hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. along with a raging and pandemic and sky high unemployment, among the crisis joe biden may be for forced to confront is the republican's party refusal to condemn what they know are dangerous lies. "the new york times" wrote

"tru "trump's baseless conspiracy theories about voting fraud have devolved into an exercise into delegitimizing the election. chris krebs, the cyber security chief donald trump fired for accurately declaring the 2020 election secured. here he is with our own katy tur begging his party to take a stand. >> what we're seeing is a coordinated effort to intimidate republicans from speaking up and accepting the outcome. i spoke up. i defended the constitution, i put country over party and i suffered the kwoconsequences, you'll still suffering the consequences on a daily, hourly basis. i'd do it over again, though. i don't know why others aren't. i suspect based on my experience in part they are, you know, they

don't want to be put in this position but there's also the political implications and political suicide as i've heard some say by coming to speak up. it's just time to get past this. this has to stop. everyone -- republicans need to stand up for the country. >> some of the danger that krebs is warning about there is playing out right now across the country. georgia election officials, republicans, have been speaking out about the imminent threat of violence and pleading with republicans to set their record straight on the election result and debunk trump's dangerous lies about fraud. armed protesters gathered outside the home of the michigan secretary of state as she decorated for christmas. the confrontations and escalation of tensions in this country are the result of trump and his media allies main lining disinformation to his base and all about a handful of gop elected members of congress

refusing to condemn those lies about election fraud. the "new york times" adds new reporting on the president's grip on this party. quote, kim ward, the republican majority leader of the pennsylvania senate said the president had called her to declare there was fraud in the voting. she said she had not been shown the letter to congress, and asked if she would have signed it, she indicated the republican base expected party leaders to back up mr. trump's claims or face its wrath. if i would say to you i don't want to do it, she said, i'd get my house bombed tonight. a haunting echo of gabriel sterling, the election official in georgia's warning last week. >> someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get killed and it's not right. i -- i -- it's not right. >> and all in line with a call for martyrs with arizona, where

the arizona republican party tweeted, quote "he is. are you?" where a trump supporter tweeted he is willing to die to overturn the election result. donald trumped tweet "quote, we will soon be learning about the word courage in saving our country." to be totally blunt, this is out of hand. richard burr, risch limb bahr, sean -- rush limbaugh, sean the hannity. they could stop this by calling it out. yesterday they offered false hope for the legal effort which has resulted in nearly four dozen courtroom defeats. the lies that risk leading to violence are sadly where we

start again today. ashley parker, "washington post" white house reporter is back with us. also joining us, ben rose, former deputy national security adviser to president obama. and former fbi special agent clint watts. lucky for us, all msnbc contributor. clint, i want to start with you. it is the reflection x to not c this stuff out of the fear that amplifying it will somehow spread the dangerous messages. but if you pick up the thread from what gabriel sherman said last week in georgia to what the michigan secretary of state experienced inside her home to what's happening in idaho outside a hearing to discuss public safety measures, people are taking to the streets. this is totally out of hand. this is a story about a republican party that could shut donald trump -- any one of those

people i named could shut it today. they could go on fox news, they could go on hannity and end it today and people's lives would be in less danger. >> that's right, nicole. you know, it's about talk and then walk. we've seen a lot of talk and we're seeing some walk. people are starting to mobilize. we were worried about this on election day. one thing havei have to say is because the vote was so close in the early days because we didn't know the result, it created a delay in action of people actually showing up someplace. they did not know where to show up. they were still waiting out hope and hoped the prophecy that trumped laid out would come to fold and now it's not. we are in two different realities and the trump reality for his most ardent supporters, they now have had time to think about what they want to do, they have heard continuous false claims, which they want to believe, and now they are being pushed and pointed to places to

mobilize. i think the four states that you see these sort of calls and attempts to show up is where we've seen them traditionally, the militia movements in arizona and qanan incidents that were borderline or actual violence over the past few years, the michigan militia, which we know about this wolverine variant which wanted to kidnap the governor and georgia is another place where the vote was very, very tight and we have traditionally seen extremist groups on that far right fringe pop up out of there. so looking forward, if the leaders keep inciting the violence, then there will be violence. meaning that that sort of talk, that sort of rhetoric, people still believe that this election might be able to return. some of them will show up at trump's beck and call if he continues to push them in that direction. >> actually, parker, what did you take donald trump's tweet this morning to mean when he said soon we will find out who

has courage, in quotes? >> the thing about a lot of the president's most controversial utterances is that they are a little vague. and there can be any interpretati interpretation, right? so if you are a trump supporter, you could interpret courage as a willingness to die for this fight, as the arizona republican party called its supporters to do. let's just note that that republican party is a far cry from the arizona republican party of john mccain. but it is again one of these tweets where the president just like when he tweeted "liberate michigan." then when there is quite dangerous behavior in the wake of that, so for instance the plot to kidnap and potentially harm the michigan governor, the president said i didn't say kidnap and hurt governor whitmer. i would interpret the tweet

generally as a call for trump supporters to join him in this false, baseless fight where he likes to claim incorrectly that he somehow won an election that he lost. >> ben rhodes, because it's trump, there's always something worse than the thing that seems like the worst thing that he could do after losing an election and the worst thing that i thought he could do after losings election was to file all these frivolous laulwsuits, but actually the worst thing he could do is to striangle the republican party so that they're not condemning calls to violence. where do you think we are and how does a president-elect biden deal with violence that is not being knocked down by a party he still hopes to govern with? >> first of all, nicole, we have to take sheerioeriously the pow donald trump has on an enormous

share of the population. i remember when birtherism happened and the republican party can't come dndemn that or distance themselves from that. and that informed the degree of opposition and hostility that he faced in government. this in many ways is far worse. he's seeking to convince a significant part of the american public that this election was illegitimate and was stolen. let's be very clear, what he's saying is insane and absurd. it's akin to pointing to the sky and saying it's not blue, it's green. we've seen because of the conspiracy theory and nature of social media, people are more than willing to live inside that reality. the republicans are going along with it. from a national security perspective, how many warning signs do you need? we had a plot to potentially

kidnap and kill the governor of michigan. the warning signs are there. if someone gets hurt, if someone gets killed, the blood is on all of their hands, the people who are saying nothing and going along with this. this isn't a game. this isn't a charade. this is deliberate effort to make a big chunk of this country live inside a conspiracy theory that could radicalize them to violence. this needs to be shut down before it becomes a part of the political back drop of this country for the next several years. >> let me talk about something you you said about responsible adults. it's a moment i think everyone has seen by now. in 2008 john mccain confronted one. the disinformation was coming from his running mate sarah

palin. and the calls that john mccain would get on the bus from his former senate colleagues, most of them from the democratic side of the aisle, but there was a conversation, as you just said, ben rhodes, among adults, who are the adults right now on the republican side of the aisle? i don't count any. >> yeah. and i want to be very clear. it's not that everyone needs to agree to everybody issue. let's get back to fighting about the size of government or taxation or national security policy or -- they can hate every policy that joe biden puts forward. but if we can't agree on facts and democracy in this country and we can't agree that the president of the united states claiming that he won an election that he clearly lost and lost by a pretty good margin, that the entire rather party shouldn't go along with that. you would think, nicole, and you know the party better than i, that there are people who were around before trump and had a

