system and the mounting economic pain devastating families all across this country. all of it laid bare in sobering new statistics out this morning. more than 2800 american deaths due to the coronavirus were recorded yesterday. hospitalizations also reaching a new high. soaring above the levels that almost broke our nation's health care system in both april and again in july. on the economic front, the new york times offers this assessment of today's jobs report. quote, the american economic recovery continues to slow. stranding millions who have yet to find a new job after being thrown out of the work force by the coronavirus pandemic. to be clear, didn't have to be this way. the experts at donald trump's disposal warned him.

that approach also might have given the flash frozen economy a chance to thaw out. here is dr. fauci this past sprint. >> their attempt understandable to get back to some form of normality. disregard to a greater plus of degree. the check points we put in our guide lieps about when it is safe to proceed and pulling back on litigation. if that occurs, there's real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control. try to get economic recovery. >> that prediction came in may. the president of the united states found that science

inconvenient for the false reassurance and strategic down playing of the pandemic that he engaged him to help him with the election. that despite multiple admissions to bob woodward that he knew all along that the scientists were right about how lethal the pandemic was and he was down playing it on purpose. even his political strategy failed. america voted against the misinformation on the topic of a deadly pandemic and the pry youration of politics over public safety. today, a few minutes ago, the successor they chose offered a vastly different outlook. joe biden con fronting the twin coronavirus crisis where they meet and appealing directly to congress for much needed covid relief before the end of the year. >> the folks out there aren't looking for a hand out. they need help. they are in trouble through no

fault of their own. nothing they did caused them to have hours cut or lose their job or drop out of the market. what they need, they need us to understand. we're in a crisis. we need to come together as nation. we need congress to act and act now. put yourselves in that position, anybody listening, laying awake at night wondering what's going to happen tomorrow. all of this weakens our abilities to control the virus if we don't step up now. emergency paid leave reduces the spread of covid because it allows people to stay home when they are sick. states and cities need funding to direct their covid response which is the only way we're going to end the economic crisis as well. sooner we pas the funding, the sooner we can turn the corner on covid-19. >> country out of the economic despair comes on the heels of

plan complete with specifics to bring the exploding levels of sickness, hospitalization and death to an end. >> we met with governor, daems and republican, they sap they need guidance. they need guidance. we're having these hospital stays are overwhelming right now. there's a need for more financial assistance. more financial assistance needed as well when the vaccine comes forward. there's need nfor planning. i'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. just 100 days to mask. not forever. 100 days. i think we'll see a significant reduction -- that occurs with vaccinations and masks to drive down numbers considerably.

>> the president-elect stepping into the leadership void 47 days before he is set to take office is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. jason is kribtser to the grio. steve ratner is here. hans is also back. political reporter for axios. a dream team to do justice not to the two crisis but joe biden stepping into an empty stage. donald trump could be out there trying tosoever the country's economic problems and the pandemic. he's chosen not to. take me through the economic reality of not just today's jobs reports but where we're heading in the coming weeks. >> the economic reality is

really tough. it's not just today. it showed a continuing slow down of jobs we're adding every month. just 245,000. at this rate it would take us three and a half years to get back to where we were before pandemic started in terms of number of jobs. you also had people dropping out of the labor force which is never a good sign. it's not just this jobs report. there's been quite a number of signs of economic slowdown whether you look at, what we call realtime data like how many people are making restaurant reservations through open table. how many people are using google maps. all of this credit card spending. the black friday results, auto sales last month. i could keep going. there's been numbers that's gone the other way.

it feels like an economy that's stalling out. this is the ultimate case of economic policy malpractice. you go back to may when the house passed the h.e.r.o.e.s. act and here we are in december without any relief in sight. >> how important is it that joe biden plays enough political pressure on congress to pass relief before he is sworn in. hem seems to have made the assessment that things will be worse if he has to wait until he's inaugurated. >> this is a judgment every president-elect has to make. barack obama had to make it in 2008-2009. every president-elect makes their own decision. this president-elect is right to put his foot on the accelerator. every week that goes by, every month that goes by is more

people in economic distress. both immediate economic distress and long term. it can be permanent destruction. you have a problem which is the senate. the whole thing hz been stalled for weeks and months. >> jason johnson listening to the president-elect, listening to steve just now, it's remarkable the mess that donald trump is leaving for president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris. he was told about it. everything he's done since that day has made it worse.

i wonder what you think his intention is for his final 40 days. do you think he's intent on trying to sure up an economy so he has bragging rights or do you think he's checked out on the economic front and the pandemic? >> this is the cash out moment. this is the smash and grab. take a look at the people who have been appointed to positions. people are trying to get access to high security information they can sell as consul tantss or agents as they leave. donald trump does not care. he is not actively involved. he's not pushing for any policy. as far as he concerned, america rejected him and he's going to reject america back. so many things he's not done has been exacerbated by his terrible behavior as of late. this is the other thing i think is important and fail fauls squarely on the shoulders.

we have millions of people who will be evicted by the end of this month when federal programs an state programs and rent relief programs end. these will be people who on january 1st have no place to live. they will be out on the streets making it more difficult to have people shelter in place. it's hard to shelter in place when you're looking for a homeless shelter or living in your car or bouncing from place to place. all of these things fall on the shoulders of a president who decided he doesn't care because he's mad at america because they didn't want stroto vote for him anymore. >> you look at the trajectory this country has been on since election day, everything has grown worse. the virus is spiraling out of control. 2800 americans died yesterday which is more than the 2700 and something that died the day before. other than, i think mitt romney went to a microphone and found his way, called it an american

tragedy, every one is awol. rudy is still in court. the vice president is nowhere to be seen. mitch mcconnell other than shut down some of the nominees he hasn't acknowledged one. the entire vacuum of leadership, not just policy leadership around the stimulus and around the jobs report but moral leadership around the scope and the loss is really unprecedented. >> we're definitely in a different time. >> neither time did we get a clear answer from joe biden. yes there is a vacuuvacuum. conversations that may or may not be taking place.

