good evening and welcome to "politicsnation." tonight's lead, i've got georgia

on my mind. tonight, more than a month after election day, president trump is still campaigning, but not for either of the gop senate candidates facing a runoff in georgia where he'll take the stage in a couple of hours. you see him here leaving the white house minutes ago, nominally on their behalf. no, he's still really campaigning for himself and essentially to stay out of prison, sinking to lower lows and lower desks. while still holding our highest office and, of course, he's separating those fooled, his supporters, from nearly a quarter of a billion dollars of their money in the name of his election fraud. fraud. we don't have to tell you that every legal challenge the trump campaign has mounted has gone

down in flames. but if you will remember, georgia was the first and perhaps most symbolic as joe biden's historic win in the peach state made it clear that the maga grip on america had faded enough, even in the south. and with the senate's makeup in the balance, the messaging from the white house and the republican party needs to be in lockstep. so you have massive cracks as the president's cronies encourage republicans in georgia to, get this, boycott a runoff they say is already rigged while gop lawmakers, including the president himself, insists that last month's election was rigged, but next month's election is still somehow worth voting in. and then it doesn't help the president's ego that barack

obama was in georgia yesterday virtually campaigning for the democratic senate hopefuls jon ossoff and rafael warnock. >> when you got a couple senators who are downplaying a pandemic, toeing the line of a president who botches the response to the pandemic, that alone should motivate, i hope, the people of georgia to say we want somebody in there who cares about us. >> we'll have more from president obama who will join me on my radio show this week. among other things to remind georgians that the voter registration deadline is this monday. and my next guest can help with that. she was just re-elected in her congressional seat there in georgia. joining me now, georgia congresswoman lucy mcbath.

thank you for being with me this evening. >> thank you so much, reverend al. it's always a pleasure to come chat with you. thank you for really making sure that on "politicsnation" people truly know the truth of what's happening in the country. >> well, thank you. you know, democrats have made gains in the south. of course your re-election is indicative of that. joe biden's win in your state. but the south still remains a tough place for a democrat to win. obviously more so for a black democrat. so as i asked all my southern guests recently, with this runoff, what does the democratic party nationally need to understand about the south, and in particular about georgia in order for warnock and ossoff to win next month? >> well, you know, reverend al, as i've said over and over again many times over that this is the new south. and, you know, it represents the

new political ideology, the change in demographics,. it represents who we are now. and so people need to understand that. and of course, as you have an influx of people that are moving here in all over the country, they bring their relative experiences, their politics with them. and so that is very representative of what has now become a very diverse demographic of voters. of course the vision has changed here, and we have phenomenal candidates that are running in these senate elections. and so what people need to know is that georgia has done a lot of hard work. we've been working really hard on the ground mobilizing and organizing a massive movement of volunteers, all the work stacey abrams has done and the grassroots organizations that have been collaborating on the ground since 2016 doing the hard

work of reregistering all those individuals that were purged, making sure that everyone has access to the polls. you know, it's the new south, and that's what people need to understand. >> i've seen it evolve. i remember in my teens and 20s i used to go to georgia a lot, augusta, to visit james brown who supported a lot of my youth civil rights work. and then now national action network has an office in atlanta. it is a different south. and the fact is you are now sitting in a seat re-elected that was once the seat of newt gingrich who in the '90s was the biggest right-wing personality and was the speaker of the house in the united states congress. your sitting in that seat is indicative of a new south. >> yes, i think you're absolutely right. and i think we're just really telling our stories, though.