political identity before trumpism took over the republican party, people like rob portman who served with you in the bush administration, people who are rock solid conservatives who did not come out of a conspiracy theory. there are a the lo of of those people left over there. and they know this is true. i cannot possibly believe that most of these republicans think it's part of a deep state conspiracy. they know it not true. ted cruz, who said he would argue this case before the supreme court, he knows this is not true. shame on him. he's doing this for what, to tap into trump's support? it's not worth poisoning the welfare reform of the conspiracy theorist base that trum of has created here. >> i want to come back to what's happening on the streets and

outside the homes of public servants because another battlefield is the policy debates around how to protect ourselves from the raging coronavirus pandemic before vaccinations are available. i want to give a little con tb. show this. the state health board of debating mick health measures for pro technicaling different parts of the state. i want to show you the terror that one member was driven to. this is diana lakanodia. >> my 12-year-old son is home by himself right now and there are protesters banging outside the door, okay? i'm going to go home and make sure he's okay. >> so she is a member of the idaho health board. their topic was public health

measures to protect citizens of their state from the coronavirus pandemic. they had to stop the meeting before they were going to vote on a republic vivised health or would have put in new restrictions because the pandemic is raging there. i mean, she was obviously feeling terrorized, there were protesters outside her home, her 12-year-old son was home alone. this is a protest outside the health board offices. when do these threats and people feeling terrorized, at what point does that intersect with law enforcement? >> yeah, it fascinating nicole. imagine it was 2008 and 2009 and we were listening to anwar malachy. and it's happening all around this country. we have americans showing up with guns, right? but not just on public property

now. we see them showing up on private property. so this is that line for law enforcement. what is peaceful assembly and what is clear i inciting or threatening violence or mobilizing. i imagine for state and local law enforcement right now, particularly in some of thieves trump supporters, we saw it from gabriel sterling last week, talking about people conducting roults and reconnaissance. it's really fascinating how our frame has changed because it's part of our own political leadership that's doing this. i think at this point there's been several instances that have crossed the line. i think we have a scaling problem where the fbi has been degraded in terms of its public reputation. the president has caused harm to the fbi. they are not trusted in the same

way in trump and now imagine you're a federal officer going out there, work with state and lul, which means they may or may not be in total alignment with what is going on. a lo we've got some weird currents in the country and i don't know how this then you will see the politicians. we've seen this happen before with mass shooters. we watched a shooting a the a walmart at texas a couple years ago and then people come with thoughts and prayers and we have to do something about this. we could have this domino effect in the, post hp inauguration, we now have extremists out there plotting and planning.

there are no so there as a very limited number of ways they can attack. i'm worried about the timothy mcveigh, the eric rudolph types going back to the. >> what is. >> it is completely terrifying to hear you say that out loud and on tv, clint. you've sort of taken my breath away. ashley, i want to get to one other story because it's not a cause but it's a symptom of all of this. fox news is sort of the tread cruz of television, if you will, no matter how much they degraded themselves to please trump, he's abandoned them. and it appears his followers have gone to newsmax, as he told them to. i think this is sort of industry news but newsmax beat fox on a

pretty important hour and this is how the "new york times" describes newsmax for those of you who aren't familiar, quote, newsmax tv has promoted a parade of spir sif theories and false allegations of vote are fraud and has pointedly refused to mr. biden as the ple president-elect. now you've got millions of trump voters that are upset because they've been told by the president of the united states that the lebs was relection wasd no one told them it was wrong so they believed it. and you've got fox news base, they've migrated over to news max. what is the sort of end game for the president in trying to move his voters over to newsmax and conspiracy-theory friendly media outlets? >> well, it's also where he is. it's not just newsmax.

newsmax is perhaps the most prominent but it's oan and it's the number of the conservative blogs as well and sort of right-leaning sites that he was always a little bitten tlhi -- bit enthralled to. aids would hand them to the president and he would parrot them back and now when he is so angry about the election results, angry at fox news for not being what he thought should be total and pure state tv, he is switching over to these different media outlets and is urging his supporters to do so. you can even see in his tweets and what we're hearing him say privately, he is becoming more radicalized. he's hearing more spir sconspir theories and parroting them back. his supporters are becoming more

radicalized, people who don't accept the election result and don't accept biden as the president is incredibly dangerous. >> i want to give you a quick last word in this conversation, ben rhodes. this is one of the things that president obama seemed to be warning about in his book "truth decay." what is the first step to combatting it, if you've got to run this very, very divided contineder box of a country? >> well, i think first of all, jooi trying to model the al tern tich brand of politics in everything he says he does. he is the most by the book politici politician. after january 20th, fox can go all in again in opposing a democrat. this distance they have from trump on things like calling the arizona result, it's going to be

comfortable to recertificaserve the norm of being oppositional to a democrat, in the same way supporters backing trump now will feel in opposition to their own government when they no longer see donald trump in the lead in the white house. the thing that joe biden is going to have to contend with is when there's that mass movement, who are going to be in some ways radicalized after january 20th when joe biden is living in the white house. the only way to drain some of the toxicity out of this and get back to truth-oriented politics is to find some republican. there have, whether they're elected governors, elected mayors, elected members of congress. >> there has to be a group of people that joe biden can at least agree upon about truth and facts. he's go to have.

>> it is an unbelievably tall, tall list of to dos on president elect's biden's first day. pa park. >> had we come back, a new report today that has the trump administration planting loyalists into some biden transition meetings, undermining and possibly slowing down the pace of change. >> and in introducing his pick for a second, joe biden says it's long past time that leadership there reflects the diversity of the united states military. a look at president-elect biden biden's pledge to have his cabinet look like america. that's ahead. plus right now there are more than 100,000 people in this country in a hospital because of coronavirus. are we prepared for that number to get bigger, to get worse? wool took at the sta don't go

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ism kn i i know none of you need to know this about threre is nothig you can do to stop joe biden from becoming the president in three weeks. from the new york city, quote, loyalists to president donald trump have blocked transition meetings at some government agencies and are sitting in on discussions that other agencies between career civil servants and president elect biden transition teams, something chilling conversations several federal officials said. joining us now, "washington post" columnist and msnbc

contributor, ben rhodes is still here. i know that my old boss george bush made sure the transition to bl president obama was more than just smooth, and he paid that forward from the most unconventional transition to president donald trump's team. this is not making sure the transition is bumpy, this is not delaying the transition, this is sabotaging it. what are the sort of tools available to the biden team to push back? >> well, i think, frankly, nicole, there are very few tools. i think the strategy for the biden transition has to be to get as much information as they can to process as much as they can and then to wait until about the third week of january to come in and really do the job.