the promise is he said he is straight as an arrow and will cut deals with mitch mcconnell. what we saw from joe biden is first time he's really fully embraced the idea of trying to put public pressure on republicans. that's going to be the strategy for the next to months. as this larger point, that terrifying people inside of biden's world especially the economic advisers. every day you don't act and there's huge concern about evictions, it will mean you have to spend more in 2021 and it's not a dollar for dollar comparison. it is exponential. >> that concerns me. >> i want to play a little bit more of president-elect biden from this event that wrapped up. we'll talk about it on the other side. >> it was di mminishing confidee across the board and this people with the african-american and latino community, what i hear

but not from blocks from here as we stand is we're not going be the guinea pigs. the fact of the matter is that they won't be. you're going to see tens of millions of americans taking the vaccine and you'll see the president of the united states and three of the four living former presidents doing it publicly as well. it's going to take effort to rebuild confidence and science because it's been so diminished in this administration. >> that may be the understatement of all understatements. that was the middle of a historic economic crisis. the idea before he is

inaugurated, president-elect biden is out there trying to undo all the damage that's been done by donald trump in the hour of this country's gravest public health crisis is remarkable. he the taking this offer from former presidents. in no universe can you imagine donald trump having an event with every former living president where they all got their vaccines. it's encouraging and it's a good sign of the changes that are to come. it is staggering to think of how far behind we have come in the fight against the pandemic. >> steve talked about the economic effects. let me walk you through tefkts of the lack of planning when it comes to vaccine distribution. a new report showing while the trump administration has put significant effort into the portion that will fall on their watch which is phase one, add ministering to health care workers, through hospitals and to the elderly and nursing homes through clinics like walgreens

and cvs, those african-american individuals that joe biden is talking about, they are just one example of all of the hurdles that we're going to have here because specifically of the lack of planning. you talk about preparing for prooefrs pandemics we thought might spairal out of control. the government planned a massive pr campaign. they got behind heavy grants to state. they had a summit where they brought together the stake holders. war game things and worked out the kinks in the system. we have things that should have been done nine months ago when we knew that when we have vaccine we have to add minister it that hasn't been done.

administer it and track it to make sure we're reaching the high risk communities. otherwise, it does no good. we don't have the i.t. infrastructure system for that right now. second, the public confidences piece of it. convincing the people you need to do this. you might get some side effects after you take it. you still got to come back for the second dose. tracking those people when you have multiple administrators and potentially multiple vaccines. i cannot over state the lack of preparation that's been done when it comes to having any kiechbds kind of a system where anybody can be collaborating together. then that critical public relations, public awareness campaign where officials tell me we have heard nothing yet from

the administration. we're not aware of plan. michael caputo had wanted to do something where santa gets vaccinate and roll this out as like a way the show people, it's okay. that went up in flames when was found out they were misusing the money. >> jason, i want to ask you about this comment that joe biden made. is this best way to address skepticisms. there's skepticism from all sorts of pockets. they've been worried about this moment since the beginning of the outbreak. not just the need to create a vaccine but to get people to take it. it seems as if people don't take the first dose and the second, it's all for naught. what is the answer to overcoming that skepticism and i think it

goes without saying that some of the communities that are most skeptical are most vulnerable? >> yeah. i mean, lots of black folks are skeptical. i'm not saying everybody but i'm saying the tuskegee experiments and things with norplant that happened in cities of baltimore, there are legitimate reasons that people in the black community and other communities are concerned about a massive roll out. i can speak to plenty of very educated people who i know are like, get back to me on the second or third round because we're not going to be experimented on first. you can't just face that skepticism by having barack and michelle obama do something like elvis in the '60s and say we're getting a vaccine. that's not going to be enough. the the people who want it, will go out and get it. let's look at the last year with voting, the difficulty in getting driver's license. the difficulty people have had in getting access to lap tops and ipads.

there's a disptribution issue. you will have to make this possible. tonl way that joe biden can do that and the only way we can overcome that skepticism is you have to have local people involved. you've got to have local mayors. you have to put together an entire public health force that is going to go in community, knock on doors and say, look, i'm not even here to give you the the vaccine. i'm here to tell you about the vaccine. there's something else coming in two weeks and somebody else coming after that. it's got to be a long and continuous public health message and process. if they try to do this piecemeal, if they try to do spots here and there, it will not have enough of grand effect to protect people. i don't know if joe biden realizes that yet but making simple suggestions like we'll have this distributed or 100 days of masks, that will not be enough. you need an entire force of people similar to the census or irs to get this out there to skeptical community and mike sure it's effective.

sflooe steve, if you take heidi's reporting that everything jason johnson has described has not happened and the reality that we're really not protected until the vaccine is administered and administered properly which in terms of ones we know about is two doses. how central is the vaccination of large numbers of americans to our abilities to come back economically? >> it's essential when you look at numbers of something like 15% of americans who work in offices or going to those offices at moment. we're all working remotely. i'm of the school of thought, maybe it's old school. i think most of my colleagues will agree that working remotely isn't the same thing as being in an office. not as productive. being in this state of semilockdown, working from home, whatever you want to call it is absolutely economically a huge problem. we have huge swaths of the economy whether it's travel,

hospitality, pleasure, entertainment that are still shutdown or will be shut down and so that last 10, 15, 20% of the economy won't come back until people are vaccinated. there's more we could be doing now as we talked about and should be doing now as a kind of bridge but it is a bridge. it's not a permanent solution vaccination andsoevering the public health crisis the the only way to get the economy back to where the economy should be. >> thank you for your reporting on this. thank you. it's great to see you. when we come back, trump from the beginning did the unthinkable. separating a country from under attack into us and them. claiming if we excluded the blue states the country would be on the right track. the suffering has spread to every state and doing some of

its greatst damage in the red states while the president remaps awol from the coronavirus fight. after a bar was shut down for violating pandemic safety rules, protesters took the the street this week in the middle of a covid hot zone. ambulances and emts are strained. we'll head out to north dakota for a live report on the first responders crisis there. all those stories still coming up. don't go anywhere. e stories stig up don't go anywhere. renew active. only from unitedhealthcare. ♪ lift it ♪ press it ♪ downward dog it ♪ watch it ♪ sweat it ♪ bend and stretch it ♪ track it ♪ share it

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what they want is a bail out of democrat run states that are doing poorly. >> why are you talking about democrat states. they're american states. >> if you take the blue states out, we're at a level that i don't think anybody in the world would be at. we're at a low level. some of the states, they were blue states and blue state manage. >> bill was passed in the house was bail out of badly run, high crime, democrat, all run by democrat cities and states. it was way of getting a lot of money. billions and billions of dollars to these places. >> some day people won't believe he was our president. at practically every point during the pandemic president trump has tried to shift blame for his own disasterous response to democrats and democratic governors. representedly threatening to withhold much needed economic aid to score political points.

what he doesn't understand or care about is that the virus is color blind and red states are just as affected. new york times reports says quote, six of the seven states that are expected to suffer the biggest revenue declines over the next two years are red states led by republican governors and won by president trump this year. there's a quote from president-elect biden in the bottom of tom friedman's interview with him this week where he talks about the need for democrats won't to reintroduce themselves or reengage rural america and he says the way he will do it is by protecting them and healing them from the covid pandemic and the covid crisis. he has always campaigned as someone who wanted to be the president of all americans whether they vote for him or not. how does that shape speeches like the one we heard today about the economy and the appointments he's making to his health and economic team?

