trouble, legal trouble, political trouble, and this person replied yes. that is all of the above. >> all of the above indeed. mike allen, thank you very much, as always, great to see you. one thing i'm watching today is for a couple of republican senators to come out and back up the president on the voter fraud questions as mitch mcconnell came out yesterday and acknowledged that there is going to be a new administration in january. thank you, guys, for getting up way too early with us on this wednesday morning. don't go anywhere. "morning joe" starts right now. wing we ai think we all kno the first of the year, there's likely to be a discussion about some additional package of some size next year depending on what the new administration wants to pursue. >> all right. a not so insignificant statement from majority leader mitch mcconnell referring to the quote new administration when talking about coronavirus relief

efforts. >> and to say, willie, that mitch mcconnell carries his words carefully is an understatement, he wanted to send a message to the president and the republican senate. >> that's the equivalent of him to say president-elect, which he hasn't been able to bring himself to say. let's stop and pause and say we're about a month away from election day, and it's news that the senate majority leader made an innuendo and hinted at the fact that the duly elected president of the united states is the next president of the united states. that's sort of where we are, it's big news that he suggested that joe biden is, in fact, the next president. >> you're right. and we'll show later some states, they're at a breaking point with this ludicrous lawsuit situation, that along with attorney general bill barr breaking with president trump over he has false claims of election fraud, and we seem to be at an inflection point. plus, new reporting that the

president had discussed pardons for his eldest three children. >> why in the world would you need a pardon if you hadn't chitted committed a crime? >> pardon me. i'm confused. >> are these the same people that stood up at trump's first convention and talked about how, if you plead the 5th, you must be guilty. >> right. >> my god, of course as michael flynn who was guilty twice and lied to the court and he got away with his federal crime, and so, again, why would you have to pardon people? let me ask you, mika, you're an expert in white houses. you started going to a white house at 9. did jimmy carter pardon amy carter before she left the -- >> no, amy had her cat and tree house and enjoyed just, you know. >> so she had her cat, and she

left with the cat, she had a tree house, she left with the tree house. but she left with her cat but didn't have to get a presidential pardon for herself or her cat. >> no, because the cat was hers. she didn't steal it. >> i'm not really good with history, but you have worked with jenna, i'm curious, both the bushes and the obamas had two children, two girls, two young girls at the time, when they left the white house, they were a little older. i cannot remember right now because they don't really dig into presidential history, but george w. bush have to pardon his two daughters or did barack obama have to preemptively pardon his two hours? is this something that just happens? >> no, it doesn't. i'm only smiling because i know

jenna so well, she must have appreciated a just in case pardon. you never know what's going to happen. this is not something that normally happens. >> i might have needed one for running over a world leader with a golf cart, but it was a mistake. >> was it? >> jared, ivanka, eric, we're allconnect 1200

in a rare break from the president told the associated

press that the justice department has not found any evidence of voter fraud that would overturn an election that joe biden won. he also said there was nothing to substantiate any claims about the wild theory surrounded voting systems that trump and his allies keep saying were rigged. this is the attorney general bill barr. barr was actually at the white house on tuesday for what the white house stressed was a previously scheduled meeting with the chief of staff. it was unclear if he met with trump who was yet to react to barr, but it's pretty clear how he feels if you scroll through his twitter. not happy. barr's remarks prompted a swift response from trump's legal team led by rudy giuliani who wrote in part with the greatest respect to the attorney general, his opinion appears to be without knowledge or

investigation of irregularities of fraud. the department of justice stated despite some efforts to the contrary it has not stopped investigating election fraud, and stressed if it receives credible allegations, it will continue to pursue these types of cases. to date, the trump campaign has filed 40 lawsuits, pertaining to the election, and so far none of them have found a single instance of fraud. >> what are they, one for 38? one for 39? this is the tampa bay buccaneers in the mid-70s. these guys just can't win a lawsuit. think about what attorney general barr did, and you know, i've had some friends call me up saying, oh, you look at what rudy giuliani is saying outside of the courtroom, you look at what sydnidney powell is saying outside of the courtroom, there's a lot of the"they're"

there. what they're willing to put in the pleadings in federal court, those are two completely different things. one is just bs, one is just a press conference where you're just trying to stir up a cloud of dust, but when you put your name on a pleading and you allege widespread voter fraud in a pleading inside federal court, you have set yourself up for sanctions. that's always been the real tell here. they would say, oh, widespread voting fraud outside the courthouse. rudy giuliani won't claim it inside the white house. he knows he doesn't have the evidence, knows he might be disbarred. and so you just go up and down the food chain, and whether you're talking about the attorney general of the united states, whether you're talking about the secretary of state for georgia, whether you're talking about the governor of arizona,

or the maricopa county republican board of electors or whether you're talking about a single bureaucrat on a local level who refuses to break the law and not certify the vote these republicans all talk a big game but when it's time to actually undermine the election. when it's time to actually put their legal future on the line, suddenly they do the right thing. >> yeah, that's the point exactly, when they go into the courtroom, they're actually not making the case that there's voter fraud. they have said it out loud, this is not a fraud case. rudy giuliani said, in pennsylvania. the rest of it, what you saw there, rudy giuliani's statement about attorney general bar, it's theater, what they're calling hearings. they're not hearings, state by

state, they're meetings, many in hotel rooms organized by republicans in the states and made to look like hearings. it's a show, they're not making this case in court, and as you say, they have been losing again and again in court as officials across the country, many of them republicans as you rightly say are standing up and saying, no, you can't come in and meddle with our election. in georgia, we saw an extraordinary moment where an elections official admonished the president of the united states and said knock it off. stop, people are going to get hurt. we're getting death threats in our office. a lot of us voted for you, supported you, we're republicans. knock it off. we'll play that moment in a bit, but yes, this is thee oretical with a lot of consequence. jonathan lemire, nbc news capitol hill correspondent, casey hunt, "new york times"

reporter and msnbc national security analyst, and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, an nbc news national security analyst, jeremy bash. good morning to you all. jeremy, let me start with you. what is the significance of attorney general barr making that public statement about fraud yesterday even if he did later walk it back a bit or the justice department did say we're still looking into it but so far we have found no evidence of widespread fraud. what does it mean that he came out and said that? he's stating the obvious and i personally don't think we should applaud him or stand up and give him credit for stating what we know which is that joe biden won this election with more than 81 million votes, a difference of more than 6 million votes in the popular vote and 306 electoral college victory margin. i don't think we should give the attorney general credit for stating a fact anymore and i don't think we should applaud a republican if they stand up and say, no, we shouldn't throw out

african-american votes in wayne county or count the votes of all voters: that's not in dispute and not particularly heroic to state. i don't think we should give him any credit. i think the walls are closing in on bill barr, he knows he had to acknowledge something, basically the bear minimum he could get away with and took other measures to placate the audience of one, placate trump on his way out. willie. >> let's talk about the other big story that broke last night. first start with a story that you had later in the afternoon that rouge was shopping around looking for a pardon. late last night, news breaking about the chief judge for the dc circuit and releasing information about a possible bribery scandal involving pardons, what can you tell us? sfl f s

>> for a long time, there have been concerns around the president about how he handles pardons, he did it for friends and allies. he was not playing in the normal pardon process. he wasn't having the pardon attorneys at the justice department provide recommendations that he was following, and applications to sort of right wrongs of justice. these were trinkets he was handing out. we have suspicions about how the pardon practice is practiced. you were saying there's this federal judge in washington who released pages and pages of documents from a ruling about whether the government can look at materials, what documents show is the justice department has been investigating whether there's a conflict in prison who has a lawyer and someone else working for them, and one of those people may have been

interacting with the white house, offering to make political donations or funnel some money of some type in exchange for a commutation, getting someone out of prison early or a pardon, some form of that, and there was this sort of full blown federal investigation into this. such a full blown investigation that the government had electronics that they wanted to look at and see whether they were protected by attorney general privilege. so this was going on in the summer and the fall, that coming out last night, along with these reports that we have had about the president talking to giuliani last week about the possibility of a pardon, about a preemptive pardon, and the president's concerns and discussions that he's had that his children will need pardons as well because he thinks that a biden justice department will

seek retribution against him, you know, in his political gamesmanship, however he sees the world and that his children need pardons. >> so mika, let's be clear. his children and jared may be in trouble legally not because of a biden department of justice but because the senate intel committee passed along criminal referrals for both don jr. and jared kushner. let me say that again, the news broke, i guess it was about a month ago, that the republican run senate intel committee passed along criminal referrals for don jr. and for jared kushner so, no, this is not a biden thing. this is a republican senate intel committee thing. >> and kasie hunt, with news

breaking like that, and we say this over and over again, with this news breaking, will this lead to republicans break something. >> no. >> i mean, my question for you is even behind the scenes, are there any republicans who have been staunchly sticking by this corrupt gang of people around the president and the president himself. don't they see? are they blind? are they blind to these headlines and to the people that they're attaching themselves to and blindly defending? how long can they do this and still survive with, i don't know, something remote to what might have been their core values, how about their commitment to the country or the oath to the offices they took? >> well, i think what joe just said about what has actually unfolded, the actions that have been taken quietly, privately in a classified setting tells you a

lot about what you need to know about where actual feelings are. however, you are correct that so far publicly, and remember, we trust what is leadership, what is the definition of political leadership, it is public, speaking to the people that you lead. they are not doing that right now, and right now, they are in this vice that is the two senate runoff elections in georgia, and i don't anticipate that anything fundamental changes for republicans here. they have been worried this entire time about their political standing, their own political futures and that's all hinging on two races in georgia, whether they have power or not. that's hinging on making sure they don't set off the still president of the united states kwh who has been out there saying and suggesting that the election be called off entirely, that the votes can't be trusted, that

republicans shouldn't go out there and vote for these two senators, although it's been more of his conservative allies and conservative media, that have made the suggestions that are driving republican senators crazy. we started off the show with mitch mcconnell saying, acknowledging, using the phrase new administration. they know what's happening. no one is under any illusion that anything else is going to happen here. but they are choosing to continue to approach this the way they have for the last four years. >> and you know, catty k, the man, guinness book of world records has called the dumbest senator to ever be sworn in in this constitutional republic, i'm speaking of course of ron johnson said that william barr must show his evidence that he has no evidence. mr. attorney general, you must prove a negative. seriously, the stupidity makes my teeth hurt.