i mean, i think it's really unfortunate that this president has continued to decide that he would rather just burn the house down than to ensure both a peaceful transition, a smooth transition at such a difficult time in our country. and you know the transition from george bush to barack obama was also at a really complicated economic time and, you know, deep trouble for the country and yet those two men understood what it meant for the nation. sadly, donald trump simply doesn't. i think that we're getting exactly what we should have expected out of this president given his previous behavior. it's no surprise. biden just needs to get as much as he can and then just move on until january. >> it has real world consequences, though, ben rhodes. i wonder what you think they're

doing in these meetings. this is not an administration that did much governing. donald trump responded to tv so the people that seemed to rise in his administration were the people he saw on tv. what are they even doing in these meetings? >> yeah, i've been thinking about that myself, nicole. if you look at the pentagon, this is a place where the entire leadership of that building has basically been put in place since the leelection. they're there to do certain things between now and january 20th. part of that is policy. they're yanking people out of somalia, may be giving lucrative contracts to trump-associated people. always look at how trump views the world and how he might project that on to biden. he spent years trying to construct some fake conspiracy theory that efforts were undertaken during his incoming transition to sabotage him, right? i think what they may be trying to do is entrap biden people,

try to say they're doing something untoward, trying to create any whiff of scandal they can then hand off to their allies in congress. these people are there to try to look for something that i think has not happened, which is if there's anything that the trump people that can claim that's been done inappropriately by the biden people they can utilize to suggest a cloud of scandal around the incoming administration. i think there's a basic effort to get proposals through and corruption on the way out the door and i think for that reason the biden transition team is being very cautious in terms of how aggressively they're moving at a time when they would want to get in there and figure out what's going on around the world and i think they're proceeding cautious. >> the beneficiary of an integrated transition isn't an

outgoing or incoming president, it isn't really the political appointees, it the thousands and thousands of civil servants and federal workers that work in these agencies. it is supposed to be a time to help them not even reorient policy-wise but to get ready to make the transition from one administration to another. donna, you understand sort of that culture and that ethos of the federal worker. can you imagine just sort of whiplash on top of whiplash for them to be deprived of this time, this transition to get ready to work under a new president. >> and add to that we know the federal work force has been quite hollowed out over the last four years. i think for federal workers, for civil servants, they just want to get in there and do the job of the american people and make sure that the incoming administration has all of the

tools and information that they need to continue to guide the work of those agencies, to protect our, you know, our food and our water supply, to make sure that our servicemen and women are getting the tools and the equipment and the services they need. i mean, this is the job the civil servants. i think it must be very confounding to them that there's all this chaos where there actually should be calm going from someone administration to the next. >> and, ben, to this last point, donna made the point that bush was handing over to president obama in the middle of an economic crisis. obviously trump is handing over to biden, if ever there were one piece of this transition to be set aside and to be less

dysfunctional than everything elsetrumpian, but this week there were duelling vaccine events. there seems to be no overlap. what concern do you have think the incoming team has about that? >> that's right. i think people should understand what do we mean by seamless transition? the bush team, not only did they open up the books and help us make an understanding with the crisis, they wouldn't make an announcement without previewing it with obama people first. we're working together to calm market, put together stimulus, administer the bailout that had already been passed. if this was happening like it should, that covid task force of trump would be an open book to the incoming biden people. everything would be done in concert. it like a runner with a baton that is at full speed and up want the next guy running the relay race to hit full speed before you hand it off, right? that's not what's happening at all. the trump people seem determined to have joe biden start from not

a running start on january 20th but a dead stop start. they're not opening the books, not collaborating, even as the pan ddemic is reaching new heights. the american people are going to suffer and the workers are not getting the clear direction they're hungry for with an incoming team. >> and as you know better than anyone, ben, it's a time when our country is usually most at risk from those outside that wish to do us harm. it's a remarkable -- the transition is -- it's a weird thing and people that haven't been through it don't always sort of connect to how important it is, but it is as always things trump so far from normal. ben roethodes, thank you for spending some time with us today. donna is sticking around. up next, president-elect joe biden and kamala harris

introduced the leader they say the country needs right now at the pentagon. a look at how that story is being received. that story is next. received that story is next i guess? yessss! should we dismount now?

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i hung up my uniform for the last time and went from being general lloyd austin to lloyd austin. it is an important distinction and one that i make with utmost seriousness and sincerity. and so i come to this role, this

new role as a civilian leader with military experience to be sure, but also with a deep appreciation and reverence of the prevailing wisdom of the civilian control of our military. >> that was retired general lloyd austin in his first public remarks since being nominated as defense secretary, addressing concerns by some lawmakers about having a retired general like austin in what has traditionally been a civilian role. austin's nomination has been welcomed by civil rights groups, many of whom met with the president-elect on tuesday to press for more diversity in the biden cabinet. joining us now, the reverend al sharpton, host of "politics nation" here on msnbc. rev, i know you were not just part of this meeting with president-elect biden yesterday but behind organizing it.

and i do want to get to the confirmation process, but i just want to hear from you, are you guys still synced up? how was the meeting? was it broader than cabinet picks? what did you guys talk about and how do you feel about it? >> we talked about the broad agenda and vision that we wanted to see that president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris was going to project in terms of bringing this country back to a level of sanity in terms of how we deal with the budgetary concerns, the economic disparities, the black/white wealth gap. we talked about vision, criminal justice and voting. we talked a long time about it was -- it was supposed to be an hour meeting, it went an hour and 50 minutes. and then the people that would

be in the cabinet would come out of division rather than trying to have those people that are being selected be part of some political pressure to get my friend or my buddy or my whatever in position, they have to fit within the vision. i think that is the spirit that we brought to the meeting and i think the president-elect was very receptive to that and very open. as i said, the meeting went 50 minutes over. at times he was very passionate at saying what he believed and we all understand that we're adults and we're not going to get everything we want but some things are nonnegotiable and we made that clear and there are some things that he is not going to do but it's important he starts talking to every silo in this country, unlike the present occupant of the white house. >> rev, that's sort of the

nature of my questioning. you and i have had so many conferri conversations and many on some of the darkest days, the bleep hole day and so many of his most flagrantly racist low points. what is the sort of balance of relief and then not letting this moment pass you by in and how does it play into what you want to see at the department of justice where so much of this action and policy takes place? >> the relief is that i thinkmo and racist presidency in my lifetime is over. now just because i get through a storm does not mean the sun came out. it just means it stopped raining. i think all of us need to help make sure we move these clouds

back to get some sunshine in. and that's where we entered these conversations with vice president -- former vice president biden, president-elect biden. you must remember, though, when we dealt with some of this issue, vice president biden, who was vice president at the time, was in the room. so as i reminded him when we went through trayvon martin and eric garner, he was in the meetings i was at when we started the policing commissions to look at this and met with young activists and met with those of us in civil rights group. if many ways i've been at that stable with him before when he was the co-pilot and yesterday he was the pilot and so they have experience in this and they need to bring people with experience. the justice department prefer a black attorney general with a background in dealing with civil rights and voting rights.

