. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east, 3,611 people died yesterday from the coronavirus in the united states. 3,611 people. that staggering death toll is the result of many factors. one of them a public that is divided in its adherence to the public safety measures that can keep us safe ahead of the vaccine being made available to the general public. the vaccine rollouts are very good news. the first really good and hopeful development of the last ten months. today we're watching an fda advisory panel that is expected any minute now to recommend

approval of the moderna vaccine. it would be a second coronavirus vaccine. more promising news that could be around the corner. right now, today our fight against the pandemic is largely a losing one. the u.s. setting a new record yesterday in terms of new cases recorded at 230,000. more than 113,000 people are hospitalized right now in the u.s. according to the "washington post" "in boston pediatric wards are being consolidated to fit all the adults battling covid-19. philadelphia hospitals are barring family visitors due to transmission worries. in los angeles a public hospital canceled elective surgeries because they cannot spare icu beds." this is matched by an escalating economic crisis. jobless claims rising to the highest level this country has seen since early september. adding to this grim mix there is still ten months into our fight

against covid a stiff headwind of resistance to the undeniable facts of covid and resistance to measures that can protect us. in idaho a mandate to require masks failed this week. the commissioners who voted against it cited overwhelming opposition. this is the same commission and the same vote that we covered at the top of this hour when it had to be rescheduled because protesters were swarming district offices and the homes of members of that board. the opposition to safety measures is on the rise across this country. it comes as new evidence reveals just how seriously the trump white house was in their efforts to push herd immunity. politico reports new emails from a trump appointee to his colleagues that says things like we want them infected. from one of those emails, it may be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected in order

to get natural immunity, natural exposure. keep in mind, even then the president was privately acknowledging to bob woodward the lethality of and that he was intentionally downplaying covid. >> now it's turning out it's not just old people, bob. but just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. it's not just older. >> yeah. exactly. >> it's plenty of young people. >> sure, i want you to be. >> i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> yes. >> because i don't want to create a panic. >> spin, lies, and an unprecedented death toll are we we start today. we have our msnbc medical contributor, medical director of the special pathogens unit at boston medical center. ashley parker is also joining us, white house reporter for the "washington post" and john

heilemann is back, msnbc national affairs analyst, executive eder of the recount and host of the hell and high water podcast. doctor, i wonder if you could start with us. there's reporting in the "washington post" about the specific measures that hospitals are taking because of the crush of patients, the crush of hospitalizations. can you talk about what it's like right now if you're in the hospital with any illness? >> yeah. you know, in the spring people wondered how we were able to take care of this large surge of patients, the way hospitals have always done it is we take other wards and we turn them into covid wards. we take other wards and turn them into icus, that's the only way to ensure we have room. now boston's levels of hospitalizations are not quite to the level we were in the worst months of the spring, but the trajectory is looking bad. not only that, we're looking at what might happen after

christmas travel. so, hospitals are looking back at the plans, the actions they took in spring and rolling out the same plans because we're in the middle of a second peak now. >> you know, ashley parker, i want to play back some sound of donald trump and what sounds like his advocacy of herd reporting. the emails saying let's infect them all, it has a shock value but it's clear from the top to the bottom this was attractive to everyone as a ways to deal with covid. let me play donald trump with george stephanopoulos. >> it would go away without the vaccine, george. it's going to go away -- >> it would go away without the vaccine? >> sure, over a period of time. with time. >> and many deaths. >> and you'll develop herd -- like a herd mentality. it will be herd developed, that will happen. that will all happen. >> ashley, i played that because

when george stephanopoulos says and many deaths, donald trump doesn't have a normal human instinct, normal politician instinct to correct it whether because it needed corrected or it was galling because the policy was for hundreds of thousands of people to die. it's clear from that clip that even if we had not had a vaccine, the white house and the president and his advisers as reported in these emails of politico always supported letting the virus run rampant. when you have seen communities torn apart with protesters outside the homes of volunteers who serve on these boards, the reason can be traced down to a world view that was promoted by donald trump. >> well, that's exactly right. in certain factions of the west wing, there was always this idea and this push for herd immunity, which is a very dangerous

experts argue and controversial concept. there's great reporting by politico. we at the post reported a couple months ago that scott atlas was privately pushing herd immunity. it's worth noting that the white house publicly lied about it. they straight up lied. but there was something about this idea of herd immunity that was very appealing to donald trump because in his mind it meant that he sort of didn't have to really deal with and grapple with the problem. this is a president who as you've reported, we all talked about, wanted sort of a tweet cure, you know, to be able to say it would miraculously go away and have that be so and he believed herd immunity was the closest to solving the problems of the virus. the problem, of course, is that while on the howhole that the mortality rate is not that high for nonvulnerable populations, there are people, young athletes, you know, 30-year-old mothers of three who get the virus and die.

that's why this theory was so dangerous and controversial. >> just to put a finer point on what ashley parker said, if donald trump were not the leader of the country, a herd immunity might have cost him his life or brought with it very severe and lasting health consequences. chris christie was hospitalized. herd immunity as a strategy could have killed people close to this president including the president. it's insane. >> yeah. hi, nicole. good to see you again here on this snow day. as always a pleasure. i want to go a little further than ashley and i think there's -- you could say something -- building on what both of you have just said. first of all, herd immunity was the policy. it's not like they thought about herd immunity or contemplated it and didn't pursue it.