you know, all of my lived experiences, my relative experiences, i just told my story because other than gun violence, you know, that has been the story of a lot of the people that i talked to every single day. and so i think what they're recognizing is that, you know, more than anything is that i'm a woman who's had life experience, life experience, and, you know, raising child as a single mother after the great recession, with 9/11 having to figure out what i could and could not afford anymore, two-time breast cancer survivor. all of these experiences give me credibility to champion for them in washington. and i just happen to be a woman of color. >> right. now, talking about that, your story, your book called "standing our ground" is our memoir of raising and loving and losing your son, jordan davis, to gun violence and how you transformed your pain into

activism and now a political career. i met you where you said to me you need to know what happened to my son. i was on an airplane. i'll never forget that's where we first met. over time it became a national story and a national case what happened to your son, jordan davis. but you didn't stop there, you turned your pain into activism and power. many of us learned this week about the terrible tragedy in oregon over the thanksgiving holiday. an unarmed black teen shot and killed by a white man reportedly after an argument over loud music in the parking lot. obviously you can't connect these kiefrpnds of incidents bu it's always a disrespect for black lives, whether it's a parking lot or on twitter or on a campaign stage. so how concerned are you that trump's rhetoric may incite violence in your state after he

went after black the victims like atlanta at the heart of the fraud that defeated him and after republican officials came out, one this week flat-out saying that someone was going to get killed if they kept it up. are you fearful that there may be some violence here? >> well, you know, i'm always very concerned about president trump's rhetoric. i'm very concerned about the climate of violence that we see, you know, just continuing to be cultivated in america. but we're going to stand up as we always do. we're going to continue to stand up. we're going to continue to challenge this culture, as we did when we delivered this election to joe biden in georgia. we're not going to lay down and just continue to let this kind of ideology and this kind of violent culture and this kind f of -- in some sense of the word,

bigotry, hatred. we're just not going to let it continue to be cultivated. we are better than this. and i'm so excited for this new administration because it will be a seat change, and i already begin to hear people just -- with a sigh of relief that we'll get back to normalcy, normalcy with democracy and respect and enthusiasm for the rule of law, making sure that every american is treated fairly, with dignity and respect. >> i might add you have always said as long as i've known you, you have always said and demonstrated to fight valiantly for all of the victims of gun violence, victims of economic challenges, whether they be white, black, brown, red, or yellow. you've insisted this is not just about blacks. oh, did i say you were re-elected? that might be why. congresswoman lucy mcbath, thanks for being with us this evening. joining me now is oregon

senator jeff merkley. thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you, rev. >> president obama called into my radio show this week. listen to him talk about the politics of recovery from this pandemic. >> the recovery is going to require government to step in even more than it already has. and you can already hear republicans trying to run the same game they ran when i was president, where suddenly once the democrats in office they start worry about the deficits and why are we spending money providing poor folks and small businesses relief when they were happy to spend $1 trillion on tax cuts or eliminating taxes for big corporations. >> this kind of political jujitsu is something that is startling if you really look at it.

now those that were the hawks on deficits have run up a deficit that breaks many of the records that we've seen. and they are actually arguing about relief to people that have had economic despair due to covid-19 pandemic that the president did nothing about, and they want to play games with whether or not they ought to give relief to american citizens, including their own supporters and small businesses, senator. >> well, i tell you, if you want to see the difference between government by and for the powerful and by and for the people, this is it. that tax bill, 2017, $2 trillion, almost all of it going to the wealthiest americans. now when you want basic relief for order americans worried about their rent, their mortgage, their job, their utilities being turned off, now we're not so concerned about it. we'll just sit on our hands.

it's been seven months since the house passed a major relief package called the h.e.r.o.e.s. act. and mitch mcconnell has blocked any effort to help the american people. >> now, let me go to something directly that you're involved in, the 13th amendment, the one that abolished slavery left a loophole that many americans aren't aware of. it actually allows for involuntary servitude as, quote, punishment for a crime. can you tell me about your amendment to close that loophole and why it's so important? >> you bet. the history of this is something that we just don't learn in our high school history and maybe not even in college history because most americans are taught that slavery ended with the 13th amendment, the 1865 end of the civil war. what they don't learn about is that very same year, states in the south started passing laws eventually called the black codes, that said walking besides the railroad is a crime.