>> yeah, impossible to ask somebody to provide evidence of having no evidence. of course, i do wonder whether beyond the january the 5th runoff in georgia you're even then going to see republicans here in washington break from president trump because all he has to do is carry on saying i'm going to run. whether he announces that on inauguration or some other moment, all he has to do is say 2024 is going to be all about me. all he has to do is say that, and you're going to see this incredible silence from republicans in washington who are worried about being primaried and worried about trump's continued roles in the primaries. i think this stretches beyond the georgia runoff. they may be telling themselves, this is about georgia and saving the senate for the republicans. i don't know how they get out of this. this is a machiavellian power that donald trump holds over this hem. >> and you hear the news that

president trump wants to have his own announcement on inauguration day that he doesn't plan to attend, willie, the inauguration, which is part of the peaceful transfer of power to show visually, symbolically that there is a transition taking place. i would imagine he would even give republicans a choice as to where they are going to show up that day. that would be very trump. >> you can see that. there's some axios reportings that says he's planning an event on inauguration day that he won't attend. nbc has matched the reporting, that he will not attend the inauguration, will not perform the visual representation of our transfer of power on inauguration day and may launch his 2024 campaign, whether or not he follows through after launching it remains another matter. jonathan la me jonath jonathan lemire, you can weigh into all of this. obviously he is backed into a corner, spends his days tweeting

out conspiracy theories about this election, all of which have been disproven at this point, and all to keep the ball in the air, and by the way, raising a ton of money doing it. >> there's an expectation in trump's circle long before election day that if he were to lose there was no chance on january 20th he would appear at the capitol with then incoming president-elect joe biden as he takes the oath and trump would be there clapping along. that's never been believed to be in the cards. we know he is indeed toying with the idea of announcing his candidacy right there on inauguration day which would be a remarkable split careen ascre show of defiance, and what we have been talking about, his hold on the republican parties. how would other members of the party, senators, congressmen, in any other inauguration day would be there to note the incoming president, even if it was a president not of their party,

and yet here they would be doing so and risking the wrath of the outgoing president, one that's trying to be viable. and whether or not he declares that, it's clear he's going to remain as relevant as possible and to make money. an adviser said the biggest adjustment for donald trump is not being in every headline. he's going to do his dammenedes to keep that up. there's no effort, no belief, no hope that any legal challenges will come to fruition. the president wants to see the fight continue. bill barr of course yesterday threw a lot of cold water on that in an interview with my colleague at the associated press saying he didn't find any of this evidence. he was then -- had a meeting at the white house. we should know it was previously scheduled before the interview, though it did last three hours or so, and he did offer an olive

branch to the president, saying the john durham approach would be a special counsel matter and would persist into the biden administration. this is a president whose inner circle is growing smaller and smaller of some discussion of possible pardons. there are very few he's listening to, very few aides that he's taking his counsel. meadows, giuliani, they are urging him to keep up the appearance of the fight, to lay the groundwork for what his next move might be. >> jeremy bash, again, every republican who has to sign on the dotted line, to claim there's widespread fraud refuses to do it because they understand they could be sanctioned for it or there could be, there could be actually even criminal liability attached to deliberately trying to overturn the democratic will of millions

of people. >> that's right, joe, and think about what those republicans would have to sign up to. they would have to sign up to the melting rudy theory that hugo chavez who died in 2013 somehow helped joe biden win in 2020. i can't say it with a straight face. it's so ridiculous, which is why as you point out, no one is backing up the trump legal team on these issues, not even his own hard core inner circle attorney general who has done everything else for the man, who's laid down across the tracks, and sacrificed the truth for the man. not even he can bring himself to say there was voter fraud. think about how ridiculous the claim will be. >> michael smith what's next in the investigation, in the case, regarding bribery and the pardons. do you know what stage are we at, and any idea who's actually involved in that?

>> just picking up on what other folks were saying. so putting aside whether, you know, the fact that it's news that the attorney general essentially acknowledged the score board of the election or, you know, what next republican senator may come out and say whatever or whether trump will be at the inauguration, putting all of that aside, i think the damage has already been done here. i think that -- and i just think that's the most important thing that has happened over the past month is that this trump face, which is obviously not small, which was -- obviously grew in the election has been fed this narrative over and over and over again in hours and hours, if not days or weeks long of coverage about the integrity of an election. and i just don't think you can turn that off and tell that base to forget about that.

and that we as a country will be unspooling that and what that means and what that has set that base off in whatever direction it has for months, if not longer to come. i just -- it is just -- we have seen before when the conservative media echo chamber gets behind a narrative, they really push the base in that direction. it starts all the way back in 2012 with the benghazi attack. and it's just an incredibly powerful force and in this case, it's about the most basic american function, the democracy, the voting, and i just don't -- i just think the unspooling of that is going to be very consequential. >> so michael schmidt and jeremy bash, thank you both very much for being on this morning. as we watch this play out. and still ahead on "morning

joe," we'll play for you the impassioned plea from a top republican election official in georgia calling on president trump and republican senators to stop promoting conspiracy theories that have led to violent threats leveled against election workers. plus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has announced a new coronavirus relief plan. we'll take a look at where stimulus negotiations stand on capitol hill as hospitalizations continue to spike across the country. and today, joe continues the conversation about his new book "saving freedom, truman, the cold war and the fight for western civilization" among his appearances will be a virtual discussion for the commonwealth club this afternoon. you can get more information about that event by clicking on our site.

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the united kingdom has become the first major western country to approve the use of the covid-19 vaccine from pfizer and biontech, this morning a spokesperson for the uk's department of health and social care announced the news of the vaccine approval saying quote the vaccine will be made available across the uk from next week. the two dose pfizer vaccine has proven to be 95% effective and must be stored at arctic temperatures. so far, only russia and china have approved vaccines without conclusive test results. scientists have criticized that. the united states will make its decision on emergency use authorization of the available

covid vaccines when the fda meets on december 10th to decide on the pfizer vaccine and december 17th for the moderna vaccine. health care workers and nursing home residents will be at the front of the line when the vaccine is available. yesterday, the center for disease control advisory committee on immunization practices voted 13-1 to recommend giving those groups priority in the first days of the vaccine rollout. health care workers and nursing home residents represent approximately 24 million people and current estimates show that no more than 20 million doses of the pfizer and moderna vaccines will be available by the end of the year pending fda approval. 330 million people make up the united states alone. so with the rollout of the new vaccine just a few weeks away, hospitals are grappling with an

uptick of patients with covid-19. according to the covid tracking project, the u.s. hit a new record with nearly 100,000 people currently hospitalized with the virus. joining us now, president and ceo of the cleveland clinic, dr. tom mahalivac, it's very good to have you on the show again, sir. >> thank you very much. >> i guess i would like to start with what we're dealing with right now, the vaccine will come when it comes, and it will be great when it gets to everybody. until then, if you could express to us what you're seeing in terms of the up tick in numbers, what it means, and just how dangerous this moment we are in right now is? >> what we are seeing right now is a very concerning picture. we're seeing a very sharp increase in a number of patients who need our care. here at cleveland clinic, we are 3 1/2 times as many patients currently under our care due to

covid-19 infections than what we had in april. and the number continues to grow, and we expect to see even more patients in the upcoming days as a consequence of thanksgiving holidays. it is a very very concerning situation. a large number of infected patients as we are weeks away from having a vaccine in our hands. >> yeah, the consequence of the thanksgiving holiday is showing itself here. there are the lot of folks who are getting ready for christmas. you know, i can't believe i'm asking for practical advice, you know, from the head of the cleveland clinic, but should people gather, should people christmas shop? should people be, you know, doing the things that they usually do around christmas because i know many defiantly will try to. what's the advice? >> the advice is to really keep

in mind that the virus is currently everywhere, and that everyone has to keep that in the back of their mind as they're organizing or thinking about gathering. the practical advice is if you gather, please gather in a close circle with your family. make sure that you use precautions even when you gather with your dearest ones. because what we're seeing right now is that this pandemic is spreading in families, spreading exactly in the situation that you just described. when people get together with the people they know under their own roof, and that is where the guard comes down, where the masks are not being worn, when social distancing is not being put in place, and therefore we'll have to reconsider how we celebrate this coming holiday season. >> doctor, it's willie geist, it's good to have you on the show. you're warning us about what

we're hearing a lot about with doctors on the show, health care professionals themselves, nurses, doctors, care givers. you have more than a thousand of your professionals out with covid-19. what is the consequence of that, if all of these people who are in the trenches and on the front lines, if they themselves get sick, what does it look like inside your hospitals? >> there is a major difference between now, this time, in this pandemic, and where we were in march. in march, we did not have very many infected health care workers. today that number is rising and it's rising rapidly, and you're absolutely right, we have more than 1,200 of our own care givers, who are out of work because of a covid infection. on one hand, we have a rapid number of rise in patients, on the other hand, we have fewer and fewer people available to take care of them. so this is truly a very concerning trend. >> and what is the difference between march and now? why are more health care professionals getting sick than did at the beginning of this?

>> more of them are getting sick because they are getting sick outside of workplace predominantly. they're getting sick in the communities for the same reason i just mentioned. they are getting sick when they gather with their loved ones, and they are having a mask on them, their personal protective equipment in the workplace, and that is keeping them safe from infection. none of that is present when they get with people outside of the workplace. >> doctor, just thinking about what mika was asking about for christmas. in the uk there's a complicated tier system by regions and in some regions, two or three families are allowed to get together over christmas. should people in the u.s. be thinking about their local area and the transmission rate, the rate in their local area, and would that allow for some families, you know, households and families to get together over christmas or is the situation just too bad in the

u.s. that we can't take an approach like the uk? >> the situation is bad in the united states, in the vast majority of our states and to make the message simpler, i would really advise people to rethink, how are they going to celebrate this holiday season, and that would be a practical advice. all of these measures that we are seeing in the uk, we have to recognize they're arbitrary, and although the risk may be a little bit lower for the region that has nominally a lower number of covid infections it doesn't mean that you are free of risk, so the safe answer for all of the viewers watching today is please rethink how you're planning for your christmas and new years, and be safe, be safe because there's a big difference now. we have a vaccine coming. so there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we have to

persevere. >> president and ceo of the cleveland clinic, dr. tom m mahlivac, thank you very much for coming on this morning, and coming up, we're going to hear from the republican official in georgia. he made an impassioned and angry plea to the president and to top republicans to stop their dangerous pathetic power grab. he says lives are in danger. people are being threatened you'll hear it from his words coming up right here on "morning joe." s coming up right here on "morning joe. - [announcer] meet the ninja foodi air fry oven. make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away. itthe north pole has to and be feeling the heat. up,