when donald trump reopened the country despite the warnings he was given, all the things public health experts said would happen if we opened in too rapid a fashion, that was pursuing, if not naming the policy of herd i community. it was an ex post facto rationalization for a political strategy he would have said it was an economic strategy. what do we know what was driving him in the course of 2020? ashley didn make this point but didn't go as far as i would say. donald trump was sitting through 2020 recognizing what he thought would be his path to re-election, an economy he was proud of, an economy that was solid, not as extravagantly as great as he claimed, but solid, he had a financial advantage, he had a democratic field that was for a long period of time in disaway. disaway and he had a strong economy. that was all snatched away from him by covid.

all he was thinking about throughout the year is getting the economy back. the only way for me to win this election is to get the economy back. from there he adopted the only policy that would allow him to rationalize reopening the economy when the dangers for public health was so great. herd immunity was the path to reopening the country. for trump it was a political strategy. it's clear. we saw this throughout. many public health experts said -- this is not an insight of mine. i remember throughout this whole nine-month period listening to public health experts saying watch what they're doing, not what they're saying. what trump was saying is he didn't want to say the words herd immunity, he came close with stephanopoulos there, but they were pursuing a herd immunity strategy. we're learning just the socialization of that within the administration, calling it what it really was all along was just much more widespread than we were led to believe at the time.

but none of it should be surprising. it's exactly what they did when they reopened the economy in the kind of flagrant way that they did in the summer. and then into the fall, and as part of a byproduct that created this culture war which is still having these incredible effects that you started the show talking about, where public health has become an ideological/political fight rather than what it should be. >> yeah. that is very much what is playing out. we have resignations now from these -- i imagine thankless posts in idaho, as i mentioned, that mask mandate failed. that was after one of the members of the board was caught in the meeting on zoom saying she had to race home because her 12-year-old son was home alone and there were protesters outside of her house. in detroit, the detroit free press reports they're chanting open up now outside the home of the michigan health director, a

man named robert gordon. i want to ask you, doctor, if you think that what donald trump did by advocating -- these are some of the protests, masked protests, by advocating herd immunity he gave sort of the presumption of the president of the united states saying this is a good strategy. if you think that is what these state and local public health officials are still contending with. some people still subscribe to it -- it was never the official policy but it was the off-book policy. while dr. birx and anthony fauci stood at that podium and advocating mask wearing and social distancing, donald trump's strategy is let it rip. masks are not necessary. hydroxychloroquine will save you. if i can survive, anyone can. is that what the public health officials are contending with? people simply don't believe how dangerous and deadly covid is?

>> yeah. i'm just going to highlight, underscore, and circle everything both you and john just said. because this was one of the major weaknesses in our pandemic response that we didn't anticipate. the idea that there would be this high level at the very top, this politicalzation of this pandemic. it had two impacts. when you have the highest of powers in actions or in words push this strategy, there's a study out in science magazine that showed that, again, partisanship was a huge part of what divides -- or decides peoples actions in the face of this pandemic, whether or not they follow what the public health measures we've been talking about. it had two impacts. one, it created this division within our population that had a de facto part of the population aiming for herd immunity. the other actually following the requirements. the other was that it created enemies out of public health leaders, experts. because now you have people

telling you, no, these are important factors, but you hear from the top it's not. so there's another report that i saw that 1 in 8 americans live in communities where they had a public health expert or a staff member retire or be fired because they were overwhelmed with what's going on. the antagonism that is coming from the public. all of that has led to where we are right now. they wanted -- there are groups and people within the trump administration who wanted americans to get infected. this is what happens when americans get infected because young or old, you know, a portion of all those infected end up in the hospital. a portion of those pass away. the young may not always get hospitalized or may not always get sick, but they live with people who are vulnerable, who are older. they work with them. this was always going to be the logical conclusion and here is where we're at at the end of this, with this health crisis that is just devastating our country. just months before we can

potentially achieve vaccine-induced herd immunity. >> that brings us to the vaccine. andy carney from the "new york times" tweeted the white house messaging around the vaccine is confusing. my question for you, what is the white house position on the vaccine? are they bullish about its effectiveness? are they really going to lean into participating in and encouraging people to take the vaccine because it is safe? melania said if i get t i'll never tell you, pence said i'll do it on camera. trump is with uone of the bigge purveyors of disinformation. what are they going to do about the vaccine rollout? are they going to tell trump's 74 million voters to get vaccinated? >> in a certain way, the bungled communication and confusion around the vaccine rollout is emblematic of the challenges of this entire crisis. the so just take vice president

pence, tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., he's getting the vaccine. in the press release that went out, it said vice president will get the vaccine to basically help boost public confidence in the vaccine. that is an incredibly important thing to do. but again, like everything with this virus, it stands to be undermined by the fact that it's the vice president and not the president getting the vaccine. it sort of has elements of the vice president being a bit of a food taster for the president, right? throughout the vaccine you had this where there -- where there were people, the experts, the faucis, the birx going up and saying the scientifically correct things such as wear a mask, only to have the president come in and undermine it by not wearing a mask himself or turning to reporters and demanding they take off their mask. so unless the whole administration can be on board, which as of now it is not on board, it's a clear, consistent organized way that you would

