the story of the republican party and chart a new direction, like how? like where? i guess you can do it legislatively, but you won't control the agenda and you have him controlling the media and whoever has the microphone or the stage tends to have a dominant role in how people think about the party. >> and the republicans are still afraid of that base that gives him all of that power. jim vandehei, thank you for being here on "way too early." next week is the critical week as to whether or not americans will get the help they need in congress. don't go anywhere. thanks for getting up "way too early" on this friday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. nobody's done what we have done -- what i have done, despite what's going on. so i'm very disappointed in my justice department.

it was my justice department that arrested them. >> it's not my justice department. it's the people's justice department. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> just one of the ways things will be different 47 days from now. it's definitely not his justice department. >> so let me ask -- i'm just curious. so it's not going to be his justice department. >> no. not his. >> it's not going to be his military. it's not going to be like the bullets that he gets -- what was that one, willie, before i became president, what did trump say? my army was out of bullets. >> ammunition. they're out of ammunition. >> oh, my gosh. it was monopoly or something. >> he talked about my generals. he loves to talk about my generals, my military. it's amazing to listen to joe biden. it seems radical to say something as conventional as the justice department does not belong to me. i mean, it is a radical departure from the last four

years but it's something that the president should say. >> it's in line with what republican presidents and what democratic presidents have said for -- well, our entire lifetime. so it's nice to hear that again. >> it is. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." friday, december 4th. with joe, willie and me we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early," she never sleeps, kasie hunt. and for the second straight day we'll get right into it. the u.s. has set a record for coronavirus deaths and the president is talking about lawsuits. according to nbc news, more than 2,800 people died yesterday from covid-19. the previous record came just a day earlier when the country also saw the highest number of infections and hospitalizations. >> i want to stop there for a second because, you know, willie, for so long the president would lie to the american people. lie to his own voters and say

the only reason our numbers are higher here is because we take more tests. of course talking about infections. the one number that doesn't lie of course is the number of deaths. we were struggling with a thousand deaths today and again, the president said this wasn't coming back in the fall. we are at 9/11 numbers. i mean, we're getting close to the same number who died on 9/11 dying yesterday from a pandemic that the president told us in january was just one person coming in from china. told us a month later it was just 15 people and it was going away. then promised it would be away in april. when it got warmer. then the clips we showed yesterday, telling us and undermining his own advisers, cdc director and also dr. fauci saying it's not going to come back in the fall. let's put up the number from yesterday.

this is how many people died of this disease this pandemic that the president said -- >> good god. >> they have been lying about for nine months, it would go away, but again, these are 9/11 numbers. right? and if you add up the number of americans who died two days ago and died yesterday, that's a higher number, willie, i think if my addition is right than all of the american soldiers who have died in afghanistan over the past two decades. that's how many americans have died of covid in just two days. >> yeah. the number sounds right to me. just off the top of my head. an incredible way to put it. my gosh, puts it in some perspective. i hate to add on to this darkness, but dr. fauci pointed out on an interview on msnbc with andrea mitchell, he said we haven't gotten to the seeding that took place during

thanksgiving. this is going into fall and early winter. we haven't seen and we will see in a couple of weeks that comes with the thanksgiving gatherings. we saw millions of people traveling across the country against the advice of the cdc. so it's the beginning of something that dr. redfield, the head of the cdc, said the worst public moment in the country and we'll be going through the next couple of months with donald trump as president. there's only so much joe biden can do at this point as he's on the sidelines. so we have a president who is obsessed with overturning an election. and not this tragedy right in front of us. >> and if you think about that, he's got these pitiful attempts with rudy giuliani say no more right there and we have records highs in deaths because the president won't daily tell people to wear masks. he won't daily do a briefing with dr. fauci and top doctors

to explain to people that we're not there yet with the vaccines. in fact, when he talks about vaccines he talks about how he somehow created them and it somehow is the trump vaccine -- no, it's the trump virus and this presidency continues to kill people. i don't know -- i don't know how to get through to people who follow donald trump to the end but look at the people who are dying. they like trump have not taken this virus seriously, many of them have been impacted or victimized by others who haven't taken this virus seriously. it's unbelievable. these are numbers that don't need to be happening. and it would have hard but it was simple what needed to be done and this president couldn't get it done. >> he couldn't get it done. willie, though, you talk about how dr. fauci is warning that the worst is yet to come. mika is talking about rightly about how the president never

took this virus seriously. and there are a lot of dead americans because of that. there are a lot of governors, republican governors who have acted like total idiots by proudly saying that they didn't believe that masks should be worn. local republican officials who have acted like idiots but if you saw "the new york post" today, my god, the progressive leaders we talked about gavin newsom and what he did. denver mayor michael hancock telling citizens not to travel for the holidays then boarding a plane for mississippi, not an hour later. austin, texas, mayor steve addler recording people and telling people to stay home and filming it from a time share in cabo. you have dianne feinstein caught maskless at the capitol in the airport. you have governor cuomo of course planning the family thanksgiving that would have

broken his own rules and then backing down. you have the mayor of san francisco going -- you know this must be -- what's that restaurant in san francisco that they all go to? because when this covid -- when this covid pandemic breaks, what's it called? >> french laundry. >> french laundry, right. we're going to invite the entire "morning joe" audience, 1.5 -- about 4 million. we're all going to cram into french laundry when this is over because it must be a hell of a restaurant because leaders in california keep risking their lives and keep risking the lives of their family members and keep risking.

and you are the leader. you should live the things you're saying. we have seen tons and tons of hypocrisy from democrats and from republicans. i mentioned dr. anthony fauci a minute ago. joe biden said that dr. fauci will stay on as director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and serve as chief medical adviser. it came after he met with the president-elect's transition team during a zoom meeting to discuss covid-19 related topics. the president-elect has tapped a veteran of the obama administration to serve as america's top doctor. "the washington post" reports former u.s. surgeon general vivek murphy has been asked to

come in as an expanded version and is expected to lead the nation's response to the coronavirus crisis. also, president-elect joe biden will ask americans to wear masks for the first 100 days after he takes office. >> in the first day i'm inaugurated to say i'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. 100 days to mask. not forever. 100 days and i think we'll see a significant reduction that occurs with masking to try down the virus significantly. >> will you get vaccinated in the way that presidents bush, obama and clinton are saying they -- >> i will stand before the public and see -- look, part of what has to happen, jake, people

have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work. already the numbers are really staggeringly low. >> so i just wonder 100 days of masking across the board, americans being required to wear masks just how quickly the numbers will change and i wonder if some of the friends you have been talking to, joe, and some of the republicans who have been standing by as stooges to president trump not stepping up for the american people and their safety and, quite frankly, stepping up against the president's stupidity and cruelty not being a leader on this coronavirus, i wonder how quickly the numbers will change. i wonder if your friends and those republicans will actually admit that actually doing basic things to mitigate this virus would have changed the course of this pandemic. >> should i ask him that way? >> yeah. ask him. because you know what? the numbers will change. and at this point, i don't --

>> yeah. >> i would be careful. >> let me ask them. okay. i'll dial and -- willie, what do you think? do you think i should ask my friends? do you think i should let mika ask my friends in that tone? >> mika calls the restaurant. you call the friends, let's do it that way. >> okay. >> honestly, honestly, honestly, how stupid can you be at this point? if you just actually read about it, learn about it. >> you're right. >> how stupid can you be to be so arrogant and to be so flip about this. when we have numbers like this. how crazy are you? >> we have been asking that question for some time. i think we'll be a little polite first and pick up the phone -- >> i'm done with being polite. i actually would like people in this country to stay alive. unlike some of your friends and republicans in the senate and in the house. and president trump whose presidency is killing people.

>> right. >> by the tens of thousands. >> we agree with that. talking about how i approach my friends. willie, what -- >> friends? those are great friends. >> how about alabama, they sure looked good against auburn. we'll start with that. >> the president wanted you arrested, joe. and they still stood by him. i'm just saying could you require that he doesn't kill people? >> how's your family doing? how is your mom? tell her i said hi and then i will say you can wear a mask. speaking of working things in, i think now would be a great time to work in some really smart time. let's bring in right now a member of the fda advisory committee on vaccines, dr. paul ofete, he's from children's hospital in philadelphia. also with us is a medical director of the special pathogens unit at the boston

school of medicine, dr. nahid bedelia. i need to start with you, dr. ofete, with family members. i have a son who's a diabetic. i have another son, he's got asthma, he had pneumonia last year. >> we keep them in the bubble. >> i keep saying these vaccines are coming along, i'm excited for you guys. they said, i think we're going to wait a little while. dad says i don't think they are. how can we make sure that americans -- i have heard this skepticism not only from my own kids but from so many americans because of the garbage they pick up on social media. how do we convince americans especially older americans and those who have underlying

conditions that when they have a vaccine and if dr. fauci says it's safe that they can trust the word of that and understand not taking the vaccine is far more risky than taking it? >> i think that most people are concerned about safety. i mean, reasonably they argue this is a message rna vaccine, this is the first ever rna vaccine, how do we know it's safe if it hasn't been tested in large numbers of people. it will be tested in large numbers of people before it hits throughout and we can say it doesn't have severe side effects. i think people can reasonably argue we haven't -- it doesn't have a rare, serious side effect but the way it will roll out, the 1a group will be long-term facility residents and staff and essential health care workers which is another 21 million people. which means by the time you get

to other essential workers, much less those who are 65, or high risk individuals this is in tens of millions of people so you'll have a huge safety portfolio, hopefully it doesn't even cause a rare side effect. i think then with that kind of information, those kinds of data, i think people will feel more comfortable. >> dr. bedelia, i'm sure you have been encouraged by what you're hearing out of the biden transition team and yesterday he talked about mask wearing for the first 100 days of his term. but we have a long way to go and we have difficult days as many people including dr. fauci have said. until we get the biden administration. we are setting new records of deaths, cases, hospitalizations and another one yesterday. where do you think we are right now and without joe biden in the white house, what mitigation efforts should be taken right now? >> good morning, willie.

really glad to hear the talk about the work around the vaccines because it's the advisory committee that they'll be putting in that's going to set part of my mind at ease to look at the data from pfizer and moderna. the worrisome about this is exactly what dr. fauci said, we're not at the peak. we're at the incline. we know that's correct because our test positivity rates have gone up. that means we're missing chains of transition. over 100,000 people have been hospitalized and the human mind boggles because one death, you can understand the suffering of a death, you know? when it becomes thousands, hundreds of thousands, it becomes -- we don't understand the suffering as much. the things that we can do and i say this because i want to sort of drive in the gravity but there are things we as individuals can do. it is the masking and there is a yale study again this week that showed that mask mandates can

drop mortality. drop it by about 12% in isolation even before you do stay at home orders or anything else. so you don't travel this winter if you don't have to. then to do the three cs to avoid the three cs, closed spaces so you'll get into the spaces that are indoors or that have no ventilation, crowds, don't be and people who aren't part of your household, particularly if you can't help it, without masks. close contact. don't be in close contact with people who are not in your household without a mask on. those are things we can do. what our leadership can do, well, one thing is i really hope, you know, our government passes that covid relief bill that we have been waits for. because president-elect biden said yesterday, look, states are still looking for assistance. they're not just looking for guidance and a national approach and how to approach this, but they're looking for fund because of the increase in

hospitalizations to help with distribution of the vaccine. >> kasie, i know you're covering for us in a minute, some glimmers of hope, but a question for dr. ofete. >> you were at the children's hospital of philadelphia which is just one of the country's preeminent institutions and we're lucky enough to benefit from your expertise when i was growing up and when joe was talking about his kids and the text messages i'm getting are what to do if you're pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant or if you're concerned about the health of the baby and your own health. what concerns do you have about pregnant women about getting this vaccine, if any, is it safe for them and their baby and what kind of data do we need before