not speaking to loudly in the presence of a white woman is a crime. it was the crime of being black, and the goal was to rearrest primarily black men but also children and also women, and then rent them back into slavery for the profit of the state and at the same time acquire the dual mission of preventing them from voting. if you think about the things we abhor about slavery, fathers being ripped out of a family, mothers being ripped out of a family, parents being ripped apart, children being separated and committed to some work farm somewhere, the economic impact -- all of this continued under the black codes. and in some cases, it was worse than slavery because the employer had no interest in the heth -- no stake in the health a of the individual. this was the beginning of mass incarceration. in alabama before this, you had

1% of the prisoners were black americans. by the 1870s, you had 85% were prisoners. with alabama starting to fund three-quarters of its state government over renting people back out into slavery. >> let me push you on that. went from 1% to 85%? >> that is correct. yes. phenomenal change. in fact, it's estimated that into the 1880s, one-third of the black men has been imprisoned after the civil war. and so you just see how this just devastated black america, newly so-called freed individuals weren't free because laws were passed that made being black a crime, and they were completely oppressed with huge, huge damage that reverb rates to this very day. this was adopted into a lot of state constitutions. three states have sat down and gotten it out of their

constitution. first was colorado in 2018, so two years ago. and then just last month also in nebraska and in utah. so you have a purple state and two red states that said this is outrageous, we're getting it out of our state constitution. we need to get this article of huge injustice out of the heart of our constitution. >> absolutely. and we need to get that whole spirit that still has a disproportionate amount of blacks in jail, many of them doing labor that is absolutely outrageous. thank you for being with us, senator jeff merkley. let's bring in our panel of political strategist, a democrat aiesha mills, and republican tim mill. thank you both for being with us. let me go to -- >> hi, rev. >> hi to both of you. let me go to an issue that i kind of inferred to in the opening. tim, the president has fun

raised more than $207 million through his pac since the election. on its face, it's to prosecute his voter fraud farce, but we know he's not going to suse tha money but to pay for legal fees. but from an operational standpoint, that money that could be going to help republican senators perdue and loeffler in georgia. at one point does the grift backfire on the one still holding it up? >> i wish i could give you some good news, al, that the grift is going to backfire in georgia, but i'm not sure about that. the georgia senate candidates have also raised a ton of money, and a runoff in georgia is going to tend to favor the republican candidates, perdue and loeffler. what he's doing is theft. this isn't any different than, you know, those emails that you

get from princes asking for your social security number. this money is coming from $5 and $10 contributions, from people who support the president and who really think that he has a chance to win because they're going becoming told that by conservative media and by republican applications. and this is a scam and it is a fraud. honestly, i just don't know how people participating in it can sleep at night. >> let me go to you, aiesha, on this. "the washington post" surveyed every republican in congress, and only 27 of them acknowledged that jobbe biden won the electi. two of them even named donald trump as the winner. 220, nearly 29% of all republicans in congress, refused to say. is the republican party now a post-reality enterprise? >> absolutely, rev. here's what's so unfortunate about the state of the world we

live in where we are completely bifurcated as a nation, first of all, in terms of partisanship or at least values. we're either on one side or the other, really polarized. we also consume media in a way that we really only have to listen to things that we agree with. we only have to engage with people that are echo chambers for what we already want to believe. and that is the way that these congress folks are operating in this climate where it doesn't really matter to them whether they acknowledge the reality of what's happening around them and in this case that joe biden is the president of the united states, because the constituents that they think that they're speaking to aren't necessarily brokering the truth and fact and news and understanding theness of the discourse. they're in these narrow channels of their own news network, for example, that propagates lies and deceit. instead of telling the truth, really explaining what's happening, and then affirming

