primary, would be well, you didn't win last time. w why would you win this time? >> exactly. >> so, if trump can maintain the sense of polls show is a widely believed view by republicans, that the vote was stolen from him. that's a line of attack. >> this would be one of the epistemmic tests for party members to see if you're cadre in the new republican party. it would be like, did donald trump lose in 2020? if you say yes, you are out of line with what the party has decreed. that is not the reality. you need to get in line. thank you for making time tonight. that is "all in" this tuesday night. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> good evening chris. much appreciated. in the second week of august, democratic presidential nominee joe biden announced he had

picked a running mate. he had picked california senator kamala harris. that announcement was greeted very positively across the spectrum except by the president. so, that seems like a good sign off the bat. the biden campaign received a record surge of new donations after the harris announcement. there were signs in the polling that the choice approved his chances of winning the general election all in all. this was seen as a very successful vice presidential announce. it has continued to be a successful choice by all visual measures. they won the general election after all. biden's choice of harris gave him a measurable burst of momentum and good will and additional financing on the way to that goal. all good. right after the harris announcement was made, which among other things drove a big burst of new traffic to the

biden campaign website, among other things, lots of people wanting to donate to biden for the first time. right around that time, the tech website mashable right clicked on the biden campaign website. did you ever do that by accident? if you're a tech literate person. if you speak computer code, i'm sure you do this sort of thing on purpose. but if you don't speak code, if you're at a technical luddite like me and like most people, you only ever do this by accident because this is what it looks like when you do it. for example, i think we can put on the screen here. this is the website for our tv show. this is what it looks like when you go there normally. but if you right click on it to inspect the source code, this is what pops up, right? which is neat. that's the guts of the website. that's the code that builds it, but it's also completely greek to me, right? completely greek unless you know what all that means. and it's not just my website.

here's the very famous, very tidy front page of the "new york times." very familiar looking until you right click on it to inspect the source code. and this is what that looks like. this is what you get. and sure enough, to some people, not just the people who write this stuff, but to a lot of people who know how to read this stuff, this is very coherent. this might even be poetry. this makes a lot of sense. but for most of us old faux gis and non-technical folks, this is hard to understand. but when the biden campaign, back in august, announced kamala harris was going to be the running mate for joe biden and they got this huge boost of momentum and attention and traffic to the biden campaign website, the tech website mashable went to the biden campaign website and they did that right click thing to inspect the code behind the biden campaign web page. and this is what they found. the biden website folks had

embedded something into the source code of their website. they embedded this. wear a mask. they spelled it out amid the source code for the web page right above the code for the lending page where you could go buy biden branded face masks. oh, kids these days. they dropped that little thing there-in there only for people who know how to find it, only for people who would be looking. they did that around the time they announced harris. they've also just done it now. after the trump administration relented last night and agreed to belatedly, begrudgingly officially start the transition, the biden/harris transition website which is called build back better, it changed over to a .gov. that's an official government thing funded by and run by the

federal government. so, their website is now a government website. and as previous administrations have done during their transitions, the biden/harris transition has put out on that web page a public call for people to apply for jobs in the new administration. see that sort of yellow-colored inset there. join the biden-harris administration. we are building an administration that looks like america. join us. and then there's that big blue button that you're supposed to click on to submit your résume. but look. there's a secret embedded thing. if you don't just click there to submit your résume, if you right click there because you know computer code you want to read the source code that makes this tick, if you are code literate enough to be looking at the guts of the website and not just clicking on it normally like the rest of us, here's something for you. see what it says there. if you're seeing this, we need your help with building back

better, with the link to apply for administration jobs. which means you tech savvy person, we want to consider joining the administration. we need you. which is very smart. that's, like, putting help wanted ads for bouncers up at the local gym. or it's like trying to recruit new high-level diplomats among people who have actually worked doing diplomacy or to recruit high level national security people among people who have already worked doing high level national security stuff. today vice president-elect joe biden held an event in delaware to roll out the first selections for his cabinet, for his top national security officials. and you know there's always something kind of special. there's always a little bit of excitement around watching a new administration take shape. whether you like that new administration come in or not,

