now hoping to get republican state legislators to overturn results and change electors. >> it's an assault on democracy. it's dangerous. >> it's hard to fathom how this man thinks. >> i'll talk to incoming official congressman cedric richmond of louisiana and republican senator kevin cramer of north dakota. plus, the covid explosion.

>> i've seen people more sick than i've ever seen in my life, and they just drop so fast. >> daily case records being set -- >> we are in an utter emergency here. >> 250,000 americans now dead. >> i'm probably going to get my mom in a box. >> the trump administration refusing to confer with the biden team. >> we are in a very serious situation, but we can do something about it. >> but vaccine help is on the way. >> we have enough vaccine doses between these two vaccines to immunize about 20 million people during the month of december. >> this morning you'll hear my conversation with dr. anthony fauci and i'll talk to moncef slaoui, head of "operation warp speed." joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, eddie glaude jr. of princeton university, anna palmer with politico and john podhoretz, editor of commentary.

welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press with chuck todd." >> good sunday morning. in the days immediately following joe biden's victory, it was easy to dismiss president trump's reality denial as working his base or just a tantrum or some sort of strategy for his post presidency, but now his antics are looking less like a fit of peak than an assault on democracy. recent days, we've seen president trump and his allies pressure republican state legislators to overturn the election and choose pro-trump electors instead. trump lawyers spin baseless conspiracy theories about voting machines, dead dictators in venezuela, and a national conspiracy to rig the election, that somehow, members of both parties participated in. mr. trump fired the cybersecurity official who debunked his false claims that the election was stolen. and the president himself

tweeted blatant falsehoods about nonexistent voter fraud, including the call to state legislators to overturn the election results. at the same time, the president is denying biden's transition access to information that would allow the new president to deal with the covid crisis on day one, among other things. simply put, that decision could be costing lives in a country where more than 250,000 have already been lost. mr. trump's efforts to turn a legitimate defeat into a fraudulent victory appear headed for failure, but he may succeed in undermining confidence in u.s. elections and in kneecapping the incoming administration, and perhaps that's the motive. but ask yourself, is this the 1950s or 91850s? the 1950s, when we overcome our opposite mccarthy-era crisis and eventually pulled together as a country, or the 1850s, when the nation broke apart. >> i'm confident he knows that he hasn't won. it's just outrageous what he's doing. >> president-elect joe biden stepping up criticism of the

president's effort to overturn the election results. >> big pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which i won, by the way, but you know, we'll find that out. >> but mr. trump's attempts to make his legal efforts appear anything more than a pr campaign, aimed at delegitimizing biden's presidency and building his own post-presidency brand are failing. in georgia on friday, republican secretary of state brad raffensperger certified biden's win after a recount. >> numbers don't lie. as secretary of state, i believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. >> and though the president summoned michigan lawmakers to the white house on friday -- >> shame on you! [ crowd chanting ] >> -- after the meeting, they said in a statement that they would "follow the normal process" in certifying the vote results. >> while the president and his allies are ripping at the fabric of the democracy in any way they can, the fabric is not tearing. it's holding firm. >> also this week, mr. trump fired homeland security official

chris krebs, who challenged his false claims of voter fraud. >> there is, like, a loyalty purge going on in the last month in the white house. >> i disagree vehemently with his firing. >> of the 36 election lawsuits the trump campaign and republicans have filed, 24 have been denied, dismissed, settled, or withdrawn, and none has found a single instance of actual fraud. >> most of the republicans i've spoken to, including some of the governors, think this is debilitating, it's not a -- it sends a horrible message about who we are as a country. >> still, the republican party response has been largely to accept and even encourage the president's attempts to overturn the election results. just three republican senators have publicly criticized the president, senator mitt romney -- "it is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic act by a sitting american president." senator ben sasse wrote that the president's lawyers "have repeatedly refused to actually allege grand fraud because there are legal consequences for lying

to judges." and susan collins condemned the "attempt to pressure state officials." but overwhelmingly, the nation's top republicans have been silent or encouraged the president's unparalleled effort to steal an election he lost by more than 6 million votes and by an electoral college margin equal to his 2016 win. >> stacey abrams challenged the results in georgia. she was an american hero. when donald trump's going to court, he's a dictator. i'm tired of this crap. we're going to fight back in georgia. we're going to fight back everywhere. >> it's an assault on our democracy, and it's outrageous. it's bad for donald trump. it's bad for the republican party. it's bad for the country and our standing in the world. >> joining me now is the incoming director of the white house office of public engagement, congressman, for a few days longer, cedric richmond of louisiana. congressman richmond, welcome back to "meet the press." all right, tomorrow is certification day in pennsylvania. we got the lawsuit thrown out last night, which basically was the last legal path that he had in pennsylvania.