that our democratic process works, they're able to completely skirt all of that and just kind of pander to a handful of people paying attention to them. that's what is so consequential about it all. we can talk to some of the people or acknowledging some of the truth, and that is something ha we're going to have to figure out how to overcome because otherwise our democracy is going to continue to suffer whether donald trump be at the top of it or not. >> let me ask you this, aiesha and i'm going back to tim. president-elect biden is feel g feelifeeling press from civil rights leaders and black lawmakers like jim clyburn. we know his transition staff is as diverse as ever. his communication team is. but after last month's historic black turnout, we're still

waiting to see black talent in a top-level cabinet post, a top tier. by the way you have the latinx and asian politicians and activists saying same thing. what's your take on that? >> well, listen, rev. first of all, thank you so much for the advocacy work you have done your entire life around making sure that we have representation because it's critical. and we know that personnel is policy. i used to run the lgbtq movements presidential appointments project which was about getting diverse people in place because they matter. certainly in a cabinet-level position, we expect to see black folk. here's what i don't want to lose sight of. i don't know that you don't and i appreciate the work that you do. we can have as many black and brown and queer people in positions of power as we want, but we also got to keep our finger on the pulse of what's happening with policy.

and i want to make sure we're not just running a campaign of tokenism, that we're not just running a campaign of let's put one of us there because it matters that we see ourselves. we want to have someone from our community in a high position because we know their lived experience hopefully is going to help to drive policy that transforms our country and transforms our lives. so i want to make sure that as we have this conversation about who joe biden is picking, we're doing it in a way that is not just simply we need to have a black person at the top. it's important that we have black people because then we drive policies that are good for black people. >> and tim, we have people that have the social policies that would help all americans fairly. the republicans gave us a black in the person of clarence thomas, which, in my opinion, voted against many of the interests of the very community that he symbolically was put on the supreme court as the black that became the second black after thurgood marshall, tim.

>> look, i think that's right. this probably isn't that helpful coming from a never-trump former republican, but i think that joe biden's cabinet picks so far have been in line with what he campaigned on. he's had diverse picks up and down the aisle. he's picked mostly center-left democrats, which i think what you would expect based on the fact that he ran a campaign to unite the country. i think he's going to have the most diverse cabinet in history and a cabinet that appeals to the former republicans and suburban voters that turned out to vote for him. and so as far as i'm concerned, i think he's done a good job on that front. >> we'll see what the top tier looks like. there's still a lot left and you don't mind if we push a little too make sure that that's the case. aiesha mills and tim miller, thank you both for being with me. coming up, trump thinks his legal team is comprised of american heroes, but they're actually a bunch of zeroes. my thoughts on all the

president's men next. but first, my colleague cory coffin is here with today's top news stories. carry? >> thanks, rev. stories we're watching. coming off a busy thanksgiving week, covid-19 numbers are on the rise. the u.s. now has over 14.4 milli 14.4 million cases and just under 280,000 deaths. in idaho, boise hospitals have been stretched to their limit. doctors warning it could be over capacity before new year's if the surge continues. this comes as the state reached an all-time record high in new cases in a single day on friday with just under 2,000. the state also saw the most deaths in one week with 113. turning now to southern california where a wildfire is tearing through eastern orange county. the bond fire began wednesday night. it has now consumed 17,000 acres. authorities warn of worsening conditions as strong winds will fuel the flames' growth. firefighters have that blaze 40%

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now that my memo for trump opportunities are down to single digits, i have to make each one count. so this week, mr. lame duck president, i want to talk to you about your so-called elite strike force legal team. let's start with overpaid lawyer

rudy giuliani who can't seem to stop comparing himself to "my cousin vinny." i don't know if you or rudy misunderstood the point of the film, but vinnie is the hero because he gets people out of trouble. and giuliani has so far only succeeded in making you look like a fool, and a guilty one at that. but rudy isn't waging war on democracy alone. listen to what one of your other stooges had to say about a respected former government official on monday. >> anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that do it krebs who used to to be the -- >> oh, yeah, that guy was on "60 minutes" last night. >> that guy is a class a moron. he should be drawn and quartered, taken out at dawn and shot. >> luckily for chris krebs he's a man of courage and character. just one day after your goon threatened his life, krebs