>> it's a big part of it. i mean, i think that you see in a lot of different ways that biden operates where he had a meeting a few weeks ago where there were five republican governors and five democratic governors. he's meeting with county executives this afternoon and bipartisan in nature. i think that he -- the idea you would protect blue states and not red states is really antithetical to a lot of what biden has run on. he was meeting with all governors and all mayors to try and figure some of that out. i think that is a big part though of what you hear from him. you heard a lot from him about trying to reach out to republicans. trying to convince republican senators and i think there's a difference in how he is perceived in washington and the rest of the country and you saw

him reference the millions of voters who voted for donald trump and him starting to out reach to them even today. >> jason b, you', you're on the of being skeptical. i want to show you president-elect biden and interview with cnn last night on his strategy for getting covid relief passed. relief for people that will get thrown out of their apartments after christmas because they can't afford to pay the rent. relief on all the things that are in the original bill the house passed. the fact the president said he wouldn't sign any such legislation and then i'm told, i may be mistaken because i'm not there not only every day ever in the senate anymore but i'm told there's somewhere between 20 and 22 republican senators who say

they won't even, vote for anything. if mitch mcconnell brought the bill up, just put it on floor, i believe senator believes or soon to be former senator believer it would pass. >> what he is laying out is a political strategy. he's going to go to the american people and say help is on the way. these guys are blocking it and it seems like a smart way to use them. >> maybe. i believe that joe biden, president-elect can pat his head and rub his tummy but at this point it's like you can go and sort of negotiate your landlord now but you should also be doing the bake sale. maybe if you raise enough money you won't have to negotiate with the landlord. joe biden's number one move should be getting down to georgia. if you get those two votes then you have additional pressure you can put on the senate. as of right noi, if they do not

win down there, mitch mcconnell has no incentive to change his mind. he has shown he is guilt proof. he will not be able to bring anything to to table. we know why because we have seen this in the past. we saw with immigration reform. in 2012, barack obama was like put the bill out there. john boehner won't wouldn't do it. republicans will not put his bill forward. i think joe biden has to come up with a much more aggressive multi-prong strategy in order to make this happen. maybe he doesn't want to reveal it but if he thinks any of this relief will come in the form of mitch mcconnell looking at the needs of the american people above his own ideologicals then i don't think joe biden has learned anything in the last 12 years of politics. >> i want to show you a republican who may turn out to

be one republican fpartner. it's mitt romney. let's watch. >> this hasn't been the focus of his rhetoric and i think it's a great human tragedy, without question. the extraordinary loss of life is heartbreaking and in some respects, unnecessary. it's unfortunate that this became a political issue. it's not political. this is public held. we have not made that message clear enough to the american people and people are dying because of it. >> mitt romney, that's only remarkable. it shoun ldn't be remarkable. that shouldn't be news. it's news because today's republican party does not live in reality. they don't live in a system where democracy still functions. they don't live in system that excepts the results of a free and fair election deemed the most secure in our nation's history by the official in charge of it. in mitt romney's signaling he might spend time in reality. that seems like the kind of person that joe biden might have been talk about last night when

he said he heard from about 20 republican senators who con garage lated him. do you have reporting on who they are? >> i don't. we don't know which republicans are privately reaching out to joe biden and actually, the washington post we have been asking all of the senators and congressmen and women, do they believe that joe biden is the president. we're not getting a huge number of responses. >> what do they say? they just say -- they keep walking. when you ask that question, what is the answer? no comment. >> no comment. sfl there's a lot of no comments to whether joe biden is president. there's a handful who say donald trump is the president. it's sort of striking the lack of facts at the moment. i do think, mitt romney, susan collins, there are a handful of republicans who would be open to

work with joe biden and most intriguing part of joe biden's press conference today was actually non-answer to whether he's talked with mitch mcconn l mcconnell. he said he hasn't talked to mcconnell. it does seem to be an indication there is a conversation that is starting and maybe mcconnell is one of those who biden is suggesting is privately reaching out to him. i do think, there's many reasons for biden to be skeptical of mcconnell but i think that relationship will be one of the most fascinating ones to watch in first 100 day, in the first year of joe biden's presidency and how that develops. the biden can move mcconnell on anything at all, it will be a true test of his presidency. i think biden realizes that. >> it's so interesting what you just said. joe biden is making it a central defining mess a j age of his

transition that he will reach out to republicans in senate mp mitch mcconnell has made it a central defieping characteristic that he will not acknowledge joe biden's win and we still have hope that might be an important relationship. it was fascinating. thank you both so much. how trump's america has turned health safety into a culture flash point. a story of bar desperate to stay in business in the middle of covid hot spot. that's next. middle of covid hot spot that's next. d dryer sheets. the world's first mega sheet with 3x more wrinkle relaxers. look at the difference of these two shirts... the wrinkle guard shirt has less wrinkles and static, and more softness and freshness. to tame wrinkles on the go use bounce 3in1 rapid touch up spray. bounce out wrinkles with bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets and touch up spray! both, with a money back guarantee.

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we take back or community. we're all together. we take back staten island tonight. >> usa. usa. usa. >> that was danny after he was just released after being charged for repeatedly violating new york city's covid-19 restrictions. the staten island bar is at the center of resistance in the city and was sht down by authorities earlier this week. hundreds of maskless protesters rallies this week as to defy curfew and formed an autonomous zone around itself. it's in one of new york city's orange zones with an 8% positivity rate and an emergency field hospital was reopened there just blocks away from the

bar. it was an escalated response from both sides this week. a representative happened for months now. this week the city and states struck back making this tavern a flash point in the covid culture wars that turned some business ordinary reason and prudence and party hosts into rebels against pandemic restrictions. joinings now is metro reporter who wrote that piece for the new york times and the rev al sharpton is also here. take me inside what's happening. i imagine some version of this tension, maybe not spilling over to this degree is happening all across the country. >> you're right. as you mentioned, this part of staten island is a real hot spot where the bar is. it's been declared an orange zone have levees certain restrictions on certain restr s