watching the new high ranking officials for the new administration get announced, it's like watching history right in front of you. and days and months and perhaps nears to come, we'll have stories to tell. we'll understand modern american history being made by all the people who you see in this frame. today we saw them all at once and saw jaden and kamala harris talk about all them. it's something to watch today. it's president-elect holding his first cabinet rollout. it's happening in the midst of this pandemic and in the wake of the most chaotic, disorganized administration in history. today in grave, grave contrast to every everything done every day of trump administration, today was organized. it was weird. it was like they had it together. they thought it through. these decisions they were making about the government were deliberate decisions made and not an impulsive thing they

misspelled and misunderstood and threw together with no notice in a way that made no sense. the way they rolled it out, the whole crew, joe biden, kamala harris, new six appoint tee walked out in masks, keeping six feet social distance, marks on the floor to keep them six feet apart the whole time. each of them spoke at that podium standing alone, distanced from everybody else on the stage. but in between each appointees remarks, a staffer came out and disinfected the podium before each speaker came up, between each speaker. it's not just them taking that visible responsibility around covid, allowing themselves to be seen taking it seriously, listening to these remarks today from the new senior members of the biden administration, all these picks, they're all sort of these technocratic, non-flashy,

very experienced people with decades of experience in their field, almost all of them widely respected, all unquestionably qualified for what they're doing and all viewed as smart, good, decent people. pinch me. is this -- which country is this? uts almost unsettling today to have this clear impression that these people who were just picked by the president-elect were not picked because, you know, the president liked that someone called the guy mad dog once and that sounded cool. or the person was like the wedding planner for somebody else's son so sure that person should be in charge of federal housing in the northeast of the united states of america. you forget what it feels like to not see people appoint their kids to senior adviser jobs, right? you forget what it feels like to see technocratic public servants who are inarguably

hyperqualified for their jobs and ready to do them. and prepared. and they're at an organized event that makes sense that's taking seriously their responsibilities for high levels of governance and is executed flawlessly. what country is this? i think i remember a country like this. after the last four years we have had at this moment in our nation's history, just like -- it felt like you could exhale for a moment. >> my late step father samuel pizar was one of 900 children in his school in poland but the only one to survive the holocaust after four years in concentration camps. at the end of the war, he made a break from a death march into the woods in bavaria. from his hiding place, he heard a deep rumbling sound. it was a tank, but instead of the iron cross, he saw painted on its side a five-pointed white star. he ran to the tank.

the hatch opened. an african-american gi looked down at him. he got down on his knees and said the only three words that he knew in english that his mother had taught him before the war, god bless america. that's who we are. that's what america represents to the world, however imperfectly. now, we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence. the department of homeland security has a noble mission to help keep us safe and to advance our proud history as a country of welcome. for 12 years i had the privilege to stand in a federal courtroom and announce alejandro mayorkas on behalf of the united states of america. the words, on behalf of the united states of america, meant everything to me and to my parents. my father and mother brought me to this country to escape communism.

they cherished our democracy and were intensely proud to become united states citizens, as was i. >> i will never forget that my role on this team is unique. better than that of a policy adviser, i will represent to you congress and the american public, the patriots who comprise our intelligence community. mr. president-elect, you know that i have never shied away from speaking truth to power, and that will be my charge as director of national intelligence. >> sir, we will be vigilant in the face of enduring threats from nuclear weapons to terrorism. but you have also tasked us with re-imaging our national security for the unprecedented combination of crises we face at home and abroad, the pandemic, the economic crisis, the climate crisis, technological disruption, threats to democracy, racial injustice and inequality in all forms.

the work of the team behind me today will contribute to progress across all of these fronts. >> no one should doubt the determination of this president and vice president. they shouldn't doubt the determination of the country that went to the moon, cured supposedly incurable diseases and beat back global tyranny to win world war ii. the road ahead is exciting, actually. it means creating millions of middle class jobs. it means less pollution in our air and ocean. it means making life healthier for citizens across the world. and it means we will strengthen the security of every nation in the world. >> in the years that i've worked in government, i'm always struck by how only in america would we be where we are today, where live can be hard and cruel but there's hope in the struggle.