we'll know that it's safe especially for infants and toddlers to get this vaccine? >> okay. so two parts to that question. so first of all, although pregnant women have been excluded from the huge trials by pfizer and moderna the fact remains whenever you do huge trials like that, pregnant women are included because people sign up for the trial and didn't know they were pregnant and get the vaccine and find out they're pregnant. there is data what happens when the pregnant women gets the vaccine and that's going to happen when the vaccine starts to roll out and if given to essential health care workers who didn't know they were pregnant. the cdc has a program called be safe where they're following up the women to do two things. one, has this affected them and two, has it affected their child a once born? so i think those studies will start to roll out in the next few months and then we'll know if there's any problem with women that were pregnant getting the vaccine. either for them or their child. in terms of children, children

have not been a priority for this vaccine. for the simple reason is people less than 21, although they make up 26% of the population they make up 0.8% of the deaths compared to nursing homes, 40% of the deaths. i think early this coming year, i think moderna is going to start doing prospective placebo controls and seeing what the right dose is for the children. i think by the middle or end of next year we'll know whether -- how we can best immunize them. the fact of the matter is, children can die of this. as many children who died from this virus and -- and children can suffer longer term problems like inflammatory disease and i think children need to be immunized. >> kind of basic, but i'm just

looking at for example this "washington post" piece from a couple days ago where the secretary of state has invited hundreds of people to a series of indoors partied. it's called diplomacy at home which i would rather it be called come on over and get killed. but here is the secretary of state taking pictures with a woman looking scared, they're very close. this lineup of parties is happening over the next three weeks while the u.s. government is saying don't have parties. what are we supposed to think of this? hundreds and hundreds of people are -- one of them has 900 people coming to it, invited. what are we supposed to think? >> well, from the public health perspective, it breaks through all of the three cs, close contact, crowded people and it is indoors, which is what we're trying to avoid. it is -- this is on par with what we have seen in the administration, whether it's one

set of rules for the public and then our own government, our own governance downplays or flounts against the public health rules that their own task force puts in place. if there was a time, this is a time for us to unite as a country to recognize that, you know, if we put everything we have into the next couple of months, light is at the end of the tunnel. you know, it's just disappointing to see that. what i hope to see with the next administration is what they do in action is exactly what they say in words. >> all right. doctors, thank you both so much. we really do appreciate it. kasie, i don't want to sound so optimistic that mika's going to strike me after this segment, but things may be starting -- by

the way, mika said i'm tired of being nice and alex said when was she ever nice? but things may be breaking out on capitol hill or at least let's just say the cold war may be thawing a little bit. yesterday, nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell got together and they're at least talking. we can start like talking to each other. and talking about helping the american people with a covid relief bill. what can you tell us? >> well, first of all, i can tell you i think mika is very nice. she's definitely the nicest one on the program. >> thank you. >> yeah, so you're right. i mean, it seems obvious to me. but no, you're right about the thaw. i think that's a really good way to put it because there had been basically a cold war between

frankly pelosi and donald trump that also had drawn mitch mcconnell into it as well. but now all of a sudden everyone is saying, okay, actually we want to get on board. we want to get on the same page. we want to get something done before the end of the year. i think that's partly because things have gotten so dire out in the country. you know, the real economy is not where the stock market is. people are really hurting and that's what everyone is hearing from their constituents. i think it's also potentially a sign of things to come. this came about because there was a bipartisan group of senators who got together and said our leadership failed us. we want to figure out if there's something we can do to pull people together. there was a press conference earlier this week with all of the names, joe, you had listed off several times, since joe biden won this election. susan collins, lisa murkowski, the middle of the senate that is going to be the focus i think no matter frankly who wins the

senate in georgia, but especially if republicans control the senate. that actually seems to have been enough and pelosi and schumer said, okay, let's use this to negotiate. mitch mcconnell seems to suggest he's actually willing to do that. i think donald trump is a real x-factor here. and there's concern he may do something irrational or do something to blow up the deals. i think this is pretty good news for the american people generally and maybe a glimmer of hope for more optimistic times to come in the senate. >> well, we move on to attorney general barr now and the president is disappointed at him for not looking hard enough for why trump didn't win the election. this comes after bill barr said earlier this week there wasn't enough evidence of fraud to overturn the election. >> do you still have confidence in bill barr? >> ask me that in a number of

weeks from now. they should be looking at all of this fraud. >> nbc news reports that the president has not ruled out firing the attorney general, but that a sudden departure was not seen as imminent. there's also new reporting on the justice department investigation into that alleged bribery scheme involving a presidential pardon. two people familiar with the investigation tells "the new york times" that it concerns jared kushner, abbe lowell and republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty in a different lobbying scheme involving the trump administration. >> get more on this, let's bring in msnbc national security analyst and best selling author michael schmidt. michael, what can you tell us about this story? >> so on tuesday, this document came out that basically laid out

this scheme about a bribe being paid for a pardon and how the justice department was going to great lengths to examine some documents related to it that go into some such great lengths they went to a federal judge to ask for permission to see some of this material, but the document was highly redacted. you could not make much sense of who this document was about. but what our reporting shows is that it sort of is this -- this elaborate, but very trumpian story about a wealthy republican donor who is named sanford diller. this man who was trying to help a bay area psychologist who had been sentenced to over two years in prison on tax charges. this guy, sanford diller, was trying to get this person out of

prison and basically thought because i had given all of this money to republican causes it should open the doors for me to try and get clemency for this psychologist. this psychologist who had helped sanford diller. so in the course of this, diller reaches out to elliott bray the trump fund-raiser. elliott bray connects him with abbe lowell who went on to become jared kushner's lawyer. abbe lowell who has repeatedly made false statements about kushner's security clearance. so abbe lowell, this is back in 2017, works with these folks on trying to get this clemency. now, fast forward to this past summer and the justice department is looking at some sort of email correspondences that raised questions about what

had gone on here and what was the wealthy donor, sanford diller, trying to do and trying to say about how he was trying to get this clemency. bottom line, in 2018, sanford diller dies. none of this was in the materials that came out on tuesday and the simple fact that the justice department was investigating this just raises all new questions about the pardon process going on at the white house. and that's because the president has refused to follow the normal pardon process and what he's done. he has treated pardons like party favors or gifts for friends. and in doing that has opened up the door to certainly, you know, allow the public to wonder what's really going on here. and how are you using your

pardon power? >> we know, michael, as you reported earlier in the week that rudy giuliani has been talking with the white house about a potential pardon for himself and that the president has talked about blanket pardons for members of his own family. we should point out that abbe lowell and elliott brody said they did nothing wrong here and the white house didn't comment on the story, but for people putting the pieces together and trying to sort through some new names and new players here, what was the white house's role -- did this go to the oval office? is this something that donald trump himself would have been involved in discussing? >> we know from the documents there was some back and forth with the white house counsel's office which is supposed to be the place that the white house, that looks at clemency requests. we don't know if it went any further from that. from abbe lowell's side, her side says that abbe was not

representing jared kushner at the time and he would not and has never raised questions of pardons with jared kushner. so we don't know a lot about what happened on the white house side of it. we don't know -- >> unbelievable. >> -- has tried to figure it out. >> yeah. hey, michael, let me ask you. in your great book "donald trump versus the united states" you went through so much. certainly went through an awful lot with william barr from everything you wrote, from all of your research. it must seem -- well, nothing strange in this white house, but quite interesting that it is now william barr who is on the outs after he degraded himself for years and may in fact be even make it to the end of donald trump's term. >> no. donald trump in many ways has william barr to thank for his

presidency. as i write about in my book, william barr is really the person who helped guide the mueller report in such a favorable way to donald trump that the president was able to go out and claim that he was fully exonerated, although he wasn't and that's not what the report did. and that there was no collusion, all the claims that trump made. that happened in large part because of william barr and how barr was able to manage it to the point that which i just -- just an astounding point of barr and mueller and trump is that the day after robert mueller testifies before congress, donald trump as only donald trump could do went out and took the greatest hits of volume one of the mueller report which is about colluding with the foreign power and foreign interference

and volume two which was about obstruction and donald trump was -- nothing came of the mueller report in regards to him. donald trump was able to go out and combine them into one single act and what he does when he picks up the phone the day after robert mueller testifies in 2019 and he calls the ukrainian president and he's able to take colluding with a foreign power or foreign interference in an election and using the justice department to go after your rivals and he combines them into one act which turns into impeachment. and that was a result of the fact that donald trump had not paid any price around the mueller report and that was directly because of his attorney general, william barr. >> all right. michael schmidt -- >> thank you. >> thank you very much for your reporting. the book again is "donald trump versus united states." alex is telling me just

yesterday when donald trump turned on william barr, charlie said today was the day in the maga universe when the truly deranged turned on the merely -- >> it's not even -- it's not even believable. >> it's not believable. >> i'm not shocked. i'm not shocked at donald trump, but i'm shocked at your friends and family and republicans. by the way, i'm sorry, if your friends received half of what president trump has done to you, you would stand for your friends and loved ones loud and proud. i don't get what's going on here because people are dying because of this man. >> willie, what do you think? what do you think? >> i'm staying out of this one, joe. you're on your own. >> these are the in -- >> i don't. >> go to break. >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> i need a paper bag over here.

>> we're not having people for holidays. >> i know. >> don't gather, don't talk, don't have a great time, that's the advice from the cdc. plus, jeremy peters with his new reporting on trump campaign legal adviser jenna ellis and how she's not the type of lawyer she plays on tv. you know what? >> she's a lawyer? >> i have exciting news for you, joe. >> what's that? >> you're on "the new york times" best seller list. your new book "saving freedom: truman, the cold war, and the fight for western civilization" has landed on the best seller list. congratulations. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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what is your favorite memory of working or spending time with joe biden? >> probably my strongest memory of joe are when we campaigning

together. you know, i worked the rope lines after i made a speech. you know, i have hugged babies and -- >> yeah. >> and kissed grandmas. you know, we'd go around and shake hands, all this stuff. and i felt like i -- you know, i had shaken every hand and i'm finished with the rope line. i look back and like joe's just starting. i mean, i think he's gotten the life story of the first four people. >> yeah. >> so campaigning with joe meant you were going to be late. because he really cares about, you know, hearing people and letting them know that they're important. and i think that fundamental character of his is exactly what we need right now after so much division and anger and frustration. just having somebody who likes people, cares about them, knows their struggles. i think that's going to make a

big difference and i think kamala will bring some those same values to bear when they get sworn in. >> i'll tell you what, mika, that is -- it really is regardless of whether you're a democrat or a republican, you can look at joe biden, see how he responds to republicans and independents and democrats alike and understand -- i kind of take it back to gerald ford after richard nixon left office. ford was a fundamentally decent man. he was a good man. republicans and democrats knew that and they saw it. and it really did start the healing of this country after vietnam and watergate. let's hope after many tumultuous years, very tumultuous 20 years of this new century, i think it's time for us to slow down, take a couple of deep breaths in

washington, d.c., and have republicans and democrats working together again and hopefully joe biden can get us back to that place where we were. >> that was an exclusive sneak peek at jimmy fallon's interview with former president barack obama which airs tonight on "the tonight show." joining us now cofounder and ceo of axios jim vandehei and cnbc founder, tom rogers and reporter jeremy peters. >> you had a piece in "the new york times" about one of donald trump's lawyers. tell us about it. >> so jenna ellis is someone you will recognize from television, and when we started reporting on her we found out that really that's most of what she's known for. her television appearances. went back and interviewed lawyers from colorado where she