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as president trump continues his crusade of baseless election fraud claims, he seemingly called for a halt to the high

stakes georgia senate runoff races just weeks away. he tweeted yesterday quote do something, governor brian kemp. you allowed your state to be scammed. we must check signatures and count signed envelopes against ballots, then call off election. it won't be needed. we will all win. oh, my god. the associated press notes that some establishment republicans are sounding alarms that trump's c conspiratorial denial of his defeat, may threaten about to win georgia races. >> an election official in georgia calling on president trump and republican senators to denounce violent threats levelled against election workers there. gabriel sterling, the voting system manager, made the impassioned plea after weeks of harassment directed at him,

secretary of state brad r raffensperger and his wife, and others in georgia. many who have around the clock police protection. >> i'm going to do my best to keep it together because it has all gone too far. all of it. joe digenova asked for chris krebs, a patriot who ran cisa to be shot, a 20 something tech in gwinett county today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on batches from a dms to a county computer so he could read it. it has to stop. mr. president, you have not

condemned these actions or this language. senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. this has to stop. we need you to step up and if you're going to take a position of leadership, show some. my boss, secretary rafensberg, his address is out there, they have people doing caravans around their house. they have had people come on to their property. trisha, his wife of 40 years is getting sexualized threats through her cell phone. it has to stop. this is elections. this is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. it's too much. yes, fight for every legal vote. go through your due process, we encourage you, use your first amendment, that's fine. death threats, physical threats,

intimidation, it's too much. it's not right. they have lost the moral high ground to claim that itangry. and -- and -- the straw that broke the camel's back, this 20-year-old contractor for a voting system company, just trying to do this job, just there, in fact, i talked to dominion today, he's one of the better ones they've got. his family's getting harassed now. there's a noose out there with his name on it. it's not right. i've got police protection outside my house. fine. you know? i took a higher profile job. i get it. secretary ran for office, her wife too. this kid took a job. he just took a job. and it's just wrong. i can't begin to explain the level of anger i have right now over this. and every american, every

georgian, republican and democrat alike should have that same level of anger. mr. president, it looks like you likely lost the state of georgia. we're investigating. there's always a possibility. i get it. you have the right to go to the courts. what you don't have the ability to do and need to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to commit potentialized vile. someone's going to get hurt, get shot, someone's going to get killed, and it's not right. i'm talking about senator david perdue and senator kelly lef lohr-o lo loeffler, two people that i support and i probably kind of stepped out of line but i'm kind of pissed. they called for us, sorry, calls raffensberger a fine upstanding lifelong republican the enemy of the people that opened the floodgates to this kind of crap. >> how did the senators respond?

separate statements condemning the violence, but stopped short of supporting the state's certified results. meanwhile, president trump continued to call the election "rigged" in a late-night tweet while in a statement a spokesman for the trump campaign said in part, no one should engage in threats or violence and if that has happened we condemn that. jonathan lemire, be clear. that's gabe sterling runs voting systems in the state of georgia, he's conservative, a republican, a trump supporter, as he has said many, many times say with raffensberger effectively making a plea, very explicit to turn down the temperature, knock it off before somebody gets hurt or worse and the pret quote tweets that clip we just watched and says, "rigged election" digs in deeper. we have a man there who supports him asking for some mercy and getting that instead from the president.

>> those are really powerful words, willie. i'm glad we played them this morning, and, yes, the president has not changed his tone and i don't think we should be all that surprised. let's remember, of course, president trump is both a candidate and then in office often created an atmosphere where it seemed he was encouraging violence, gave license to it. there are moments specifically that some of his early rallies where he would flat out encourage it when a protester would pop up and he would pay a person who would rough up and he's painted democrats as traitors, suggested they be tried to tried for treason a crime here in the united states if convicted calls for the death penalty. many times he suggested his political opponents or let's say immigrants here illegally were less than human, degrading them.

again, suggesting they pose add threat and perhaps violence could be the answer. we know he's given license to white supremacist groups, his comments about the proud boys. he has never suggested, hey, we may have our political differences but we're a part of the same country and there's no place for violence or threats in our political system. he has never done that and here with his back up against the wall with his days in office nushed numbered he is certainly not just calling for peace but seemingly encouraging and implicitly suggesting while a rigged election this, again, he gives license to his supporters to carry out to try to help him and that includes undermining the very fabric of our democracy and in this case threatening those who worked to preserve it.

>> kasie, talk about the part of the story you cover every day. those two senators. david perdue and kelly loeffler running in those runoff elections. said earlier mitch mcconnell and othering pulling out their hair with the president saying just cancel those elections. what does this mean for the message for gabe sterling but the president's continued downward pressure on those two runoffs? >> well, willie, i mean, watching gabriel sterling say all of that, you know, it's such an emotional plea, and it just underscores the fact that words matter. the words that our leaders use, the things that they say matter, and they lead people to action, and these actions in this kay are threatening people who are just trying to do the work that we all need them to do to make sure that our democracy

functions. and perdue and loeffler so far have clearly shown that they're more concerned about what the president says to his base in georgia than they are about what the broader state government is saying. they have called for raffensberger to resign. the secretary of state who defended the election system. they are sticking with trump all the way through this, and that's one-half of a political calculation for them. they need trump's base to turn out for them if they're going to win, but it's also clear that this is spiraling in a direction that i'm not sure anyone anticipated with the way that the president is talking about the election, and that puts them in a position that they, you know, i believe, didn't anticipate that they would be in. i think it's worth pointing out that perdue and trump actually have a pretty close personal relationship. they have spoken regularly throughout the trump

administration. perdue, a businessman in his former life. obviously he's gotten in trouble around stock trades through all of this, but he and trump share kind of a background that has led them to wering friendly in a way that not all senators are. i think that's part of this, but at the end of the day there's a huge open question about whether they're going to be able to do this with the base and still be able to appeal to the independent voters that they're going to need if they want to win these runoffs. >> all right. one final note on this. chris krebs, the man who led the election cybersecurity efforts and who was fired by trump for telling the truth, that the 2020 vote was secure. he tweeted -- this right here is leadership. this is standing up for your people. this is calling it like you see it. this is courage. be like gabriel sterling. still ahead, attorney

general bill barr deal as major blow to president trump's claims of election fraud. plus, several headlines concerning presidential pardons. first, that the justice department is investigating a potential bribery for pardon scheme inside the white house. also, discussions about preemptive pardons for trump's three eldest children and rudy guiliani? like what? a pardon that, like, covers every possible thing they could have done? what's a preemptive pardon? "morning joe" is back in a moment. when you're through with powering through, it's time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. powerful relief so you can restore and recover. theraflu hot beats cold. - [announcer] meet the make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away.

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the future is not rosy for the president. his own attorney general today, william barr, dropped a december surprise on him and in an interview with the a.p. barr said we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election. barr also appeared to throw a jab at trump saying there's a

growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as a default fix-all when people don't like something, they want the department of justice to come in and investigate. wow. so bill barr is part of the conspiracy, too! it goes so deep. >> this just -- welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday december 2nd. hard to laugh. the bbc katty kay is still with us and joining the conversation msnbc contributor mike barnicle. nbc news and msnbc news contributor shawna thomas, senior writer at politico and co-author of "the playbook" jake sherman is with us and chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" peter baker. federal investigators are looking into a potential bribery scheme involving presidential pardons. it was revealed in heavily redacted court documents pertaining to a search warrant of several offices, the opinion

was entered in late august by the chief judge for the federal court of washington, d.c., and has now been unsealed. the investigation seems to involve at least two individuals who, "acted as lobbyists to senior white house officials without registering as lobbyists to secure a pardon or reprieve of sentence for a person who appears to be known to investigators, but whose name has been redacted in the unsealed documents." the investigation also involves an alleged offer from someone whose name has been redacted of a "substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence." the documents do not name president trump or any white house officials, nor do they say whether anyone in the white house knew about the alleged scheme. the judge said that the

communications could be reviewed by investigators, because the emails included someone who is not an attorney. this political strategy to obtain a presidential pardon was parallel to and distinct from one individual's role as an attorney advocate for another individual, the ruling said, redacting both names. the white house declined to comment, but last night the president tweeted, "pardon investigation is fake news." >> okay. well, there's the tell. there's something to the investigation. peter baker. there was a pardon there that i found intriguing where it said, this -- this activity ran parallel to one of the figures in here acting as an attorney/advocate for the -- fill in the blank -- certainly

seems advocate for the president. i'm not sure who else you're an advocate for as far as people inside the white house. what was your takeaway from this reporting, and what can you tell us this morning? >> yeah. i think, look, you know, you want to be careful about taking something too far, because you don't want to be accusing somebody of something that hasn't been alleged by prosecutors, but that's a very intriguing centerens there. i think everybody's eyes went immediately to that because we know certain people and can name who have been attorney advocate kind of positions for this president and i think that it's not too much to wonder whether or not that involves somebody specifically close to the president, because obviously this is a very sensitive matter. kept it under seal 90 days, the justice department tried to keep it under seal longer but the judge wouldn't let them, even when the judge did finally force them to put out something in public, you know, they redacted it so much of it that you're left, you know, measuring the

number of spaces in there to see whose name might fit in this particular blacked out word and this particular sentence. it's not surprising to see, it's not coincidental maybe to see this same time you're seeing reporting from my colleagues about the president considering pardons, because we're wondering at this point who has been approaching him for that kind of relief before he leaves office, and who he wants to protect including perhaps himself and his own family and his own, you know, confidants like rudy guiliani and others who have been a part of all this in the last few weeks. it's all part of a piece and we're seeing this administration go out in a way that raises a lot of questions about what they did, what they think they did, what they think they need to protect themselves against. >> so mike barnicle, if you're keeping score at home, and both presidential campaigns that donald trump ran in, in 2016,

and 2020, there were department of justice investigations against him that were kept from the voting public before the election. of course, in 2016, we all knew and knew for a year about the investigation into hillary clinton's emails, but didn't learn of the investigation into donald trump until after the election. four years later, more of the same. this is something that we likely, voters likely should have known about in august, in september, in october. but, again, here we go. if this were republicans who -- if this had happened to democrats, republicans would be screeching from every cable news outlet and screeching from every podcast, screeching from every blog about how the system was

rigged, but, again, here we have two elections in a row where an investigation centering around donald trump is kept away from the american public. >> yeah, and you know, joe, the story that we're talking about here, the one that peter just outlined, and peter baker is right, incidentally, we don't know a whole lot about this story, but we do know the bones of the story, and the bones of the story go to part of what will be donald trump's legacy that he is now really walking in, in terms of presidential legacies, and it is this -- whoever was involved in this story, whoever was allegedly seeking a pardon for a cash payment or a payment to a campaign, a campaign, masquerading as a campaign contribution, they knew what they were doing in terms of who they were approaching. they knew that the trump administration and the president

himself has had an aspect of being a grifter for aening although, long time. the only other time this has happened i would think in my memory in a presidential administration about leaving the door was when bill clinton pardoned mark rich, a financier indicted in america for tax fraud, living in europe and he gave him a pardon. that's the only time, the only incident that i can recall, and we played earlier, joe, as you know, that stunning clip from the official in georgia about the pending potential violence having to do with people who point to the truth of an election. that joe biden won the state of georgia, and that stunning statement, we ought to replay it every hour, because, again, the president of the united states has locked in his legacy, and his legacy is building, fueling and encouraging this viral violence that you can find on

social media throughout, on facebook, all over the place, and that is donald trump ultimate legacy to america. >> yeah. and multiple sources confirm to nbc news thatten in recent days president trump has been just gussing the possibility of pardons for family members and close associates, including his children and his personal lawyer rudy guiliani. the "new york times" was first to report the news. two people briefed on the matter tell the "times" that giuliani, promoting baseless claims of electioning fraud talked about a pardon with president trump as recently as last week. according to the paper, president trump has said he is concerned that a biden justice department might seek retribution against him by targeting his three oldest children, donald trump jr., eric trump and ivanka trump, as well

as ivanka's tuesday, jared kushner who's right now traveling in the middle east. the "times" -- why is he there? the "times" reports that a pardon for giuliani is certain to prompt accusations that trump has used his pardon power to obstruct investigations and insulate himself and his allies. one source tells nbc news that the conversations's in recent days are within the context of a president who feels embattled and not because trump believes he or any family members did anything illegal. >> whatever. >> please. >> come on. >> giuliani responded to the "times" reporting in a text message to nbc news. when asked for comment he said, "a lie. 100%. so get furious at the lying members of your profession. i de-ospise crooked lawyers." >> a lot of self-hatred there.