if you follow the president's plan to try to get to 270 it doesn't work without pennsylvania. if tomorrow is not the day the gsa turns the keys over, what does the biden transition team do, congressman richmond? looks like we have an audio issue there with congressman richmond. we're going to get that fixed, so we are now going to swap orders here, and hopefully, my next guest, republican senator kevin cramer of north dakota is ready. senator cramer, as you can see, we had a little bit of an issue. first of all let me make sure you can hear me. senator, welcome to "meet the press." >> it's okay, i can hear you. hopefully you can hear me. >> i can hear you just fine. let me start with sort of a form of the same issue, but i'll use senator pat toomey, your republican colleague from pennsylvania. here's what he said last night after the decision came down to essentially throw out the

president's lawsuit in pennsylvania. "with today's decision by judge matthew brann, a longtime conservative republican, whom i know to be a fair and unbiased jury justist, to dismiss the president's lawsuit, the president has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in pennsylvania. i congratulate president-elect biden and vice president-elect kamala harris on their victory." do you concur with senator toomey that it is over? >> thanks for the opportunity to be with you. and no, i do not, although i think it is very likely. that said, i think we -- again, i don't know why we're so easily offended by a president that's carrying out all of his legal options in court, not enhancing or encouraging any riots or burnings of buildings or beating up of democrats coming out of democratic meetings or events. it's just a simple legal process. and really, there have not been a lot of evidentiary hearings that have involved the trump case. there have been other

hearings -- i noticed that you used a number that was rather large of cases that have been thrown out or dismissed. but when it comes down to actually looking at evidence, there have not been many, if any -- and maybe the pennsylvania one was the first one -- so, i think everyone ought to calm down a little bit. i don't see this as an attack on our democracy. i mean, we spent four years listening to news shows and liberals discrediting, trying to discredit the trump administration to the point of spying on him by the last administration. $40 million spent on an independent counsel that started with no evidence and ended proving that there was no evidence. and then, of course, this crazy impeachment. so, i think what we're experiencing now, everyone ought to just relax and let it play out in the legal way. we'll be just fine. >> you've implied that there's no damage being done just now in those comments. so you believe -- >> oh, there's a lot of damage -- >> the spectacle -- well, i want to ask you, the spectacle of rudy giuliani on thursday, using the headquarters of the republican party.

i mean, at one point, one of the lawyers accused a dead dictator of somehow being a part of this. i mean, are you really saying that the president is -- you're out there saying the president's not encouraging, somehow, any way of sort of being disorderly about this. how is that not enencouraging disruption and disorder? he's accusing the entire system of being corrupt. is that not undermining the democracy? >> well, first of all, what they're claiming is that there's a lot of evidence, and they're presenting that evidence in cases. now, it's up to them to present that evidence, chuck, obviously. and we have yet to see a real hearing where evidence was presented. and they're not obligated to present it at yesterday or tomorrow, although the sooner, the better, from my perspective. but i'm just speaking strictly now from this attack on democracy as you call it. these are legal systems. these are processes that are in our constitution, in our laws, and they're not just appropriate, but they're really an obligation, frankly, to the millions of americans that

president trump is a reflection of. i know a lot of people like to think that we're the reflection of him. he's a reflection of millions of people that want to see him fight this to the end. now, there has to be an end, chuck. i agree, there has to be an end. i frankly, do think it's time to -- well, it's pastime to start a transition, to at least cooperate with the transition. i'd rather have a president that has more than one day to prepare, should joe biden, you know, end up winning this. but in the meantime, again, he's just exercising his legal options. >> i just want to confirm, you believe that the head of gsa tomorrow morning at this point ought to say, the transition needs to begin, it looks like joe biden's going to be the aapparently winner. yes, there is more to go through. but this is what the head of gsa said, it looks like there's a lot to go through, but yes, joe biden's the winner, the transition process should begin. is that what should happen tomorrow morning? >> yeah, because it didn't happen last monday morning. i just think you have to begin that process, give the incoming administration all the time they need.