there's promise in our dreams, where you learn to believe in yourself and that anything is possible. >> and on this day i'm thinking about the american people, my fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world. i want to say to you america is back. multilateralism is back. diplomacy is back. >> diplomacy is back. america is back. that's linda thomas-greenfield, next ambassador to the united nations and avenue vil haines and john kerry, alejandra mayorkas and tony blinken talking about his step father who escaped the death camps and the holocaust and was rescued as a child by an american tank crew. this is some of the high profile

faces of the new u.s. government after the trump era. those are the folks that we're going to get. we've got a lot to get to tonight. samantha power who was un ambassador under president obama, one of the high profile of the national security apparatus and the diplomatic apparatus in the obama administration. she's going to be here live with us in just a moment. i'm looking forward to talking to her. we're keeping an eye on some of the stuff that the trump white house appears to be deliberately monkey wrench as they head out the door. i continue to maintain that this stuff they've been doing has been way too low profile. i know it has been distracting to have the president claiming he secretly won the election and there's some means which he's going to fight to overthrow the results. what's really been happening is that the actual transition has involved trump administration officials messing stuff up on purpose in advance of biden and his team getting there. in some cases in ways that have

potentially profound implications for national security. last night, for example, we talked about the outgoing trump administration suddenly announcing now after the election during the lame duck that they are not only pulling the united states out of the open skies treaty, which among other things lets us fly surveillance flights over russia. they're not only pulling us out of they treaty, they're detroying the airplanes that are used by us to conduct those overflights under that treaty. so, even if the incoming biden administration wants to rejoin that treaty, which is not a stretch, president -- ex-vice president biden, candidate biden criticized the trump administration very strongly when they said they wanted to pull out of that treaty. but if president biden wants to get back into the treaty, well good luck to him. even if he puts the u.s. back in the treaty nominally, he won't have the actual ability to do those surveillance flights over russia anymore because trump is literally destroying the planes

that are approved to do that surveillance. right now. after the election in the lame duck. one u.s. official telling "the wall street journal" that these highly specialized surveillance planes used for the open skies treaty are being, quote, liquidated right now by the trump administration. "air force" magazine has since tried to follow up on what the heck is going on. look at what "air force" magazine found. this is a perfect snapshot of what is going on in national security stuff as the trump administration is apparently trying to figure out ways to burn stuff down on the way out the door. quote, many details of how the u.s. military will wind down its participation in open skies are still murky. federal officials are keeping maximum on the process of offloading the jets. what will happen to the airmen who fly and maintain those jets as well as the pictures collected by the overflights. and if there's work to an

alternative to a plane-based intelligence gathering which will end. a spokesman which manages the aircraft and the 45th reconnaissance squadron referred questions about pulling out of the open skies treaty, referred questions, to the office of the secretary of defense. a spokesperson at the office of the secretary of defense referred questions to u.s. strategic command back at air force base in nebraska. a strategic command spokesperson referred questions to the u.s. state department. the u.s. state department in turn directed questions back to the pentagon, the pentagon referred questions to the air force and the air force declined to comment. so, that's how we're handling us pulling out of this decades-old international treaty that allows us to surveil russian military operations not only for our own purposes but also to help our allies n. europe, we're pulling

out, liquidating the planes we use for that surveillance. and who do we ask about this? even the airmen at the air base in nebraska who have been doing this program do, they still have jobs? what are they supposed to be doing? ask the secretary of defense. ask stratcom back at the air base. no, ask the state department. state department says ask the pentagon. the pentagon says ask the air force. the air force says no comment. this is how it's going. this is how they're handling the transition even on national security matters, active ones. not just matters of policy, matters of literal equipment being destroyed as we speak. but nbc news reports tonight that the biden transition today made contact with all federal agencies, including the white house. some agency teams began arranging their first transition meetings today, approximately 20 transition meetings, first meetings, took place today in

this first day after president trump finally relented and allowed last night that the transition would be allowed to begin. biden campaign made this statement, quote, career staff at federal agencies have been responsive, receptive and helpful. notice they said career staff there. many career staff have been preparing for this moment for several months. their work is greatly appreciated as we begin making up for some lost time. yeah, making up for some lost time to say the least. making up for four years of lost governance as well. tick tock, samantha power is next. stay with us. tock, samantha pos next stay with us student loan debt. ♪ they were able to give me a personal loan so i could pay off all of my credit cards. i got my mortgage through sofi and the whole process was so easy. ♪ choosing sofi was literally one of the best decisions i could have ever made because it gave me peace of mind. ♪