restrictions on indoor dining. the bar began thumbing its nose at the state. they started doing interviews and just saying that we're not going to close our doors. when they sent out enforcement, they wouldn't let them in. when the state suspended the liquor license, the owners gave an interview saying defieying t governor and the mayor to come and rip it off the walls. what happened is the city sent in sheriff deputies and arrested the manager for refusing to leave and they shuddered the bar. the whole thing blew up into a big, several big rallies in front and it's become this kind of flash point of this kind of dispute that's happening across the country. >> this the first time we talked to you and covered the story on the show. i promise everybody watching, everybody on the trump side of the covid debate, who thinks

that masks are unnecessary, who thinks that covid is a hoax, who s thinks the shutdowns are against our liberties knows about this story. i wonder if the local and state officials are aware of what they are dealing with and if they have plan for deescalation. if they have a strategy to make some partners with the bar owner or with his patrons. >> there's some discussions going on now. the thing blew up into national story. i don't think anyone, including the bar owner and manager was expecting that. i was kind of thinking there's nowhere else in new york city this could have happened except on stt staten island which is unique among the five burrougs. >> explain that. >> it's republican leaning. over the years, staten island has wanted to succeed from new

york city. it is a sentiment that was probably received, welcomed by both sides. >> the frtragedy here is every e in those pictures, in images is putting themselves in danger and the tragedy seems to be a failure of leadership. they live in an actual block. it's not a city or state. they live on a block that is a covid hot spot. you are an experienced sort of diplomat and uniter. what's the missing sauce here. how do you bridge these two sides? >> i think we must first recognize that this is now become a cultural war incited by the president. it's no accident this is happening in staten island. he's made what is a health issue

become a cultural war issue. an us against them rather than us all against pandemic. that's what so sad about this. all of us have had to say we're trying to fight to get those areas that have been equally dealt with to get kind of attention they need. here you have an area saying we don't want to be dealt with. i think that's a result of the inciter in chief, donald trump. many of us have had to abide by what ever the prerequisites given by cdc. i work out every morning. if i'm in my apartment by myself, i work out without a mask. other than that, i have to wear a mask. i do meditations and when i take it doup to do meditation, i stop this morning doing that. i do my medation if i'm in the gym with a mask on. you must set the example. here you have people that are defiing it like this is some kind of civil rights movement.

we're talk about our health and all of us including me have to be more distribute about how we protect that. not fight against that when we seeing record numbers every day go up. >> yeah. that's the other place i wanted to land this. president-elect biden has pledged to be a president for every american, including these folks in staten island. how does joe biden reintroduce the facts around covid. it's not closed to hurt their business. it's closed to protect their health and safety? >> i think with way joe biden has to do it by saying it's us against the pandemic. it's not us against each other. the out going president acted as if somebody was taking away their rights of self-expression.

i think you have to reimagine the argument that we're having an es ka lating numbers. we're in a worse situation than we were in march and april and we all can beat this together. if you refrain how you package the discussion, you can get people to understand that it's not you're on biden side on your own side, you're on your own side. you're on your own side in terms of preserving life. when we get down to the vaccine whether it's clinton or bush or obama taking, the question is not what you see obama do, it's what you want your mama to have and that is good health and protection. >> you're right.

not being dispientsed but wanted to keep the president on president-elect biden around some of these last four big appointments to his cabinet. what do you moe and are you involved in any of those conversations? >> part of those that have called on and we are been told we will meet very soon. education and labor. they are qualified people that need to be on the table. we're not trying to dictate who. you have qualified people of justice from tony west to a sally yates and others. saying the concept that we in a year of george floyd from attorney general is selective. i think the fact that the

president is who he met with these groups before and had kamala harris speaking out the march on washington. i think it's the right thing to do. we need to have input. say dinner served at 7:00 and you show up at 10:00. all the meal has been eetsen when you show up. let us discuss with this every group. not only those behind us but ones he met with and made this commitment. i hope he does that and hope we will have input because we're at a critical point in these areas. >> can you classify the level of concern. are you disappointed with the appointments that have yet to be made? are you drawing a red line around doj or labor or are you still just talking? >> i think we're looking at different tiers of government. i think there's been some good signs in terms of where he's

made appointments. those are not top tier appointments. we have not seen the diversity. we want to see the top tier. not just a great diverse second tier but the top tier is not as diverse. that's why we want this discussion directly with the president-elect. >> thank you both so much for spending some time with us. up next, the virus in states like north sidakota where 10% he contracted it. it's impacking ambulance companies that are struggling keep up. companies that are struggling keep up.

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here in the e.r., we can't move patients fast enough and so when that happens we're overwhelmed with our vol ums because we get stuck. we have a certain number of beds within the house and when those beds are full and they are full elsewhere across the state and the nation there is nowhere to go. and that is what we're dealing with. that is exhausting. >> america's front line health care workers are once again facing the unfathomable. another surge in hospitalizations pushing hospitals and ambulance companies to the brink, especially across the midwest.

in north dakota, one out of every 800 residents have now died from the virus. and the american ambulance association has issued this warning in a letter to hhs, quote, the 911 emergency medical system throughout the united states is at a breaking point. without additional relief, it seems likely to break. even as we enter the third surge of the virus in the midwest and the west. let's bring into our conversation allison barber live in north dakota, inside of the garage of the jamestown area ambulance. tell us what is going on there? >> reporter: yeah, hey, nicolle. this is the only ambulance service in gains town, north dakota. if you take a look. this is almost the entire fleet. they only have four ambulances. at one point today three of these were gone. only one was left and two of the three that were out were on covid-19 calls. one of the calls was a 911 call

for koicovid and the other was transfer a patient. the patient was at one of the smaller hospitals here in the area and they were on ventilator and needed to be taken to a hospital in fargo which is an hour and a half away to get the care they needed. round trip that takes an ambulance about five hours. the ambulance that took the patient to fargo, they are still not here and that takes this crew out of the service for the local area. the paramedics we have spoken to are stretched thin with resources. their responding to more and more calls. the majority of them right now are related to covid-19 and they say they are now running low on money. listen here. >> some of these transfers aren't medically necessary. they're necessary because there is no availability here and it is hard to know if insurance companies will pay that or not. i do know that there are services out there that are past that breaking point and are

barely hanging on. i feel like we are kind of forgotten. we're a vital source. yes hospitals need to be there but how do we get people to hospitals. that is what our role is. >> reporter: the majority of ambulance services are not listed as essential services. there are only ten states that deem them as essential and north dakota is not one of them. and it makes it hard to get federal and state funding at a normal time. add in a pandemic and they say they were already pushed at a breaking point prior to this pandemic and right now not only are many rural ambulance services at nir breaking point, some are past it. this ambulance service that we've spent the last day and a half with, they got a federal check in april and haven't gotten anything since then. nicolle. >> the notion of dialing 911 and having no one come is a terrifying and crystallizing way

to understand this story and where you are. nbc's allison barber, thank you so much for that reporting. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. r a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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in terms of the pardons, you're not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons. nor are going to see in our administration an approach to making policy by tweets. you know, it is just going to be a totally different way in which we approach the justice system. >> hi again, it is 5:00 in new york.