started practicing and found that while she's, you know, prosecuting criminal cases, theft, landlord/tenant disputes, duis, things like that and was a defense attorney for some time, she has never once filed for an appearance in federal court. she has never handled election law cases and she's padded her resume to make herself appear as a constitutional law expert which is how she's referred to on fox news. well, her only qualification for being a constitutional law expert are a self-published book and teaching to undergraduates. she teaches at a school that doesn't have a law school, but calls herself a constitutional law professor which is a complete exaggeration of your claims. now, this is all fine, you know? you're just a country lawyer

then by all means describe yourself that way. but she's not holding herself up as a country lawyer, but she's holding herself up as a constitutional law expert and the legal counsel to the president of the united states, somebody with great authority, when she does not have much authority on the subject with which she purports to speak. >> willie, i'm living proof that there's nothing wrong with being a country lawyer. i mean, you don't want me trying to defend the presidency in the courtroom or anything like that, but this is really as we have known donald trump a long time, this is -- this is what he does. he takes short cuts. he cuts corners because he doesn't want to pay the price of, you know, when top lawyers

in washington are going to cost him. certainly no lawyer that i ever worked for would ever take a client like donald trump because you have got to have the client that one, tells the truth, and two, follows your direction when you walk in to court. like when you go in to the courtroom, all right, your client works for you. your client keeps their mouth shut if you want your client to keep their mouth shut and he talks or she talks when you need them to talk to win the case. that's just not that donald trump does. he can't follow directions at all. and will get a lawyer in trouble -- a great lawyer in trouble real fast. >> what's strange is headed into the election season like all campaigns do, there was a team of actual lawyers that -- election lawyers who could have prosecuted the cases but he instead turned to rudy giuliani and miss ellis. she as you know, jeremy, was a prosecutor, county prosecutor in

colorado. was as you point out doing traffic cases and misdemeanors. so the larger question we were talk about this yesterday with lin wood as he was screaming in a maga hat down in georgia, why are these attorneys doing it? is it simply the fame, the money and now will be on the speaking circuit and they'll be writing a book and be inside the maga public? what are they doing this for? >> i think it's hard to pretty hard to tell with the people in trump world, whether or not they actually believe that millions and millions of voters voted fraudulently. i do think part of the answer, willie, it's just easy to get in the inner circle right now because nobody else wants to be there. i mean, this is one thing we heard when we were reporting the story is that there aren't a lot of lawyers right now of top quality, high qualifications who will work for this president in

this legal pursuit because there is no way to win it. and as a lawyer, to go around making claims like jenna ellis and rudy giuliani have of this massive fraud when there is no evidence, it's not just, you know, questionable. it may be unethical and a violation of proper conduct codes for the way attorneys are supposed to carry themselves. >> jeremy, thank you very much for coming on this morning. let's turn now to tom rogers and tom, you have been coming on to this show, warning of the possible end runs that the president could make around the democracy that we hold. what do you make of these legal efforts right now and how much do they coincide with what you were warning about? >> well, it's clear that the legal strategy all along was getting this into the house of

representatives by getting state legislators to appoint alternative elector slates and ignore the popular vote. giuliani's still at it today and the reason that they have these third-rate lawyers leading the charge is that there really isn't any evidence to back up what they said. but look, we got to learn from this experience and know what we need to do to reform so that somebody else cannot follow this path again. and the first thing we've got to learn is this election came within 44,000 votes of landing in the house of representatives, and, you know, the story of 7 million popular vote win doesn't tell that. the story of 306-232 electoral votes doesn't tell that, but donald trump won in 2016 by 70,000 votes across wisconsin, pennsylvania and michigan. and joe biden clearly won by half of that, 44,000 votes across arizona, georgia and wisconsin.

and if those 44,000 votes had gone the other way, the electoral college would have been a 269-269 tie. it would have gone into the house of representatives and donald trump would have won that vote in the house of representatives. that's how close we got. now, their plan was forget about where that ended up. they were going to convince state legislators on some narrative of fraud to a final elector and have it thrown into the house of representatives off the chaos that that would have created. but fortunately that did not happen, the guardrails held. but if it's any closer or had been any election irregularities that could have been pointed to they would have had the momentum potentially to make that happen. so we need a few reforms here. first at the state level. we have to make sure that states change the laws so that they can count absentee ballots before election day. so you don't have this red mirage/blue wave potential and the narrative over three or four days that the documenting will

ensue. secondly at the federal level, the act of 1887 that hasn't been reformed in over a hundred years we have to figure out how to reform that at the federal level. one, you can only appoint electors based on who won the popular vote. that's got to be clear in the federal law. and two, states have to have in place their procedures for electoral college electors being selected at least 60 days before the election. none of this post election, we'll award electoral votes after the fact under some new theory which can happen. there are two key reforms. >> yeah. and the 1887 bill really does -- it needs to be updated. so much of this needs to be updated and yes, jim vandehei, yes, the constitution of the

united states says it's state legislators certainly determine how votes are counted and how elections are run and unfortunately in wisconsin and pennsylvania and michigan, they decided they would not let the states count the absentee votes and the mail-in votes early. we would have known election night had they done there. but doesn't there have to be some, at least some counting of electoral votes and then in the prose following the election, don't there need to be some reforms, don't we need to tighten up the ambiguities not only for democrats but for democrats and republicans who may find themselves in this position four years from now? >> you have to do it often state by state. i think if you can get the votes counted ahead of time, it's probably the thing that would have mitigated a lot of this. but the truth is the system worked. i'm listening to all of the

things that trump and he attorneys are doing, it's nonsensical legal logical from the beginning and a lot of theater and circus. but the court system worked the exact way it should have worked. even republican state officials behaved the way that republican state officials should behave in the states, even when they drew the ire of donald trump. they can huff and puff, but at the end of the day, joe biden will be president in january, and we'll have this hoopla on the outside. it won't matter. yes, can you challenge everything about our system, you can rhetorically, but if you can't legally does it have a practical effect? what you said about this obsession that joe biden has with normal, and normal seems to be working for him. think about the picks he's made so far in the cabinet. if the only controversy we had is that someone tweeted about

the republicans, it will defuse the republicans who will be inclined not to give him anybody in his cabinet. naming fauci, wear masks, focus on the stimulus package. it's been a nice i think juxtaposition for him against the circus and legal theatrics, because he's come into january and he'll have -- you'll have lots of unemployment, an economy that's crushed for the people in the service economy and you'll have a donald trump who's doing a lot of the stuff he's doing on the outside and he has to figure out a way to get the economy and get the vaccine out. and i think normal is the best strategy you can use under these circumstances. >> hey, jim, really quickly. you're a wisconsin guy. have you figured out exactly what happened to wisconsin, how some polls had joe biden winning by 8 7 points and it ended up being one of the tighter states? >> yeah. i really do in some of the

states in particular it's just clear that there were so many people who wouldn't tell the pollsters how they're voting. you had some maybe embarrassed or being mischievous. the people depending the polls, you're joking about 70, but that many points off seems like a big miscalculation. i think we have to look for different ways to measure how people feel about things because donald trump despite all the things he's doing today continues to be more popular than we think and looks like his favorable rating is close to 50 by the time that the election rolled around. i don't think anybody saw that coming. while we can ridicule the lawyers around donald trump the reality of donald trump won't change. by the way, he controls the rnc. he has raised $200 million, and he's not going away. people are delusional he'll fade as much as they think he'll

phase. >> jim vandehei and tom rogers, thank you for being on this morning. still ahead, the cdc announced guidelines this week for what the first phase of coronavirus vaccine distribution would look like and who should receive it. but what comes after that? a lack of planning is raising concerns about what happens next. also, who pays for it? msnbc's heidi przybyla will join us with the latest reporting on that. "morning joe" is back in a moment. that "morning joe" is back in a moment my nunormal: fewer asthma attacks. less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection

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former presidents barack obama, george w. bush and bill clinton want to encourage americans to get the covid vaccine by getting theirs on camera. president trump wanted to be included, but obama said, sorry, pal, but it's two-termers only. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, december 4th. nbc's kasie hunt is still with us and joining the conversation we have pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. >> breaking news, willie. mika smiled. she even laughed. >> because i want people to live. okay. >> well, i thought you laughed because it was a funny joke. >> no. >> mika's outrage this morning is well placed, but going -- she

wants you to attack your own family members. i understand the broad rage. >> you know what? enough. people are dying and they attack -- he's attacked joe many times and these people still voted for him. and still go there and promulgate his lies as people die from this virus, yes, i'm angry. i'm done with them and no one is invited for the holidays. >> can i play war zone on my ipad here? >> i don't want to see them. even when we get the vaccine. >> okay. okay. >> so willie, do you have any holiday plans? i mean, we weren't going to have anybody -- >> i know that joe would stand for his family and loved ones loud and proud. i disparage them and they know it. >> so willie, what are your plans? >> they're not much. like most of the country, probably it will be the four of

us. christine and the kids. just a tight little holiday. maybe some grandparent visits in the backyard. that's about it. that's where we are. i like to attack my family in private. >> you know what? we have tried and let me tell you something. they can go -- why don't they go straight to the er? >> the u.s. has set a record for coronavirus deaths. tell us more, mika. >> according to nbc news, the nbc news tally more than 2,800 people died yesterday from covid-19. the previous record came just a day earlier when the country also saw the highest number of new infections and hospitalizations. i don't believe we have seen the thanksgiving results yet. yesterday was the third straight day the nation reported more than 2,000 deaths in one day. in one day. >> yeah. willie, again, the -- it's just extraordinary. if you look at those numbers, and we were talking last hour

about the fact that you look at those numbers and it's a record. it's a record high. that's about the same number that we had on the -- on the americans dying on september the 11th. of course, the country not only stopped in its tracks that day, but it guided us for the next decade. here 2,800 people died yesterday. 2,733 died the day before. as we said last hour, more americans died over the past 48 hours, more americans died than over the last two decades of fighting in afghanistan and the president wants to withdraw the troops from afghanistan and yet he won't talk about the

coronavirus. he'll have a 45 minute conspiracy rant on facebook, but never brings up the fact again that in two days, more americans have died than died in two decades in afghanistan. >> you know what, joe, we were talking about this last hour. the comparison is actually worse than we thought. yesterday, 2,802 americans died. in 19 years of war in afghanistan, 2,452 americans have died in that war. so you had more deaths yesterday from coronavirus than american deaths yesterday than american death in all of the afghanistan war. and if you put those two days together, more americans have died in iraq, these comparisons obviously aren't perfect for war and disease but it gives you a sense of just how tragic this is every day and how we haven't even reached as we said in the last hour the peak of this. that we're still climbing. dr. bhadelia said we're on the upswing, we're not close to the

peak, we haven't factored in thanksgiving yet. we haven't had the holiday season take hold where people will be visiting each other against the wishes and the guidance of the cdc. so these numbers are bad. they're setting new records for deaths, hospitalizations every day. but the doctors have been telling us we can expect them to get worse from here. let's turn to one of them, former acting director of the cdc, president and ceo of the robert wood johnson foundation, dr. richard besser. good to see you today. we have had some hopeful news on the vaccine front that hopefully, you know, the fda will approve this and will start to get it into people who need it the most, as soon as by the end of the year. but let's stop and talk about where we are right now. did i overstate anything i said in terms of how this is climbing? >> i don't think so. i think this is clearly the most dangerous period we have had in the pandemic. and it's dangerous for a number of reasons. it's dangerous because we don't have a national approach in

terms of -- or national consensus in terms of personal responsibility. the need for us all to wear masks, to protect ourselves or families and our communities. and it's also incredibly dangerous because we have not seen congress step up and provide everyone in this country with the resources so that if they want to do the right thing, if they want to stay home because they have been exposed or they want to stay home because they're not feeling well, that they can. black and brown people in this country being hit incredibly hard by this pandemic. early on, people had money in their pockets. we had protection in terms of sick leave and medical leave and eviction protection and home foreclosure protection. all of that will be gone by the end of the year and you can't expect people to stay home if they're not feeling well, if it means not putting food on the table and not paying their rent. i mean, that has to change if we really want to save lives this winter. >> and gene robinson, i remember