he really needs to seek counsel for that. up know, jake sherman -- >> ah, this is -- >> -- donald trump can project, he can talk about joe biden's department of justice wanting to seek rett trat buribution on hi when it was in fact donald trump who tried your a near yav to go after joe biden's family but that falls flat when you look what was rae leased two months ago, and in that report criminal referrals sent out for don junior and jared kushner. >> what this doesn't do, joe, is it doesn't protect the president from new york state investigations. it doesn't protect the next congress, if there's a democratic majority in the house, which we know there will be at this point, from digging in on all sorts of things with subpoena power and can go after

documents in agencies and across government and if there's something there, which a lot of people believe there will be, they will find it, and they won't have, the trump administration locking things and obstructing and everything like that. listen, the 30,000 review here is that president trump is growing increasingly detached from his job, his duties, his profession as being president. i mean, joe, you'll appreciate this more than anybody. he threatened to veto the entire pentagon policy, the national defense authorization act, because he doesn't like the laws that govern twitter. that govern social media. he's going to hold up all of the pentagon policy for the, the national defense policy, because he doesn't like the section 230 which governs social media outlets. it's increasingly bizarre and strange, the presidency, as it

gets to the end, as if it hasn't been so far. >> let's not forget we're in the middle of an exploding public health crisis that doesn't even get a mention on twitter while he's tweeting conspiracy theories about the election all day. shawna, point out the pardons do not cover civil crimes. all that aside, what's going on in manhattan in a couple months from now. put yourself in the shoes of the biden team. the economic team, putting them out and trying to have some semblance of normalcy as the president of the united states obsesses over the election with new reporting that he may not and probably will not appear at the inauguration to hand over power to joe biden. in fact, may even announce his own 2024 presidential run on that same day. that's something that's being floated right now. obviously, trump, the president, is gumming up the works leer as joe biden tries to step into the office are in a more

conventional way against a very unconventional president. >> yeah. but i think in some ways that conventional process that joe biden is going through with his transition team right now and with the various agencies of the government as they try to figure out how are they going to stack this? are they going to continue the work they need to continue? makes even what president trump is doing and saying on twitter and otherwise even stranger. i've been struck by this idea you know, i see the tweets pop up as text messages on my phone from the president, and part of me kind of wants to ignore it because this other process that seems much more normal is going on. but i think one thing that the biden administration is going to have to deal with is if he doesn't actually pardon his children, or self-pardon himself, and there are investigations going on, how do they tackle that? do they go forward with any of

this stuff? and my instinct says joe biden doesn't want to be involved in a conversation about presidential pardoning power. he doesn't want to be involved in a conversation about president trump's children, that he wants to get this administration off the ground, get working on covid-19, get working on the economy, and try to put the president trump craziness behind him. i think there are democrats who are going to push back a little, who are going to take another look at mueller's report, take another look at other stuff that happened in the administration. going to take a look what you talked about earlier about possible bribery pardoning schemes and want this administration, this next administration and want the attorney general that he chooses to push forward, but i think joe biden is going to look at what past presidents have done and say, that was then, this is now. we need to focus. i guess, unless the president of the united states does something

even stranger in the next few weeks while he is still president. >> josh, that is such an important point, because for democrats who think joe biden wants anything to do with any investigations regarding anybody whose last name is trump doesn't understand how washington works. joe biden is interested in moving legislation forward. joe biden is interested in getting things done his first 100 days. just like gerald ford. you know, he pardoned richard nixon, because he wanted our long national nightmare to be over. it was extraordinarily unpopular. gerald ford, in fact, lost in 1976. many people believe because he did pardon richard nixon. but, of course, he was recognized as a profile encourage decades later because

he did put all of that behind him. that's something that obviously democrats don't want to hear about now. a lot of other people, obviously. very concerned about the fact as we've been concerned over the past four years that no man is above the law, though it does seem donald trump has been above the law for four years. so it's going to be a very difficult balance. you have two things that can be true at the same time, and joe biden's going to have to balance those. but peter baker, donald trump is actually giving joe biden a wonderful gift right now. by staying in the news with these baseless accusations, doing things that ensure that he will be declared a loser every day. he's going to be declared a loser in georgia again for the third or the fourth time, doing absolutely nothing that will actually pull away any votes

from joe biden. he is providing cover in the media for biden to do this transition without the white, hot glare that most president-elects have to endure while trying to get their footing. i know there are a lot of disadvantages right now with how this transition's been going, but, my god. who can focus on joe biden's picks and how much space, how much oxygen is there going to be for that while donald trump is -- is putting out one crazy conspiracy theory after another? >> well, that's right. and one of the things that president-elect biden of course has to worry about is fragility of his coalition. a lot of people who voted for joe biden, a lot of people who supported him, a lot of people who worked hard for his election share basically one thing. which is antipathy towards

donald trump. as long as president trump is on the stage, you're right. they have that to share in their focus. the minute he is no longer the threat that democrats and some republicans see, then you'll see a much more vivigorous debate w biden presidency is supposed to be about. you see signs of that in these fights over appointments. the left unhappy about this. the middle wants more of that. what about some republicans in there? you know? what about neera tanden's tweets and everything? all of these things that show how there will be a lot of push and pull for the heart of this next presidency once they have trump no longer as their mutual focus. i think that that's going to be a challenge for president-elect biden once he's in office. how do you satisfy the various hungry appetites within the coalition that he brought to the table without losing support? because there are going to be a lot of anger at trump that they

one time president trumped by ton satisfy. you just talked about the issue whether or not they should be prosecuted or not a lot of pent-up frustration over policy like climate change as well as covid. what should they do about guns, do about health care? what should they do about things the president-elect wants to be very ambitious about? at least in the senate looks like he may be able to hold on, limiting his ambitions. all of these things are no longer the main topics of conversation while we're talking about trump holed up in the white house refusing to give in, refusing to concede to reality, told even by his own attorney general there's no fraud to be seen there. and i think that that, you're right. it gives some cover in some ways fored by ton have a quieter perhaps more effective transition so when he lands there january 20th as the president, he can hit the ground running. >> jake, talk about some of that congressional business. a bipartisan group of senators announced a $908 billion covid

relief plan hoping to break a month's long impasse and benefits expire december 31st. many of them. proposed stimulus has an uphill battle to passage without backing of house and senate leadership nor support from the white house. so, jake, you have the bipartisan group come out, make a show of their proposal. $908 billion and majority leader mitch mcconnell quickly slapped it down saying that we're not going to pass this. standing by his $500 billion proposal. is this going anywhere with these bipartisan senators? >> no. it's not going anywhere, and you said it well. it was a show. what it did do is it restarted or if you want to give them any credit, it did restart at leastalities of the conversation around covid relief which is important, because people out there are hurting and we need to have a covid relief deal and everybody kind of agrees on that. $900 billion is too much money, republicans say. mitch mcconnell late yesterday, we have this in "playbook" this morning, mitch mcconnell

circulated his own bill about $500 billion. i've been watching mitch mcconnell a long time and imagine what he's going to do is slap that $500 billion plan, which includes relief but no state and local money and a bunch of other things that democrats have been demanding, he's going to put that on a must-pass government funding bill and try to jam the house of representatives and force the house of representatives to pass that bill. we'll see if it works, but democrats have been urged, nancy pelosi has been urged, to come off of her hard-line position, basically that she wants a large bill including a lot of state and local money, which democrats and some republicans frankly believe that the country needs, but i'll say, willie, this is going to be the defining issue. peter said this well, of the first quarter and perhaps the first year of the biden administration, the legislative climate is going to be absolutely frenzied with congress and a divided congress most likely, and a president joe biden trying to get its arms arounden the fallout, the

economic mess that covid-19 caused in this country and a vaccine, funding vaccines and funding all these sorts of things state and local money, helping businesses. there's a lot of wreckage that needs to be solved and congress is going to need to step in in the next six months, even if it does do something this month, it's going to be the defining issue of the first half of next year. >> all right. jake sherman and peter baker, thank you both for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," a look at president-elect joe biden's picks for his economic policy team, including janet yellen, who's been tapped to be the first female treasury secretary. and she is hardly alone. in fact, "know your value".com i talked with several members of biden's all-female incoming communications te s team. many have very young kids

marking how joe biden's team may set an example for women and jill biden continues to work as a commune kech professor despite her high-profile status. links to my interviews with several of those key placer including the future first lady and, of course, kamala harris soon the first-ever female vp. find it all at knowyourvalue.com. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. tonight...i'll be eating a falafel wrap with sweet potato fries. (doorbell rings) thanks! splitsies? ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you?