now, i will also say this, i think that vice president biden has been a bit overdramatic as it relates to "operation warp speed" and the distribution of the vaccines and things. i mean, none of those things are a secret. the military is in charge of "operation warp speed." the military's still going to be there after the election, but there are lots of other things. and i informed my staff well over a week ago that they ought to cooperate with any transition outreach because we want to be prepared. we have a government to run, regardless who the president is. >> does it concern you that so many -- and i'm sure -- and i'm curious what happens when you have your own constituents that say to you, senator, i know this was stolen, i just don't believe it. what is it going to take to tell those folks, your constituents in north dakota, look, i know you don't like the results, but it was fair and square? >> yeah, that's a great point. that's a great point. that's where leadership really has to step in and where you have to be both attentive to them and then use your circle of influence. and i think what it's going to take, chuck, is for all of these

legal avenues to be exhausted. and then at some point, we start preparing for another election. your monologue illustrated a couple of times in our history when there have been challenges, and the good news is that our republic is very resilient. >> you do realize that in this century, there have been four closer presidential elections -- 2000, 2004, 2012, 2016. believe it or not, the popular vote win here by biden is even larger than barack obama's was over mitt romney. so, at what point does this undermine our -- you've heard governor larry hogan -- this is not coming from a member of the media, this is a republican, who thinks this is undermining the look of america to the world. >> yeah. i know that a lot of people like a nice, tidy, historical sort of -- traditional sort of election, but we don't have a traditional president. he didn't get there in a traditional way. i never cease being amazed at

people like you who are surprised when he's not behaving the same way as previous presidents have behaved, but i also go back to just last year -- just last year, hillary clinton referred to him as an illegitimate president. we went through four years of trying to delegitimize him. i think to have this process is just fine. and who knows. remember, we've also never in history in this century or any other century had a massive vote-by-mail balloting where there was things like ballot harvesting and ballot curing, things that we've never even heard of before that were taking place. and frankly, a much, much lower rejection rate of mail-in ballots than just four years ago when there were many fewer of them. so, it's okay to go through this process, make sure it's being done right, make sure that it never happens again, if there are irregularities. we can't ignore hundreds of signed affidavits. that's evidence. that's way more evidence than robert mueller had. >> well, so far, though, that is not the case, because this evidence, they haven't presented it in court because they don't have it, it appears.

we'll see. as you said, if they have the evidence, they should present it, and they have yet to present it in a courtroom because you can't lie to a judge. anyway, senator cramer -- >> i don't know that that's the reason, chuck, but -- >> well, we don't know, but they haven't done it yet, anyway. i really appreciate you coming on. many of your colleagues might -- >> give my best to congressman richmond. >> you bet. joining me now, congressman cedric richmond of louisiana, back with us. well, congressman, now i'm going to get you to react to what you heard. i hope you could hear some of that interview. i know we had some audio issues. on one hand, senator cramer said it's time for the transition to begin. on the other hand, he wasn't ready to recognize president-elect joe biden. is that helpful or harmful to the cause right now? >> well, it's harmful to the cause. one, it undermines the confidence in american government. this was a fair election. joe biden won by over 6 million votes in the popular vote, 306 electoral votes, which is the exact same number that donald

trump had that he called a landslide. so, joe biden won with a mandate and a landslide, and now it's time to transition. and look, the senator said that he didn't see much harm being done. that's just not true. and the one thing that's important about joe biden is he understands the pain of losing loved ones. and so, when we think about covid-19 that's cost us over 250,000 americans, and we're going to have a vaccine, then we need to be meeting. we have to distribute the vaccine to over 300 million people, and that will save lives. so, we want to get in there right now, not talk to former officials, but talk to the people that are in there right now doing the job so that we can be ready to finish or start distribution of vaccines on day one. and then the last point i'll make it, one of the reports of the findings of the 9/11 commission was that because the transition was short and failed, it left us more vulnerable for a 9/11-type attack.