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here's a moment from president obama's big new memoir. how the u.s. should respond to the uprising in egypt. this is january 2011 part of the arab spring sweeping across the

mideast. they're a long time u.s. ally at this point even though he's a dictator. our ally, israel in particular didn't want to see him overthrone in egypt. in cairo, the demonstrations continued to swell as did violent clashes between protesters and police. i consulted by national security team. the group was divided almost entirely along generational lines. the older and more senior members of my team, joe biden, hillary clinton, gates, pan eta counseled caution. they acknowledged the need to press the egyptian leader on reform, they warned there was no way of knowing who or what might replace them. meanwhile, samantha power, ben rods, dennis mcdonagh, susan rice and tony blinken, they were convinced that mu bar ras hck h

lost rather than escalating force against protesters. they considered it prudent and right for the u.s. to align itself with the forces of change. i shared both the hopes of my younger advisers and the fear of my older ones. ultimately the u.s. government, the obama administration, sided with the protesters and called for mu bar rack to step down. at one point he describes man is at that power and ben rods as evoking by own youthful idealism, the part of me still untouched by cynicism, dressed as wisdom. even though this wasn't even a decade ago, those folks now can no longer be seen as the scrappy young upstarts clashing with the

establishment. i mean, they are the foreign policy establishment now. tony blinken, who again is described there as joe's national security adviser in obama's book, he is now president-elect joe biden's choice for secretary of state. susan rice was on joe biden's very, very short list for vice president. she's assumed to be under consideration for a major role in his administration. samantha power succeeded. she is unquestionably one of the preimminent questions in the democratic party and in the united states of america. so, yes everyone around the biden transition is carefully reading samantha powers' new essay on foreign affairs in which she argues rejoin treaty. she says the new president will have to grapple with the widespread knew in on key domains the u.s. doesn't have the competence to be trusted. restoring american leadership must include the more basic task of showing that the u.s. is a

capable problem solver once more. tall order. joining us now is samantha power, former u.s. ambassador to the united nations. also author of the memoir "the education of an idealist," which is excellent. it's really nice to have you here tonight. thanks for making the time. >> always. >> president-elect biden has introduced some of the senior appointees that he's making in the national security and diplomatic fields. many, if not all of the people on the stage with them today i know are people you've worked with in various capacities. i just have to ask your reaction to these announcements that he's made and what it should tell us about what kind of president he'll be. >> i found today indescribe bli moving. i think you saw on that stage the resurrection of appreciation for expertise, the invocation of science and facts, the respect

for the work force that so many of the people coming in as political appointees but wanted to signal or stress already how much they valued those people who have slogged it out for these four years and remained and tried to buck some of the worst tendencies of the trump political appointees. but also, rachel, i've got a kleenex box here that's a little emptier than it was when the day started because i think a number of the speakers talked as well about something that we haven't heard much of this last four years, which is america as an idea. and there's so much, of course, that's wrong with, you know, how things have gone in so many domains. but the fact that tony blinken can talk about what america represented for his step father as he's getting liberated by an african-american gi, that he could talk about his grandfather fleeing the p fleeing russia, that mayorkas is

going to be the first lieutenant to run dhs. that would be the agency that stephen miller has exerted unprecedented over from the white house, of the agency that has helped separate parents from their children. and here we have somebody who fled the communist regime in cuba running that agency and reinjecting humanity and compassion and recognition that it is in america's interest to be a welcoming country. look where the vaccine is going to come from, right? it's companies that are led by immigrants or children of immigrants. and that understanding just purr vaded what went on today. last thing, i guess, i was very struck by jake sullivan who will be team captain in the cockpit of the situation room. but he has run domestic policy of late. he's a long time national security hand. but his understanding, having helped oversee biden's domestic policy agenda, the pandemic