published an op-ed in "the washington post" titled "trump fired me for saying this, but i'll say it again: the election wasn't rigged." even your usually dependable lackey, attorney general william barr, has been forced to admit the justice department found no evidence of widespread election fraud. a factual statements that has so enraged pro-trump lawyers, lynnwood and sidney powell, they are encouraging georgians to sit out the runoff and not support republican incumbents david perdue and kelly loeffler. but even that's not enough for your most rabid and high-profile backers. disgraced former national security adviser michael flynn is shouting the quiet part out loud and calling for an end to american democracy. that's right, mr. president, the

man you pardoned just last week is calling for you to suspend the constitution and declare martial law, ending centuries of peaceful democratic transitions. if that pardon wasn't a big enough blow against democracy, you're apparently mulling dozens more, including preemptive clemency for mr. giuliani and your adult children, spitting in the face of the rule of law. you reportedly concerned those pardons might look like admissions of guilt, and i'll tell you right now, you can move right past that concern. the american people already know you're guilty. whether you doll out those pardons or not, you will always be remembered as the pathetic loser you are, a failed one-term president who lost the popular vote twice, who was impeached for trying to interfere in our

election and a contemptle blow hard who boasted he would only hire the best people. and then assembled a rag tag team of his own inept children and miscellaneous other malcontents who helped him wage war on democracy itself. those fixes you hired, they seemed capable of only getting you mired in the biggest fix of your life. good luck getting out of it in six and a half weeks when you unceremoniously ejected from the white house and lose all the legal protections you've been exploiting. we'll be right back. 'll be righ♪ ♪ spread a little love my-y way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly. to syour body needs routine. system, their holiday favourites. centrum helps your immune defenses every day,

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as i mentioned earlier in the show, this week i joined over civil rights leaders calling on president-elect biden to tap top black talent for

major cabinet posts as well as others to diversify the first tier. among those posts, attorney general, the nation's top cop, who would have the unenviable job of removing the stench of the donald trump/bill barr collaboration from the justice department. in addition to plotting a way forward on criminal justice and policing reform, after nearly a year of generational protests around police killings of black america. joining me is jill wine-banks, former assistant special prosecute during the watergate investigation, also an msnbc contributor. attorney crump was to join us. we're trying to get some technical glitches straight. but let me start with you. counselor winebanks, the president is gaming out preemptive pardons for nearly two dozen people, we're told.

he's contemplating this. this may include ivanka trump, chur jared kushner, and his two adult as soon as. having seen what dispassion looks like in a president, what do you make of the news? where does it stack up historically, and what do you expect to come? >> historically you can have a preemptive pardon. that's what gerald ford did for nixon noivgs. while our office was considering whether after he had resigned as a private citizen he could be indicted, he got parted and our research said a pardon was forever and he couldn't not be indicted after the pardon. so that's possible. he can't pardon them for future crimes. he cannot pardon himself or anyone else for tax liability.

so there's still a lot of room for justice to be done, even if he issues a pardon. and future crimes are something that we can pretty much assume that donald trump is going to continue to do. >> now, joining us now is civil rights attorney benjamin crump. attorney crump, let me ask you this. we talked about the president's first 100 days, the president-elect who will be president. but the damage done on every level, including the suspension of even modest reforms like consent decrees. what does the next attorney general's first three months on the job need to look like? we'll get to in a minute who you think it should be as you have been the attorney general for black america, we'd like to know who you would think would make a good attorney general,

particularly at this point of reflection on race and policing and criminal justice in general. >> reverend al, we leave george floyd summer and go into the transition of this new administration this fall. it's very important that we have a justice department that returns equal justice under the law as we try to deal with what we've endured for the last four years, an onslaugt of civil rights in the united states. we pray there will be an attorney general that will be selected that has a track record that is a champion for civil rights. and i think tony west is a person who is supremely qualified to restore dignity and justice to the department of justice. >> now, you wrote that op-ed about tony west and, of course,