so we should be getting the national security briefings. we should have access to everything in the federal government that we're supposed to, and we hope that the gsa administrator's going to do that soon. >> i was just going to say, given all of the things that have happened over the last 24 hours and what's going to happen tomorrow -- tomorrow is certification day in pennsylvania. the lawsuit -- the one fig leaf of a lawsuit tossed out in pennsylvania. if you don't -- if it doesn't start tomorrow and it certainly seems like there is plenty of reasons why it should, what is your recourse? what does president-elect biden do next? >> look, we will explore every avenue. we expect it to start, the certification in pennsylvania is a very big step. we are doing everything we can. we've named white house chief of staff, 13 white house senior officials. this coming week we will start to name the cabinet, people in the cabinet. and we expect the fbi, and we need the fbi to start background checks and other things that go

with transition. so, we will continue to push it with the trump administration, but we won't take any avenues off the table. >> your friendship with steve scalise, republican from louisiana, is well known. both of you talk about it, because it's so rare to have bipartisan friendships in this town these days. have you talked to him and reached out to him? i mean, if relationships matter, his voice would be a big one, if it uttered the phrase "president-elect biden." what does he say to you? >> well, i think he knows that this election is over and that joe biden will be the 46th president of the united states. it's just amazing to me the grab that this president has on the republican party and the reluctance that members have to come out and tell him the hard truth. and that's just not with congressman scalise, but it starts at the minority leader in mccarthy, goes over to the senate with leader mcconnell.

you know, this is the future of our democracy on the line. it was a fair and square election. donald trump lost. and so, at some point, we have to move on. but this republican party has been very reluctant to stand up and tell the emperor that he wears no clothes. >> you know, steny hoyer, the number two leader on the democratic side, said, "i think this borders on treason. he is undermining the very essence of democracy, which is you go to the polls, you vote, you decide. there is no doubt the people decided." those are strong words. do you concur with him? >> look, it's certainly un-american. but remember, we have to all remember who we're dealing with. we're dealing with donald trump, a president that was impeached for withholding foreign aid to ukraine, unless they gave him dirt on joe biden's son. so, there's nothing -- the one thing i agree with senator cramer on is there is nothing donald trump will do that will

surprise me because he's shown exactly who he is, a person who will ignore the law, break the law to get what he wants. at some point, i just hope that the american people understand that this is about them. this is not about an elected official. this is about saving lives. this is about protecting our country. and all of these people that are waking up in economic and financial instability and ruin because of our failed coronavirus response, we need to be doing something for them right now. >> before i let you go, you have a unique perch. you were the national co-chair for joe biden's campaign. you're a pretty active and high-level democrat in the house. so, answer me this question. joe biden won the white house, but democrats lost seats in the house. why? >> look, it was a rough and tough election, and i will say this -- and i've gone back and looked at numbers and other things -- donald trump increasing republican turnout made a big deal, but there is a whole, i think, post-election

audit that we should do and analysis to see where we ran strong, where we didn't run strong. and i think the fact that joe biden won georgia, and we still have two senate seats that are in runoffs could be a telling tale for what's happening, but i do believe as democrats, we need to make sure -- and look, i'm a saints fan -- we need to make sure we have a good general manager, a good offensive coordinator, a good defensive coordinator, and we all run the same plays. look, it don't have to be the exact same route, but we should have the exact same goals in mind, and i do believe that is the case. and so, we will continue to push and let the voters decide. >> senator richmond, for a few more days or weeks, you'll be a democratic congressman from louisiana, but soon you will be a major player in that west wing with president-elect joe biden. thanks for coming on. apologies for the audio issues at the start. >> thanks for having me, chuck. >> you got it. when we come back, dr. anthony fauci and the official overseeing the government's efforts to produce and

distribute a safe and effective vaccine, dr. moncef slaoui. ctiv vaccine, dr. moncef slaoui this week at petsmart.

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welcome back. when it comes to the covid pandemic, we are now setting records on a daily basis. on friday, more than 196,000 new cases were recorded in the united states, breaking the record that was set the day before. and over the past seven days, there have been nearly 1.2 million cases, also a record. in a week, over a million new cases, folks. as bleak as all this sounds, though, there is good news on the horizon, assuming we can get to that horizon. on friday, pfizer applied for emergency authorization for its vaccine, kicking off a process in which the fda will determine whether it's safe and effective. and moderna is not far behind. earlier, i spoke with dr. anthony fauci, who said, yes, help is on the way, but first, we also have an obligation to help ourselves. >> we've really got to pay attention to the public health measures that we are not