response, the build back better. but for him now to be running foreign policy with such an unusual for a national security actor, an unusual appreciation of the domestic policy agenda, the domestic constraints, domestic landscape, need for constituencies, the need for the foreign policy to serve the middle class, it's unusual and exceptional. it was a rare, great, clean day, if i may. >> the argument that you made in print in this latest essay that you just published about restoring faith in american competence, not just america's desire to play a leading role in world affairs and to play protective and beneficial and supportive role to our allies, but our ability to do so kind of hit me where it hurts because i feel like the whole idea of, you know, america first and america alone, it sort of makes sense that that comes from the political right because it goes easily with this anti-government

idea that the united states shouldn't try to do things around the world and we shouldn't even try to do things necessarily to help our own people because government is inherently incompetent and inherently bad. and therefore the real role of government should be quite small and people should fend for themselves. thais self-fulfilling prophecy if you bring that role into governance. if you spend the four years hollowing out and denigrating the use of the function in the agencies. i'm worried and i have to ask how worried are you that the trump administration has hobbled the ability of the u.s. government to do right, to do well when it comes to things like distributing a vaccine or being a responsible member of an international treaty. >> well, the case and point of course is the response to the pandemic. and nothing, no single event i think in recent, at least, american history has done more visible damage to america's standing in the world than having such a high per capita

infection and death rate. so, this is the country of silicon valley, the country of henry ford and steve jobs and the man on the moon and the berlin landing. and for the rest of the world now to see us in this light, in part because of our divisions, but again because largely half of those divisions was leading in a manner that was encouraging people not to take proper precautions and not to bring the country together e at a time of national crisis. i take your point that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that the rah advantaging of environmental protection agency or the language expertise at the state department makes it heart for the president-elect and his team to come in and then reignite those elements who have so much competence to bring to bear. but a lot of people have stayed, rachel. a lot of people thought it was their civic duty and their patriotic duty to stay, to continue to fight, to throw

their body in the tracks. often they found themselves marginalized. and they may be hard to find because they may be in some basement somewhere where they've sort of tried to hang on here waiting for the return of people who valued expertise. but i do think there are opportunities. and there are opportunities that, frankly, should get bipartisan support, that involve bringing the private sector in to a partnership with government. that is that also recognizes that there are things that non-governmental actors do better than large government agencies, in particular large bureaucracies. so, a couple of the things that i mentioned in fact involved the pandemic response. we will not be able to get our economy really back on track until the global economic engine is purring again. that will not happen as long as people are dying of this virus and this pandemic in developing countries, where our supply chains extend and our trade

links reach into. so, it's in our interest to be part of a large burden-sharing effort to get the vaccine to poor countries. yes, we've ordered 800 million vaccines for the american people. and of course keeping the american people safe is the commander in chief's responsibility, but so too is getting america back to work. so, there's an example where partnering with private foundations of course like bill gates but also the same companies who are making the vaccine along with returning to the world health organization, co-vax, this global vaccine alliance. there's a way to be back at the table and show casing what america has to offer well beyond restoring this or returning to that, dog something new and fresh and meeting people in their hour of great need. i also think education and our universities, what a way to show case what america still has to offer in terms of intellectual capital than to welcome back international students, which by the way is a huge source of

income for our economy when we don't have a pandemic. nonetheless, trump allowed those numbers to begin to fall substantially. and for biden to make that a priority again, 20% of african leaders today, rachel, have been educated in some form in an american university. that's a gift that keeps on giving well and apart from the financial benefits and soft power benefits to showing what we still have to offer as a country. >> samantha power, former u.s. ambassador to the united nations. madam ambassador, thank you so much for being here tonight. this is a delicate and really important but also often quite moving moment in american civic discourse. thanks for helping us understand it. thanks for being here. >> thanks. we have to appreciate the good days when we have them, rachel, i believe. >> that's exactly right. something i'm worst at in the world, but you're exactly right. thank you samantha, it's good to see you. wright stay with us. hait, 's goo see you. wright stay with us. of course you've seen underwea . . . . . . . . .