want, you're again going to have these communication failures that led us to this dark winter we're now embarking on. >> you know, pick up on what ashley is talking about. it seems like the vaccine presents donald trump with a conundrum. he wants to be celebrated for operation warp speed and for pushing the development of vaccines, but he's sitting on top of an organization that is on ten sides of a two-sided debate. do you think he'll get vaccinated pubically and encourage his supporters to do the same? >> i do not. i think it's simpler than that. i think there's in donald trump's coalition, there is a non-trivial number of anti-vaccine individuals. not a small number. this is one of the major -- i'm sure every public health expert has been on the show as this moment has arrived where we see

this light at the end of the tunnel are contending with the reality of millions of hard core anti-vaxxers in america. this problem has been bubbling up over the past couple of decades. now we're in the middle of the most public health crisis of our lifetime, where the vaccine is the key to getting back to normalcy. we have to take on in a forward -- in a four-square forward looking way the problem of the anti-vaxx cult in america. donald trump who has never been on the side of science, and who has a large chunk of the trump base, a nontrivial number of hard core trump voters are anti-vaxxers. there's been moments where we've seen in the past anti-vaxx conferences being organized in the course of 2020 where you could see the conferences were people who were out -- saying we're never going to take this vaccine. i think donald trump in the same way that he will never say anything that will alienate

qanon, which is not the majority of his coalition but a nontrivial part of it, he will never do anything that will put him on the wrong side politically of a chunk of his coalition that are as big as the anti-vaxx crowd. i expect him to say i have immunity. i survived this. it's great we accomplished this, but he's not going to be mike pence and he's not going to be joe biden or anthony fauci on this matter because he thinks there's a political risk of doing it in alien knating this dangerous chunk. >> doctor, it also means he won't be former president obama, former president clinton or former president bush who said they will get vaccinated publicly if that's helpful. what anti-vaxxers feed off of and spread theirs did information with are small anecdotal stories or accounts of vaccine reaction.

can you talk about the one case in alaska and any other ill-effects of the vaccine and give us the facts about vaccine safety for the coronavirus vaccine? >> yeah. we know there was a health care worker in alaska who had an anaphylactic reaction, similar to the two nurses in the uk. it required medical intervention. it happened right after the vaccine. again, you have millions of people who ahave now been vac natd vaccinated. this incident shows there's a propensity, and we don't knnokn the details whether this woman had prior history of allergies, but what the fda has done is looking at that data and just the fact that in the majority of the people you're not seeing these reactions. they said what we need to do is ensure what the allergies are. these are severe allergies to vaccinations of the ones that

we're most concerned about or those medications. for others to have a conversation with their health care providers so when they get the vaccine it's just done in a more monitored setting. but to be honest, you know, the majority of vaccine side effects show up within six weeks. we know at this point, with both the moderna and pfizer, you almost have, like, 80,000 people who have been vaccinated. you did not see big incidents of this within that span of people. i will add to this that i looked at that data. i feel confident enough in the safety and efficacy of this that i'm taking the pfizer vaccine. i'm one of the front line health care workers coming up due to work on the wards. i'm getting it tomorrow at 9:00 because i believe in the fact this is the way we get to the other side. i believe in the fact that, you know, from the safety data that's been presented so far that it will be safe for me to take it. >> just to button this up, i

think that makes the televised administrati administration of the vaccines from the leaders more important. stay with them, see that they're fine. we invite you to come back tomorrow after your vaccine to make just that point. thank you all so much for starting us off. when we come back, battling the virus with doctors and science was just half the battle. as we've been discussing. medical experts are working around-the-clock to come up with a vaccine. now the virus and vaccine are up against misinformation, disinformation spreading at a rapid pace online. we'll talk about that in the next segment. and members of the republican party walking around thinking everything is great. let's do this again for another four years. well, that is reality for the republicans. the party forgoing the traditions of a post-election post mothmortem after losing th white house. and whomever joe biden selects to serve as his attorney

general will have to look at the case into hunter biden and what is becoming a political lightning rod by the republican party still carrying a torch for donald trump. all those stories when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. e. this week on "the upper hands"... special guest flo challenges the hand models to show off the ease of comparing rates with progressive's home quote explorer. international hand model jon-jon gets personal. your wayward pinky is grotesque. then a high stakes patty-cake battle royale ends in triumph. you have the upper hands! it's a race to the lowest rate, and so much more. only on "the upper hands."