uniformly implementing throughout the country. it's disparate. some are doing it and some are not. they're very simple -- the wearing of masks, the physical distancing, the avoiding congregate and crowd sessions activities, particularly indoors, trying, where possible, to do things outdoors as opposed to indoors, and the frequent washing of hands. they sound so simple, chuck, but they do make a difference. so, the point i'm making is that we are in a very serious situation, but we can do something about it. point number one. point number two is that help is on the way. traditionally and historically, highly efficacious and effective vaccines have crushed epidemics like smallpox and polio and measles. we can do that with the vaccines that are going to be coming online. >> i'm trying to figure out when we're going to plateau before

march. there is no mitigating event and there is no evidence that we're mitigating a thing. where does this case count escalation stop? when does the hospitalization escalation stop? are we really staring at until the vaccine? >> it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. we're not going to completely eliminate it and turn it around rapidly and dramatically, but we can prevent it from increasing. you look at the curve, chuck, it's almost exponential when you compare the curves in the spring and the curves in the summer with the inflection of the curve where we are right now. we should not accept that we can't do anything about that. putting vaccines aside for a moment, which would be extraordinarily helpful -- if we implement the simple public health measures that i was mentioning to you, we can blunt that inflection. it doesn't have to be as high up. but when you think of the

holiday season and the congregating indoors at what are innocent, lovely functions, like meals with family and friends, you've got to at least think in terms of evaluating, do you have people in your family that are elderly, that might have underlying conditions, like someone on chemotherapy or other things that weaken their immune system? do you really want to get a crowd of 10, 15, 20 people, many of whom are coming in from places where they've gone from crowded airports to planes, getting into their house? i mean, those are the things that have been such joyous things in the past. >> let me ask you about testing. believe it or not -- and i've heard the anecdotes -- it is still not easy to get a test and it is not easy to get a test quickly. where -- and you have said yourself, i think earlier, that you regret -- that's one of our early regrets is sort of our testing strategy.

explain. >> yeah. you know, chuck, what i would have liked to have seen done -- and i had articulated this and it didn't go very far -- is the idea about testing to determine if a particular individual is infected so that you can identify, isolate, and contact trace. i'm all for that. that's fine. but i'm also for what i've said months and months ago, that we should be flooding the system with tests to determine the penetrance of the asymptomatic spread. we don't have that test. we should have tests that are point-of-care, sensitive, specific, you can do at home, you can get the results yourself, so that you can know when you wake up in the morning, when you want to go to work, whether or not you are infected or whether the people you might want to invite over to your home for a holiday are infected. we don't have that.

we should have that. i hope we do get that. that has been something that has not been within our grasp. i know, technically, it's not the easiest thing to do, but i wish we had done that. >> and joining me now is moncef slaoui. he's the head of "operation warp speed." it is the u.s. government's effort to produce a safe and effective vaccine for use, well, as soon as possible. dr. slaoui, welcome to "meet the press." and let me start with, look, there's been great news, both from moderna and pfizer. we know that pfizer applied for this emergency authorization use. so, the second the approval comes, walk me through how "warp speed" suddenly gets implemented. who gets the first vaccinations? >> so, the second the emergency use authorization is approved, the acip and cdc will issue their recommendation for who will get the vaccines on a

priority basis. that's very likely to be maybe health care workers, maybe first-line workers, maybe individuals who are at very high risk, elderly, people with co-morbidities. we will have already identified with each state department of health where they want the vaccines to be located. we cannot move the vaccine doses prior to the emergency use authorization. within 24 hours from the approval, vaccine will be moving and located in the areas where each state will have told us where they want the vaccine doses. and then it is each state that will decide specifically, based on the guidance from the acip and cdc, who they will vaccinate. >> is there a point where you may -- the federal government may say, wait a minute, state "x," you're not inoculating enough frontline workers,

hospitalizations are rising too fast, you need to focus more of these vaccines there, if you see a state not doing that? is that something you would intervene and tell a state, look, we know we left this up to you, but you're not inoculating nearly enough health care workers? >> right. first of all, the vaccine doses will be distributed on a proportionate basis to the population, and frankly, i don't see that the federal government will intervene on a state decision. now, i assume each state will be acting responsibly based on the guidance from the cdc and also what the label of the vaccine, what the fda issued the emergency use authorization on. but normally, this is not our intent to intervene at the micro level. it's really on that basis that we are acting. >> i have to ask you, how hard will it be to hand off this process that you're overseeing to a new presidential