there are names that have been thrown out like deval patrick, sally yates, many others. and they have been pros and cons. i think the attack on west was that, well, he's related by marriage to the vice-president-elect, though many of us heard of tony west before we heard of kamala harris. he was number three in justice. do you think that the background in social justice, whether they be black or white, is something that must be pushed as we meet with the president-elect to give recommendations on the profile? i don't think any of us are endorsing a particular candidate per se, but certainly the types of candidates that should come at this hour, attorney crump? >> yes. reverend al, you know, you have witnessed several administrations take the helm. one of the things that is most important is that they come in

trying to get the best, most qualified candidates to deal with things that they have campaigned on. well, president-elect biden was overwhelmingly handed the presidency through people who you know was out there marching and protesting for george floyd, for breonna taylor, for ahmaud arbery. and then they risked their lives in a pandemic to come back coma -- to come and vote. now we want an attorney general to lead the department of justice, reverend al, who is more than qualified. when you talk about tony west, he should not be penalized -- no man should be penalized for marrying up, and the fact that he was the number three person in the justice department and then in 2008 he dealt with the big banks and was able to do something quite monumental when

they had consumer relief where they took that $37 billion settlement and they made sure much of it went back to the marginalized communities that were preyed on. he has a vast wealth in the corporate arena, and so that's why we're saying to vice president biden, you need to have somebody either tony west or a person who reflects the championship record on civil rights that is so desperately needed in this moment in america. >> now, let me bring this together with you, as we were talking about this. you and i were talking about pardons, jill wine-banks. when i look at the back of the issue, because i can think of plenty that the president can do with his power to pardon. that's millions of americans, mostly of color, guilty of far less, but doing much more time.

i want to hear your thought about that. why are we only limiting pardons to his relatives and those cronies, when if he wanted to go out and try to salvage anything at all of doing some good as president, he claimed that he wanted to do something with the crime bill he did. why won't he pardon a lot of people that are doing enormous amount of times for little crimes or that did not have a fair trial? >> you're asking me? yes. >> yes. >> i think there's no question that donald trump cares about only himself. so he's not going to go and do any pardons for people who are suffering, who have suffered an inequity in the law. i think we're going to have to look to joe biden for that. i agree in terms of who the next attorney general should be that having a big civil rights background would be very important. i agree completely with what

attorney crump has said. and i think that we need someone who is not afraid to speak truth to power. i think that in selecting it, you need to do what gerald fod did when he selected a new attorney general. he looked for somebody who was completely not political, who was neutral, who could restore integrate and honest to the department of justice, which has suffered so enormously. so i think we need to look at -- you mentioned sally yates, who is the first person who stood up to donald trump when he went to him and said there's a problem, mr. president. so we need someone -- and i'm not endorsing any particular person. i'm just saying the characters that we're looking for need to be something like that. >> i agree with both of you. i'm not saying who, but i'm sure saying what and we intend to press that when we meet the president-elect. i already have an attorney general. he's on the show, ben crump. thank you for being with us,

both of you, tonight. let me go to this issue here. the axios poll. 72% of americans said they would not get the vaccine immediately. after four years of a trump president, plus a long-standing history of medical discrimination and racism against black americans, it's not surprising that so many black people in the united states don't trust our government to dispense a safe and effective vaccine. but as the pandemic shows no sign of slowing down, black nurses, doctors, and clergy members like myself are taking action to help ease the black community's concerns and see where we can lead to some way of dealing with averting further what we are already seeing now, further deaths and further