we had such major headlines when 100,000 people died. when we passed that milestone, we are at 277,000 people. some would call this malpractice. some would call this a murderous presidency at this point. it is beyond -- it is beyond even explanation that we're here at this point. and i wonder as joe biden has to pick up the pieces of this disastrous response, i think 100 days of masking will make a difference if people do it. >> yeah. if people do it. and, you know, what i think was significant about joe biden's call for a hundred days of masking was that it's simple and easy to digest and definitive

and, you know, very easy to understand and i hope that this continues to be his approach to the virus, of what we have needed all along. that sort of, you know, forward looking, compassionate, clear federal leadership and we have had none of that we have had absolutely none of that. in fact, the president has militated against that response and we see the results. 2,800 people have -- and my question for dr. besser is how does he see the likely impact over the next four weeks, eight weeks, on our medical system? my wife was speaking with a doctor at johns hopkins hospital, one of the leading medical institutions in the country yesterday and was saying that they are really concerned

about what -- you know, do they have enough medical personnel to be able to withstand the surge that they're anticipating. can you take a bit about that likely impact and maybe what we can do about it? >> yeah. you know, the impact is going to be profound and it's going to be profound in two ways. one is the ability to take care of people who have covid. we're seeing across the country hospitals looking at setting up mobile hospitals, what's called crisis care. so changing standards of care because of the shortage of personnel and of equipment. it will have a profound effect though on everything else. just think about all of the people who are not getting screened for cancer. all of the people who may have some chest pain and want to two to the hospital and can't be seen or are afraid to be seen because the hospital is overflowing with people with

covid. there is something called excess mortality. this is something that cdc measures to look at well, how many people died above the number of people who died last year at this time. and that gives some sense of those people who are dying, they may not be dying from covid. but they're dying because of the covid pandemic. and the lack of the ability to get the proper care. the idea that hospitals will be canceling elective surgery. there are a lot of things that are called elective surgery which are necessary surgery. by delaying them as elective surgery they later on become emergency surgery. so all of these things factor into that. so, you know, getting people together, 100 days of wearing masks will help. providing people with resources will help. and it will help, you know, not just the individuals who are doing it but those in their families and their communities and those who need these scarce resources. >> help can't come soon enough. thank you so much, dr. richard besser. thank you for being on the show this morning.

so i had spoken pretty passionately this morning about how donald trump did not provide the leadership we needed during the pandemic. let's compare how trump performed with this manitoba, canada, premier who delivered an emotional plea to his constituents. pleading with him to stay at home over the holidays. >> i will do what i believe is right and right now i need to save lives. if you don't think that covid's real right now you're an idiot. you need to understand that we're all in this together. you cannot fail to understand this. stay apart. so i'm the guy who has to tell you to stay apart at christmas and in the holiday season you celebrate. with your faith or without your faith. that you celebrate with normally with friends and with family, where you share memories and

build memories. i'm that guy. and i'll say that because it will keep you safe. i'm the guy who is stealing christmas to keep you safe because you need to do this now. you need to do the right thing because next year we'll have lots to celebrate and we'll celebrate this year if we do the right thing this year. you don't need to like me. i hope in years to come you might respect me for having the guts to tell you the right thing. but here's the right thing. stay safe. protect each other. love each other. care for each other. you have so many ways to show that. but don't get together this christmas. >> willie, it was a beautiful talk to his constituents. >> yeah. >> beautiful speech.

only thing that i would say is the only correction i would make he'd not stealing christmas, he's keeping people apart at christmas if they'd listen to him, but he's guaranteeing a better, healthier new year and guaranteeing more christmases to come for many of his constituents. it's an act of responsibility and yes, i will say it is -- it is an act of love. >> it is an act of love and it's an act of leadership which is to say that something may be unpopular to say something to the people you're talking to but you know will help in the long term. that was beautifully said. it's refreshing. we haven't had that kind of leadership from the top in our country. we have had it at the state level from some governors but that was very well said and the fact of the matter is we have people in this country, tens of millions of them, who have been fed a story that this isn't

real, that this isn't as bad as it appears to be. that doctors who are asking us to stay home, wear masks are somehow trying to steal our freedom when the opposite is true. they're trying to restore our faith, and right now we don't feel, we're trapped at home. we feel like we're losing jobs. we feel like family members and friends are getting sick and dying and the path to return to normalcy and freedom is to suck it up here for a couple of months and do the things that doctors are asking us to do. i think that was just well said there. >> absolutely. >> it was. and, you know, people have been lied to so much. i had people come up to me as i said here before that believe that covid was going to end the day after the presidential election because it was a conspiracy theory. no, it's actually -- it's getting worse. why is it getting worse?

no, we were told back in march that it was going to get worse. donald trump was advised back in the spring that it was coming back in the fall and it would be worse. donald trump was advised in january, friends. listen, it's on tape. donald trump was advised in january that this was going to be the greatest crisis that he faced in his presidency and the greatest national -- the greatest national security crisis that he was going to face in the next month and february he admitted it on tape. that we still have it and you can listen to it if you want to. that he admitted to bob woodward that he knew how deadly this disease was, that it was airborne, that it was five times as deadly as the flu. that young people could get it as well as old people. that it did terrible things, as he said it's bad.

it is a bad virus. why am i saying that now? not saying it to take votes away from donald trump. the race is over. the campaign is done. the fight now is for your safety and the safety of your family members and your friends. and i just pray and i am praying that you'll -- you'll look after your safety, safety of the family members, the safety of your community. and understand there are no political conspiracies here when it comes to the coronavirus. there is no reason for people to tell you to wear a mask and to socially distance and to be really careful this christmas. no reason other than people want you to be healthy and they want people in your family and your community to be healthy. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla with new reporting on federal

vaccine distribution plans. heidi, we're not quite at phase one yet. but already concerns on what phase 2 will look like. this is complicated. >> right, mika. i talked with numerous federal and state health officials and the picture here is becoming pretty clear that the trump administration has really done a lot to try and ensure that phase 1 goes smoothly. we have an existing infrastructure for doctors and nurses to get vaccinated at the hospitals and the elderly are stationery. they will get the doses and we have individuals from walgreens and cvs coming in and when we hit phase 2 there's an eclipse of planning when it comes to the responsibilities that should be held by the federal government that are not been planned for. i'll give you a few examples. i talked with so many state officials who are not just not aware of what any kind of

standard, of what you'd expect, public relations outreach to try and organize a way to reach these communities that are already so skeptical that you talked about it earlier in the show to educate those populations, to target those populations. this one was a shocker. i also talked with the head of some of the state and local public health officials associations. they're not seeing the coordination because they say, look, it's good that we're bringing the private sector in here. we like this coordination, but don't leave us out, okay? we're not getting the type of communications that we should be getting. the funding, we talked about that. there's just no money to do this at this point. so congress has got to get on the ball on that. and then again, another one that was really surprising was a lack of a really integrated i.t. sophisticated i.t. structure to do this. again, i talked with state and local health officials who say we knew that we were going to have to pull off a feat unlike we have seen in modern history and yet, this did not start.

this type of planning did not start at the same time that the vaccine planning started which is when it should have started about nine months ago and so at this point, i'm told it's too late to pull all of this together. we have so many different types of local and state different health-type i.t. systems not talking to each other. we are trying within the past 60 days at the federal level to integrate a lot of the information to the tie berious system and a person said it's pretty obvious that everyone including on warp speed how this is going to go and that is as early as february, this is going to fall off a cliff in terms of all the things that haven't been done to put phase 2 into effect. i said, do you mean to coincide with joe biden taking office and this person said i'll let you

draw conclusions, but all of us who talk every day it's pretty obvious how this is going down. >> heidi przybyla, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate your reporting. hey, willie, i'm fascinated. we saw david fromm tweet the share of votes for the presidential candidates, you probably haven't seen it yet. so we have obviously had 12 candidates, republican and democratic, over the past 20 years. first, obama. 52.9%. second, biden 53.1%. fourth, bush in 2004. 50. %. fifth, gore. sixth, kerry 2004. ten, trump, 2020.

'12, mccain, 2008. what's so interesting about this list and the 21st century, six out of the top vote getters are democrats and the bottom five are republicans. if you just look at vote totals, the republicans have been routed by the democrats in the popular votes. the only one hitting the top seven is george w. bush in 2004. he got 50.7%. he got that number because he picked up about 45% of the hispanic vote. i remember george w. bush and jeb telling all of us in the late 1990s that republicans better get right with hispanics. that you can't lose two-thirds of the hispanic vote. and still win the national elections. of course, it's been fascinating since this election.

republicans are bragging about losing two-thirds of the hispanic vote and acting as if suddenly there's a massive surge. but you look at these numbers and it certainly looks like -- i'll say it and others may disagree with me. but with the direction that this country is going, if you just look at demographics, this is a -- this is a republican party who for the past 20 years has been losing support and i suspect that the next 20 years are going to be even rougher for them. as a national party, the democrats certainly appear to be in a position to have a dominant role for the next generation. >> yeah. the two winning presidents among republicans in this 21st century list, lost the popular vote in the first attempt. george w. bush and president trump. president obama with 53% of the

vote in 2008 and joe biden number two. but donald trump way down on the list at 10th and 11th. i guess the question to you as a former republican, what do they do about this? at this point in 2012, they have the big postmortem where they said what you just said. we have to change if we're going to start to win national elections but donald trump comes along and he's an entirely different phenomenon, who did better with latinos this time than in 2016. how do you sort of reset the party in being the trumpist party to being more conventional republican party that actually wants to win a majority of the votes? >> i mean, you don't have to be a status quo party. you can have strong beliefs. you can have strong principles. you can stick with those

principles but they need to go back and look another what they were saying after the 2012 election this country is always changing. it's been changing for 240 years, and they took the exact wrong turn in 2016 embracing somebody like donald trump. again, i will say it again. the fact that republicans are bragging about losing 88% of the black vote in america is so sad and pathetic. they're bragging that they got 12%. that's sad and pathetic. the fact that they're bragging about losing 67, 68% of the hispanic vote is so sad and pathetic. those numbers just don't hold up. they can't win the presidency again because, willie, we have been saying on this show for four or five years that because of demographic changes, georgia,

texas and arizona were going to be being blue at some point. i thought it was going to be in 2024. i didn't think arizona and georgia would break this year. and on election night, in our coverage, i remember we were talking very early on about texas. and i remember we said early in the evening we didn't believe all the talk about texas for 2020. but i certainly do believe in 2024. those demographic changes are going to continue and republicans can't just be the party of old white people. yes, donald trump won in 2016. you, donald trump won in 2016 and helped republicans win. but he got routed in 2017 in local elections. he got routed in the 2018 midterms. got routed across the deep south with governors in 2019, his

party did. and in 2020 he lost. republicans did well in the house and they did pretty darn well in the senate. but again, on the national stage, if they want to win the white house again, they're going to have to go back to basics and remember what george w. bush and what jeb bush was telling them back in 1998. back in 1999, their future depends on. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll read from susan glasser's latest piece, president trump is acting crazy. so why are we shrugging it off? "morning joe" will be right back. "morning joe" will be right back and dig deep into carpets. pick up more on every pass with no hair wrap. and dig deep into carpets. shark vertex with duoclean power fins. ♪ ♪