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they cannot see their families. we're exhausted. we are exhausted. and there will be no room to care for your family members if this continues. that is what's happening in hospitals across the country right now today. it's the reason that public health experts, front line health care workers and leaders are urging the majority of americans to get vaccinated as soon as they can and why many of them are doing so on camera this week. the "new york times" reports their efforts face a surging threat of misinformation online. often spread by the same people whose election related lies produced little to no results in court but succeeded in sowing distrust. the shift shows how political misinformation purveyors are hopping for topic to topic to maintain attention and influence said the chief strategy of card strategies which researcheses did information. it's an easy pivot.

disinformation about vaccines and the pandemic have been part of the trump disinformation playbook. today nbc news is reporting how anti-vax groups found a home in the kind of platform public health experts dread. segments on local news stations across the country. joining our conversation is the "new york times" political investigator and reporter. john heilemann is still here also. it's a conversation i started in the last block, nick. the russian disinformation that you covered around the 2016 election seems to have been totally taken over or replaced i whatever the word is, improved upon if that's how these disinformation purveyors look at it by domestic forces. what is the motive? it was clear what the russian motive was. what is the motive for weakening our democracy and weakening our public health?

>> there's a desire for influence. the business model of political disinformation and vaccines did information is similar. there's an audience of people who use these conspiracies to make sense of the world. as john pointed out, you know, there is a continuity and some overlap between some trump supporters and the growing covid denialism movement and the anti-vaxx movements. president trump himself was a vaccine skeptic before he was president. so this is a way of kind of getting some of that same audience, people who really buy into theories about the government being part of a secret plot or pizzagate and pedophile conspiracy. you can shift from that to microchips in the blood that attract people who get the vaccine. >> i thought that sounded too crazy to read here, but since you just mentioned it, i will

read this to you. this is from the times reporting. among the misleading notions is the idea that the vaccines are delivered with a microchip or bar code to keep track of people as well as a lie that the vaccines will hurt everyone's health. false e ehoods about bill gatese also increased with rumors that he's responsible for the coronavirus and that he stands to profit from the vaccine. according to data from zignal labs. we probably didn't pay enough attention when so many people off-loaded in terms of getting their information from unregulated sources masquerading as news sites. but the thing about working at any sort of news station or newspaper is you have a standards department. you have a legal department. you have laws that you have to follow. this seems like a symptom not a cause, but one with potentially deadly consequences. how do you put the toothpaste

back in the tube, john? >> i'm not sure you can put it back in the tube. look, conspiracy theories have been a part of american life forever. they have flourished at different times in different dimensions on both the right and the left. they tend to take route when people feel powerless, overwhelmed by social forces they don't understand where often it's a function of some kind of economic anxiety, this notion that the world is out of control. give me an explanation that makes sense of it all. as nick was suggesting a second ago. none of this is new. if you think about trump, i remember clearly 1996 spending a decent amount of time covering pat buchanan, who was the template for trump. a nativist, xenophobic, played to racism, anti-semitism, all of the isms, but you remember the new world order, the sort of clenched fist and clamouflage

crowd, that was a movement then that was focused on like the bushes and those elites. that has taken root, it took root then on the right and it's been growing since. trump is capitalizing on it and it's grown -- it's a right and left phenomenon. but the combination of that populist cultural right movement and then marrying that up with social media, to your point about journalistic standards, that's where we've gotten into trouble. there is this -- there's no place where conspiracy theories flourish more than in the fever swamps of social media and they're so far out of control that it's not clear to me at all what can be done to try to put the toothpaste back into the tube. >> and it's not a both sides issue. i will name the names of the sites trafficking disinformation the most. they are almost all right-leaning websites.

news guard, a start up that fights against false stories says 60% of the 145 websites in its election misinformation tracking center have public misinformation about the pandemic. including right wing outlets like breitbart, news max and one news network that distributed inaccurate articles about the election and are now running misleading information about the vaccines. nick, you studied sort of the life cycle of disinformation. are there any ways to wall it off and by that i mean there's a lot of content from those websites i named that bleeds into other slightly more mainstream outlets. is there a walling off of the disinformation? more regulated sources so that this fiction -- it seems like people believing that there is a microchip in a vaccine is nonsensical. that couldn't happen to anybody. i suppose what we learned in the wake of the election is that if

a lie is repeated over and over again and by people in your political sphere of influence, certain people will believe it. >> mm-hmm. the great plus and minus of the rise of social media is that the gatekeepers are not as powerful as they used to be and they can't control the message in the same way. that said it makes a big difference if disinformation can jump into the mainstream media, on to msnbc or the "new york times" or on to fox. keeping it out of mainstream media does change things a bit. the second thing is there's not quite the same constituency that will be pushing back against the vaccine disinformation as there was pushing back against the platforms for regulating the election disinformation. there is not a senator who are call for a stripping of facebook's 230 immunity for pushing back on covid disinformation as there would be

in the same way on the misinformation that trump spread. the president himself was the typhoid mary of misinformation in this country for years. he's not going to be in office on january 21st. he won't be entitled to the same protections that twitter offers heads of state typically, prominent politicians. i think the platforms can do something. they have the power to limit the reach of the biggest spreading hoaxes and lies. and demonetize and shut down the worst actors. that can make a difference. >> we will turn to you, nick, to see if they do that. that sounds like a big giant if. thank you for spending time with us. john is sticking around. up next, donald trump and the republican party lost the white house by millions and millions of votes. the party autopsy would normally would be in the works for a party that loses that much, but this time around it's trump. we shouldn't expect any reflection. that story is next.