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minnesota was not close. biden won minnesota by about a 7-point margin, nearly a quarter million votes. but the chair of the minnesota republican party says, do you know what? that just doesn't seem right to her. she has gone public this week with her belief that it just seems, in her words, unusual that trump would lose minnesota. she said, it seems extremely abnormal to her. the state republican chair in minnesota is named jennifer cairn han. she has been getting dragged by the minnesota press ever since for even trying to float this particular boat. but today she did get a little bit of back up when republicans filed a lawsuit in minnesota insisting that the minnesota vote cannot be certified. the process of certifying the vote in minnesota must be stopped. it cannot be allowed until there is a statewide audit of all the votes in the election.

why should certification be stopped so there can be an audit? they have a vague since there's something wrong. this cannot be the result. what's going to happen with this last-minute odd trump lawsuit in minnesota? i can cut to the chase by telling you that first of all, this lawsuit was filed wrong. it was filed without some of its important constituent parts. also, by the time they got around to finally getting this little ball of wax together, minnesota had actually already finished certifying its votes. so, lawsuit or no lawsuit, it's done now. biden won minnesota by a lot. and this failed, weird, last-minute lawsuit interruptus effort is not going to change that and it's never going to change that. trump sued in wisconsin today. that lawsuit commands that the

state shouldn't certify the results of that election at all. not just delay the certification. they want the whole election result thrown out. no election result should be certified at all and instead republicans in the wisconsin state legislature, should just be allowed to pick their own preferred winner of the presidential election. sure. why not? good luck there. the trump folks filed these lawsuits today, by the way. right. that transition started last night with the president even admitting it should just go ahead. but they're still going on with the lawsuits. i should tell you the trump campaign also announced excitedly today there's going to be a hearing by the pennsylvania state senate on the conduct of the presidential election in pennsylvania. oh, a legislative hearing in pennsylvania, even after they've just certified the vote there? they're going to hold a legislative hearing investigating the election? after certification they are? no, actually read the fine print

here. do you remember when the trump folks had their big press conference in philadelphia and the president said it was at the four seasons but it turned out it was actually in the parking lot of the four seasons landscaping company by the crematorium and the porn store. same kind of thing here. they're calling it a pennsylvania state senate hearing. this legislative hearing is not at the pennsylvania state senate. it's not at the legislature. it's not even in the capital city. it's just republicans in pennsylvania going to a hotel in gettysburg, the wyndham hotel unless perhaps it's wyndham total landscaping, and at the hotel they're going to hear a presentation from rudy giuliani. sponsored by grecian formula. this is -- i mean, they're calling this like the pennsylvania legislature is investigating the election. no, people are going to go eat rolled up sandwiches on a catering plate while they listen to rudy giuliani say the things that he said on lou dobbs.

pennsylvania certified the vote. so has minnesota. i mean, is this just going to be a constant now, right? is this just going to be a thing that trump-related voces do every day, just continue to raise money from gullible people who think rudy's going to do something other than talk. gullible people who think there's a magic rabbit to pull out of a hat that will somehow make trump king and send all the democrats to guantanamo. all certified results today. but even so still today the trump campaign filed more lawsuits including in minnesota while the vote was being certified. and in wisconsin. i mean, why are they still feeling these things even today? and importantly, are any of them more substantive than the dozens of lawsuits and complaints they have had laughed out of court

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deserves puffs indeed. republicans today filed two new lawsuits in one of those tw today certified its results. democratic super lawyer marc elias had this reaction to those two new suits being filed. he said, earlier today, i would have said 50 court losses for trump and his allies was not possible, but with these new lawsuits filed today in minnesota and wisconsin, they have a shot to get there. they are currently at 36 losses with another eight cases not yet ruled upon. could they get to 50 straight losses in the courts in these election law challenges? i mean, we know why trump and his allies filed all those flurries of bad lawsuits, sort of before yesterday. but it is -- does feel sort of different now. it feels somewhat more surprising to see them still