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president trump has not said if he's going to attend your inauguration yet. do you think it's important that he's there? you're laughing. >> i think it would -- important

only in one sense. not in a personal sense, important in a sense that we are able to demonstrate at the end of this chaos that he's created that there is peaceful transfer of power with the competing parties standing there shaking hands and moving on. i really worry about the image we're presenting to the rest of the world. look how we're viewed. they're wondering, my lord, these happen in tin horn dictatorships. that's not the united states. in that sense, the protocol of the transfer of power is important but i think it's totally his decision and of no personal consequence to me. but i do think it is for the country. >> it would help. >> it would be nice. >> he won't be there. gene robinson, i wanted to go back to that list of 12 candidates in the 21st century and get your input on the fact

that again five of the seven biggest vote getters out of the 12 candidates this century were democrats and the bottom five all republicans. what does that say about where we have been over the past 20 years and where we're going over the next 20 years? >> well, it says that the republican party despite holding a lot of power and it does continue to hold a lot of power in this country, especially at the state level and perhaps continuing its control of the senate, but republican party has to deal with those numbers. it has to deal with the fact that it is not literally a majority party in this country anymore. the majority party is a democratic party and the democratic party has its own

issues, but as demography continues to change, as younger voters come, you know, come of age and begin participating, this is -- this is going to steam roll and amplify and it's going to be a bigger and bigger problem for the republican party. and so the political story of at least the next few years i think is going to be whether sane republicans and i use that phrase wondering how many of those there are anymore, whether sane republicans find the courage to try to take their party back from donald trump. because, you know, normally the party that loses power you expect them to fade away, you expect the hold on the party to attenuate. in fact, that's certainly not going to happen with donald trump. he's going to continue at least

to try to maintain his hold over that base and that base is going forward not enough to make the republican party a majority party in this country and so when are other republicans going to take their party back? and that's an open question. >> yeah. there are a lot of sane republicans on capitol hill. whether you're talking about john thune or john barrasso or liz cheney. >> mitt romney. >> obviously mitt romney, susan collins. lisa murkowski. you could go down the list. i could name an awful lot of people i served with that were sane and actually spoke out w n when -- when terrible things were said about public officials or private parties on either

side. but the question is whether they will regain their courage and regain their public virtue in the period after donald trump leaves office. that doesn't mean going along with the democrats on anything. that's up to them. that's between them and their voters. what it does mean though is standing up for constitutional norms. and yes, defending political norms when it's in the best interest of this country. >> and in a moment we'll bring in the newly elected chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee, congressman shawn patrick moloney of new york to talk about this and also the democrats' poor showing in the house, questions they have to face. but first, we have a must read opinion piece for you. susan glasser's latest for the new yorker is entitled the president is acting crazy. so why are we shrugging it off? in which she contends that we are in the dangerous, yeah,

whatever, phase of trump's lame duck presidency. she writes in part, donald trump in defeat it turns out is even more whiny, dishonest and self-absorbed than he was before his decisive loss to biden a month ago. the temptation is to look away, to move on, to cringe, to avert your gaze, that's exactly what the republicans in the senate who have stood by trump through impeachment and other ig no, ma'ammies have done this week. pivoting so seamlessly into bashing the new biden administration that they never even stopped to acknowledge its existence. in many ways, the post election period has revealed once again the shamelessly craven nature of the trump era gop in washington. by showing the country that there remains another species of

republicans comprising of state officials who have refused to go along with the manic crusade against the election results. when the president launches a direct attack on the most important traditions of american democracy, i'm not ready to say yeah, whatever just yet. >> kasie hunt, a lot of americans are exhausted. republicans and democrats alike and there's a sort of shrugging off some of the more extreme things that donald trump has done over the past four weeks, three or four weeks, because he's isolated more and more every day. but it is interesting that we have had to depend on local republican officials to uphold the constitutional norms of this country. to uphold not just -- the legal norms. we have republicans, local republican officials who are

receiving death threats for merely doing what their state laws demand of them. we have the secretary of state of the state of georgia getting death threats. his family getting death threats. his wife getting sexually violent threats simply because the georgia secretary of state, a trump voter, a trump supporter, a life long republican simply did his job and followed the laws of his state. i have got to believe that my friends in washington, that i have known for 25 years, many of them i have known for 25 years are outraged by this conduct. and i just can't believe they're not speaking out against it. >> it's really the local republicans, joe, who are the heroes of this story. who looked around and who said, i have devoted in the case of the secretary of state in georgia and gabriel sterling one of the election officials there looked around and said, you know, i signed up to do a job.

i know i did my job well and i'm not going to let anybody tell me that i didn't. even if that person is the president of the united states. and many national republicans here in washington have decided that that's not a stand they're willing to take in public. it's not a risk that they're willing to take. and the challenge for all of us and, you know, i understand why there are a lot of people who are anxious to say, you know, enough of this. i want to move on. the problem is that the message is breaking through and i say that because i have had conversations with members of congress who come from areas -- swing places or red states where the election was not disputed. senator mike braun of indiana, i was interviewing him and he now has, you know, an op-ed out saying we need to see this process through this and he's

hearing from constituents of his who are saying, hey, maybe i can't trust the election. what do you think? i heard the same thing from congresswoman abigail spanberger who is from virginia and she said something very similar. she said, these are not people that are people that i would normally think are reading reddit or qanon websites or down rabbit holes. these are people not highly engaged in the process who now have doubts about whether our system works. and we talked about leadership earlier in the program in a slightly different context in terms of the coronavirus. but it matters here too and leadership is about what you're willing to say in public. not what you're willing to say in private. nobody hears what you say in private except for those of us who have those private conversations under terms where we agree that we won't share it with the public. so it's clear that the officials who are on the ground, who see what the future is in the

states, they know how dangerous all of this is. they are telling us all of that. and they are the ones that are putting their safety on the line, not the people here in washington. >> it's well said, kasie. to your point, we heard last night in the interview with jake tapper from president-elect biden he's been fielding private phone calls congratulating him, many of whom will not say that he's president-elect in public. they won't come out and say it because they're afraid of donald trump. we're joined now by shawn patrick moloney of new york who will be the next chairman of the democratic national committee. congratulations on heading up the dccc so what is your assessment of what happened on the house side? we have been talking about the presidential election. didn't win many of the tossup races of democrats that you had hoped to win. didn't pick up all of the seats that many were projecting you to pick up. what happened from your point of

view? >> yeah. that's an important question. and i think the honest answer is we don't really know, but i know how to find out. there's a lot of opinions out there and some of them are informed. and they probably all have some validity and, you know, i have been here before. i have to look at the elections and look at it in the rigorous way and i'll keep my powder dry. look, we'll hold the majority and we'll do better and there are lessons to learn. one of them is when your opponents are lying and caricaturing and an issue as important as racial justice, we need to figure out a way to keep fighting for racial justice, but be smart and effective when they throw the kitchen sink at us. i get that i'm in the trump district. a lot of our members need to do that and we're going to learn some lessons and we're going to patch things up and we're going to hold this majority. >> i think you, congressman, were on the caucus phone call a few weeks ago that was reported

out by many people that some of the more moderate members who some won re-election, some didn't, were upset about the socialism and about defunding the president and the caricature of those who are running. how do you overcome the national message from the republicans and frankly donald trump that seems to have swamped the race by race message? >> what we're talking about is a bunch of lies and distortions and demagoguery and the murder of george floyd and whether they're playing short-term political games with something that important. and if that worked to get them a couple of seats, well, shame on them. but i'm proud of my team, the blue team, for standing up for racial justice and if we need to be reminded that they're going

to throw the kitchen sink at us, well, those of us in red seats don't find that surprising. and the skill and the art of this game is to stand up for the right thing. to do something with authority and the opportunity we're given, but be smart about it. build a real coalition and so when the lies and the distortions come, ordinary folks can say that doesn't sound right. that's the guy who got better infrastructure and built a bridge down the road. those are the guys that believe in science and maybe leaving alone a woman's right to choose under roe v. wade, those are the guys who want to do something about this pandemic and oh, by the way, the science on global warming is something we need to focus on. so how are we going to get a solution on that? do we have cheaper prescription drugs, can i retire before i'm 90?

those are the lies that people need to know about. >> so congressman, if people believe you're going to vote against defunding the police they're going to vote against you. it's what happened this year and it's one of the lies that stuck. you know, we heard republicans accusing democrats of wanting to defund the police. i had nancy pelosi on here, she said just as bluntly as possible that she opposed defunding the police. joe biden said he opposed defunding the police. we had jim clyburn on, one of the top ranking democrats saying it was a stupid slogan and no, we didn't need to defund the police. i had civil rights leader al sharpton on repeatedly saying no, we need more police. you look at people that are in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods, they want more police on the streets. they want police officers in their schools.

they want more police. so the question is what are you doing to do about it? because you know what? your good intentions, it's going to lose you 20 more seats. how do you fight back against those lies? >> hey, joe, didn't hear me say that, we're not fighting back, you didn't hear me say, i have a political strategy built around good intentions and i didn't win five times as a gay guy hoping for the best so let's be clear. here's the deal. here's the deal. why do you guys cut away from the president of the united states when he's giving news conferences? because you know that when you echo those lies he's telling about our democracy, you're amplifying that distortion. you are amplifying that lie. that's why you cut away. so i think respectfully we have all got a role to play here and if we're going to marinate in the defund nonsense which none

of us support, which is not the justice in police act named after george floyd. we don't support that. so when you repeat it endlessly, you are amplifying and echoing a republican talking point. so we all have a role to play. what i'm going to do is i'm going to build a relationship with voters, get a smart new strategy. have a modern dccc that learns some lessons about what happened to us and kicks the daylight out of the red team the next time they lie about the good things we're doing on health care and racial justice. but what i'm not going to do is run away from what's wrong with this country and trying to do something about it. >> did you know -- a lot of media outlets echo outside of the usual suspects, echo that defund the police mantra? that the republicans were pushing. >> i think it's happening right now. i mean, i think i have heard you -- let my say something complimentary because i know

you'll have a rough holiday season. i watched the first part of the show. >> yeah. looking rough. >> i think what i can tell you is that you on this show have been right again and again and again. when you say what is going to be left of the republican party when donald trump is done, you know, thelma and louisaing it off the cliff? what i'm telling you is that when they abandon science and public health in the middle of the pandemic, when they play short term demagoguery on the racial justice and willing to play around with a woman's right to choose and the supreme court might do that we are going to win on those issues in the competitive seats like the one i represent. maybe not today or tomorrow but if we get smart about how we communicate, start talking like human beings once in a while we are in a strong area. it's short term smart, long term dumb what they're doing. and it's immoral, by the way, to ignore the murder of george

floyd. we should remember that. we want to do something about that. and i'm not going to apologize for that because my opponents have been lying about it. >> good. >> we need to get smarter. >> tell you what -- yeah, need to get smarter, need to get angrier. i have to say, i need to hear if i'm a democrat and i'm thinking, do i want to contribute to the dccc? we need to hear democratic candidates get pissed off and go back on the attack and not be back on their heels when people are lying and calling them socialists and saying they want to defund the police. when people are lying about all of the things that the republicans lied about the democrats about during this past campaign. we have gene robinson here. he's got a question for you. gene? >> no, i'm just -- congressman, congratulations. or condolences, which ever are appropriate. i'm going to press again on the point that joe is making which is what they did was immoral and

awful and should be condemned the way they lied and demagogued. but it was effective. again, in the short term. but it was effective for them and so to what extent effective for them. and so to what extent, you know, do democrats have to find ways to fight fire with fire? to what extent do democrats have to be -- have to make themselves the ones on offense rather than on defense, and how do they do that? >> yeah, first of all, let's pull the lens back a little bit, right? which is that they got beat at the white house. they got beat in the house of representatives. we're holding the gavel. so before we all put on, you know, black and go into mourning, you know, they got beat in two out of three, and in the state of new york, which did some progressive criminal justice reform, the democrats gained seats in the state senate and now have a super majority.