the least he could do, whoever it is -- >> who is that? name names, rev. >> i think you have everyone from a tony west, who was number throw in justice, i think deval patrick has experience, i think others that have been mentioned have experience. some may have prestige but don't have experience. we're in the era of george floyd. we have a law enforcement shooting in columbus ohio going on right now. we do not need someone that may be prestigious but has to do on-the-job training around the police reform, particularly when mr. biden was part of helping to create a police review commission under the administration of obama/biden. >> donna, i wanted you to pick up and i want to come back to general austin and something the rev said is that we've done this twice before where congress has passed a waiver so that someone who hasn't been retired from the

military, the seven years what are required before you can take a post can serve as a second. if you were in congress, would you support that waiver? and this is certainly a noble candidate for whom to do it again? >> i look at general austin and i look at his bone fides ande s that, you know, the requirements were waived and he's able to accept the nomination and be confirmed. i listened to joe biden today, the president-elect, as he was introducing colonel austin and s op-ed and, you know, the more i know and i knew of him before, the more qualified i think he is

at normalcy between the administration and the military. and we need that at this time. you know, absolutely. and what an historic nomination. and i think it important for the congress to move forward in giving joe biden the secretary of defense that he has asked for. >> i thought the op-ed was remarkable. what i didn't know when you're reading about all the names floating around is that this is the person that joe biden had dealt with. this is someone that the incoming president has dealt with around the plight of gold star families, around -- he was head of centcomm, someone the president-elect has worked with and trusted just as someone who worked in a white house.

i can't imagine a more important person than the incoming president wants to work with. reverend al sharpton and donna edwards, thank you very much. >> just ahead, a scary reality, a hospital crisis during what's been the of the coronavirus pandemic. we'll talk about what's being done next. i have an idea for a trade. oh yeah, you going to place it? not until i'm sure. why don't you call td ameritrade for a strategy gut check?

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it's disheartening and it's -- it's a very helpless feeling. you put the patient on the best medications you have, and you really just have to hope at that point. hope that you don't get that call from nursing that, hey, i've had to turn the patient from two to four or from four to six, because you know in the back of your mind that those escalation mean that the patient's closer to that decompensation and closer to having to go to the intensive care unit. >> that is reality. that's what's happening right now in hospitals all across this country. doctors and nurses on the front lines making every effort to help their covid patients improve, often left with no choice but to watch them get worse. right now, a record number of more than 104,000 americans are hospitalized with the coronavirus. right now. more than 20,000 of them, in icus. another record that grows by a few hundred every single day.

there isn't much room for any more. today's startling "new york times" analysis of government health data warns us that hospitals serving a accumulative 100 million americans reported having less than 15% icu availability left, and 1 in 10 americans are living in areas where 0% to 5% of icu beds are available right now. some hospitals are already sending patients elsewhere. others preparing to ration care. in a country grappling with the loss of more than 288,000 souls and counting, more than anywhere else in the world, let's bring into our conversation nbc news and msnbc public health analyst dr. irwin redlener. dr. redlener, my question for you is what is it like on the other side? we can cover the disinformation and we always rely on people like you to put out just the

facts. but what is a nurse or a doctor feel inside their hospital when they're running out of icu beds, and it's too late to share the facts? >> yeah, nicole, this is a horrible situation. in one of my former lives, i was actually the director of a pediatric icu at a major hospital in florida, and you know, it's a feeling of dread. you get to a point where you get a lot of admissions or transfers and then all of a sudden, you're ti filled up. in normal times, in a normal situation, where they are usually able to call on another hospital and transfer a new patient to that hospital, if needed, this is not normal times. we have damaged ourselves, our capacity to care for very sick patients has been really repeatedly undermined to get to a point now where we're in desperate trouble, and by the way, i think this is kind of a global situation where we have an overwhelming push and stress

on hospitals all over the world, but particularly and amazingly in the united states, nicole, i don't know how this could be. we have so much wealth. we have so much capacity and desire to do the right thing among our medical teams everywhere, but we've run out of space. we've run out of time. there are several federal assets that normally could be brought into play from the va hospital system, from the national disaster medical teams and so on. those are also out of resources now. we've reached capacity from one end of the system to the next. and all this is just the kind of cascading consequences, nicole, of horrendous missteps and making sure that america could do what it needed to do to take care of patients, but more importantly, nicole, to prevent this calamity from happening in the first place. not necessary that we're in this place. if we had done what germany had done since the beginning of this, we would have had 75,000,

not almost 300,000 fatalities now. >> let me just give a couple examples of what you're describing. in south carolina, patients are being flown out of state for covid-19 treatment due to full rapid city and sioux falls capacity. new mexico medical officers warn that the next step is rationing care. do you think you'd live to read those headlines, dr. redlener? >> yeah, they're horrifying, and you know, there was talk when we were thinking about the possibility of a big pandemic influenza back in 2006, 2008, we had actually devised these sort of emergency reductions in or changes in standards of care. no doctor or healthcare provider was comfortable even with those discussions. that means that we're so filled, we're so at capacity that we're going to change what we would normally do and qualify as good care and give reduced levels of care because we have no choice. that's a horrendous place to be, nicole.

>> we will stay on this story. dr. irwin redlener, thank you for spending some time with us today. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. eak. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started burge, no tomatoes.. [hard a] tonight... i'll be eating four cheese tortellini with extra tomatoes. [full emphasis on the soft a] so its come to this? [doorbell chimes] thank you. [doorbell chimes] bravo. careful, hamill. daddy's not here to save you. oh i am my daddy. wait, what? what are you talking about?

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this is madness. we have a process. recounts are appropriate. going to the court is appropriate. and pursuing every legal avenue is appropriate. but trying to get electors not to do what the people voted to do is madness. he's saying, let's not follow the vote of the people. let's instead do what we want. that would not be the way a democratic republic ought to work. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. madness is how the republican candidate for president just one election cycle before donald trump is now describing his own party. a party unrecognizable from its former self as it currently

stands, and stands by and in some instances, assists donald trump as he swings a wrecking ball at our democracy. trump today pushing forward with a dubious legal challenge, despite nearly four dozen defeats already in court, including from the u.s. supreme court. trump today intervening in his personal capacity in the case where the texas a.g. is suing four other states, battleground states, to stop the certification of their votes. a case many legal experts say has little to no chance of succeeding. the republican party's complicity when it comes to trump's spread of misinformation and his concerted effort to stoke distrust in an election deemed the most secure in our country's history, and which attorney general bill barr said was free from widespread fraud, could do lasting harm. that's the view of former republican senator jeff flake, who tweeted this about trump's pressuring of local officials to overturn the will of the people. quote, there is long-term damage when this kind of behavior is

normalized. it is not normal and elected republicans need to speak out against it. something only a handful of them have done. as of today, six. one, two, three, four, five, six republican senators have explicitly acknowledged that joe biden is the next president. which means that only one has come out in the 16 days since we told you, our shock, that only five had spoken out. nearly 90% of elected republican senators are still staying quiet or dancing around the fact that we will have a new occupant in the oval office on january 20th. that refusal to acknowledge, even more striking given yesterday's devastating blow from the united states supreme court which denied -- refused to take up an appeal that tried to nullify the certification of pennsylvania's election results. it was described this way by peter baker of the "new york times." quote, the supreme court, with three justices appointed by trump, thought so little of his