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for their sacrifices because it's real sacrifice. we could not do this without you, and to the american people, this team will always be there for you and your families. this is family-oriented team. we got to make sure ordinary people get a chance to do well, because they've never been -- when given a chance they've never, ever, ever, let the country down. >> president-elect joe biden in his formal announcement of his economic policy team yesterday, and joining us now former director of the office of management and budget under president obama peter or zacsac. thank four being on. a lot to talk about including your latest article on what you think biden's focus should be, but i want to talk about the criticism of the woman who is proposed to get the job that you held, omb, neera tanden and republicans are having little

fits over her tweets, and i just wonder, like, on what planet can they be taken seriously, given the fact that they defend or never, ever, ever speak out against a man who tweets lies, tropes, promote violence and basically chins away at our democracy on twitter every single day of his presidency? >> so, look. i've known neera tanden more than two decades. there is no question in my mind that she is more than capable of doing the budget director job, and so i just viewed the rest as a distraction, and an unfortunate distraction but at its core she knows policy inside and out. she knows washington inside and out. we do need to get legislation done and we do need to get executive actions done, and neera knows how to do that. >> i want to send it to katty kay for the next question, but, katty, again, the cat calling

the kettle black, upset with her tweets in this headline. are these people concerned about neera's tweets, have they said the same thing about the president's tweets? >> hmm. stunning silence we've heard from the last four years, right from republicans over the president's tweets? in fact, republicans have been so fed up on capitol hill of being asked how they respond to 9 latest tweet they now avoid people like kasie soon as they see her in the halls and have to not talk about the president's latest tweets. yeah, there is some hypocrisy around that one. >> massive. >> i wanted to ask you about what you make more broadly of the team that you see coming in around president biden, elect, and how that's going to reflect in the management of the white house? i know when you left the office of management and budget you left kind of, afterwards said you hadn't really wanted to be there, a lot of in-fighting even

in the obama presidency. said no drama, but it wasn't necessarily perhaps the best place for you to be working. when you look at the people that biden is putting around him, do you think, i mean, it's not going to be more tumultuous than the last four years but do you think we'll see a sea change in the way the white house is run? >> this is a team that has known one another for a long time and you also have to look at it in its entirety. the people on the team complement one another quite well. i think the transition folks and be the new biden team have paid a lot of attention to not just the individuals in each job but how the team together would work, and i'm very hopeful that the combination of their experience, their knowing one another, their personalities, et cetera, really will gel quite nicely, and i think all signs point in that direction right now. they do have a lot of hard work ahead of them. so, you know, it will -- it's not like it's going to be easy,

but i think these folks are very well qualified, and, again, the relationships that go back over a long period of time will help them to work together well. >> peter, talk about that hard work ahead. you held the job at omb during one of the most difficult economics times in the country, during one of the worst recessions in american history. this new biden team inherits another calamity we've seen take hold since march. what will be important on day one? how do they blunt some of this, do reverse job loss, reverse small businesses disappearing before our eyes, because as jake sherman just reported back to us, there's not a lot going on in congress right now? >> well, the first thing, let's hope there is something that happens before january 20th. i think it's a mistake to wait possibly for that moment. basically let's step back. what's happened in the economy? pandemic hit. we stepped in with massive

fiscal assistance. the c.a.r.e.s. act. more than offset the impact on families themselves and built up a cushion of savings but we're burning through that cushion. the longer we wait with no replacement for the c.a.r.e.s. act the higher the odds that we burn through and burn ourselves and do real damage. so we have -- the good news, we've got stunningly good, scientific advances and breakthroughs. i mean, mind-blowing. the bad news is we shouldn't wait passively for those vaccines to arrive. so what does the administration have to do if there is no stimulus before january 20th? the first order, the first priority has to be to get that done as rapidly as possible to try to minimize the risk of further damp age to the economy and the second big priority is the vaccine distribution and trying to get the pandemic under control. the do a lot ality of bridging

point where most americans can get vaccinated, those are the two top priorities for the first, at least, six months. >> obviously those two challenges are inseparable. shawna has a question for you. >> good morning, peter. >> good morning. >> if you're near tanden an preparing to be omb director, whether she's going to get confirmed or not. has to start thinking about that. what are the things you're thinking about that you can do without congress especially to address the economic inequality covid helped highlight so much? where are you, what kind of list would you be making to pass executive actions and executive orders? because a lot of what biden will end up doing probably is that. >> well, there are a couple things. first, there is a, there's just a practical sort of process thing, which is when the new administration comes in, they are supposed to put together

what's called the mini budget or a thin budget, which is due very soon after taking office. so a lot of attention should be being paid to that mini budget. it's not the big ones with the big books but a thinner document to lay out the priorities of the new administration. that's one, one thing that should be occupying time. the second thing is to look past those two dilemmas, the public health one and the short-term economic difficulty, and try to struggle with some underlying tension that this new team is going to face and try to work it out ahead of time. so how much do you try to freeze-frame the economy in terms of propping up businesses that were in place before the pandemic hit? how much are you trying to ease the adjustment to the future economy post-pandemic? with regard to china. how much are you doing in cooperation and how much competition? in health care, how much are you trying to build up excess

capacity to help meet a future pandemic? and how much are you trying to wring more efficient soy out of the current system? all of these things chuml s act have tension built within them and you need to be clear what you want to get done and in the thick of it post-january 20th you have the basic framework set. so a lot of work to be done including for neera tanden as he prepares not only for confirmation hearings but for the work thereafter. >> peter orsack, thank you so much. great to you have on the show. come back soon. coming up, the coronavirus pandemic once again has hospitals near the breaking point. as we learn that health care workers will be among the first to get a vaccine when it becomes available. we'll tell you where things stand for the vaccine when we come back.

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the united kingdom has become the first major western country to approve the usa e of the covid-19 vaccine from pfizer and biontech. the two-dose pfizer vaccine has proven to be 95% effective and must be stored at arctic temperatures. the united states will make its decision on emergency authorization use of the available covid vaccines when the fda meets on december 10th to decide on the pfizer vaccine and on december 17th for the moderna one. meanwhile, despite mounting efforts by the white house to speed up approval of the covid vaccine, the food and drug administration is sticking to the course saying the process has to be carried out the right way. the fda head stephen hahn

discussed yesterday where the government administration stands. >> and we made a promise to the american people that we're not going to do short cuts here. no one at fda is sitting on his hands or her hands. everybody's working really hard to look at these applications and get this done, but we absolutely have to do this the right way. >> these comments come shortly after chief of staff mark meadows called hahn to the white house to discuss speeding up the approval process of the covid vaccines. according to the associated press, president trump has been livid with the fda for not moving faster to approve shots, and is blaming this as a reason for his election loss. in a sign of the pressure he is under the fda released guidance that dr. hahn remains fda commissioner. following his meeting at the white house. this comes as the white house is set to host a covid summit next

tuesday featuring attendees from pfizer, moderna, fedex, walgreens, mckesson cvs and u.p.s. among others. joining us now is dr. peter hoetez dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine and co-director of the texas children's hospital center for vaccine development. so doctor, there are a lot of things to be considered in terms of distribution, and then it's which one? is it pfizer's? is it moderna's? like, which vaccine goes where? how does this work and what are your recommendations in terms of the process? of course, the white house wants this happening now. >> well, thank you, mika. i mean, first of all it's important to point out stephen hahn and the fda ahave done an extraordinary job balancing

incredible pressures coming from the white house and of course we're in a horrible public health disaster and making certain that no vaccine is released prematurely before we know it actually works and is safe. that's been a challenging balancing act and steve hahn and his team have done about as good a job as anybody under those circumstances. we've never done this, emergency use distribution on this scale to such large numbers of the public and we have an aggressive anti-vaccine here in the u.s. and adds to complexities. we'll have the pfizer vaccine first, moderna second. an mrna vaccines, around 40 million doses by end of the year, which means we can immunize 20 million in one dose and followed by the second year and a fleet of new vaccines in the coming year, including a particle vaccine from novavax

and maybe our vaccine scaling in production in india and undergoing clinical tests across india. with each passing months, things will get better. it's a matter recognizing it's not a light switch but an evolving process. >> it's will willie. we're in the trenches on the vaccine and trying to get it out to people. don't talk a lot about the big picture but you're the right man, made a life of doing this, doctors like yourself pursued and successfully found a vaccine. can you put it into some kind of perspective compared to how long it look to find other vaccines over history? >> willie, you asked a really important question. here's why. people think it was a miracle we got a vaccine out in a year. in some ways it is. we often forget this builds on more than a decade of research showing that the spike protein is the target of the

coronavirus. we've been working on coronaviruses for at least a decade from funding, from the national institutes of health, and what you're really seeing, people think it's, just a few months and everything, then a miracle happened, in fact, this is the culmination of more than a decade arguably 12, 15 years of support by the national institutes of held because they knew coronaviruses would be a big issue and put-oting outs requests for funding and identifying coronaviruses showed they actually work in laboratory animals. we knew all of that before covid-19 ever hit and then when the chinese put up that coronavirus sequence in january, the whole scientific community in the u.s. looked at this and said we got this. we know how to do this, because of all the previous work. that's an untold story i think that's extremely important. america invests $36 and some odd

billion dollars in nhs every year and that's why we do it because we are now able to go in and save lives through vaccines. >> such an interesting part of the story. as we talk about the vaccines we're talking about the united states, rightly so and also just talking about wealthy western countries for the most part. i know you're working on a vaccine that would try to achieve health equity in countries that perhaps don't have all the resources we have. can you update us on yours? >> yeah. first of all, a big attempt by the world health organization and cepa, a relative any new organization the covid sharing of all vaccines so we don't develop a two-tiered system. it's going to be tough to get that pfizer vaccine into low and middle-income countries and moderna because of the visa requirement and we're helping trying to create a low-cost protein vaccine that uses an older technology that just requires refrigeration.

interesting, willie. almost all the vaccines seem to work. the other story emerging the spike protein is a soft target of this virus. pretty much in any technology you throw at it whether mrna or adenovirus or proteins like ours they seem to be working. that's really great and then a matter of making certain that we have this fleet of vaccines in order to vaccinate the world's population. not just restrict this to the united states and europe. we're excited. partnered with organization with biological and scaling up to produce 1.2 billion doses and our group is so excited. my co-partner and i in science, the last 20 years have been working towards this goal. we've never made a billion of anything before and that's really exciting to see this happening. >> extraordinary. doctor, mike barnicle is here with a question. >> if we can discuss human

nature for a int a minute, doct people want to return to normalcy, their lives back the way their lives were lived a year ago. so we have the vaccines in the batting order. we have pfizer andmoderna, they're both two-shot vaccines. johnson & johnson is there with a one-shot vaccine. vaccines that you mentions are on the horizon or on the table, getting ready to go out in some form or fashion of another could you give us though your assessment of what this country will look like and feel like in terms of being -- getting the vaccine and being able to sort of return to normalcy? what will the country look like by midsummer next year >> great question. let me give you two timefram by late spring the hope is that we will have five, four or five vaccines licensed in the u.s. that means almost significant

percentage of the population will stillth be vaccinated. the one piece that we still may not have vaccinated by then are the kids. the reason that's important is because we did some studies with bruce lee's group at city of university in new york showing we need about i 70% of the u.s. population vaccinated before herd immunity really kicks in, interrupts transmission. we need to establish the safety and efficacy in vaccine in kids. the other thing we don't know if the full performance spectrum of the vaccines. know it will keep you out of the icu and out of the hospital, which is the biggest priority, but the other b thing you want to stop virus shedding from person-to-person. we don't really know that. we have to do an additional study and that's being planned as well. if it's also doing that, then i think by later in the summer/fall we may get there. but the point is, don't, you know, think of it in steps. think of it that february is going to look a lot better than we are now because people are going to start getting

vaccinated. march and april will look better thanap february. the summer will look better than certainly by now. so slowly things will get back to a normal level. but there is going to have to be a lot of situational awareness and communication with the public so people know all the thin that are happening with the vaccines. i thinkth operation warp speed s done a good job in terms of the integrity of the clinical trials. they never launched a communication plan. it was left to the pharma ceos to do the talk. you had all this inside trading stuff going i on. we heard about safety events thaten weren't really appropria to talk about it in that context because it left a misunderstanding. so hopefully that will be one of the first things that the biden team does is put in place proper communications by government scientists to smooth that way as well.