i think until we really look at the evidence and the data, we need to be humbled about what we know. i want to go find out, and we've done that before, we built a new battle plan for 2018, and we won 40 seats net, and i think what i'm telling you is this short-term demagogue ri, even with moral issues like civil rights, like the rights of my family, which may be denied by a conservative supreme court, i'm proud of my party for trying to take on the challenge of doing something important for our country and facing these kind of attacks, and i guess i'm putting a plea that on this network at least we not amplify and adopt the caricatures and talking points of our opponents, and we keep clear eyed about who's fighting for something and who's playing political games. and i'm held accountable for winning seats while having some moral character in the way we do our business. >> it's just the beginning of this conversation i suspect, the next chair of the dccc,

congressman sean patrick malo y maloney. good to see you as always. turning back now to the pandemic, we're joined by new jersey governor phil murphy. good morning, we've been talking about the national picture in terms of covid-19 this morning, records set in terms of deaths, hospitalizations and cases generally. what does it look like in the state of new jersey right now? of course when we go way back to march, it was new york and new jersey in the area we both live in that was sort of at the prfrt of this terrible curve. >> good to be with you, willie. we're back in it in a big way. there's no other way to put it. i have a lot of optimism if we roll the clock forward to sort of march, april, may, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but vaccines are a big part of that. i think we're in for a brutal two or three months. people have gone indoors. we're in the holiday season, enormous pandemic fatigue, a lot of transmission in private settings. so no matter how good you are at enforcing your rules of the

road, we can't get into everybody's living room. it's a combination of a lot of lethal realities. the good news is we know a lot more. we have a lot more capacities. it certainly is hitting a younger, healthier demographic. that's not to say our seniors and folks with comorbidities are still not highly exposed. they are. so there's some amount of, you know, especially in our understanding of the virus, there's some amount of near-term positives, but the next two or three months i think are going to be brutal, and i think we'll get light at the end of the tunnel after that. >> governor, what's going on in new jersey's hospitals right now? we're getting reports from across the country of icus and ers overrun with patients and concerns that unlike back in march and april, a state like new jersey can't call in doctors, nurses, health care professionals from other states because they now are managing their own crises. >> yeah, that last point, willie, is right on the money. that's the one capacity that i

worry about, that we worry about. you're absolutely right. when we were on fire in the spring with new york in our region, we could call folks in from the bullpen from around the country, in some cases from around the world. that's not an option right now. better news, our hospitalizations are way up. they're probably 3,500 beds today. our peak, though was at 8,300 in the spring. please, god, we don't hit that, and we're watching that obviously very closely. our icu beds are a subset of that. i think we have the capacities as it relates to beds, ppe, ventilators. i to wordo worry about health c workers, they've got enormous for lack of a better word ptsd from this, who can blame them from the fatigue and mental health challenges they have, and the bullpen is short relative to where it was in the spring. >> governor, kasie hunt is here with a question for you. >> hey, kasie. >> good morning, it's good to

see you. you mention thd ed this is a lo about private homes. we are seeing some states putting in new restrictions. california has gone back to an earlier phase and locking down some establishments. do you feel like you may need to do more in new jersey between now and the holidays to try and combat this, more lockdown restrictions type measures? >> yeah, i mean, kasie, everything has to be on the table. i'd be abrogatining my responsibility if we didn't have every option on the table. where we've seen transmission, we've surgically attacked it. we saw restaurants late at night morphing into clubs. we saw a lot of bar seating lead to transmission. we've cut out bar seating. those are the sort of steps i believe we'll continue to take. we don't have a wholesale evidence that just because you're indoors in a given environment, indoor entertainment, gym, restaurant

that that's necessarily -- your risk has gone up, but we knew that all along, but it's beyond that manageable risk. we don't see that yet, but all options i have to say remain on the table. >> all right, new jersey governor phil murphy, thank you very much. still ahead, we're just moments away from the latest jobs report. we'll have the numbers when they cross. "morning joe" is back in a moment. moment that life of the party look walk it off look one more mile look reply all look own your look...

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nobody's done what we've done, what i've done, despite what's going on. so i'm very disappointed in my justice department. >> it was my justice department that arrested them. >> it's not my justice department. it's the people's justice department. >> yeah, that's just one of the ways things will be different 47 days from now. it's definitely not his justice department. >> let me ask, i'm just curious, so it's not going to be his

justice department? >> no, not his. >> it's not going to be his military? it's not going to be, like, the bullets that he gets for the -- what was the other one, willie, before i became president, what did donald trump say? my army was out of bullets? >> ammunition, they were out of am nimunition ammunition. le he talked about my generals. he loved talking about my generals and my military. it's amazing to listen to joe biden, it seems radical to say something as conventional as the justice department does not belong to me. it is a radical departure from the last four years, but it's obviously what a president should say. >> yeah, and it is in line with what republican presidents and what democratic presidents have said for, well, our entire lifetime, so it's nice to hear that again. >> it is. good morning. >> very nice. >> and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, december 4th, along with joe, willie, and me,

we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early" she never sleeps, kasie hunt, and for the second straight day we'll get right into it. the u.s. has set a record for coronavirus deaths. the president's talking about lawsuits. according to nbc news, more than 2,800 people died yesterday from covid-19. the previous record came just a day earlier when the country also saw the highest number of infections and hospitalizations. >> i want to stop there for a second because, you know, willie for so long the president would lie to the american people and say the only reason our numbers are higher here is because we take more tests, of course talking about infections. >> you can't get a test someplaces. >> the one number that doesn't lie of course is the number of deaths. we were struggling with a thousand deaths today, and again, the president said this

wasn't coming back in the fall. we're at 9/11 numbers. i mean, we're getting close to the same number of people who died on 9/11 dying yesterday from a pandemic that the president told us in january was just one person coming in from china, told us a month later it was just 15 people and it was going away. then promised us it would be away in april when it gets warmer and then the clips we showed yesterday telling us and undermining his own advisers, his cdc director and also dr. fauci by saying it's not going to come back in the fall. let's put that number up from yesterday. this is how many people died of this disease, this pandemic that the president said and has been lying about for nine months that this thing is going to go away. again, these are 9/11 numbers, right? and if you add up the number of americans who died two days ago

and died yesterday that's a higher number, willie, i think, if my addition's right than all of the american soldiers who have died in afghanistan over the past two decades. that's how many americans have died of covid in just two days. >> that number sounds right to me, just off the top of my head, and that's an incredible way to put it, my gosh. puts it in some perspective. and i hate to add onto this darkness, but dr. fauci pointed out again yesterday on an interview on msnbc with andrea mitchell, he said we haven't even gotten to the seating that took place during thanksgiving. this is just us going into fall and early winter. we haven't seen, and we will in a couple of weeks the new cases that come with the thanksgiving gatherings. we saw millions of people traveling across the country against the advice of the cdc, so we're just at the beginning of something that dr. redfield, the head of the cdc said may be the worst public health moment in the history of the country

going through these next three months. as you just said, we will be going through these next couple of months with donald trump as president. there's only so much joe biden can do at this point as he's on the sidelines. we have a president who's obsessed with overturning an election and not this tragedy right in front of us. >> and if you think about that, he's got these pitiful attempts across the country with rudy giuliani like say no more right there, and we have record highs and deaths because the president won't daily tell people to wear masks. he won't daily do a briefing with dr. fauci and top doctors to explain to people that we're not there yet with the vaccines. in fact, when he talks about vaccines, he talks about how he somehow created them, and it somehow is the trump vaccine. no, it's the trump virus, and this presidency continues to kill people, and i don't know how to get through to people who

follow donald trump to the end, but look at the people who are dying. they, like trump, have not taken this virus seriously. many of them have been impacted or victimized by others who haven't taken this virus seriously. it's unbelievable. these are numbers that don't need to be happening, and it would have been hard but it was simple what needed to be done, and this president couldn't get it done. >> he couldn't get it done. willie, though, you talk about how dr. fauci is warning that the worst is yet to come, and mika's talking about, rightly, about how the president never took this virus seriously, and there are a lot of dead americans because of that. there are a lot of governors, republican governors who have acted like total idiots by proudly saying that they didn't believe that masks should be worn. local republican officials who

have acted like idiots, but if you saw the "new york post" today, my god, the progressive leaders, we talk about gavin newsom, what he did, denver mayor michael hancock telling citizens not to travel for the holidays, then boarding a plane to mississippi not an hour later. austin, texas, mayor steve addladler recording a video telling people to stay home and filming it from a timeshare in cabo. you have dianne feinstein caught maskless at the capital and the airport. you have governor cuomo, of course, planning the family thanksgiving that would have broken his own rules, and then backing down. you have the mayor of san francisco going, you know, this must be -- what's that restaurant in san francisco that they all go to? >> it's fancy. >> because when this covid -- when this covid pandemic breaks, what's it called?

>> french laundry. >> yeah. >> we're going to invite the entire "morning joe" audience. maybe about -- we're going to all cram into french laundry when this is over because it must be a hell of a restaurant because leaders in california keep risks their lives and keep risking the lives of their family members, and keep risking the lives of everybody around them to go to this restaurant. they must have really good mac and cheese because i've never -- but willie, just think about how corrosive that is when we have idiots in the republican party that are pretending that this is not real, and we have hypocrites who are these progressive leaders acting like total idiots, and think about how corrosive that is where he's

like, no, you can't go to a restaurant. no, you can't visit your family members. no, you can't do -- but oh, we're going to go with lobbyists and we're going to eat at the fanciest restaurant in san francisco. what are these people thinking? like you said, i'm underlining it because as dr. fauci said, we haven't even gotten to the worst part of this yet. >> well, first of all, we're going to have to have mika call french laundry because they're not letting you or me in that place i assume. that's got to be a mika phone call. it's basic leadership and hypocrisy and all the things you just said. if it's so dire and so important, and it is, that we can't see our family members for thanksgiving, and we didn't, if it's so dire and important that you can't see a dying loved one or you can't have a proper funeral for somebody who dies from coronavirus because it's too risky, then it is. you are the leader and you should live the things you're saying. we've seen tons and tons of

hypocrisy again and again from republicans and also, yeah, from democrats. i mentioned dr. ant ahony fauci minute ago. joe biden announced that dr. fauci will in fact stay on as director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, also will serve as chief medical adviser. the news came after fauci met with the president-elect's transition ti transition team for the first time during a zoom meeting to discuss covid-19 related topics. "the washington post" reports former u.s. surgeon general vivek murphy has been asked to reprise the role, an expanded version in the new administration. murthy is expected to be part of a team to help lead the nation's response to the coronavirus crisis. president-elect joe biden says he will ask americans to wear masks for the first 100 days after he takes office.

>> in the first day i'm inaugurated, i'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask. not forever, 100 days, and i think we'll see a significant reduction if we occur that -- if that occurs with vaccination and masking to drive down the numbers considerably. >> do you plan to get vaccinated before inauguration day, and will you do it in public the way that presidents obama, bush, and clinton have suggested they're willing to? >> i'd be happy to do that. when dr. fauci says we have a vaccine that is safe, that's the moment in which i will stand before the public and, look, part of what has to happen, you know as well as i do, people have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work. already the numbers are staggeringly low. up next, we'll bring in a pair of medical experts for reaction on that and the soaring number of coronavirus cases nationwide. you're watching "morning joe."