allies' bid to overturn the election results in pennsylvania that it dismissed the case with just one sentence and no noted dissents. even in the face of that blatant dismissal, donald trump continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him. today, he tweeted a flurry of falsehoods, many of which the now familiar twitter warnings on them. pete waner, a former speech writer for george w. bush calls trump's ability to have his supporters believe every word despite being devoid of every fact his, quote, most malicious legacy. more than half of republicans said trump rightfully won, that the election was stolen from him because of widespread voter fraud that favored biden, claims that are hallucinations. this might be donald trump's most enduring legacy, a nihilistic political culture, one that is tribalistic, distrustful, and sometimes delusional, swimming in conspiracy theories. the result is that americans are

disoriented and frustrated, fearful and often enraged at one another. donald trump didn't invent misinformation and disinformation, but trump exploited them more effectively than anyone else has in american history. exhibited in what just happened in the last hour, 17 states, all with republican attorneys general, and ones where trump beat joe biden, have told the supreme court that they support that long shot suit by texas's a.g. to nullify biden's victories in four battleground states. the complete collapse of the republican party is where we start this hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. jim palmeri is here, former white house communications director under president obama and former communications director for hillary clinton's presidential campaign. also joining us, tim miller, communications manager for jeb bush's 2016 campaign, and the political director for republican voters against trump. and steve, political strategist, lincoln project cofounder, my

long-time friend, steve schmidt, i got to hear what's on your mind about all this. >> this was a monumental month in the history of the country. democracy is fueled by faith and belief, by the people in the legitimacy of the system. and our system requires both sides in the competition of ideas that's decided in elections. it requires both sides to be willing to lose an election. and if you have one side who is no longer willing to lose an election, and won't represent the popular will of the american people, then what you have on american soil is an autocratic political party. and so, we have some republican senators, none of whom covered themselves with glory in any of this, with the exception of mitt romney over these last couple of years, at least we have six of them who hold on to the basic tenets of american democracy

behind the lines of the autocratic movement. really a last defense, i suppose, in the republican party. and then all of the rest of us on the other side of that line, from aoc and bernie sanders to the lincoln project and tim miller and all of the folks that stood with joe biden whose careers have been as conservatives or republicans. american politics realigned this month. we're now one election away in this country from losing our democracy because one party doesn't believe in it. we saw the poisoning of american democracy drip by drip, drop by drop this month until we saw 82% of republicans said, hey, this is illegitimate. and once you reach that critical mass, you're in a lot of trouble as a society and a country, and this is going to be the defining political fight, i suspect, over the balance of all of our

lifetimes. but truly, a historic month and not one for the good in the middle of a profound calamity. and trump's vandalism of this country, its institutions, has been profound, and it will be damaging for a long time to come. >> steve, i understand, i think, at this point, why trump does what he does, from people like tim o'brien and his niece, who have spoken out. i do not understand how elected republicans like mitch mcconnell and even right-wing hosts like sean hannity and rush limbaugh do not say, today, there's a line that can't be crossed and that's violence. >> that line is in the rear view mirror, nicole. they crossed it. they crossed the rubicon. we cannot be fantastical in wishing what has not happened

has happened in our thinking. it has happened. we've watched it play out. we've watched trump and his loony attorneys. we've watched the declarations of fraud. we've seen united states senators, members of the house of representatives, they all knew -- they all know that biden has won the election. what they're doing is for no purpose other than power. the republican party is an organized conspiracy for the purposes of maintaining power for self-interest, and the self-interest of its donor class. there is no fidelity to the american idea and ideal. there is no fidelity to the ideas of classical liberalism or american democracy. the whole fight in the history of the country has been who gets to participate in the american idea and ideal. in 2020, there's one side, and i'm proud to be on it, that says it's for everybody. for black people, for latinos, for gay people, for every

american, right? it belongs to all of us. that's not what the other side believes. they believe that they should rule over the majority of the country by any means necessary. the debate that has been about, do we get to participate in this great experiment, has now become one whether we continue with this great experiment at all. that's why they are so radical. there has never been a force that has achieved power or is within reach of achieving power in the next election that's been so hostile to the history, the foundings, the essence and the entire meaning of the country as is this trump and trumpist movement that has taken over lock, stock, and barrel the republican party. it's no longer dedicated to american democracy. it is dedicated to trump and trumpism and to his family, to

defense of his indecencies, his autocratic manner, his corruptions, an apologist for the profound damage he has done. >> you know, tim miller, one of the most important -- not important, but interesting things is where the fishers were and i have no sympathy inffor people who jumped on the trump train and then were sad to see it crash, but to see john bolton and bill barr and liz cheney on the other side of what steve schmidt just described, the three of them all right-wing conservatives and i think i've gone through this before. i mean, john bolton and rick grenell agree on all matters of foreign policy but they're on the two sides of the fact and fiction divide around the result of the election. bill barr and matt, i'm sure, have the same judicial philosophy. they're on two irreconcilable sides of the fact-fiction election result debate.

liz cheney, who's as conservative as any house republican elected -- serving right now, is on the other side of the fact-fiction debate. it can never again be reconnected. i mean, the republicans who have acknowledged the truth, they can't go back into normal polite so society because none of them raised their hand was trump was caging children or, you know, smearing and obstructing a federal investigation into whether his campaign colluded with russia. but neither can they be at home in the fictional world of donald trump, can they? >> well, i think you're seeing that clearly. i don't know that liz cheney and john bolton are seeing that clearly. i think, good for them for saying and doing the right thing. i think they feel comfortable in where they are and their careers, that they can do this. i think that's a big reason why they're doing it, not to take anything away from them. i also think they're a little deluded about what the future of the republican party looks like and they do believe they'll be able to reattach it and frankly,

even though i don't think i will be a part of it, i hope so. i hope that there are some people who live in the realm of reality and who believe in basic democratic values and norms who do fight within the republican party. that's needed. it's -- as steve just laid out, it is a problem when one of the two major parties in the country have completely thrown in with autocratic values, and i just want to talk about this lawsuit that just came up in the last hour. 17 states, nicole, 17 republican attorney generals have signed a brief calling for the cancellation of the legal votes of people in pennsylvania and wisconsin and georgia and arizona. you know, we've talked a lot about voter suppression and the problems with that, and i don't want to minimize that at all. it is a very serious problem. but what these guys are talking about is far past voter suppression. it's vote cancellation. it's taking people who were told how to participate in a free and fair election, who followed the

rules, who cast the ballot for the person that they chose, and now these 17 attorney generals and ted cruz and the president of the united states want to take their vote away from them. they want to cancel that vote. i mean, that is literally turkey and belarus. that is -- that is anti-democratic. and you can fight before election over voter i.d. laws and voter suppression and there are reasonable people on both sides of those debates, though many republicans have acted unreasonably, but vote cancellation? this is unprecedented, and it's the president of the united states, ted cruz, and 17 republican attorney generals that are pushing for it. to your point, how do you come back from that? how can you realign once you've supported something that grotesque? >> and jen, the president-elect's position on the republicans in the senate is that he hopes to be able to govern in a bipartisan manner. i guess my question for you is, how does one go about doing