>> all right. dean of the national school of medicine at baylor college of medicine, dr. peter hotez, thank you for being on. the show thi morning. up thnext, while bill barr broke with the president over his false claims of election fraud, he is also taking steps to shore up an investigation the president has pushed into the origins of the russia investigation. former ada to robert mueller, chuck rosenberg, joins us. j "morning joe" is coming right back.oi - [announcer] meet the ninja foodi air fry oven.

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msnbc's own steve kornacki is using his famous khaki pants for good after his amazing election coverage at the big board sparked a spike in khaki sales at the gap. the retailer offered kornacki free khakis for life. while he thought the offer was

very kind, he claims he only goes through a pair about every five years and wouldn't need that many pairs. instead, gap and kornacki came up with a different plan. >> instead of giving me pants, see this? this would be lifetime supply of pants for me. instead, is going to go to the boys and girls clubs of america to what they call their work force readiness program. this is a great charity, the boys and girls clubs of america. a great organization. it helps young americans connect with others, explore careers, meet mentors, be ready to enter the work force. so they are going to supply 500 pairs. this is a sampmall sampling her. five hup pairs of these pants to the work force readiness program in my name. >> that's nice. go steve. he is the best. still ahead, new reporting that the president has discussed pardons for his three eldest

children, jared kushner and rudy giuliani. but if pardons are for those convicted of federal crimes, what are the crimes they committed? huh? "morning joe" is back in one minute. "morning joe" isac bk in one minute how about no

no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. after the first of the year there is likely to be a discussion about additional, some additional package of some size next year depending upon what the new administration wants to pursue. >> all right. a not so insignificant statement from majority leader mitch mcconnell referring to the, quote, new administration, when talking about coronavirus relief efforts. >> and to say, willie, that mitch mcconnell measures his words carefully is an understatement. he certainly wouldn't have said that unless he wanted to send a message not only to the president, but other members of the republican senate.

>> yeah, that's basically the equivalent of him saying president-elect, which he hasn't been able to bring himself to say. let's pause and say we are about a month away from election day, and it's news that the senate majority leader sort of made an innuendo and hinted at the fact that the duly next elected president of the united states is the next president of the united states. that's sort of where we are, that it's big news that he suggested joe biden is in fact the next president. >> you're right. and we will show later some states, they are at a breaking point with this ludicrous lawsuit situation. that along with attorney general bill barr breaking with president trump over his false claims of election fraud, and we seem to be at an inflection point. plus, new reporting that the president had discussed pardons for his eldest three children. >> why in the world would you need a pardon if you hadn't committed a crime? >> pardon me? i'm confused. >> are these the same people

that stood up at trump's first convention and talked about how, if you plead the fifth, you must be guilty? my god, of course, there was michael flynn who was guilty twice. he just lied and then lied to the court. he got away with his federal crime. and so, again, why would you have to pardon people -- let me ask you, mika. you're an expert in white houses. you started going to a white house at 9. did jimmy carter pardon amy carter before she left there? >> no. amy had her cat and treehouse and she enjoyed just, you know -- >> so she had a cat? >> she had a cat? >> she left with the cat. she had a treehouse. >> the treehouse is still there, i think. >> she left with the cat but didn't have to get a presidential pardon for either herself or cat? >> no, because the cat was hers. she didn't steal it. >> i am not really good with

history, willie, but george w. bush, you have worked with jenna. you know her. i am curious. both the bushes and the obamas had two children. two girls. two young girls at the time. but when they left, the white house -- they are a little older. i cannot remember right now because they don't really dig into presidential history, but george w. bush have to pardon his two daughters or barack obama have to preemptively pardon his two daughters? >> no. >> is this something that just happens? >> it doesn't. i am smiling because i know jenna so well, she might have appreciated, a just in case pardon. you never know what's going to happen. but, no, this is not something that normally happens. >> i might have needed one for running over a world leader with a golf cart. but it was a mistake.

so jared, ivanka, eric, we're all wondering -- >> what crimes? so what crimes are they being pardoned for? i am curious. >> we will get there. >> what possible crimes are they -- i wonder, does that help you or hurt you when you are trying to get back into manhattan society that you have to be pardoned for federal crimes. >> jared is in saudi arabia and qatar. does anyone know why? >> a lot of papers to burn. >> we learned yesterday of a federal investigation into a bribery scream involving presidential pardons. all of that -- >> so, again -- >> i'm trying to tease. >> i am not good at this, willie, okay? but i am trying to read through the redacted information there. you know, i'm just a simple caveman lawyer. your fancy ways of filing documents and redacting court

documents and i am going to pardon you for this or that. i don't really understand. we are not so sure who was offering the bribe, but who inside the white house, who gives pardons? so who would have been on the other side of that possible bribery scheme? >> it could have been the man in the oval office, for example. could have been the president of the united states. this is nbc reporting about the department of justice investigating a bribery for pardon scheme. in other words, some wealthy person giving a bunch of money, perhaps to the trump white house, perhaps to the trump campaign, in exchange for getting somebody out of federal prison. we will dig into that as well. a lot going on this morning. >> by the way, mika, gerald ford got willie and me out of a turkish prison. there was some bribery involved there, a couple of smoke bombs. you know, the guards just turned the other way. >> huge news breaking overnight.

>> like pappion. we jumped off a huge cliff. there was a motorboat there. speaking of presidential children, jack ford at the bottom of the cliff. he was in the donzi and we took off. next thing you know, we saw the sparkling isles of greece and the free air. willie, makes you happy thinking about it, right? >> mika knows about three years before it was safe to come back state side. >> why not? >> wish you were there now. >> of course. >> all right. breaking overnight, the u.k. becomes the first western country to approve pfizer's coronavirus vaccine. >> are we doing real news now? >> yes. >> real news. and real hope on the vaccine front. clearing the way for britain to begin mass immunizations. that as the cdc panel makes a recommendation about who should receive the first coronavirus vaccine once shots become

available in the united states. we will get to all of that -- >> can i ask, was that just the tease for the show? >> yeah, that was -- >> it took that long to get through? >> yeah, it did. >> let me apologize. >> how many minutes -- >> pardon me. >> to just get through the -- >> seven minutes. >> okay. >> just to get through -- >> you've got to be snappier. come on. >> i know. okay. let's get to the top story this morning. the attorney general acknowledged something that has been clear for weeks. there was no real voter fraud in this election. bill barr in a rare break from the president told "the associated press" that the justice department has not found any evidence of voter fraud that would overturn on election that joe biden won. he also said there was nothing to substantiate any claims about the wild theories surrounding voting systems that trump and his allies keep saying were rigged. this is the attorney general,

bill barr. barr was actually at the white house on tuesday for what the white house stressed was a previously scheduled meeting with the chief of staff. it is unclear if he met with trump, who has yet to react to barr, though it's pretty clear how he feels. if you scroll through his twitter, not happy. barr's remarks prompted a swift response from trump's legal team led by rudy giuliani, who wrote, in part, with the greatest respect to the attorney general, his opinion appears to be without knowledge or investigation of substantial irregularities of evidence of systemic fraud. last night the department of justice stated despite efforts to the contrary, it has not stopped investigating election-related fraud and if it receives credible allegations of fraud it will continue to pursue these types of cases. to date, the trump campaign has filed more than 40 lawsuits per

staini pertaining to the election and so far none have found a single instance of fraud. >> and are they 1 for 39? this is like the tampa bay buccaneers in the mid '70s. these guys just can't win a lawsuit. but think about what attorney general barr did. and i have had some friends call me up saying, oh, you look at what rudy giuliani is saying outside of the courtroom. you look at what sidney powell is saying outside of the courtroom. there is a lot there. i always told tohem look what they are throwing say outside of a courthouse and what they are willing to put in the pleadings in federal court. those are two completely different things. one is just b.s. one is just a press conference where you are just trying to stir up a cloud of dust. but when you put your name on a

pleading and you allege widespread voter fraud in a pleading inside a federal court, well, my friend, you have just set yourself up for sanctions. so that's always been the real tell here. they say, oh, widespread voter fraud outside the courthouse, but even rudy giuliani won't claim it inside the white house because he knows he doesn't have the evidence, he knows it's a lie, he knows there will be sanctions, he knows he might be disbarred. whether you are talking about the attorney general of the united states, whether you are talking about the secretary of state for georgia, whether you're talking about the governor of arizona or the maricopa county republican board of electors or whether you are talking about a single bureaucrat on a local level who refuses to break the law and not certify the vote, these

republicans all talk a big game, but when it's time to actually undermine the election, when it's time to actually put their legal future on the line, suddenly they do the right thing. still ahead, we know about michael flynn's public trouble that later led to a presidential pardon, but what might ivanka trump have done? we will talk about the potential for preemptive pardons of the trump family. and a reminder joe's new book "saving freedom: truman, the cold war, and the fight for western civilization" is out now. you can get a copy online or at your favorite local bookstore. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ng "morning. we'll be right back. - [announcer] meet the ninja foodi air fry oven. make family-sized meals fast.