donald trump lost the presidential election by more than 7 million votes to joe biden. the republican party is now choosing however to forgo its usual soul searching about what might have gone wrong. politico reports that the party this year will ditch its traditional election postmortem because it believes as one republican chair in michigan

said "as far as i'm concerned everything is great." even after the electoral college confirmed biden's victory this week, trump and his allies have convinced a majority of republicans that he did not lose the election by pointing to unproven and false claims of voting fraud. his push to hold on to the presidency is causing the gop to fracture. former new hampshire gop chair jennifer horn in a usa op-ed today called for the texas lawsuit the last straw. >> it's because of what we have seen in the weeks since the election from so many republicans across this country who were willing to enlist in a coordinated intentional effort to essentially overthrow democracy in the united states of america. it has become clear to me that the party of lincoln is no more. >> let's bring in to our

conversation, tim miller, former communications to jeb bush's 2016 presidential campaign. he's a contributor to the bullwork. tim, i think i know how you feel about people who said i was fine with everything until the last 37 days. because president trump has had anti-democratic, racist, misogynist, crude, crass uncivilized instincts since the minute he opened his mouth. i wonder what you think -- do you see enough to call it any sort of move away from the party because of trump's conduct or is this still anecdotal to you? >> first, i have to say, i was cyberbullied by leslie jones enough times about my ponytail that i got rid of it. this is all my hair in its glory. my covid hair. to your question, i do think there's a movement. i think -- >> we'll come back to that, tim

miller. we're coming back to the pony. >> okay. i think there's been a big trade essentially. people like jennifer horn, they live in big metropolitan areas, most notably atlanta where we saw the win for joe biden. they're college educated men and women, tend to be white men and women who have had enough of this party. i think they would vote for mitt romney or george h.w. bush, and they will be a right wing portion of the democratic party of going forward. what's happened on the other side is that republicans have now picked up these obama trump voters permanently. these white working class voters that are disproportionately in small towns and rural areas. these two groups flipped. talking about the autopsy, i think this is why the republicans are not interested in an autopsy. they're happy with this trade. they're not trying to win a majority of the vote anymore.

they see the fact that they've gotten these voters in states that have influence in the senate and the electoral college coming into the party and they figure they can be a minority party in the country but have a majority of the senate and every once in a while the electoral college. i think that's basically the trade that we've seen. i don't think that's anecdotal, i think that's real. >> john heilemann, trump's done. trump is over. the trump impact on the republican party in my view renderers them forever more incapable of complaining about language, of ever complaining about bashing the press, of ever complaining about keeping staff out of meetings with foreign leaders, about ever complaining about not being tough enough on america's adversaries, about ever complaining about a politician abusing the justice department. they are rendered mute on everything that they stood silently by. i will make a tape of our

incredible capitol hill team going up to republican senators after mattis quit because donald trump's policy in syria, after john kelly was fired, after 19 women credibly accused drum of sexual assault. they said nothing. this split seems like a good way to end what was going to be a very unhappy coexistence people with a conscious in the gop. it seems to me they have exposed themselves now to accusations of hypocrisy every time they open their mouth. >> right. so we are going to talk about "f" bombs now? is that your opening? >> sure. just the broader hypocrisy. >> yeah. well, yes, it's outrageous and ridiculous. i think to the point to try to -- so the jennifer horn thing i think is interesting because she's not -- i think that she's been over -- she's been over trump for a long time. i think for this class of

republicans that tim is talking about, there was -- this overtime period, the period in which the republican party acquiesced into found anti-democratic borderline or maybe more borderline fascist authoritarian attempt to stage a coup is what we called on this show before. it was a farcically incompetent, but still an attempted coup. the fact it failed makes it no less than an attempted coup. the fact there was so much complicity in that. we'll see it again now. we saw tommy tuberville today say he will challenge the electoral college results. he will be trump's stooge on the senate side. on january 6th we'll have another opportunity to see republicans in the senate this time in addition to republicans in the house who will get to vote up or down on whether they'll ratify the results of the electoral college. that will be good for history, nicole. we'll get to see exactly again as we did with the teck texas lawsuit, who is on team democracy and team trump. you're 1,000 percent right that

they should be rendered mute. if they had a soul, conscious, consistency, integrity, any intellectual standards or rigor, they should sut hut up about everything. they'll fall on deaf ears for us. that's the right place to be. unfortunately they will not be muted. we'll hear them loudly express that hypocrisy and act on it going forward. all they're looking for now is a slightly more civilized donald trump. that's why they think things are still going fine for the party. they look at the house results, the senate results and say we're doing fine. if we can get a donald trump who is not quite such a thug, not quite so unpalatable to so many people, we can find a more -- another white grievance racist, sexist, all of those things, we can find another candidate like that but not one with quite the rough edges, we'll be in shape. that's what the republican party is heading for and what their

goal is as they head towards 2024. >> tim miller, i keep think being how we cover this republican party that was mute every time donald trump crossed another norm, every time he obliterated one of the tenants of our democracy. i wonder what your thoughts are about covering marco rubio getting precious about the "f" word. >> yeah. i think a good start would be for reporters to not cover, not give republicans the headlines of complaints they want if it is blatantly obvious it's not something that they are genuine about. i mean, you know, this is one of those things where back in the old days of politics, there was a mistake that journalists made in responding to gaffe culture. somebody made a gaffe, somebody else would gaffe, the other party would fake outrage that would be a news story. i think donald trump exposed how bad political journalism that

was and how it could be abused by a party that acts in bad faith. the republicans are acting in bad faith. we need to stop plagueying alon with it. >> tim miller, we'll put our ponytail conversation on ice right now. john heilemann, thank you both for spending time with us. up next, how a new department of justice in the biden administration will have to maneuver a capitol hill still looking to settle scores. this year, we learned anything's possible. even fast delivery on the perfect last minute gift