that? do you focus on the six who acknowledge the result of the election? >> i think you focus on the six that acknowledge the results of the election and you focus on the percentage of the republican party, you know, vast majority of them have said they thought that the election results are not credible. but some part of the party believes that joe biden was elected president. i think you start there. and i think that you try to embed in everything you do a semblance of bipartisanship, a semblance of reality, right? so, like, in doing the vaccines, find people who are willing to take the vaccines first. i know that george bush has said he would, bill clinton, barack obama. other people that can appeal to the supporters of president trump, that their involvement in this process will be meaningful to them. if you're trying to do infrastructure, do it in a way that is reaching out to different parts of the country

to try to get some buy-in there. i think even like without being partisan, you can find ways to embed in everything that biden does to be much more open, to be transparent, and to be reaching out to the parts of the country that didn't vote for him. you know, one leader did a lot of damage to just, you know, credibility of facts and putting people in silos. it's not just on biden. it's on all of us. but i think biden can embed in everything he does from how he inaugurates himself -- how he does the inaugural, to how he pursues policy, how he does the vaccine, can be much more inclusive. and i think that that, you know, if i were working for him, that's what i would be thinking about. how can you start to build back bridges to people who have different views than you and sometimes even, you know, a different set of facts? and he has tools to do that. >> and i think, to your point, jen, steve, you've said that

president-elect biden should go straight to the public, to build public support and use that as pressure on elected republicans, but you know, tim spent a week watching news max and oan and wherever else the trump folks went when trump told them to stop watching fox. are they still susceptible to pressure, or are we sort of a few train stops past that? >> no, we're past it. look, again, we're in a fight now between an autocratic movement and a democratic movement. and the only way to win a fight is either through submission or through exhaustion. and here's the deal. and this is what i would say to the people that tim described as deluded. they are in a party that has let out of the underworld a mixture of conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, white supremacists, militia groups, and all of those people are part

of their trump coalition. they are in the mainstream of the trump coalition. groups like the lincoln project, our view is very simple. there is no compromise with these people. they must be driven back into the underworld of american politics. they have no place at the table. and that any political party that wishes to associate with them has to become so toxic that they have no chance of winning elections. and it's going to be the work of many elections. but this odious cast of characters has to be brought to electoral submission over these next years. at the same time, the side that believes in democracy cannot be brought to exhaustion, cannot be worn out in this fight. everybody who's on the side of democracy, who believes in elections, from aoc to the lincoln project, everybody in

between, republican voters, you know, the group that tim -- that i'm tripping over right now, and i apologize. but all of us, right? if we don't hold together, right, if we don't stay together on the fundamental question, we can lose the country to an autocratic party in the next presidential election. this is all out in the open right now. you can't put this back in the box, what happened this month. you know exactly who is faithless to their constitutional oaths. and it's not a big stretch to say this. if you won't acknowledge the result of this election, if you're pretending that donald trump had the election stolen from him, on no planet are you faithful, senator, member of congress, mr. mayor, mr. state legislature, are you faithful to your oath. you've spoiled it. you've wrecked it. you've -- you have desecrated

it. and this is why this is such a tragic error, because we've never seen such cowardice and such faithlessness toward the american experiment, toward the american republic as we do in this hour right now. >> and jen palmieri, just to end on what's happening right now, it's republicans who are being targeted by this movement that steve describes. it's republican election officials in georgia who are standing up and saying, quote, someone's going to get shot. it's republicans who helped screw -- i've said this before -- the arms and legs on to frankenstein and now they're aghast that he's a monster. what does a president-elect biden do about the concerns from republican elected officials that this could lead to violence ve very easily and very quickly? >> i think it has to be in solidarity with them and it's not surprising that when you see the repercussions really take

hold in the republican party that it's happening at the local level, that it's happening with county officials, mayors, governors, they're the ones that have to deal with the, like, with reality in a way that you were sort of shielded from that in congress. and i think that you do start there with the -- with those republican officials that, you know, just are willing to deal in reality and be faithful to the -- to the democracy. and you know, find -- i mean, biden has so much on his shoulders. it's going to be a very hard four years, but find issues that can be apolitical. certainly the vaccine has not been to date, but i think that alone, if you do that program right, not only is, like, it will help the country depend upon it, the economy depend on it but that could go a long way to restoring credibility, people believing in government, its

ability to do big things and its ability to be faithful to the health and safety of the american people, so you can imagine how, of course, next four years, biden will have a lot of those opportunities, and you know, either will have some support enough from the republican side or he won't or -- but i feel hopeful about that. not from vast majority of -- but the supporters and now supporters of president trump to keep this together for biden over the course of the next four years. >> we will end on your optimism and your hope. jen and steve, thank you both for starting us off. tim is sticking around. when we come back, it's the western front in the war against truth. a republican civil war has broken out in arizona. in the wake of donald trump's loss in that state, we'll talk to a reporter there as republicans increasingly turn on one another. plus now that joe biden's win in georgia is official for a third time, officials there are trying to make it harder for

people to vote ahead of the all-important runoff elections that could determine control of the senate. and as president-elect biden vows to take on the virus with science, how will he confront scenes like this? an angry mob protesting the wearing of masks. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. es after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

arizona's supreme court upheld a lower court's decision yesterday affirming what we all already know. joe biden won arizona's 11 electoral votes. but since donald trump lost the election, the state's republican party has been waging an all-out

civil war between the factions of trump loyalists and some of the slightly more moderate members of the republican party. just in the last week alone, the infighting has grown to new extremes. after the state's republican speaker of the house chose to shut the chamber down after rudy giuliani tested positive for coronavirus after his visit there, at least 28 lawmakers called for the decertification of the election culminating in this retweet from the arizona republican party, seeming to call for people to give their life to overturn the results. this avoidable chaos is a direct consequence of a president who has gone to any and all lengths to overturn the results of the election and to dispel the very real fact that he lost fair and square. joining our conversation, jeremy, associate editor of the arizona mirror, tim miller, of course, is still with us for this conversation. jeremy, explain -- i think tim and i are living this civil war within the republican party, but

explain the republican party is so strong and pretty vast in a state that joe biden won. how has that sort of turned these tensions upside down and exacerbated them within the republican party? >> well, arizona is not generally a state that gets a lot of attention in presidential races. you know, prior to this year, we'd only gone democratic once since 1948, so when a democrat wins here, when joe biden won here, i think it put a lot of -- there's a lot of disbelief among republicans, especially those who are, you know, more ardent supporters of president trump and are more kind of primed to disbelieve that joe biden won this fair and square. and you know, for the first couple weeks after the election, there was not really any within the state, not really a lot of places for them to direct that anger. there was a lot of people talking about how they believe the election was rigged but not a lot of republicans standing up to really defend the election and say that didn't happen. then all of a sudden, you have the county board of supervisors of four of the five are

republicans certifying the county's election results and then governor ducey doing the same at the state level with our secretary of state, and that really kind of -- that was really the trip wire. you had trump all of a sudden going after governor ducey, you know, he's been a pretty loyal ally to him for the past four years and all of a sudden he's getting treated like a lifelong political enemy and then that kind of opened the flood gates. the state gop going after him, various lawmakers. they're really just piling on now. >> jeremy, it's interesting. i had heard from sources that bill stepien, when he took over as trump's campaign manager, thought arizona was lost for trump, was really troubled by the poll numbers there, so it's interesting that the campaign themselves knew that this was a state in which trump was really going to struggle come november. but republicans in the state have turned on one another. i wonder if you could just project forward and tell me what you think the future holds for anyone who is trying to stand by