it will be 47 more days until we could stop groping for our phones first thing in the morning to see what announcement trump has made after getting juiced up on his morning tv viewing. 47 more days of watching the current president decimate the rule of law. 47 more days of trump and his gop enablers swinging their wrecking ball of disinformation at america's democracy. on the other side of what was never normal, but what has become trump's routine, a president-elect who has promised us he will not rule by tweet or meddle in the administration of justice in his own doj and fbi. until then we should be prepared to wake up to headlines like this one. a suspected pardon scheme after trump considered dolling out sweeping pardons for friends and family and even himself. politico reporting he's mulling pardons for up to 20 of his allies. from that report, quote, those up for clemency include everyone

from trump's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, to several members of his family. all people who haven't been charged with a crime. weighing on trump's mind is whether these pardons would look like an admission of guilt. republicans as they often have when trump appear to about abulldoze through another norm, they're not telling him to stop and there in lies the trump era. a entire political party, the republicans, rendered functionally impotent standing by as trump gets ready to pre-pardon his entire gang. and while there is a app hit to turn the page on the montsly crew, susan glasser writes in today's new yorker that averting our gaze is the worst thing we could do right now. the temptation is to look away. to move on, to cringe and avert your gaze. that is exactly what the republicans in the senate have done this week.

pivoting so seamlessly into batching the new biden administration that they never stopped to acknowledge its existence. do republicans think they have a free pass to pretend that the past four years never happened. do they think they could simply return to the partisan status quo anti-complaining about nasty tweets and potential conflicts of interest, i don't think biden meant that his presidency would launch a direct to normal, i'm not ready to say yeah, whatever, just yet. not averting our gaze is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. chuck rosenberg is here. he works on the staff of robert mueller and james comey at the fbi and now a contributor and recently interviewed robert mueller for his podcast the oath. also joining us tim miller, former rnc spokesperson and political director for republican voters against trump

and elise jordan is back, time magazine contributor and former aid to the george w. bush white house and state department. elise, i cheered through susan glasser's piece because there is this, i won't call it an impulse, there is a reflex among senate republicans that they think they could move straight ahead with trashing without acknowledging that joe biden is the president. >> i think there is this idea that trump could just be excused. co be easily forgotten. he could be -- we're going to move along and it will be in some sense business as usual. but that is just not the case when you have such extreme degradation like trump has participated in over the last four years. and it is not just going to be easily brushed away when he tried to destroy the underpinning of the democracy

and americans' rule of law. and it is outrageous that we're at this point where so many republicans seem to think that they can go back to business at usual. >> well, tim miller, it begs this question, what about trump, are they ready to move on from if they cannot yet acknowledge the result of the 2020 election? >> yeah, they can't move on. they like to pretend like they can. politico was asking about 2024 and they were going along with it. eight more years of the trump. josh holly and marco rubio were going along with it. what is happening right now, with this attempted coup, however haphazard it is. it is one of if not the biggest political scandal of my

lifetime. the former national security adviser who has been pardoned called for martial law to be put into place. the president's own legislators are asking for over turning the results. but what else was hand fisted, the watergate break-in. that took a number of tries. they failed at getting into the phones in their first attempt. so just because it is, you know, not pretty, doesn't mean that it is not a scandal. >> you know, tim, i want to follow up with you that on that because that is fascinating. trump managed to brand his entire operation as too incompetent to coordinate with one another as their alibi for not colluding with russia. that is the explanation they offered to republicans. republicans bought it. trump now has taken that through four years and has republicans,

i mean just fill in the blank for me, refusing to accept the results of what is described as the most secure election in this country's by a life long republican who some have put out statements saying they cheered on and approved of chris krebs. what is the thread that pulls through to now, you know, being obstructive for the biden administration. how do they walk from where they are, which is rather than liz cheney there is no republican elected official in the leadership in the republican party that has acknowledged victory. how do they get from where they are to obstructing covid relief? >> i think you need a psychiatrist, not me, nicolle. because clinical compartmentalize is is the only answer to this question and the only answer to why they could say go out and say that oh, wait, lynnwood and sydney powell

have gone too far with their experiences. when they've only gone a little bit farther that donald trump. trying to condemn sydney powell because he's threatening the georgia senate race and saying that is a crackpot and a grifter. you want to talk about a crackpot and a grifter, how about the guy that raised $170 million from americans that support republican candidates who are being tricked into thinking this election might still be won by him. so when they send tweets about attacking, you know, swampiness of the biden cabinet, it is a total bad faith and compartmentalize is and nothing that donald trump does or says matters and they could put that in a box over to the side and treat everything else like it is business as usual and they've got to be called out for it. and that is why that susan glasser was exactly right in her

new york article. >> i love that you're monitoring. i don't know who all of those people are that you just named. i love that you're on it for us. >> i watch news max for 24 hours and i wrote an article for the bulwark. it is madness that a million people are watching it. a million people. and it is complete madness. what they're pushing. >> i want to come back to that. but chuck rosenberg, i want to ask you this question. our analysis of trump and i think elise is right, it is the degradation of the conduct, nepotism, and warring against the rule of law. so i put everything that was maybe not illegal but certainly not the way things are done. if you were helping another fragile democracy evaluate how they were doing in moving toward a robust democracy and you were in charge of going over there and grading them on rule of law,

where would you put this conduct right now. the president considering pardons for himself and his family, and the president and the republican leaders of the senate not accepting the results of a democratic election. where would you put what is happening right now, if it were happening somewhere else? >> i remember the president saying that article 2 of the constitution permits him to do whatever he wants which is manifestly untrue. so if i were grading him, it wouldn't be a very generous grade, nicolle. the tone comes from the top. and if you're advising a new democracy, a struggling country, somebody or a group of people trying to implement and institute the rule of law, what you talk about is the fact that, you know, the law of gravity is a constant. it exists everywhere and all of the time. it exists in states that don't have functioning governments. but the rule of law is a c construct. it depends on people to nurture