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whom ever president-elect joe biden selected to serve as the attorney general, they'll have to deal with the gop intent on politicizing the investigation into hunter biden. senator and head of the judiciary committee lindsey graham called for a special council investigation into hunter biden adding more fuel to the speculation as to whether or not president trump will seek to have a special council appointed. joining us is neal katyal and contributor to msnbc and i believe didn't you write the special council regulations. could a president -- a president can't appoint a special council, can he? >> no. first of all i want to start that i got pushed by leslie jones but i don't have a pony tail but i do remove my --

>> she's the most powerful person right now in cable news. we're all, you know, listening and watching. >> so, look, presidents can't appoint special council, no. attorney generals do that under the statute, under the regulations. so a president could make such a request when we wrote the regulations, that would be the worst idea in the world. that is the epitome of politicizing an investigation which is precisely what the justice department, a normal justice department rebels against that idea. >> can we just deal in the facts about this. so hunter biden has acknowledged and i believe the justice department has acknowledged that u.s. attorney in delaware is investigating hunter biden's taxes. end of sentence. and what? what is -- what would a -- i think joe biden is on the record saying he's going to stay out of doj policy making.

he said that to me over the summer when i asked if he was interested in investigating or picking up where mueller left off. what would the purpose be if anyone was actually dealing in good faith with a special council. >> we don't know the facts and it is dangerous to speculate on the leaks. that might be an if underpayment of $110,000 in taxes, that is what some reporters are suggesting. it might be something else. i do think it is absolutely outrageous for the republicans like lindsey graham to insist on a special council here. remember, donald trump was accused of underpayment of taxes, too. he's expensed the payment to stormy daniels as a business expense and i didn't see lindsey graham calling for a special council there even though trump literally appointed the prosecutor that was running that investigation. so here it might be appropriate, it is possible, to have a special council for hunter biden, if there is serious evidence of wrongdoing that

emerges, the special council regulations would permit it. but that is really a call for the new attorney general to make. there are other options. for example, in 2009 there was the investigation of john edwards and the bush administration was ending and the obama administration was starting and attorney general holder said i'm going to keep the united states attorney that george w. bush appointed to keep that investigation. he kept that person in office. and you could do the same thing here. keep that trump prosecutor who is in delaware and have that person continue the investigation. or it might be shut down and closed because there isn't anything there. but what isn't appropriate it to try to burrow in this investigation now which is what trump is trying to call for. >> i mean, the other thing that seems to be inappropriate, neal, and i'd love your personal thoughts on this, is that this is so obviously a political

cudgel they're trying to wield against the president-elect. and unlike the investigations into donald trump's finances, which are ongoing into the state of new york into the illegal campaign finance scheme which results in michael cohen going to jail and the 23-month mueller problem which found contacts between the trump campaign and russia. and i think almost ten incidents of criminal obstruction of justice. this seems to be a republican effort to have some sort of equivalence. they're not on the same scale. they're not anywhere near any sort of conduct of the vice president and they have nothing to do with the dispensing of anyone's jobs. do you have any doubt, though, that this is a political campaign on the part of lindsey graham and his allies in the conservative media. >> it seems politically motivated. so that is definitely true in terms of the motivation. now it might be that the facts are there and that someone did something wrong. we just don't know.

that is why you need to have a nonpoliticized justice department that approaches these things fairly and the problem has been for four years, we've had succession of attorney generals that have torched that. and no matter who becomes the attorney general in the new administration, it is the starkest contrast because any of these candidates that are being considered stand for the rule of law and the current attorney general bill barr stands for the rule of rule, absolute power and nothing else. >> just real quick, doug jones and merrick garland are reported to be finalists. any thoughts about either or both men? >> either would be spectacular. they could be on their own terms spectacular but the dregs of the universe, bill barr, makes it even starker. i think merrick garland has been

a perfectionist his own life. i heard from his law clerks because the guy never makes a mistake. a judge over 20 years and never reversed by the supreme court and the like. and doug jones similar story, prosecuted the birmingham bombing and the like, either would be phenomenal. >> neal katyal, it is great to see you and i'm so riveted by anything that you say that in glancing at your room, i think leslie jones will love it. thank you for spending time with us. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of,

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he killed journalists that don't agree with him. >> well i think our country does plenty of killing also, joe, so you know. >> i have president putin, he just said it's not russia. ly say this, i don't see any reason why it would be.