doing it. even now that so many states have certified their votes and the transition has started and it all does really feel quite over. are any of these continued legal efforts any more significant than the three dozen state -- straight cases they have lost since november third. why are they still doing this? joining us no su matthew sanderson. he's an election law attorney and nbc news election law analyst. mr. sanderson, it's nice to have you here. thank you very much for your time. >> great to be with you. >> so i haven't followed every twist and turn of all of the dozens of lawsuits they have filed, but i've followed a bunch of them. >> yeah. >> these ones feel -- these new ones that were just filed feel a little different. they have a slightly different cast. are they any more substantive than all of the other lawsuits that have been thrown out? >> they're not, and i think they're even less substantive than the initial round that was filed by rnc lawyers and other regular republican lawyers. i think what you're seeing now in minnesota, for example, the

lawsuit as you mentioned was too late to stop certification there. and if you look at the substance and the timing, i think it's pretty clear this is some political opportunism at play with a couple of the republican state legislators filing suits simply to gain favor with trump voters. so it seems that someone's buck for a promotion, and that's what's behind this. and you also saw this in pennsylvania when congressman mike kelly filed a junk lawsuit just recently and a lot of the speculation is that that was to help him angle in for an advantage in the coming 2022 senate primary race to fill pat toomey's seat coming up. so i think what you're seeing now is a lot of political opportunism, and it's the same rehash, recycled claims that we're all familiar with right now and i don't expect them to have any more success than the

prior batch of lawsuits. >> do judges have the ability to look at these lawsuits not just in terms of the individual cases being brought before them, but looking at them as that kind of a project that you're describing, as something that's rehashed other -- the same disproven or nonexistent claims that have been rejected by other courts. i mean, at a certain point, is there any legal risk, for example, for the lawyers who are bringing these things? they're not just being rejected narrowly by courts, it seems they're really being laughed out by court. as they keep doing it in state after state and court after kate court. consequences for the people bringing them. >> well, i think a judge will look at each case in front of them, as they should. but i think with the passage of time, what's happening now, the longer this process goes, the

more futile this whole effort is. i think you'll see progressively harsher treatment by judges. you saw over the weekend in pennsylvania a conservative judge, conservative federal judge compare the trump campaign's arguments to frankenstein's monster and really summarily dismiss the claims in front of him. i think you'll see more of that as time goes on. so i think that's more of a factor than anything. the fact that, you know, certifications are happening and a judge will not and should not overturn the will of tens of thousands of voters. that's not what the court process and the litigation process is really for. and judges realize that and i think they'll act accordingly. they have thus far certainly. >> matthew sanderson is an attorney, co-leader in the political law group of kaplan, an nbc news election laws analyst. mr. sanderson, thank you very much for being with us tonight. i appreciate you being so straight with us on this stuff.

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here's the front page of the leader telegram in wisconsin today. see the headline there "scare as hell" and then all caps below that, the subhead, "eau claire nurse reveals fear and stress for caring for covid patients. quoted, quote, i'm afraid daily i'm going to get the disease and bring it home to my family.

seeing somebody struggling to breathe is horrifying. that's wisconsin. here's ohio. the dayton daily news today. ohio hospital staff exhausted. governor mike dewine describes the rapid surge in cases as, quote, a runaway freight train. minnesota today, no beds anywhere. hospitals strained to limit by covid-19. here is lake have su city, arizona. as available beds dip towards july tallies. here's the quad city times today in iowa. "we are at a crisis point." in raleigh, north carolina, here's "the news and observer," "we are in danger." here's the reno gazette journal with a quote, i really am worried. and below that, health care system bracing amid covid-19 patient surge. below that, there's this.

one in five washoe county tests are positive for covid-19. one in five. in tennessee, here's the commercial appeal front page. quote, pastor makes plea to stay home for thanksgiving. the top headline there featuring the pastor from brown missionary baptist church in south haven. look at that heartbreaking sub headline why the pastor is making that plea. church's funeral services up 50% from the last year. this is what americans all across the country woke up to this morning as the virus continues to rage absolutely out of control. i will tell you, there is a little bit of good news today. new study from the university of utah finding statewide mask mandates help decrease covid-19 cases. they also help boost the economy because they help people to feel safe to shop more. masks help to decrease the spread of covid by as much as 50%. studies from