it and when you have leadership that disdained it, that said they could do whatever they want because the constitution permits it, you're destroying the rule of law. now, look, i think it will survive. i think our institutions are much stronger than this very weak and vile man. but the thing you have to impress upon a new nation and a new government is that it is just a construct and it depends on good will of people to sustain it. and without that good will, without that work and institutionalization, it is at real risk. >> i ask that question because i think joe biden's announce. that, that response i played at the top, nothing to do with the pardons, but that he will not involve himself in the justice department. he's also announced that he will keep donald trump's appointee to lead the fbi christopher wray. i just wonder from you, how -- what happens inside when you have a president trying to adhere to the norms? are people, they relieved and

their wipe their brow and go back to work or has lasting damage been done? >> i don't think lasting damage has been done. i think damage has been done. but i don't think it is lasting. boring and calm, nicolle, is so very nice. and i imagine what people will do is they'll hear the words of the new president and i imagine the new attorney general will say very much the same thing. and they'll shake their heads and nod and look at each other and probably wouldn't comment about it because we don't do that inside of the department of justice. at least not the justice department i know. and then they go back to work. >> elise, i want to bring you in on this idea and all of the reporting have reflected this, including nbc, one of the psychological profiles of this pardon exercise on the president's behalf is that he feels embattled but he is also concerned about looking guilty. we could settle that for him. he looks guilty.

he's an unindicted co-conspirator and there are ongoing investigations in new york and in manhattan. so talk about -- this seems like a farcical debate. he's guilty something. he should just pardon himself and be done wolf blitzer show part of hemming and hawing about it. >> and donald trump knows that the optics of pardoning himself, he may not understand any of the constitutional law issues and how the legalities of it would actually proceed, but he knows that the optics are absolutely terrible and he's going to look guilty as sin if he pardons himself and up to 20 family members and associates involved in his campaign and administration. and so, that is a foregone conclusion, that donald trump is basically going to admit, oh, there is something up here, i preemptively pardoned myself for x crime, but i didn't really do

it. and he's going to set a terrible precedent if he actually does want to stay in control of the party because you are going to have a figure head then that the republican party is going to say, okay, he might have pardoned himself and figure out some way to excuse it away. he was just too oppressed so his children wouldn't have to suffer under the weight of the accusations but at the end of the day it is a guilty stain that will tarnish his legacy if he is going to try to mount this political comeback of sorts. >> tim, i have one more for you. amanda carpenter, a former communications director for ted cruz wrote this, and this is a week where we spent a lot of time covering these local republican officials who have come face-to-face with trump's

fiction and fantasy and the death threats that have ensued because of his attack on the elections. after four long years it is finally time to stop parsing the motivations behind republicans collective silence and say what the real answer is which is almost too scary to admit. er that fine with it. all of it. the only time we've heard push bark is when republicans suffered the unples ant consequences. which brings us to georgia. there are two republican election officials are speaking out against trump for the loony conspiracy theories about how the election was supposedly stolen from him. but one has to ask, would they be saying anything if they weren't the ones being targeted. there in lies the problem. so i think what amanda's point is until you get a death threat, you don't take the b.s. and lies from trump seriously. is that fair? >> i don't really have much to add to that. she nailed it. i'm happy for brad raffensperger

and gabriel sterling and who said enough of the death threats. but at the same time in a separate interview, sterling said he will support kelly loeffler and david perdue who is complicit in these death threats, who are complicit in the lie that is being spread in georgia about this election. and so, look, good for them for speaking out but eventually if they weren't fine with it as amanda said, they need to take the next step and vote for the democrat this time and if they don't do that, the reality is they're all fine with it and they are. >> chuck, we traded texts earlier about this stain that elise is talking about of a pardon. talk about the history of that with nixon and ford. >> yeah, i'm so glad elise said that i'm glad you asked that. this is a story that goes back to a 1915 supreme court case called burdick. and what the supreme court said in burdick is that the granting

of a pardon to somebody is an implication or imputation of guilt. and if somebody accepts it, to elise's point, if someone accepts it, it is a confession of guilt. what is so interesting is ford was excoriated for pardoning nixon and he wanted to look forward and not backward and there is a difference because nixon was contrite and resigned. nixon left. so maybe he was more deserving of it then mr. trump is. although probably mr. trump needs it a heck of a lot more. but ford, for the rest of his life, carried in his wallet that excerpt from the burdick case decided by the supreme court more than a century ago. a pardon being an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a pardon, a confession of guilt. that comforting ford. because he knew that in granting a pardon to nixon, he was granting a pardon to a guilty man. >> the country may have to turn

to that one of these days. chuck rosenberg, thank you. tim miller and elise, congratulations to you. we're so happy to have you back but i know you've been oven joying your beautiful baby. i think we have a picture of here. how is she? are you sleeping. >> she's 7 weeks. she doing well and going through a period of not wanting to sleep much and partying a lot at night but has been sleeping again lately. so all is well. she has a lot of energy and we're very blessed. >> she's beautiful. you're beautiful. congratulations. >> congratulations, elise. >> we're happy that you're back. seven weeks, that is impressive. when we come back, dire new projections paint a brutal picture of the months ahead and now doctors and nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic are begging their state governors to do more for them. that story is next. plus a tale of two campaigns in georgia. for the democrats, former president barack obama is hoping to help his side win control of the senate. the republicans, they're increasingly worried about what

donald trump will say and do when he visits that state tomorrow and joe biden hasn't taken the bait from trump throughout the transition so his respond to not attend the inauguration was on brand. we'll play it for you. "deadline: white house" after a quick break. don't go anywhere. hite house" a quick break. don't go anywhere. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself, 'are my bones strong?' life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure,

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it's always in your face. when i come to work, i deal with covid patients and when i go home i don't get to hug my kids. i have a 4 and an 8-year-old and they don't run to the door any

more. because we don't give hugs when i get home. they know that the first thing i do is i shower. and then i get to spend half an hour with them and i come back and i do it again. and i think that all of our nurses are in the same boat. you know, you get a call from somebody after a shift that and they just sob. >> that is reality right now. inside of hospitals. over filling, swelling with a record number of covid patients. experts warn that the situation right now, that is only getting worse. americans are not contracting the coronavirus at an average of more than 173,000 cases per day. yesterday for the third day in a row, nearly 3,000 americans died from it. a total now of more than 278,000 lives lost in this country. and startling data from the cdc this week projects that up to