administration? and do you hope to be kept on to continue to oversee this process? >> so, frankly, the operation has been isolated from the administration from the political environment and the political context. we worked very hard to make sure that's the case. and therefore, all decisions are made, the train is running, whether one administration or the other, doesn't, frankly, make a difference. i hope there is no disruption in any way. my personal role, as you know, i have volunteered for this on a limited basis. my personal agenda is when we have two vaccines approved and two medicines approved, and the rest of the portfolio that we have really well, you know, in good hands, i'll probably move on back to my private life. as you know, i'm highly supportive of the program, and if it means i work with the new

administration, i would be very happy to. >> and would you like to start briefing the new administration next week? >> i understand that all the information that i made public, of course, i'll make public to the new administration. i should not be saying -- i have been informed that i should not be saying anything that's confidential to anybody, including, you know, anybody that's not part of the administration, and therefore, i'll act according to what the legal requirements are. >> all right. dr. moncef slaoui, the good news this week are those vaccines. all we've got to do is hope we can get there and start doing mitigation and start doing all of those other things to prevent this from being as bad as it looks right now. dr. slaoui, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> thank you for having me. when we come back, president trump has been lobbing baseless charges about election fraud. he's not going to overturn the election, so what is his goal? the panel's next. election, so w? the panel's next deadline is only days away.

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what is this? we call that a window. window.

dun-dun-daaa! the first big screen. we really need to limit thunk's window time. not now. the birds are on. in my day we fought them. let me live my life! welcome back. the panel is with us. it's nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson, eddie glaude jr. of princeton university, anna palmer, chief washington correspondent for politico and john podhoretz, editor of commentary. so, i want to start off with a little bit of numbers, because hey, that's what i love to do, right? check out what we're seeing now in the 2020 presidential election. i noted earlier that there are four closer races just since 2000 than 2020, but check this

out. it's 2020 versus 2012. obama/romney, 50.101 to 47.2. look at where it is now, 51%-47.2%, and those numbers are going to grow and continue to grow, so biden's lead will be larger when all is said and done. let me show you the popular vote splits, by the way, 2012-2020. obama won by just under 5 million in the raw vote. joe biden is just over 6 million in this raw vote. so, hallie jackson, it is sort of a reminder, this is the fifth closest election we've had since 2000, which means it wasn't really that historically close. i heard senator cramer use the impeachment as one of the rationales, lindsey graham say stacey abrams. is this the white house strategy, that they're basically saying, hey, they did it to us so we're going to do it to them? >> so, that surmises that there is a strategy, chuck, and it is some sort of broader work in

progress that the folks are moving toward. listen, this is about the president. this is about what he wants and what he feels, and he is feeling angry, obviously, as we know, based on this. i've talked to sources over the last 24 hours who know, chuck, that the president understands that there is an uphill climb ahead. he sees the writing on the wall, but the point now is to continue to keep up the fight. i thought it was interesting that senator cramer worked to, as you pointed out, thread the needle between, yes, we should start the transition process, but no, it's not president-elect biden yet. that will tell you. i've talked with sources in both the trump orbit and the biden orbit. they both actually agree on one thing, which is that over the coming days, chuck, particularly, potentially after tomorrow, when the pennsylvania certification process happens, you will see more republicans come out, sort of putting the president on an isolated island by saying, yes, we should move forward, joe biden is the president-elect. here's where they disagree, though, that it's going to matter for president trump, right? i think folks on the democratic side, on the biden side, think that is going to put pressure on the president. i spoke with somebody close to the president who said that will probably make little difference to him. >> anna palmer, the lamar

alexander statement from friday to me is so striking. if there is any chance whatsoever that joe biden will be the next president, and it looks like he has a very good chance, the trump administration should provide the biden team with all transition materials, resources and meetings necessary to ensure a smooth transition so both sides are ready on day one. lamar alexander is retiring. he's leaving on january 2nd, i believe, his term expires, technically. and he still couldn't write the phrase "president-elect joe biden." >> i think it has a lot to do with where the republican party is and a lot of these lawmakers don't want to get crosswise with trump supporters. they look at how many votes he got and the fact that he's not going away any time soon, whether or not he's leaving this administration. there's already talk of a 2024 run. and i think what you have is a lot of republicans not looking to enflame the president, whether or not they are seeking elected office again. >> eddie, at what point do you