the will of the vote. because this is happening in georgia too. people who supported trump, voted for trump, campaigned for trump, but felt it was their job as statewide elected officials to certify the vote of people in their state. what will happen to people who are doing their job in the state of arizona? >> that's really hard to see right now. monday, obvious, the electoral college meets and january, biden will be sworn in. we'll have to see whether they can really carry this anger forward, this sentiment forward, or whether it kind of dissipates and everyone kind of goes back to normal. i mean, if this lingers on within the party, i'm hearing from republicans locally who are really concerned about the effect this is going to have moving forward and you know, we got a legislative session coming up. if half the republicans in the legislature are very hostile to governor ducey because of the election stuff, that could have some major ramifications. governor ducey is -- a lot of folks expect him to run for higher office, perhaps senate when mark ellie has to go up for

re-election in a couple years. i can't imagine a lot of these folks are going to be predisposed to supporting him and now he's starting to push back and so are some of his aides and so you're starting to see that rift widen a bit as both sides are kind of starting to fight each other more as opposed to it being a one-sided thing. we saw the governor after the state gop chair said that governor ducey should shut the hell up about the election, he said the feeling is mutual. his chief of staff is now fighting on twitter with congressman andy biggs so things are ramping up now, and i don't think any of us really know exactly how far this is going to go or how long it's going to last. >> you know, tim miller, jump in here. this is all the product of literally one thing. i mean, the variable here is donald trump's lie. donald trump's lie about voter fraud, which attorney general barr has said is bunk, which

republicans since election night who live in reality, the few of them that still exist, have said there's no evidence. republican and democratic governors from coast to coast have thrown out rudy's lawsuits and yet you've got this civil war raging, not between people who disagree on any policy, i mean sure, but between people who disagree on facts versus fiction. >> look, nicole, donald trump is the cause and effect here and i don't want to minimize that at all, but this arizona situation is a reminder how much deeper this goes within the party. and kelly ward, the chairwoman of the arizona gop, was the woman that primaried john mccain a few years back and she's been spreading conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant rhetoric for quite a long time now and obviously gained enough support within the state to get the chairmanship of the party on the basis of those conspiracies. so, you know, as you mentioned, the last segment, you know, i wrote for the bulwark about what networks like newsmax and oan

and these far-right youtube stations are pushing and it is completely outside the realm of reality. they are being fed this kind of coup cos play theater to make themselves feel better about the fact that donald trump won. but that is what these voters want. they want what kelly ward is giving them. they want this very dangerous idea that they should lay down their lives for donald trump. they don't want what doug ducey is selling. while he's been a conservative in good standing, frankly, far better standing thanl i would have liked him to be, even not going along with this final lie is preventing him from being able to rally the base of this party and it's because of donald trump. it's because of these longstanding conspiracists and it's because of the far-right media that is feeding this to them. all of these things are factors here. >> i mean, just listening to both of you and listening to

steve schmidt in the last block, it is clear that the new dividing line in american politics and in arizona isn't right-left. i don't know that we ever get back to that. it's fact and delusion. jeremy duda, tim miller, thank you both for spending some time with us on the story. next for us, now that the state of georgia is in the biden column after two recounts, republicans there are trying to make it harder for people to vote. the latest on that story and the alarming cutback of early voting sites ahead of the state's crucial runoff elections. that's when "deadline white house" continues. don't go anywhere. eadline white house" continues don't go anywhere. another bundle in the books. got to hand it to you, jamie. your knowledge of victorian architecture really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them a lot more than the mudroom. thankfully they bundled their motorcycle with their home and auto. they're protected 24/7. mm. what do you say? one more game of backgammon? [ chuckles ] not on your life. [ laughs ] ♪ when the lights go down

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it's deeply concerning, but what i have said all along is that we can't rely on the republicans in this state to implode. we can't -- we've got to show up and vote. we've got to show up and vote in record numbers. clearly, there is an attempt to make it even more difficult in the state of georgia to vote, but we can't use that as an excuse. >> and it just got harder for thousands of voters in georgia to cast their ballots ahead of the state's january 5th runoff. officials in four of georgia's ten most populous counties are reducing the number of early voting locations ahead of the runoff there. cobb county, georgia's third most populous county, just announced it will open seven early voting locations so that's fewer than the 11 locations used ahead of the november election.

voting rights groups are warning that this move could further disenfranchise voters in black and latino communities where many of the closed sites are located. and that's not all. after donald trump's historic loss in the state of georgia last month, republicans there have unveiled their plan to restrict mail-in voting and roll back the election laws that contributed to the state's record turnout. let's bring into our conversation nbc news correspondent shaquille brewster, live in marietta, georgia. what is this all about? this is obviously the center of american politics right now, these two senate races will determine control of the senate. but it's just so brazen. i mean, why are there fewer voting locations? >> reporter: yeah, that was the question that you heard from many of these groups looking to mobilize voters as much as they can. i got a text message from one organizer who said, this is clear voter suppression.

you saw a statement from the two democratic candidates, raphael warnock and jon ossoff saying these cuts were unacceptable. we're starting to see counties roll that back but i spoke to an official in cobb county and asked him, blankly, is this voter suppression? listen to what he told me. >> no, it's not a form of voter suppression. it's a form of our staffing capabilities. i mean, we're doing what we can with what we have. there's been a lot of people who say that we're shutting down locations that we had in the summer. we've never had 11 advance voting locations open for another election prior to this. we're doing what we can when it comes to opening up the advance voting locations given the staffing issues that we have had. but we will be watching the wait times at all these locations when we start up next week, and if we have to make more adjustment, we'll do that. >> reporter: he made the point and reminded me that here in georgia, not only did they have early voting in the general election but they had

two-hand -- or two recounts the deal with. the first one was a hand recount. the second was a machine tally so there are staffing strains they're dealing with but many voter groups also made the point, let's not get distracted by this. let's continue to do the work. i went to a rally this morning where you saw a whole bunch of union workers promising to knock on one million doors before election day. they want to stay focused on the task at hand and that's the start of early voting next week and then of course the runoff election on january 5th. >> shaq, what's the vibe in the state with everyone watching georgia? >> reporter: you know, you feel the intensity on both sides. you have both candidates or both sides, the democrats and republicans, bringing out their biggest stars. we've already seen virtual events with president obama. president trump was here last weekend. today, secretary of state mike pompeo was here and while it wasn't a campaign visit, it was one of those well-timed or

politically-timed official visits where he gave a speech on a college campus and then vice president pence will be here tomorrow. so, you get the idea that this is intense. you see the millions of dollars pouring in. both sides want these races badly. nicole? >> nbc's shaquille brewster, thank you so much for your reporting. we'll keep watching it with you. when we come back, president-elect joe biden is vowing to put science front and center in his fight against the coronavirus pandemic. his ambitious plans for the first hundred days and the political headwinds he's already facing. that's next. already facing that's next. ♪ ♪ ♪ you're all, you're all i need ♪ ♪ you're all, you're all i need ♪ ♪ as long as i got you then baby ♪ ♪ you know that you've got me, oh! yea...♪ ♪