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we live with at&t. it was a lapse in judgment. at&t, we called this house meeting because you advertise gig-speed internet, but we can't sign up for that here. yeah, but i'm just like warming up to those speeds. you've lived here two years. the personal attacks aren't helping, karly. don't you have like a hot pilates class to get to or something? [ muffled scream ] stop living with at&t. xfinity can deliver gig to the most homes. donald trump jr.

eric trump. ♪ michael, let's talk about the other big story that broke last night. first the story later in the afternoon that rudy giuliani was shopping around looking for a pardon. of course, late last night news breaking about the chief judge for the d.c. circuit and releasing information about a possible bribery scandal involving pardons. what can you tell us? >> so for a long time there have been concerns at the white house, the people around the president for many years about how he handles pardons because he did it so women'sically. he did for celebrities, for friends and allies, and he was not playing within the normal pardon process. he wasn't having the pardon attorneys at the justice department provide recommendations that he was following and applications to sort of right wrongs of justice.

these were more like trinkets that he was handle out. what we have had in the past day are reports that raise nor suspicions about how the pardon process has practice. there is this federal judge in washington who released pages and pages of documents from a ruling about whether the government can look at some materials. and putting that question aside, what the documents show is that the justice department has been investigating whether there is a convict in prison who was -- had a lawyer and someone else working for them and one of those people may have been interacting with the white house, offering to make political donations or funnel some money of some type in exchange for a commutation, getting someone out of prison early, or a pardon. some form of that. and that there was this sort of full-blown federal investigation into this. such a full-blown investigation

that the government had electronics that they wanted to look at and see whether they were protected by attorney/client privilege. so this was going on in the summer and the fall. so that coming out last night along with reports that, reporting that we had about the president talking to giuliani last week about the possibility of a pardon, about this -- about a preemptive pardon, and the president's concerns and discussions that he has had that his children will need pardons as well because he thinks that a biden justice department will seek retribution against him, you know, in his political gamesmanship, however he sees the world, and that his children need pardons. >> so, mika, let's be clear. his children and jared may be in trouble legally, not because of a biden department of justice,

but because the senate intel committee passed along criminal referrals for both don jr. and jo john kerry jo john kushner. the news broke, i guess about a month ago, that the republican-run senate intel committee passed along criminal referrals for don jr. and for jared kushner. so, no, this is not a biden thing. this is a republican senate intel committee thing. >> and kasie hunt with news breaking like that, and we say this over and over again, with this news breaking, will this lead to republicans breaking? >> no. >> i mean, just, my question for you, is even behind the scenes are there any republicans who have been staunchly sticking by this corrupt gang of people around the president and the president himself? don't they see?

are they blind? are they blind to these headlines and to the people that they are attaching themselves to and blindly defending? how long can they do this and still is survive with, i don't know, something remote to what might have been their core values? how about their commitment to this country? or how about the oath of the offices they took? >> well, mika, i think what joe just said about what has actually unfolded, the actions that have been taken quietly, privately in a classified setting tells you a lot about what you need to know about where actual feelings are. however, you are correct that so far publicly, and remember we trust what is leadership, what is the definition of political leadership? it is public. it is speaking to the people that you lead. they are not doing that right

now. and right now they are in this vice that is the two senate runoff elections in georgia, and i don't anticipate that anything fundamental changes for republicans here. they have been worried this entire time about their political standing, their own political futures. right now that's all hinges on those two races in georgia, whether they have power or not, and that hinges off making sure to not set off the still president of the united states who has been out there saying that, and suggesting, that the election be called off entirely, that the votes can't be trusted, that republicans shouldn't go out and vote for these two senators, although it's been more of his conservative allies and conservative media who made those suggestions that are driving republican senators crazy. but we started off the show with mitch mcconnell saying acknowledging using the phrase "new administration." they know what's happening. no one is under any illusion that anything else is going to

happen here. but they are choosing to continue to approach this the way they have for the last four years. >> coming up, jimmy carter builds houses for charity. bush 43 raised money for haiti. bill clinton went to north korea to help free hostijs. donald trump's post-presidential plans look decidedly different. how the current commander in chief may spend the bulk of his team tweeting and haranguing republicans after being fired last month from the white house. "morning joe" is coming right back. orning joe" is coming righ back what's the name again? >>it's shiori. what? >>shi - or - i

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who guinness world book of records has called the dumbest senator to ever be sworn in in this constitutional repub will i can, ron johnson, said that william barr must show his evidence that he has no evidence. mr. attorney general, you must prove a negative! seriously, the stupidity makes my teeth hurt.

>> yeah. impossible to provide evidence of having no evidence. of course, i did wonder whether beyond the january the 5th runoff in georgia you are even then going to see republicans here in washington break from president trump because all he has to do is carry on saying, i'm going to run. i'm, you know, whether he announces that on inauguralration day or some other moment, he has to say 2024 is all about me. all he has to do is say that and you will still see this incredible silence from republicans in washington who are worried about being primaried and worried about donald trump's continued role in the primaries. they may be telling themselves at the moment this is about georgia and saving the senate for the republicans. but i don't see how they get out of this. and this is this sort of machiavellian power that donald trump still holds over them. >> and then you hear the news

that president trump wants to have his own announcement on inauguration day, that he doesn't plan to attend the inauguration, which is part of the peaceful transition of power to show visually symbolically that there is a transition taking place. i would imagine he would give republicans a choice as to where they are going to show up that day. that would be very trump. >> yeah, you can see that, can't you? there is some axios reporting that says he is planning an event on inauguration day. he will not attend the inauguration, not perform the most visual representation of our transition of power on inauguration day, may launch his own 2024 campaign. whether he follows through, remains another matter. coming up, a disturbing look at how seven engines and social media sites manipulate the behavior of users. we'll talk to the people behind the acclaimed new documentary

"the social dilemma." "morning joe" is coming right back. ght back new advil dual action

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recently passed a sweeping new law designed to protect the personal information of public officials, including where they live. it comes just months after the son of federal judge esther salas was killed by a gunman at their family home. the judge will be our guest in a moment. first, here is nbc's savannah guthrie with the story. >> reporter: in new jersey governor phil murphy signed daniel's law. >> this is now the law of the land. [ applause ] >> reporter: a landmark state law designed to protect those who protect us while honoring the son of judge's son for his incredible courage. >> i thank you, son, for all you have done, not just for daddy

and i, but for all judicial officers. >> daniel's law makes it a crime to publish the personal information of judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers, including their home addresses and phone numbers. >> today we choose to stand up and do something. >> it was named for 20-year-old daniel, who was shot and killed at his family's home in july by a gunman disguised as a delivery driver. when the doorbell rang, daniel and his father mark went to the door. >> daniel being daniel protected his father, and he took the shooter's first bullet directly to the chest. the monster then turned his attention to my husband. >> reporter: mark was shot multiple times, but survived. the gunman, roy dan hollander, who later took his own life, was a self-described anti-feminist lawyer. authorities say he compiled personal information about daniel's mother, esther salas, a

trailblazing federal judge that he once appeared before. there is now a push to expand daniel's law beyond new jersey. >> we must extend these privacy protections nationwide so that no one lives through what judge salas and her husband lived through. >> reporter: they were on hand for the signing. a mother remembering those final moments spent with her son. >> in the seconds before his death, daniel asked me to keep talking to him because he loved talking to me. >> reporter: honoring a son and hero whose legacy to protect others will live on. >> and judge esther salas joins us now. wow. i guess my first question is, how are you doing? how are you getting by? >> we are doing okay. it's day by day. it's second by second. and we are just trying to work

on making sure the right thing gets done and saying what needs to be said for the protection of all federal judges. >> it's so horrific what happened to your family. how is your husband doing? >> unfortunately, my husband has had a medical setback. he will likely need another surgery. we find out today whether he goes in for that surgery tomorrow. but it's been about 13 surgical procedures for mark. >> this is just incredible. tell me, judge salas, about daniel's law. what do you want done in the name of your son? >> what i would like done in the name of my son is i would like protections. our federal judges need to be protected. our federal government has a duty to protect our federal judges.

the fact of the matter is that we need to stop this free flow of information about our judges. we need to protect that personally, identifiable information, what they call pii. we need to protect that. we need to shield that. federal judges, obviously, are well, you know, we know we have to do our job and we intend on doing our job and we understand that sometimes our job may upset people, and that's a risk we are willing to take to do the right thing, to do justice, but what we don't accept and what we can't accept is that we, because of the jobs that we are doing, are going to be gunned down, literally gunned down in our homes on a sunday at 5:00. i mean, these are just things that -- judges are being threatened, ms. brzezinski. the numbers are astronomical.

in 2015, the marshals had recorded 926 threats. in 2019, there had been 4,449 recorded threats. something, you know, what happened to my son isn't the worst nightmare. what else will happen if we don't do something now to protect our judiciary? >> judge salas, it's willie geist. i am so terribly sorry for what you have gone through as a mother and a wife and as a family. i look at that young man, that 20-year-old daniel, i grew up in new jersey. i knew that kid. i grew up with that kid. i want to know more about him. i also want to know how you feel as a federal judge in terms of your own safety before this incident even happened. in other words, as you just said, you have people before you who are angry with your decisions, who perhaps you put them in prison or someone they know in prison.

what is your own personal safety and those of your colleagues in the judiciary at the federal level? how much protection do you have, without giving away too much, and how much more do you think you need? >> well, listen, we definitely need more protection. unfortunately, my tragedy wasn't the first tragedy. actually, since 1979, four federal judges have been murdered. a judge in 2005 had her husband and mother killed. and some protections were granted back then, but there wasn't sort of that annual budget, budgetary item that would make sure that our security systems at home were, you know, actually maintained properly. we need protection around the federal courts. cameras need to be upgraded. there is a lot of things that need to be done and need, mr. geist, to be done now.

now. time is of the essence. we can't let something like this happen to any other family. and i am here. i'm living proof. i am sorry. i am living proof that, you know, these things will happen. daniel's death cannot be in vain. my husband's life, you know, he almost lost it. we need to act now. this needs to happen now. and there is no reason to delay, you know, the passage of laws that will protect our judiciary. >> clearly, it's an act of courage for you and other judges to do your job every day and you need these protections. as we look at these pictures of daniel, a handsome young guy. i know you were just celebrating his 20th birthday. what do you want people to know about your son, judge salas? >> i want people to know about my son that he always put other people before himself. he was loving. he was protective.

he was joy. he was kindness. he was, you know, in my opinion, he is my son, he was goodness. and i know that daniel, i know that daniel would want us fighting for what we are fighting for because it is the right thing to do. and because it is necessary, and because i know my son. he would want me to keep fighting because he knows that if we don't, someone may end up like now is, in heaven. >> and you are fighting like the great mother you are. judge salas, mike barnicle is here with a question. mike. >> sure. >> judge salas, first of all, i want to tell you that my wife and i, we have seven children. i could not imagine having the strength that you have, the strength to go on, to go on as strongly and courageously as you

are. but with regard to this issue, this critical issue of public safety and your safety and the other judges' safety, do you think -- talk about the role that you think the internet has in this, which gives power to the obsessed, tlonely, the bittr among us. it's got to be involved in this at some level. >> it has to be. i mean, we, you know, obviously i think, and one of the things that was mentioned just a few moments ago about protection. i believe that when you talk about what happened now in this pandemic and the fact that packages are being delivered every day at people's homes and some packages being delivered by people who aren't even wearing uniforms, you know, these are things that, quite frankly, lead

to what happened in my case. defenses get lowered. but you're right, mr. barnicle. this free flowing of information, if we do not do something to stop it, it can and will lead to more violence, to more senseless tragedies because people have access to this very personal information. we are talking about trying to restrict access to our home addresses. to our phone numbers. to our personal email addresses. things that, quite frankly, give people the power to really target us and strike us down. so these are the things that, quite frankly, i think we need to take and, or better said, get a handle on when we are talking about the internet and when we're talking about that free flowing of information.