50,000 more americans could die from covid 19 by the end of this year. nearly 20,000 of them during the week of christmas. washington post lenny bernstein write this is of overwhelmed health care workers witnessing firsthand the result of restrictions they say don't go far enough. in connecticut, tennessee, missouri and mississippi, they have issued public pleas for stronger response to the pandemic as hospital and staff near a breaking point. joining our conversation lenny bernstein, and dr. kavita patel, medical contributor and former obama white house health policy director. lenny, i want to start with you. this was fascinating and depressing reporting. take our viewers through more of it. >> well the reason i thought this was news and demanded a story was that you don't see doctors and nurses taking to the

streets very much, if at all. maybe the occasional nurse's union protest. this is the equivalent of doctors and nurses taking to the streets and saying we're at end here. we can't take any more. and under normal circumstances they have very powerful lobbies. they have associations that handle this kind of thing. here we have doctors all across the country, only cited four of them that are begging elected officials to do something about this. we know it is going to be bad for the next 30 or 40 days but do something to turn off the spigot of people coming into our hospitals so that perhaps in january or february we could do a little bit better. >> i mean, lenny, the 20,000 people that are expected to die christmas week, that is a tragedy on top of a tragedy on top of a tragedy. what could be done -- what could be done in the next three weeks

for them? >> well, in the next three weeks probably not very much. we have the thanksgiving travel, there is a very widely expected spike in cases coming. deaths lag cases by about two to three weeks. so if the models are correct, you will be seeing a major spike in deaths during christmas week. i personally consider the numbers that you reported somewhat conservative in my mind i think we could have 350, 400,000 dead from coronavirus by inauguration day. and that if we don't turn off the spigot now and start wearing masks and distancing and do all of the things that everybody has heard before for the year, we could be in the 300,000 400,000 range by the time joe biden takes office.

>> dr. patel, lenny is right. unless it is around innovation and science technology, doctors usually aren't taking to the streets. they're in hospitals taking care of our kids and parents and thanks god for that. but i think we've run out of ways to explain there is no back-up to these people who are the only thing standing between living or dying when you drop a loved one off at emergency room with covid symptoms. what is it that isn't breaking through? >> yeah and i think it is actually now kind of with reporting like lenny's, people having access inside of hospitals while it is dangerous but they're taking precautions, allowing people to have a glimpse just like you saw in salt lake city utah, what lenny reported on in wisconsin and a number of hospitals, you have to see it to believe it. watching that woman talk about not hugging her 4 and 8-year-old and that just makes your heart cripple.

so i do think in the beginning of the pandemic there was a incredible amount of keeping people at a distance. certainly we didn't want to scare people when more trucks were backing up into our hospitals but now we've reach the point we're all desperate to get any message out there and if takes tactics like showing people these brutal images and the raw tears will do it, it reminds me of what we have to do with smoking packages where we put on the side of significant yets, we put pictures of blacked out lungs. we have to get graphic to get through to people. but clearly we were now, the train has left the station as lenny put it. we're seeing the ills of what has happened over the last several weeks. >> dr. patel, one thing that is hard to process, we've done obituaries every day for nine months. but the numbers of people

expected to lose their lives in the next three weeks, i mean, those are death tolls we haven't seen yet. what is the -- i mean is there any way to surge resource or counseling or what do we do for our front line health care workers who are going to bear the brunt of that. >> we've had to call in field hospitals stood up as lenny has seen and people like me being asked to be comfortable covering in a hospital setting. so there are back-up, but these are not ideal, nicolle, you don't want to resort to having people who are not adequaty trained or having one doctor helping seven hospitals remotely so they could handle how to deal with ventilation or high flow oxygen. so this is what is happening. and because we have no choice. we're asking people to come out of retirement. you heard the cdc today put out finally a call for people to

wear masks indoors if they're outside of their household. why it took this long, i'm not sure. but we started to see a bolder cdc make guidance as we head into the holidays and i'm here to tell you, if you don't believe the numbers, at least get yourself tested. that doesn't take away your risk. but get yourself tested, reconsider your travel, stay in quarantine after you travel or see other people, and indoors wear a mask if you can. so that is the best we can do until a vaccine and more immunity is on their way. >> dr. kavita patel and lenny besh bernstein, thank you for your reporting on this. we're grateful to have it. when we come back, former president barack obama makes the case for the democrats running for senate in georgia. a big question among georgia republicans, what will donald trump do when he visits that state tomorrow. "deadline: white house" is back after a quick break. [ thunder rumbles ]

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when you've got a couple senators who are downplaying a pandemic, pulling the line of a president who botches the response to the pandemic, at the same time behind closed doors they're calling they'ir brokers. that is not public service. that alone should motivate, i

hope, the people of georgia to say we want somebody in there who cares about us. >> i aspire to one day choose my words that carefully. that is former president barack obama just a few minutes ago at a rally for jon ossoff and reverend raphael warnock as they turn to the state of georgia. both parties are pouring loads of money into the january 5th runoff that will decide who controls the united states senate. democrats are up beat after the turnout in the general election. joe biden took that state but georgia republicans are holding their breath to see what president trump will do or who he will lash out at next when he holds a rally in the state tomorrow. all of this as state of georgia is about to certify the results of georgia's second recount, confirming once again that joe biden has won the state of georgia. joining our conversation, greg bluestein, what is this like

there for some of these republicans to become national figures, your secretary of state, gabriel sherman and to get a big boost from national democrats? >> yeah, it is transformed georgia's political environment here. as you mentioned, gabe sterling who is a -- i guess a lower level state elections official is now almost a house hold name in georgia politics right now. vice president pence was just here in savannah and we have president trump coming tomorrow and former president obama just had a virtual rally with the senate candidates. so we are -- we are getting accustomed to becoming the center of the political universe for a few more weeks. >> and we're all consuming your reporting. you write that president trump could deliver the boost republican incumbents have been dreaming about saturday when he holds the first rally in georgia since losing the election. or he could deal them lasting

damage by intensifying his war with georgia republicans who refused his demands to over turn the election results and casting more doubt on the integrity of the state's voting system. i don't need to tell you, two of his allies called on republicans not to vote because the fix is in. trump does not seem to have these races on his mind. he said the most important speech of his presidency was a 46-minute rant he delivered without any cameras in the room. is there really an expectation he might stay away from the divisive things and make the case for the republicans? >> judging by his twitter feed, no. he's continued to attack governor kemp and the republican he endorsed in 2018 to take emergency steps that the governor doesn't have power to do. to somehow block the certification of an election already certified two weeks ago and that is why vice president pence was down here today trying to project a sense of unity,

telling republicans who had bought into the idea that the election was rigged that even if they angry to come back out on january 5th. but the fact that republicans have to reassure their base to come out and vote for two senate incumbents says it all. >> what is your world view of what happens in the election for most of the republicans in the state? do most of them accept that donald trump lost in some venezuela backed fraud or if it's a recount several times and republicans certify them. what do most republicans in georgia think happened on election day. >> this week i made it a mission to interview dozens of republican voters at rallies around the state. many say there is problems with the election. and there were issues and concerns but they did go as far