>> the u.s. has intelligence indicating that russia paid bounties or offered to paid bounties to taliban fighters to kill american soldiers. you have a phone call with vald vladimir putin on july 3rd, did you discuss this -- >> no that was a phone call for other things and that is something that many people said it fake news. >> it is 5:00 in the east. it has been a through line of the trump era ever since donald trump announced his run for president. a stunning refusal to stand up to vladimir putin and russia and now in the final days of his presidency, with the u.s. the victim of a massive and sweeping russian cyber attack, donald trump has said nothing. nada. not even a tweet. but the federal government just starting to make sense of the extent of the attack which went undetected for months, it is already being described by the "new york times" as, quote, among the greatest intelligence failures of modern times. the a.p. notes that, quote, the

possibilities of what might have been per loined are mind-boggling. could they have obtained nuclear secrets or covid-19 vaccine data and politico is reporting that hackers accessed unclassified networks at the department of energy responsible for maintaining america's nuclear weapons stockpile. that is according to sources directly familiar with the matter. we should note that the department of energy declined to comment to politico and nbc news has reached out for comment as well but has not matched the reporting. we'll talk to the politico reporter who broke that story in just a minute. a crisis of the this magnitude will merit a loud and clear response from any u.s. administration. but as the "new york times" reports, quote, the national security agency has been largely silent. hiding behind the classification of the intelligence. even the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, the group within the department of homeland security charged

with defending critical networks have been conspicuously silent. the silence means it is up to democrats to sound the alarm on how bad this really is. >> this is virtually a declaration of war by russia on the united states and we should take that seriously. >> i could just tell you, it is one of the most serious attacks that we've ever seen because it goes directly to some of our most sensitive agencies like the department of homeland security. >> we have failed to deter the russians. we are only going to see putin stop this kind of behavior when we stop him. >> and this from donald trump's own former homeland security chief tom bossert, quote, the magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate. the russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months. while the russians did not have the time to gain complete control over every network they hacked, they most certainly did gain it over hundreds of them.

it will take years to know for certain which networks the russians control and which they occupy. the logical conclusion is that we must act as if the russian government has control of all of the networks it has penetrated. but it is unclear what the russian's intend to do next. the access could be used for more than just simply spying. a president in the final days of his administration determined to give russia yet another pass is where we begin with our favorite reporters and friend. natasha bertrand is here, the national security correspondent for politico who broke the story, she joins us. also joining us peter baker, "new york times" chief white house constituent and msnbc political analyst and contributor former maryland congresswoman donna edwards is back and frank figliuzzi, former fbi counterintelligence and a

security analyst and also the author of the up coming book "the fbi way." natasha, let me start with you. and your great reporting. you tell us about it and then i'll read from it after you give us an over view. >> sure. i just wanted to give an update. we just got an on the record confirmation from the department of energy that they are responding to cyber incident related to the solar winds compromise and working with federal and industry partners. they say that at this point the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only. and has not actually impacted the mission essential national security functions of the department. and they say that when the department identified the vulnerable software immediate action was taken to mitigate the risk and all software identified as vulnerable has been disconnected from the department of energy network. but obviously this is a escalation of the recent reports that we've seen of the other

agencies that the russians have managed to compromise. they did get into a back door in the energy department and in the national security agency administrators and networks. it is unclear at this point what they have actually been able to take, if anything. and according to my sources, the investigation could take weeks. they really don't know at this point how bad the attack has actually been. the investigation is ongoing. but they're getting help from the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency that is part of dhs, but even that agency is saying, look, we're stretched thin at this point and so the department of energy has had to allocate resources to responding to this attack. >> natasha, over the last four years you've broken a lot of story about the intelligence community and i wonder from your perspective and knowing your beat, do you agree with this assessment that this is perhaps one of the largest intelligence failures in our country's

history? >> it is hard to say at this point. that is certainly what national security of intelligence experts that i've been speaking to have suggested. but at the same time there is school of thought that this kind of thing is generally really hard to protect against because a lot involves human error. the solar winds compromise, we don't know the origin. solar winds has not determined how they wore compromised and whether it was the rulesult of human error, maybe a phishing attempt. but it does raise questions about how the government is allocated resources and whether or not their focusing on the supply chain issue. because this is a system, a software used across the federal government. so if you have a very weak link in that chain, then that is going to have a domino effect across the government. >> frank figliuzzi, you could take us to school for a minute.

i mean, explain how natasha is talking about the solar winds program, talk about how a cyber attack from an american adversary like russia is executed and why so many of these crucial national security related agencies, the pentagon, dhs as natasha broke today and the department of energy section in charge of our nuclear stockpile, how are we so vulnerable even if they're on the unclassified systems. how does an attack like this work and why are we still so vulnerable to it? >> right. so first i'm glad you're referring to it as a cyber attack because make no mistake, our nation is under attack and it appears to be ongoing. how does something like this happen of this magnitude? where 300,000 clients of a private company are potentially impacted including the most sensitive agencies in our government, it is because the

russias were able to find a single point of failure in our supply chain. meaning this product that comes from solar winds is a network management product used by too many, quite frankly, of all government agencies and too many of our top telecommunications companies. ten of which were compromised as far as we know so far. so it is a larger issue, nicolle, of supply chain management. and you asked whether or not this is an intelligence failure. i'm going to take it a step further. it is a national defense failure. this is the defense of our nation and systems and failure to oversee our supply chain in a form of allowing one company to service so many of our government agencies. the russian found that weakness and exploited it and we're still learning the extent of the damage and natasha reported that nour now our nuclear components have been impacted and one of the words that jumped out there