it is a wonderful thing, technology, but we now see what it can lead to if there are not certain parameters, restrictions, or safeguards. i again want to remind people that i am not the only one that has been targeted. since daniel's murder, i have received another inappropriate communication, another judge in my district has received not only received, but had her information, her personal home address put out in the internet. these are horrible things that are doing -- that people are doing to target federal judges, and i do want to say, make no mistake. the federal judiciary is under attack. >> judge esther salas, thank you so much for everything and for your fight. i really appreciate it.

i'm so sorry. >> thank you so much. thank you so much for having me on today, and thank you for your condolences. we are going, daniel and i and mark, are going to keep fighting because we have to. >> thank you. let's bring in former u.s. attorney, now an nbc news law enforcement analyst, chuck rosenberg, who is an aide to robert mueller and chuck's new season of his podcast "the oath" kicks off a one-on-one interview with his former boss. we will get to that in a moment. chuck, judge salas and her fight for daniel's law, as a former u.s. attorney yourself, what do you make of this? i mean, the information is all out there and she's right. these protections don't exist, and it led to the killing of her son. but how do you put the toothpaste back in the tube? >> she is absolutely right, mika. that's heartbreaking. my condolences to her and her

husband. what she said was really important. i commend new jersey, by the way, for taking steps to protect this type of information, not just of judges, but for other public officials. judges have been targeted. she is not the only one. she lost her son. i can't imagine the pain of that. but this happens all too often. by the way, mika, some of this comes from the top. just the other day one of president trump's attorneys talked about having a former dhs official shot at dawn. i forget exactly what words he used. but shot, killed, murdered because they didn't like what he had to say about election security. and so there is so much so wrong with the way we talk about other people, the way we fail to protect their information, and also there is another piece, too. we all have a responsibility to protect our own information, to be thoughtful about what we put out on social media. if we even have social media

accounts. i have none. and i plan to never have one. but we need to do more for our judges, four our law enforcement officers, for our prosecutors, for those who serve the public. we need to make sure that they are safe. judge salas is exactly right. >> and social media has caused so many problems and facebook has caused so many problems with disinformation and with inappropriate information, release of information. i know they like to wrap themselves around the goodness and happiness that they bring to the world, but it's a joke. they are unregulated. they are not held to the same standards of publishers or newspapers. they are held to no standards. they do whatever they want, and you can see the results everywhere, including in aur last segment. chuck, tell us about your interview with mueller and what did you learn?

your podcast is amazing. >> you are very kind. thank you, mika. >> i adore bob mueller. i had the privilege of working with him at the fbi after 9/11. he is an american hero. and he hasn't given any interviews since he stepped down from his role as special counsel. so i was incredibly honored he agreed to talk to me. our podcast is not about politics or partisanship. it's about men and women of decency and integrity and honor like bob mueller who have served his country. he served more than 50 years. part one of our interview, which we publish today, looks ate his childhood, time at princeton. he was a star athlete, a three-sport athlete, played lacrosse at princeton, and when a princeton teammate, a gentleman named david hackett, was killed in vietnam, bob mueller volunteered for service there, became a platoon leader, a second lieutenant, and he told

me, and it's really compelling, he didn't fear death in vietnam even though death was all around him. he feared failure. he feared letting his men down because to him failing was synonymous of death. not of his own, but his men. he felt a very, very strong loyalty to his men and an obligation to help them come back home safely. he was a purple heart recipient. he won the bronze star in vietnam with valor. and so i think it's really important for listeners to know bob mueller. many only know of him as special counsel and don't know he was fbi director. some who know he was fbi director don't know about his service in vietnam. so we try to tell the story of this remarkable human being. >> katty kay? >> chuck, thank you. i know it was a premise of the

interview, and it's of our podcast not to talk about politics or the mueller investigation with bob mueller but there is clearly a lot of politics going on at the doj. i want your reaction to what we are hearing coming out from the attorney general. bill barr saying, you know what, mr. what, mr. president, there is not enough evidence to support the notion that the election was rigged. on the other, protecting john durham. do you think that we're seeing bill barr in what's behind the timing of this, seeing bill barr look to his own future kind of carefully positioning himself of the end days of the trump administration, perhaps? >> maybe, katty. i think it's way too late for bill barr to position himself or burnish his legacy. his legacy was burnished when e he, you know, misled america about the contents of the mueller report, and when he improperly weighed in on behalf of trump allies, roger stone and michael flynn, and their criminal proceedings. so whatever he has to say now

has very little meaning to me. i was one of those fools, by the way, who thought he was a principled institutionalist and would help right the department of justice. i was completely wrong. and so on one hand while i'm glad he is stating the obvious, there is no evidence of election fraud, none has been adduced in the courts of the united states, at least so far. i do wonder why he converted john durham into a special counsel-type role. look, i also know john durham, and i have always had confidence in john durham and his judgment. i hope i'm not wrong about this, too, by the way. we'll see if there's something for john top find, let him find it. but we've got to take politics out of the department of justice, and out of criminal enforcement. we have seen for four years just how dangerous that infection can be. >> all right. chuck rosenberg, thank you so much. season four of chuck's msnbc

podcast available now "search for the oath," wherever you get your podcasts, to subscribe for free and listen to the first episode with robert mueller. every day people around the world click, like and tweet on social media platforms. we just talked about the ramifications in the past two segments, and now tech experts are sounding the alarms about their own creations. >> what i want people to know is that everything they're doing online is being watched, is being tracked, is being measured. every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded. exactly what image you stop and look at, for how long you look at it. oh, seriously, for how long you look at it. >> they know when people are lonely, when people are depressed, when people are looking at photos of your ex

romantic partners what you're doing late at night. they know the entire thing. whether you're an introvert or extrovert, what neurosis you have, what your personality is like. >> they is more information about us than has ever been imagined in human history. it is unprecedented. >> that was a look at the netflix documentary "the social dilemma" taking a deep and disturbing look at how the people behind our search engines and social media sites manipulate the behavior of users. joining us now, the film's director, jeff orlokorlokski an design emphasis and inspired by a critical letter harris penned to his then employer and now president and co-founder of center for humane technologist, whose stated mission is to

re-align technology with our shared humanity. what a -- that's going to be a big mountain to climb. i really appreciate your both being on. triston, go with what you're annaling for here and talk about some of the problems, some dilemmas, the social dilemma pent out there. i watched every second of it, and was transfixed. i learned so much about how social media and the way this is designed is grabbing on to people's brains and keeping -- >> in fact, one of the things we say in the film, this is kind of like the climate change of culture, that what might be seen as separate phenomenon, shortening attention spans. we have increasing polarization,

increasing belief in conspiracy theories, increasing breakdown of truth and these are not separate phenomena. they all come from this business model, which is about hijacking human attention at scale. because so long as the business model is getting our attention, the company's profit from dividing us into smaller and smaller microrealities and giving us a shared reality, that's not as profitable as giving a feed never endingly tells you you're right and the other side is wrong. i see us as being ten years into the mind warp from hell. we are now, realize, ten years into this mass psychology experiment. not something the tech companies can -- fix -- changing the algorithm. we have to actually wake up from the trans, at least in the matrix we had a shared matrix. one shared reality we all operated in. in this world we have 3 billion individual trig logies.

>> it is interesting. i think you were like a lot of us who casually use social media, but google an incredible innovation it is, facebook, keep up with high school friends and twitter, instagram, look at the celebrity taking a picture of himself or herself and you didn't really understand what exactly triston is talking about until you saw his post from inside google. what about his post captured you and how did it lead to this documentary? >> absolutely. triston and i knew each other are from college. went to stamford together and had many friends who went into the tech industry and countless friends at facebook, twitter, google. as many of us did, i had rose colored glasses on what the tech industry was building. when i started hearing from triston a manipulative intent it completely blew me away. i never perceived or conceived of that notion there was an intent behind the software that i wasn't aware of. so triston and i started talking

and talking to others, and reached out to other friends from the tech industry i got to see a completely different way to look at this technology i used every day. i was a pretty active user. to reckon with the thick i wng holding, working with every day was a reality shift for me. we learned there was something here the public would resonate with. >> triston, we've talked a lot on the show an implications of facebook being a gathering place for extremists, conspiracy theories to percolate up and sometimes sized by, friction, the president of the united states. what do you think as someone from the ideas as a whistleblower is the most dangerous aspect of what you know about these social media companies? >> i mean, unfortunately, so many dangers. i say that not trying to be hieber bolic. i sincerely mean that. you mention extremist groups. people often think, oh, facebook is holding up a mirror to society.

right? if you've got those conspiracy groups or extremists we're showing you reality what's already in your society. that's not actually how it works. it's plik a funhouse mirror showing specific things that are good at getting attention. we know from an internal document at facebook 64% of the extremist groups that people joined on facebook were due to facebook actually actively recommending them to people. meaning people didn't type in, hey i want to join the white nationalist group and show up at the ymca with a box of doughnuts and talk about it what was 10, 15 years ago. instead facebook is actively recommending it. and one of the people in the film talked about how she joined a moms' do it yourself making baby food. you see on the right-hand side, more grurp grur groups you migh join? it was qanon and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories because they

better at getting attention. you go down the rabbit hole, it keeps going. the biggest concern, this is the breakdown of a shared reality, we can wake up fra-oom, by the . 40 million households saw in the first 28 days, it creating a new shared reality about the breakdown of our shared reality. we're finding people going om over thanksgiving or the holidays saying, this is a way to come together and realize this mindwork that's happened to all of us. >> yeah. so the documentary is called "the social demeilemmadilemma." if you haven't seen it you really need to see it. available on netflix. jeff orlouseky and triston, thank you both very much. honestly, the way that it takes, take ahold of a young, developing mind's brain has you looking back at that phone, back at that phone, back at that phone for social media alerts and everything else, it's

staggering. the amount of impact that social media has on our lives. i really appreciate it, and everybody should watch it. that does it for us this morning. chris jansing picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm chris jansing in for stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, december 2nd. three major developments on the coronavirus front including breaking news one vaccine developer says marks beginning of the end of the pandemic. the united kingdom, the first country to formally approve pfizer and biointek vaccine. and out with its recommendations for who should receive the vaccine first once it's approved here in the u.s. they include health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. third, the cdc is expected to issue new guidance today shortening quarantine