♪it's a thirteen-hour flight,, tfifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i'm taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. have a great flight. thanks. we'll see ya. ah, they're getting so smart. choose the app that fits your investing style. ♪ as president-elect joe biden seeks to restore, among the many things lost over the last four years, presidential leadership that follows the science and the scientists with promises of a white house coronavirus response that will for the first time echo our scientists and calls for mask-wearing and widespread vaccinations. his greatest challenge will be convincing this america where

hundreds continue to protest covid restrictions meant to keep them safe, and where 12 republican governors still have not mandated statewide mask wearing and efforts by local leaders to tighten restrictions are met by the fiercest of resistance. a public health meeting in boise, idaho, ended abruptly yesterday due to intense protests outside the health department building, and outside the homes of a few of the officials participating. yesterday, more than 2,000 americans died from the coronavirus. so far, more than 289,000 americans have been lost and more than 15.3 million americans have been sickened. joining our conversation, matt wiser, national political reporter for the "washington post," and amara, field epidemiologist and professor of epidemiology and director of the center for global and immigrant health at ucla fielding school of public health. talk about the variable or the

potential impact that having a president who will sort of row in the same direction as the scientists, who will amplify tony fauci instead of contradict him and debate him and undermine him from the white house, what is the potential if we use the bully pulpit of the white house to get out fact-based information? >> well, nicole, this is really going to be a change in how we're managing covid-19 here in this country when we have our leaders actually using science and modeling good behavior that everybody can see will make an enormous difference. a perfect example here is this issue of having christmas parties all of a sudden. when we're telling the united states, we're telling people, listen, you can't get together with your families. we need everybody to do the best we can. yet we see these groups of people completely flouting these rules and going against science and public health. it creates mixed messages. we have a void.

and as we know always, what this does is it creates a situation where people don't know who to believe and what to do. i think that the biden transition, if we can get there in time, will save lives, and that's the bottom line. we need to save lives. >> matt pfizer, president-elect biden is probably pretty clear-eyed about what he's inheriting, and if you look at the poll numbers around who plans to take the vaccine, the damage that's been done over the last ten months is pretty apparent. 60% of democrats say they plan to take a covid-19 vaccine if one becomes available. just 40% of republicans. what is the sort of assessment of how much -- how much they can sort of turn back the clock on the preconceived notions that people already have about whether or not it's a hoax or masks really matter.

some people in this country have been hearing those messages for many months now. >> i think that's really the challenge that biden is facing is changing public perceptions and you see that as he tries to model different behaviors. you saw that yesterday, quite frankly, where president trump had an event where people were not socially distanced. president trump was not wearing a mask. joe biden had an event at about the same time, and there was this corps i don'horeography th place every time there's a change in speaker where biden is having an event where the platform is sanitized, whoever's coming next has a mask on. and so he's really trying to model that behavior, i think, to put that emphasis there. but those statistics point out, you know, there's been a lot of attention about biden trying to unite people politically, but there's also a cultural difference that people have over masks and vaccines and i think

that that, frankly, is going to be a big challenge for biden as he enters office and tries to demonstrate, by himself taking a vaccine publicly, that this is safe and other people should do it. but the question is whether people see biden, you know, there's a lot of voters out there who did not vote for biden, so he has to win them over before they're going to believe sort of what he's demonstrating publicly as a behavior that they themselves want to model as well. >> ann, are you surprised that there wasn't a trip wire in this country, and by that, i mean, our numbers are soaring. we're bracing for a surge expected to ensue from thanksgiving travel. icus in some parts of this country are at capacity. nationally, i think, we've got 15% capacity left, close to 300,000 americans have lost their lives. and yet, what matt just described is still the state of the coronavirus public debate around these few things that we

can do to protect ourselves. from the pandemic. >> well, you're bringing up this very important issue, and matt just underscored all of it. we have so much confusion in this country, and we don't have anybody that's been able to this in hand and say listen, here are the facts what we have to do. we're relying on people like us on national television explaining what is going on. it not coming from the right places. you know, we talked about vaccine hesitancy and worried whether or not people will get a vaccine. i'm running a study in los angeles on this very issue and finding health care workers are very confused over the vaccine and it comes down to the same things, the politicalization of the process and the speed at which this was put together, the lack of information, you know, these are all reasonable questions to be asking and we need our leaders to be right front forward transparent with action to give people information so they really do

understand what's happening, otherwise, we'll have a really big problem here. >> matt i want to get to an unrelated headlines that's broken since we've been on the air. there is news hunter biden's taxes are under investigation. he released this statement. i learned yesterday for the first time the u.s. attorney's office in delaware advised my legal counsel and yesterday they are investigating my tax affairs. i take this matter seriously but confident a professional and objective review of the matters demonstrate i handle my affairs legally and appropriately including with the benefit of professional tax advisors. what is the reaction to this breaking news from the biden transition? >> so, yeah, so far we're trying to learn a lot about this broken in the last hour or so. sources have told me that these investigations not related to the controversy that sort of was triggered over the last month or two of the election around a laptop and contents on that

laptop. this is an investigation that had been going on for quite sometime. it was put on pause in the weeks and months leading up to the election per department of justice policy. so it's an unfolding story we're trying to get on top of to figure out all of the details that we can. >> and joe biden is issuing a statement. vice president biden is proud of his son that fought through the vicious person attacks through the recent months to emerge stronger. thank you for spending time with us today on all these headlines. when we come back, as we do every day, we will remember lives well lived. we will remem lives well lived

it should have been the happiest, most joyful moment of her young life. eight months pregnant a baby boy on the way. erica's family says she was ecstatic. her newborn son would grow up alongside her husband's 1-year-old daughter. in early november after erica started feeling contractions, doctors kept her at the hospital for a weekend just for observation. when she got home, the virus took hold fast. body aches, chest tightness, a fever, difficulty breathing. erica's condition deteriorated to a point where she needed an

ambulance to take her back to the hospital. three days after that, doctors agreed it was time to induce labor. according to kcbs in los angeles, diego antonio baciera is safe, alive and well but erica never got to hold him. immediately after her labor, her oxygen levels plummeted. she spent 18 days on a ventilator. her family traveled from los angeles to detroit and they were there surrounding her when she finally passed away. a 33-year-old mother who never got to hold her newborn son. erica's brother told cnn both families plan to do whatever it takes to support her husband and both children and the rest of us will do the same from a far. abundant and unseizing love. we will be right back. unseizin. we will be right back. are you frustrated with your weight and health?

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we're so grateful. if you know anything about what i do sitting in this chair, i adore and worship leslie jones. she will be with us tomorrow. be sure to tune in for that. in the meantime, "the beat" with ari melbur starts now. >> real quick, there is a lot of news. i have to express my jealousy for your leslie jones chat. we want her in our depth chart. we don't have her. she is one of the best live news commentators out there on twitter and elsewhere. >> and she watches your show all the time, and some of her funniest, i mean, she is everything right now. she is so of the moment. she's doing what we're all doing. she's at home watching political news and her love for steve kornacki made