as president trump to say it is rigged. i went to the sydney powell rally on wednesday in alpharetta and i thought there would be a small crowd there or onlookers. i'll tell it this way, there was mosh republicans there than any rally i've been to in georgia excluding rallies that involve vice president pence or trump. that is how packed it was. 1500 people or so were there and i interviewed them and they don't know if they're going to vote on january 5th. >> that is a good sign for rudy giuliani and lynn wood and a terrible sign for the republican incumbents. if you had to a make a hunch based on where the state stands right now, what do you think the odds are for an outcome that puts democrats in the seats come january. >> i think we'll start seeing polls that show a razor tight

margin. but at the same time, you've got democrats who are coalescing behind jon ossoff and warnock and the big problem has always been remobilizing and re-energizing the african-american base of voters and they feel like rafael warnock could do that. >> we read your reporting and it is great to share with us, i hope we could call on you again. >> thanks for having me. when we come back, what joe biden is donald trump's plan to break one of the last presidential norms on his way out of the door. skipping the biden inauguration. that story is next. that storys t

president trump has not said if he's going to attend your inauguration yet. do you think it is 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. >> that is president-elect joe biden who staked his candidacy on restoring the country's democrat and norms so it is no surprise that biden would think it is important for donald trump

to attend the inauguration. not for his sake but for the sake of reaffirming a peaceful transfer of power. if trump were to skip the inauguration it would be a break from tradition. it is the fourth president and the only one since the 19th century to snub a successor. joining our conversation is john meachham who occasionally offers advice to president-elect joe biden. i was thinking when i was watching that, that donald trump and in snubbing the inauguration is making the bet that everyone will adhere to norms except him and that he runs and heaven help us wins but everything snaps back. there are dangerous norms that donald trump is breaking that republicans are green lighting through their silence and refusal to stand up to him, that everyone will miss if they disappear. >> absolutely. and that is the story of the last five years.

and to me one of the most important questions going forward is what role will republicans and trump supporters and there is a dim diagram there but it is on top of each other, to what extent will they continue to heed his voice. so beyond january 20th, and i think the president-elect's point there was very well taken about the signal it sends, not just domestically but internationally. but we're entering an odd phase. i don't know if you shared this, but i think a lot of folks on the biden side of things tend to think that you get through the election, you defeat trump and then there is this restoration drama. forten bross restores order to

all. it is more complicated than that. because the 45th president has no evident respect for the ordinary processes of democracy. so biden may well be contending with something that no other predecessor, no other president has ever done which is a publicly active malef lent force from his predecessor in a realtime way and i think that is something that is going to be incredibly important to how we govern moving forward. >> i wonder if you think there are enough people working on this. is there any precedent for an american president to have to govern a country where 70 million people believe a lie, believe a lie about how he won the office. does there need to be an office of information combatting disinformation? >> well, it is funny. walter litman proposed that a hundred years ago. in 1921 he published a book.

>> there is no new stories, right. >> i'm trying to stay on brand here. so a century ago, litman wrote this book and it was basically to me the great line from it is the besetting problems of modern communications in his case it was radio, and print was going to be that we would not see and then define, but we could define and then see. so he foresaw this way in which our prism who shape the reality coming in and actually proposed that because the modern world was becoming so complicated there would be bureaus offering opinions on great public issues. as opposed to making an office to it, my plea to everybody would be this is an era for entrepreneurial and engaged

citizenship. this is something that is on all of us. we are an experiment in popular government. we're an experiment in self government and i think that all of us bear a responsibility to accept facts that are inconvenient. when i say that, let me anticipate a possible occasion. people say, well, but it is just the trump people who do this, it is not the folks on left, why coddle them. there is some truth to that. but it is not a dispositive point. we have to tell a story about the country. we have to live a story about the country. in which facts matter, in which other people's opinions, however repugnant we find them, are acknowledged and you try then engage in a conversation. and this may sound home illetic, but that is really what a democratic republican is supposed to do. and i worry all of the time that

we've simply broken down the channels of conversation in such a way that is going to be incredibly hard to have that conversation. >> i think you're right about most of us but there is one blaring exception to that. with republicans and he made a point i've raised on this show several times because it really struck me at rebranding de democrats in rural america in an interview with tom freed man. you talked about men and women needing the moment, this seems like one of the jobs he's going to have for which he's uniquely qualified. >> you know, biden is a legislator. we think of him as vice president because that was his most recent job but he's been, what, almost 40 years in the senate passing bills. and some of those bills were good. some weren't. you could have different views

about the result of that, but his instinct is to try to get to 51 votes or even get to 60 or 67 from his era where you needed that and so that's the air he breathes and i think that i don't know, maybe washington has changed so much that that won't happen but i don't -- i can't think of anybody else that would be better at making that conversation happen than he would be right now. >> jon meacham, always wonderful to get to talk to you, especially at the end of another surreal week. thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back, as we do every day, remembering lives well lived. o every day, remembering lives well lived ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln

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back in march when italy was still considered the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. 76-year-old gionni hung a sign outside his bakery in milan. in italian, it read quote to give a hand to those in need, help yourself and think of others, too. below that sign baskets full of bread and sweets, all of it free. according to the "new york times", gionni originally opened his bakery decades ago because he wanted to sell a product that people will always need and the pandemic was proof. he was right. gionni told friends he only donated leftovers but some of them swear they saw him put out fresh bread sometimes in the middle of the day.

he'd leave the food for anyone that needed it and then disappear, blessed any neighbors that feel embarrassed to collect a handout so the bakery became a place where other people could drop off other donated items like pasta and sugar alongside the baskets. we're very sorry to report gionni died of the coronavirus last month. "the times" reports his daughter is in charge of the bakery now carrying on her father's legacy leaving out bread to those in need because quote people always need bread. we will be right back. people as need bread we will be right back.

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thank you for letting us into your homes for another extraordinary week of news. we're very grateful. "the beat" with ari melbur starts now. >> hi, nicole. i'm ari melbur. as the project dies out and complicates republicans' chances in georgia, giuliani is keeping the former new york mayor in the news. >> mr. giuliani did you ask for a pardon? >> are you going to ask me that? of course i didn't. that's ridiculous. that's a very insulting question. i did not ask the president for a pardon and i have not committed any crimes. >> mr. giuliani's denial doesn't rule out whether he discussed this with president trump amidst the reporting trump is