positive coronavirus tests coming out of any community, and certainly those that are disproportionately in our own communities. joining me now is the president of the national black nurses association, dr. martha dawson. thank you, dr. dawson. let me ask you. the black coalition against covid have end pend what they ca love letter to black america, pleading that in the face of rising covid-19 cases and the deaths that black americans need to get the vaccine as soon as it is available if it is proven to be safe. as a nurse and as a leader in the movement to ensure equal treatment for patients of color, how can we reassure black families that this vaccine is safe to take? >> well, that's why this coalition has come together. and it consists of black americans who live, work, and worship in our black

communities. we have the president of the -- college, howard university school of medicine, moore house school of medicine, and university of medicine and science. we have combined our efforts with the national medical association, the cobb institute of the national medical association, and also with the under league and black doctors.org. our goal is we are in this space. we live with our black colleagues and our black population. so we want them to hear from us that we have scientists that have been involved in this process from day one. we have physicians and nurses who have participated in these clinical trials, and we want them to know that we're doing everything to affirm and respect that black bodies and black minds matter >> yeah. >> and that it's our

responsibility to make sure that our nation is going to take care of our people, even when we're talking about medical care, the research enterprise, and all follow-up care that individuals may need once they have this vaccine. >> let me ask you this. the cdc has the rate of covid-19 -related hospitalizations three times higher for black americans than white americans. how do we stop this? >> you know, this is a historical problem in that we have been underfunded many times. we don't have assets to primary care physicians. as we heard throughout this pandemic, we have a lot of pre-existing conditions. if we're going to stop this, first of all, we have to make sure we have more black and brown nurses, physicians, pharmacists, and all those individuals that are in the health care space.

but to deal with all the immediate crisis, we have to begin to rely on science. and what i have to say is that when we're admitting patients to the hospital for covid-19, we're treating the symptoms. treating the symptoms. >> yep. >> we cannot cure this virus without the vaccine. >> all right. martha dawson, thank you for being with us tonight. up next, my final thoughts. but first, some exciting news for msnbc. starting next weekend, tiffany cross and jonathan capehart join the morning lineup with premieres of their new show. these are two incredible journalists. so make sure to watch tiffany on saturdays and jonathan on sundays at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we'll be right back.

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♪ ♪ my kids, they know i'm a scientist. but it's hard to explain to them what i do every day. ♪

right now, i'm working on purification technologies that help advance vaccine and therapy research for covid-19. one day, they'll realize i wasn't just trying to help them go out and play again. i was trying to make it safer for the whole world to get back outside too.

as i said earlier, former president obama was on my radio show this week about his new book, and i asked this question of him. >> what was the reason you chose the title? >> dr. king's speech right before he was killed. i may not get there with him, but i've been to the mountaintop and i've seen the promised land. the biblical roots of so much of black culture and american culture.

>> 52 years ago, dr. king made that speech, and he said that we as a people will get to the promised land. over half a century later, the first and so far only black president titled his book "the promised land." and many of us, certainly i still believe we, all of us can get to that promised land. that's why we keep marching. and that's why we keep voting. an that's why we keep participating, because we still believe, no matter how long it takes, we can build a beloved community and get to the promised land. that's why my book "rise up" is to say don't sit there in despair. rise up and keep moving forward. we can get to that promised land. because it is the only place that we ought to be headed toward. equal protection under the law. equal opportunity for all. we can get there, if we don't

weary in good doing and invest in what is right and fair for everybody. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, my colleague alicia menendez picks up our news coverage. ♪ [ whispering ]

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

hello, everyone. i'm alicia menendez. tonight the president takes his attacks on democracy to georgia. he is there tonight rallying what base he has left for a, quote, victory rally. tonight what victory is he talking about? and the revelations of his preflight phone call with georgia's governor, seeking help to overturn the election results for joe biden. can that even be done? and if so, how? and is such a request from a sitting president even legal? and we'll talk what it means for georgia's runoffs as new reporting takes us inside the mind of a georgia voter revealing dwindling faith in the system, so shaken that even donald trump supporters may sit this one out. just one of many symptoms of trump fatigue bound to last well after joe biden takes over in 46