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welcome back, joining us now member of the fda advisory committee on vaccines, dr. paul offet, also with us dr. nahid bedelia, an nbc news and msnbc contributor. we've been talking about the rollout of the vaccine against the coronavirus. how do you counter the people out there who will inevitably raise todoubts about the safetyf it. >> it will have been tested in tens of thousands of people before it's approved and put out there, which means that we can say with confidence that it doesn't have a relatively uncommon severe side effect. 20,000 people isn't 20 million people, and i think people could reasonably argue that we haven't proven it doesn't have a rare serious side effect. the 1a group, the first tier group as defined by the cdc will be long-term care facility residents and staff, and

essential health care workers which is another 21 million people. by the time you get to just other essential workers, much less those over 65, those with high risk medical conditions, this vaccine is already going to have been in tens of billions of people. you're going to have a huge safety portfolio where you can say hopefully it doesn't even cause a rare serious side effect, that it appears to work and that it's safe and i think then with that kind of information, those kinds of data, i think people will feel more comfortable. >> i'm sure you as a physician have been encouraged by some of the things you've heard coming out of the biden transition team including yesterday in that interview where he talked about mask wearing for the first 100 days of his term. we've got a long way to go, and we've got difficult days until we get to a biden administration. we're setting new records of deaths, cases, and hospitalizations for the last couple of days, another one yesterday. so where do you think we are right now and without joe biden in the white house, what mitigation efforts should be taken right now?

>> good morning, willie. really glad to hear dr. offet talk about the wornk around the vaccines. really it is the independent advisory committee they'll be putting in that's going to set part of my mind at ease to look at the data from pfizer and moderna. the worrisome thing about this, willie, is it's exactly what dr. fauci said. we're not at the peak. we're at the incline, and we know that because our test positivity rates have gone up as a nation in the last month. over 100,000 people hospitalized, we're losing two americans a minute to this disease, and the human mind boggles because one death you can understand the suffering of a death, you know. when it becomes thousands, then it becomes hundreds of thousands, and we don't understand abstract suffering as much. the things that we can do, and i say this because i want to sort of drive in the gravity. there are things we as

individuals can do. it is the masking and there was a yale study again this week that showed that mask mandates can drop. mortality by about 12% in isolation, even before you do stay-at-home orders or anything else you can make sure you don't travel this winter if you don't have to, and then to do the three c's, to avoid the three cs, closed spaces so you don't get into situations that are indoors or have no ventilation. crowds, don't be around people who are not part of your household if you can help it, particularly without masks and close contact. don't be in close contact with people who are not in your household without a mask on. and those are things that we can do. what our leadership can do, well, one thing is i really hope, you know, our government passes that covid relief bill that we've all been waiting for. because with president-elect biden yesterday said is, look, states are still looking for assistance. they're not just looking for guidance on a national standard

on how to approach this. they're looking for funding because of the increase in hospitalizations and funding to help distribution of those vaccines. >> doctors, thank you both for coming on this morning. and coming up, long time coming, michael aaron dyson is joining us with his new book on reckoning with race in america. "morning joe" is back in a moment. in a moment - [announcer] your typical vacuum has bristles

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welcome back to "morning joe." a beautiful live picture at 8:23 in the morning of the rockefeller center christmas tree lit up on wednesday night, and now they're through the holidays. joining us now professor, author, and political commentator michael eric dyson. he's out this week with a new book titled "long time coming: reckoning with race in america." "the washington post," eugene robinson back with us as well. it's great to see you. congratulations on the book, as a partisan alumnus, congratulations on your new gig at the divinity school, we're glad you're there. >> thank you so much. it's great to be there. any alma mater of yours is a good school. >> just be careful, you don't

want to run into meacham in the faculty lounge. he'll corner you on the war of 1812. it turns into a long afternoon. >> professor dyson, let's talk about the book and the term reckoning. it's sort of become since the murder of george floyd back on may 25th, it's sort of become the catch all phrase that people have used. this is a reckoning in america on the question of race. what does that mean exactly? have we begun that reckoning, or are we just talking about it as if we have? >> that's a great question and has both secular and sacred roolts. in terms of the say credit rocru hear in the bible god saying through the people we're going to reckon with the issues of your sin, of your limitations. in terms of the secular world, a reckoning is a time of serious self-reflection, of introspection of serious self-criticism, and as a result of that moving forward to change political practice so that it reflects the ideals, the morals,

the norms and the aspirations of the culture. both religiously and in terms of sacred culture, we've got to figure out how we get from what we think is good to what we know is good by doing the right thing. reckoning in this case with race means after the george floyd video, many people who have been denying the truth of race before them, those who had ignored police brutality. those who suggested that perhaps black people weren't exactly telling the truth or couldn't be that dire of a circumstance as they described saw a video that showed a man laying on the ground presenting a threat to nobody, a danger to no one else, and yet he was murdered. he was killed. the knee of derrick chauvin boring into his neck, then asphyxiated and left with us to deal with the body. but not only his body, but the body of evidence that suggests that america is not where it ought to be, and a lot of people said this is the time for us to

figure out in america to truly represent the ideals of democracy, freedom, and justice, we got to make a change with what we're doing. >> it's so fascinating to hear you talk about your audience for this book, and you are a baptist preacher, so you've invoked the new testament and paul. look, i get it, a lot of people who read this book are already converted. i may be preaching to some who are converted. like paul, if i can plant the seed with some of the people who have not yet been converted, not yet understood the depth of the black experience in america, this can be the beginning of a conversation at least. >> that's well-stated and absolutely right. you know, i figure that, look, we've got to talk to those people who understand what's going on, and we've got to speak to those who just now are coming to grips with what they see as a reality that they should have recognized but didn't. i don't want to spend time trying to indict them for having had a kind of moral or spiritual or even racial amnesia. the point is now that you are

awake, what can we do? now that we've found love, what are we going to do with it so to speak. i think it's time to see that. people say you're preaching to the choir on some of it. the choir needs to practice too, you've got to get the altos in order, the sopranos need to come together, the bass and the barito baritone. we've got to practice what we preach and go out there and win converts by the sheer force of our moral energy but also because people are now aware of what's going on perhaps we can use this to forge connections among many vast constituencies in america. when we have this model, e plur bus ooh numb, out of many one, we've got to see that african-american people in particular who have been demonized, who have been stigmatized by practices in this culture have a new opportunity to move forward because those in the dominant culture see that there have been some destructive practices afoot in the culture, and this is why especially at the top of the food chain with the president of the united states of america articulating

ideals and beliefs that have emboldened white supremacists and white nationalists, this is a new day. so a new reckoning comes with the new administration. a new way forward because we have now grasped hold of the necessity to make a change. >> and michael, just so people can understand how radical your message is, if they don't understand or don't know the story of the apostle paul, paul persecuted christians. you talk about how you even want to reach out to those white supremacists. you want to reach out to those dyed in the wool racists. you want to start a conversation because if saul, the greatest persecutor of christians could become the greatest convert for christianity, then you believe this message of love can reach out to even those who have been white supremacists in the past. >> there's no question about that. we have to acknowledge the hurt

and the pain, the trauma and the grief that have been imposed. we have to hold people accountable. we have to get rid of those vicious beliefs that prevail, but we must preserve the possibility that human beings can make a change. why else are we doing what we're doing? why would we protest? why would we resist? why would a figure like ida b. wells, martin luther king jr., ella baker, why would angela davis, why would they put forth ideals and practices that they think should change america if they didn't believe that that change could occur, and even the worst person, even the person furthest in distance psychologically, spiritually, morally, racially from the norms we want to see prevail, if they are at least willing to hear, to open their minds or to be challenged and changed, we have to provide an opportunity for people to be redeemed, to be restored. i believe in restorative justice. i believe not in retributive justice, which is why i've been

a sharp critic of certain cancel culture. yes, i understand people must be held to account, but in order for people to be restored and redeemed you have to give them space to breathe, a new understanding of the world and then come forward with that renewed understanding to join other people who are doing the right thing. >> and all the people said amen. gene robinson is with us and has a question. gene. >> michael, congratulations on the book. i will happily sing bass in your choir, and look forward to reading the book. but for those who are not in the choir, i think a lot of people who will appreciate but will also want to know what can i do? what can -- how can i put this message into action? how can i put my newfound awareness and my realization of

racial injustice? what's my next step? what will you tell those people? >> well, i'll say a couple of things. first of all, we saw the tremendous energy in the streets. that was beautiful, white brothers and sisters joining protests to make it the largest protest in the history of america, the numbers swoel because newly awakened white brothers and sisters among many others indigenous people, native people, and asian people joined together with african-american and black people to say we've got to make a change. what do i do now. a couple of things, when you go home for your thanksgiving meal or christmas or hanukkah, or whatever celebration during the holidays, when you see members of your family making exclamations that you know are rooted in ignorance that don't reflect the black people, the brown, the red, the yellow people that you know, make sure that you check them. first get your meal so that you won't be put out and watch the game so that you won't be left alone, but after that say to

those people, no, that's not my experience. that's not what i know. that's not true. number two, when you go from the streets, go to the suites, corporate america, university settings, wherever you have a job, and talk about not only diversity, hwhich is critical, but you want to talk about something even more important, equity and equality and justice. think about it, when we look at who killed george floyd, derrick shaw v chauvin was there, mr. king a black cop and mr. tao an asian cop. it was diversity towards a nonjust, nonequitable goal. it's not enough to have many different people from many cultures, you've got to have a regulating ideal, a norm that says we are aiming towards something that we can all participate in because it is a just outcome. and finally, you know, you've got to read and study and learn as much as you can. if you're curious about the tone tunes of taylor swift, you're going to listen to her albums.

if you're concerned about the lyrics of jay-z, bebeyonce, stu them. there's a great history. we live in the united states of amnesia, and too many people have been disregarding the serious history that we have. america is obsessed with history on the one hand, and yet appallingly illiterate when it comes to things we don't want to know about. be curious about it, and my job is to make the life of the mind sexy and to make it appealing to people who don't think that they ordinarily would like it, and then as a teacher to fill in those gaps to invite them into the world of vast learning that all of us can participate in. >> you're doing all of that, especially with this new book, it's called "long time coming: reckoning with race in america." . good to see you, i did catch the heavy d reference in there a couple of minutes ago. well-played. >> thanks, professor. good to see you.

let's turn now to breaking economic news. the labor department has released the november jobs report just moments ago. the u.s. economy added 245,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate ticked down to 6.7%. to put these numbers into some context, let's turn to former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner and columnist at business insider lynette lopez. good morning to you both. steve, let me start with you. i know the job expectation was something like 440,000 jobs. this comes in under that number. what do you make of these figures here? >> that's right, willie. these numbers are actually quite a disappointment relative to both what we need to do in terms of adding jobs back to get this economy back to where it was before as well as what we expected. as you said, this number is roughly half of what we expected to see in this month's report. not totally surprising because we have been seeing other kinds of anecdotal or realtime bits of data that suggested things were worse than what we thought they

were going to be. nonetheless, adding jobs at this rate means we're in a very deep hole. we still have 10 million jobs left to recover, and at the rate -- if we continue at this rate, we're talking about something like three and a half years before we get back even to the number of jobs we had before all this started. that is actually quite bad news. the drop in the unemployment rate, the slight drop in the unemployment rate may also sound like good news, but it's also not good news because it really reflects the fact that close to 500,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month, and so that in effect statistically creates a drop in the unemployment rate. but in fact, there are not -- there's not really a drop in the unemployment rate. all of this puts a lot more pressure back on washington, back on the stimulus, back on getting something done. it's very clear now that the failure of the congress and the white house to act over these last months is proving very, very costly to the american economy. >> so steve, i'm just looking at

some breaking news alerts. "the washington post" says that these numbers are signs that the recovery is faltering as coronavirus cases surge. that's from "the washington post." "the wall street journal" talks about these numbers signal a sharp slowdown in the labor market recovery. let's put politics aside. what does this economy need specifically in terms of covid relief package that republicans and -- the republicans in the senate and democrats in the house can come together, what do we need the most to get this economy kick started? >> we need a bridge to when the vaccine becomes widely distributed and takes effect. there are several pieces of relief that would be appropriate to put in right now. one would be extending the ppp program that helps small businesses get a bridge over