think democrats have to fight harder about this? in some ways, i think president-elect biden has preached publicly patience. we know behind the scenes they're getting impatient. at what point should they be acting more impatient? >> well, it seems to me, particularly after pennsylvania certified, if we still see this going on, they need to press, put the foot -- put their foot to the pedal, it seems to me, chuck. look, i think it's not so much the success of donald trump's efforts with regards to challenging the election. it's sowing the doubt. it's delegitimizing the upcoming administration. and in transforming that doubt into outright hostility. and i think this is the challenge that we face and that senator cramer, honestly, didn't want to admit, that the more donald trump delegitimizes this process, the more he undermines our democratic process and unleashes, in some ways, these illiberal forces. so, i think after pennsylvania

certifies, if we see this still happ happening, the democrats have to fight harder, chuck. >> but john podhoretz, we're still going to have millions of people that believe one thing and this news max phenomenon that we're watching, where clearly, people don't like what they're hearing on fox and they say, no, no, no, i don't want to hear an occasional fact or two, i want to go where life is different than election day. let me play an excerpt from news max. >> we're, like, one of the only major networks not to call the election and our view is, of course, we're waiting for the states to certify and see what the final result is, and we're also encouraging the president to begin the possibility of a transition, even if that is not certified yet. >> and before you respond, john, a little history lesson on christopher ruddy. i want to remind folks, the founder of newsmax was best known before he founded that cable channel for this crazy -- for being the chief reporter on a crazy conspiracy that, somehow, ron brown was murdered seconds before a plane crash which did kill ron brown.

the point is, is that this is sort of -- newsmax has had -- it's founded by a conspiracy theorist. what is happening to the messaging to the right side of the aisle in this country? >> it's very hard to fathom. look, i'm a conservative. i got into this fight 40 years ago about smaller government and lower taxes and traditionalist values and a strong military. and that 40 years later, i and people like me are being put in the position of being accused of disloyalty because we do not buy into the notion that from his grave seven years ago, hugo chavez paid off the governor of georgia, the republican governor of georgia, in a pay-or-play scheme to fix voting machines whose results were just verified by a hand recount, that we are, somehow, being put in the position of having to say, it's

okay that this go on this way because the president has every legal right to contest and we don't really have certification. like, this is where you get off the train, when you are asked to take the train to crazy town and then move to crazy town and then send nuclear missiles to strike normal town. >> john, when do we get back to normal town and what happens on your side of the aisle if this splintering doesn't end? >> well, you know, people think that, as hallie said, that trump has a strategy. what if his strategy is stupid? i mean, i'll give you an example. so, in 2018, as the midterm elections were coming, trump, instead of pushing the strong economy, he sort of went with this two-week message about evil caravans coming up from central america and how this was going to turn the tide and win the republicans the house. and in fact, the democrats slaughtered him. what if this strategy is a bad strategy? what if it's dumb?

what if he actually doesn't know how to win and he only really knows how to lose? >> right. he's yet to win the popular vote yet. lost the popular vote by a greater margin this time than four years ago. when we come back, it turns out the counties we thought would play a big role in this election did exactly that, and then some. stick with us. hat, and then some. stick with us.

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welcome back. "data download" time. and a final look at our county-to-county project. each piece told the story of different trends that would help determine the 2020 election, and i think we learned a lot. first up, beaver county near pittsburgh, representing mr. trump's base. he won the county big in 2016, but he won it big again, but he did lose a point from four years ago, and it was those narrow margins that did matter in pennsylvania. let's go to milwaukee county. could mr. biden increase black voter turnout to flip the state back to blue? the answer, yes. he improved on hillary clinton and, more importantly, won the state. he netted his 20,000 votes just out of milwaukee. kent county, michigan, home to gerald ford and wealthier establishment republicans, they supported trump barely in 2016 but not in 2020. biden flipped the county and the state. grand rapids goes blue. maricopa county, encompassing phoenix and its surrounding suburbs, home to latinos, seniors, 60% of arizona's population. mr. trump narrowly carried it in

2016. this year, biden flipped the county and the state. by the way, first time since harry truman that a democrat carried that county. finally, there was miami-dade, in florida. we knew it wouldn't be a swing county, but with the charge that democrats embrace socialism resonate with the large cuban and venezuelan communities? the answer was a resounding yes. four years ago, hillary clinton carried it by 29 points. this time, biden won the county, but by just seven. the margin that donald trump got out of florida and cut into the hillary clinton lead was basically how he carried the entire state. these five counties turned out to be crucial in the 2020 election. we'll watch these and others for signals to 2022 and beyond. when we come back, the changing faces of congressional leadership. sorry, not true. same old same old, after the break. sorry, not true. same old same old, after the break. if you have medicare, listen up.