this. a second would be extending unemployment benefits, which expired, the special unemployment benefits which expired over the summer. a third would be aid to state and local governments which are terribly strapped and don't have the money to conduct their own fiscal relief programs, and those kinds of elements are the package. the democrats are very focused on state and local government, and that is -- and that is problematic for republicans. the republicans are very focused on protecting employers against liability from workers coming back who get sick. that's a sticking point for democrats, and that's become the push and the pull in washington at the moment. those are the key elements of a package, relief for workers, relief for small business. relief for state and local governments. >> lynette, if you look at -- >> can i ask you really quickly, i'm sorry, willie, steve, i'm curious, how does helping state and local government build a bridge from where we are to where we're going to be once the

vaccines come online and people can get back out into the workplace? >> for a couple reasons, joe. first, because state and local governments have been very badly hit as well during this pandemic in terms of loss of revenues from taxes, from transit revenues from things like that. they are in a fiscally tough position -- >> we're talking about, if you can excuse me and i know we have a delay, but we're talking about -- i'm just curious, if we're talking about spending money to get us from where we are now to where we're going to be let's say at the end of the first quarter, the beginning of the second quarter when the vaccine's really kicked in and americans getting back to work, shouldn't we worry about state and local governments after that? don't we need to right now just worry about getting money into the pockets of people who are out of work so they can spend that money and get the economy going again? >> no question, joe. i agree completely, getting money into the pockets of people out of work, getting pockets into small businesses so they

can continue to operate is absolutely a top priority. but state and local governments are really important too because they spend a lot of money and put money into workers' pockets for their unstate unemployment programs, and they do not have the ability to run deficits. by law they have to operate under balanced budgets. without aid to them in a very timely way, we would be talking about massive cutbacks in what state and local governments spend to help their citizens. that would have a significantly negative economic effect as well. >> lynette, obviously this is good news for 245,000 people who got jobs last month, but if you look at the trends, they started to reverse in may. after april we had that disastrous month of 21 million jobs lost. the recovery continued and continued through the summer and has really slowed. it was 610,000 jobs added last month, down to 245,000 jobs this month. and this pandemic and this economy, despite what some are saying are inexorably linked.

you can't separate the two, and now we're heading into this period again as every doctor this morning has reminded us of covid sort of governing our lives once again for the next few months. what do you see in these numbers, and what do you expect over the next couple of months? >> the bad news is what's happened and the worse news is what's coming. we know that lockdowns are coming. we know that shutdowns are coming and this is the first of three hurdles that i think our government has to show that it can jump to get over this crisis. we have to deal with the immediate danger of people losing their jobs in the ramp up of the coronavirus. we have unemployment benefits ending right after christmas, like dickens wrote the story himself. after that we have to deal with the death that came out of this crisis, all the people that couldn't pay their mortgages, all the people who couldn't pay their rent. after that we have to deal with the permanent issues that surround coronavirus. for example, will we ever go back to offices the same way we used to again. will commercial real estate have

a problem? what we need to see from the government is that it's nimble in solving problems. and that's not something we have seen from washington in only god knows how long. i wish i could be confident that we were going to pass another stimulus package, but i don't want to feel like charlie with the football. i don't want to get tricked by washington again, so this is a very disconcerting time for anybody who's watching the economy because we know how bad it can get. california shutting down, i'm sure other states will follow suit, and people are in real trouble. and the longer it takes us to deal with the problem, the more debt hangover we'll have to deal with the sec hurdle that we're dealing with. and you know, there is no one who should not get aid. state and local governments should get aid. businesses should get aid. the unemployed should get aid. everyone needs help. if we don't help anyone this debt hurdle is going to be worse, that third hurdle, the

permanent legacy of coronavirus will be worse than that still. we need to act now. we need to act nimbly, and be creative. >> lynette, let's do a couple of paths here. if there is stimulus like the $908 billion that's on the table in the congress right now, if that is passed, if majority leader mcconnell is genuine when he says he's interested in listening and doing something about that, what does that mean for the economy? on the other hand if they sit on their hands again, if they can't agree, what happens to our economy? >> again, you know, if we do nothing, we have debts . debt builds up in the system, people who didn't pay their mortgages for months. people who didn't pay rent for months. it gunks up the financial system and slows everything down, as that debt reverberates. mr. ratner talked about growth slowing -- growth slowing in the next three and a half years, it will take us even longer if

there's debt gunking up the system. this will remind us of the financial crisis. and with another scary thing is that republicans are talking about tightening the economy too early, even once we get out of this and we have a vaccine, we need to be generous with americans because we learned from the financial crisis that if we don't help people when they're in dire need, it simply takes longer for us to recover. and it's not worth it. it is not worth it to be stingy now to gunk up the financial system in four or five months when we get out of this. it will actually be more expensive if we wait until there's actually permanent or semipermanent damage to our financial system. the bankers are telling you themselves, and you already know they don't like republicans spending money either, but wall street is telling you, look, we need help. americans of all stripes need help. there's no reason to be stingy

with anyone. there's no ideological reason. there's no political reason, no economic reason. >> and so many of these benefits as you pointed out a minute ago do run out at the end of the year, less than four weeks ago. lynette lopez and steve ratner, thank you both very much. still ahead on "morning joe," barack obama and bill clinton came into the oval office with less than four years of experience in washington. they both had the majority in the house and the senate, but lost it two years later. author david marinis and presidential historian michael beschloss joins us next to continue our discussion, the one we've been having this week on what joe biden can learn from previous presidents. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. (soft chimes)

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joe, for your faith in your fellow americans, for your love of country, and for your lifetime of service that will endure through the generations,

i'd like to ask the military aide to join us on stage. for the final time president, i am pleased to award our nation's highest civilian honor. the presidential medal of freedom. >> that's president barack obama in 2017 surprising an emotional vice president joe biden with the presidential medal of freedom. all this week we've been talking about how president-elect joe biden might govern by taking a look at examples of past presidents. with us this morning, journalist and visiting distinguished professor at vanderbilt university, another man who has to listen to meacham talk about shea's rebellion and the french and indian war ad nauseam.

he's written critically acclaimed books on presidents barack obama and bill clinton. a person whose class still remains one of my favorite presidential biographies. also author and presidential historian michael beschloss. also a great author. thank you both for being with us. so, david, the two presidents that you've written about recently over the past -- recently being over the past 25 years, bill clinton and barack obama, they both came in with majorities. they both lost those majorities two years later. what can joe biden learn from both of their presidencies? >> well, joe, remember when barack obama was elected, the onion headline, black man given nation's worst job. think about what joe biden is falling into. not just the recession that's worse than what barack obama faced but also the pandemic and

racial and economic inequity. so whatever you learned from the past he's going to have to deal with something that nobody has yet to deal with before. so i would say you have to learn to be flexible. whatever you think you know coming into the presidency, that's what changed them. so bill clinton came in thinking when he needed a policy to be done right, he knew exactly who to turn to which was his wife hillary because that had worked in arkansas. well, for various reasons, it didn't work once he got to the white house. barack obama came in singing that song of reconciliation, the famous no red states or blue states. really believing that he could bridge that divide. and he had a vice president in joe biden who not only believed that as well, but was really better at transactionally trying to accomplish that. and they faced very difficult

times trying to do that. so whether president biden comes in with that same idea, it's going to be an incredibly difficult task for him to pull off. >> but, david, isn't timing everything also? with bill clinton, i always said, and, of course, this will offend a lot of my progressive friends and maybe it's the former republican in me speaking but i thought if he had led with welfare reform and the first term and then moved in the second term to health care reform, thing mas may have beenr different for him. but he went faster, i think. maybe it's just a former republican in me, but he and barack obama moved left faster than most of americans were prepared for. and in both cases, they and two years later, both have answered with very conservative congresss. >> well, you're not the only one who made that argument about

bill clinton. al gore wanted to go with welfare reform first as well. and he did suffer from what he tried to do. now barack obama suffered, but he also accomplished something that will have lasting impact. so the question was whether that was worth it. i think, really, again, you can only learn so much from that history because joe biden cannot afford to wait around. he has too many problems to deal with right away. but timing is everything. and the timing this time is crucial. >> so michael beschloss, you believe that joe biden should look at a republican and a democrat. dwight eisenhower and what he did after his '52 landslide and also fdr after his 1932 landslide. explain. >> well, you know, joe, as you and i have discussed a lot of times no president is a perfect parallel for the one we've got, and i'd like to have a hybrid of

roosevelt and eisenhower. roosevelt who came in '33. great depression. had to bring the country together. had to get the policies right. and at the same time, roosevelt said the presidency is preeminently a place of leadership. do we ever hear president trump say that? people are hungering for that. the reason i say eisenhower in 1953, he came in. he only had congress for two years out of eight. he had to deal with a democratic congress. had to work with lyndon johnson, the senate majority leader and sam rayburn who was speaker of the house. yet they got a lot of things done together, particularly in foreign policy and eisenhower did not do enough to talk, i think, about the plight of black people in this country or latinos or poor or women, but, above and beyond that, given the framework of the 1950s, he brought the country together after the traumas of the

depression, world war, world war ii, cold war, mccarthyism. it was a really rocky time and with those caveats, we were blessed to have someone of eisenhower's ability to bring the country together. and i hope that biden can follow in those footsteps. >> michael, speaking of being blessed, i look at joe biden and i think about a return to normalcy and i can't help but think of two presidents in the middle of the 1970s who followed the hell of vietnam and watergate. it just seems to me that america was so blessed to have two undeniably good men in gerald ford and jimmy carter run the white house from 1974, the end of '74 through 1981. >> anyone who says our system doesn't work, take a look at the late '70s. gerald ford and jimmy carter. neither would claim they were perfect presidents.

but if you want to design someone to heal and unify this country, you can't do better than ford and carter. and especially given what we're dealing with next month with an inauguration with an outgoing president who, as of this moment, is threatening not to show up and to have a counterinaugural of his own to try to take a big bite out of the new president. look at 1977. jimmy carter gets up and surprises gerald ford, the outgoing president, by saying, for myself and my nation, i would like to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. these two guys who ran against each other in 1976, carter won by the narrowest of margins. yet, later on, i actually heard him with my own voice in the east room in the white house in 1980 say that they thought that they had the closest friendship between any two ex-presidents in the united states. >> and just a lesson for politicians. that was a brutal election in

1976. and it was so heartbreaking to gerald ford that he had to have betty speak for him, gene robinson, the next morning. >> yeah, absolutely. it was devastating. i have a question for david maraniss. good to see you, david. so, you know how important when you're going to give a speech, you have to be able to read the room if you want to get anywhere. and i think you can argue that president obama didn't quite accurately read the room. i remember hearing him say that any day now he thought the sort of -- the fever of massive resistance on the republican side of what he was trying to accomplish was going to burn itself out and was going to somehow go away. and it never did. joe biden thinks he can reach

across the aisle and sort of diminish the fever that way. do you think he's reading that correctly or not? >> that's the essential question we'll learn in the next year, i think, gene. i think he believes he can do it. but i also think that because of that eight years of experience working with president obama, and trying to deal with boehner and the senate republicans, you know, he sees that in terms of understanding what can be accomplished. i think that going into the white house he almost feels compelled to say those things and to try to work it out. but i think he's probably pretty smart about what he can actually do. and reading that room. as for obama, i always thought, without getting too psychological, he believes because he's figured out so many

contradictions in his own life. think of all the things that the life threw at him in terms of racial identity and so on. if he could work that out, why couldn't the rest of the country and why couldn't congress? you may say naive or not really reading the room quite right, but i think joe biden doesn't have that same problem. >> all right. david maraniss and michael beschloss, we appreciate you being with us. gene robinson, as always. a lot of smart people around here. 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's friday, december 7th. as the country faces some of the darkest days of the epidemic, biden says he has the team and plan to fight it. he won't take office for another 47 days.