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welcome back. the panel is back. anna palmer, it was election week for congressional leaders this week, and both the house and the senate are being run by the same folks, essentially, that we've had for quite some time. in fact, take a look at what we put together here. nancy pelosi's been leader of the democrats since '03. mitch mcconnell's been leader since '07. the entire democratic leadership's been there since '03. what's remarkable, eight congresses, four presidents, three changes of control of the house, two changes of control of the senate. that's prerunoffs, we could have three. same as it ever was, to quote david byrne here, anna palmer.

why is it, if congress is so unpopular, everybody is so upset that both pelosi and mcconnell have such strangleholds over their caucuses? >> listen, the capitol's all about power, who has it, who wields it, and who wants it, and both speaker pelosi and leader mcconnell are very good at what they do. they have basically complete control of their caucus and conference, and there's a lot of people wondering, particularly on pelosi, is this her last term? she's been asked about it repeatedly, but she's going to stay as long as she wants. she basically played a flawless hand for trump's term, where she was able to have impeachment get done, they were able to do a trade deal and all kinds of different things as well as hold the president's feet to the fire. and so, while there's frustration, certainly, about the fact that she's 80, the fact that her leadership team, they're all 80 or 81 years old, no one is willing to challenge her. and you can't win with nobody. that's what she always says, and it's a good thing to remember. >> you know, eddie, take it from

the -- you're the least washington of our group here, although podhoretz will take a little bit of an issue with me on that. how does this look? which -- i mean, the congressional leadership, it really doesn't change in this country. >> well, yeah. in some ways, it's a reflection of the problem in some ways. look, chuck, i think it's important for us to note that last year, millennials outnumbered baby boomers. and baby boomers continue to define the kind of broad framework of the country. and what we do know just very clearly is that the ideological stream, the kind of spectrum, how we think of american politics, is much more muddled out in the world than it is in d.c. and so, part of what i think we need to do in order to get beyond some of the gridlock, to get beyond some of the traditional sorts of blockages, as it were, is to shake up leadership and have that leadership actually reflect the experiences of the majority of the country. so, let's see. let's see what happens. we have some folks on the bench -- joaquim jefferies, some

folks coming up, the squad, katie moore. there are young folk in the congress who can actually come in and do some really interesting things in terms of pushing the needle forward with what the country needs, chuck. >> you know, john, both pelosi and mcconnell, the reason why i think their colleagues trust them so much is, well, they understand the process and they know how to manipulate the process, which -- but neither of them get praise for passing legislation, if you will. >> right. well, i mean, i think one of the things that's going on here is that people don't actually want to do the hard work of being in congressional leadership, which is a grinding, tough, time-consuming, fund-raising, back-scratching job. and because of the nature of the modern media, particularly in the republican party, you can become a celebrity or a star by being on television much more than you can by being the chairman of a committee or being in house leadership, hoping to

rise through the ranks. you can become an alexandria ocasio-cortez without ever having to lift a finger on the house floor, and that's a new thing. and these people are actually willing to, like, stay until midnight every night to get things through whatever they have to get through, and they don't have to go on tv five times a week. >> it's an excellent point. final question, hallie. is the white house aware that mitch mcconnell may hold his perceived fate in their hands, if he just utters the words "president-elect biden"? >> well, he hasn't done it yet, chuck, and i think there is certainly an acknowledgment of that and a knowledge of that, that if senator mcconnell does that, watch the dam breaking, right? i think there's a question of when that could happen. our reporting here, the sources i've talked to, this legal fight and the president's insistence on acknowledging reality will likely stretch into december. there is, of course, that december 14th deadline, that day. who knows what will happen at that point, but keep in mind, he is hinting at a run in 2024. >> he'll never stop running. that's my feeling. that's all we have for today.

thank you all for watching. have a safe and socially distant thanksgiving. we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." they allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud. if you're unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn't exist. the country is what has to matter the most. as much as i'm a strong republican and i love my party, it's the country that has to come first. >> more republicans peel away from the president as his election lawsuits continue to go nowhere fast. the question is, what good will it do firing a controversial lawyer when the lawyer is far from the only problem? >>