the reporting is "damage"ed. so systems have been monitored and there is email watches and today we are hearing damage. that is highly malicious activity and what are we hearing from the agency responsible for securing our cyber resources? that they're overwhelmed by this. so we have a president diverting money, billions of it, to build a wall, changing personnel at the top of the pentagon and we've not heard word one about the plan or strategy to respond to this ongoing attack. >> you know, frank, i've got one more question for you and before i turn to the russia relationship with donald trump specifically, i just want to out that tom bossert, the individual we quoted, is an ex homeland security foofl. chris krebs is a ex chief of the agency responsible for these defenses. elizabeth newman is also an

ex-official of the homeland security department. there have been so many people purged from the national security agency, gina haspel is fearing for a potentially firing on her part. there has been incredible turnover and turmoil at the pentagon just since the election. i wonder if you could offer some analysis, frank, of the impact on sort of dealing with and staying on offense against an adversary like russia at a time when their leadership is very stable and ours is in constant churn and chaos. >> so, look, our adversaries are watching us right now and saying that no one is in charge. from the oval office down throughout the intelligence community. through the cyber infrastructure security agency and on ward. and we need -- i know that we have to deal with this crisis right now but just like 9/11, we're going to need congressional over sight to figure out what in heaven's name has happened and where did the

failure occur and we need oversight and coordination like never before of a cyber resources because cyber is the new battlefield. it is the new warfare. we can't think of military terms any more. this is the warfare and battlefield and it means that joe biden on day one is going to be fighting another kind of virus, the cyber kind. >> peter baker, i want to get to you. you have an incredible body of reporting on all of the incidents, a few of them we referenced at the top of the show of donald trump's unwillingness, flat out refusal even in the face of advice from john bolton or dina powell to be strong or stand up to vladimir putin, there is not a single example of him doing so. but i want to talk about breaking news. the fda has just recommended that a second coronavirus vaccine be approved for emergency use. that is the moderna vaccine. your colleague annie carney tweeted today that is unclear if the white house has a message or strategy on the vaccine. she pointed out that the vice

president will be vaccinated on and then the first lady said that if she were vaccinated she wouldn't tell anybody. your sense just from the white house beat of this news? is this still something that they're pushing on? a week ago they were pushing on the fda to approve the pfizer vaccine but this week it is a muddied message on the vaccine front. >> yeah, look, they're still pushing for it to be approved and distributed. no question about it. this moderna vaccine is a lot like the pfizer one already approved. there are some differences in their storage and handling and so forth. but the basic structure of these vaccines are similar. so if you get one or the other, you're going to be equally covered. and what you see in vice president pence is what you would expect out of a white house in this situation. where the leader of the country or a leader of the country demonstrates personally that he is going to get this vaccine because he trusts it and he believes that he should encourage everyone american to get it to the extent that they're able to get it. and obviously most americans aren't yet able to get it. it is still a few months before

they're allowed to. but you're right, the muddle messages comes in what we should do with the white house staff. there was a plan to give vaccines to senior officials in the white house. my colleagues reported on it and then the president immediately reacted with a tweet saying no, we're not going to do that. i think he looked at it as if we were saying that the powers around him were jumping the line in every day americans. but there is a government concern about making sure that people who are running the government, for the very reason we're talking about, we're in the middle of a russia cyber attack. you want them focusing on the external threat. and whether or not people should get it on the early side and i think this is kind of an unclear picture maybe the vice president will help ill lume unate that tomorrow morning when he does get that himself. and we'll have full coverage of the second vaccine being recommended for approval by the fda later in our hour. but i want to turn you to,

peter, on the lead story, the cyber attack from russia. your coverage has been scathing, frankly, of how defenseless the united states government was in the face of this attack. is there any indication that anyone in the white house is holding daily meetings to figure out the -- to assess the damage as frank is talking about, the impact, the harm that has been done and to discuss options for retaliation against russia? >> yeah, well robert o'brien, the president's national security adviser cut short a trip to europe to come home and convene meetings on this subject to try to get a handle on just how bad this is, how extensive this is and what they could say about the origin and what the consequences are. we don't know yet what they're considering as a possible response and we haven't heard from the president yet about this. he has been basically quiet about it. not just in person, but on twitter of course. he's willing to say things on twitter when he sees news on television, yet this one he's been quiet on. that is just caution.

i think other presidents might be cautious to understand the situation before they engage in a hostile kind of battle of rhetoric if not actual consequences but there is such a pattern of a president who has been reluctant, as you showed in the videos, to say anything critical of vladimir putin, anything critical of russia. even his own administration does take action below him without him talking about it. there have been sanctions and there have been diplomats pulled over the last four years. but it is never something that the president himself wants to take ownership of publicly unless he's being attacked and then he said he's been tough on russia. we haven't hearted about the cyber attack, much like the bounties that were reported to be offered in afghanistan. there was no response back then. a lot of people are waiting to see whether this president in the 30 days or so he has left will take action to say this is not acceptable and we do consider it to be an act of hostility against our country.

>> natasha, an act of hostility against our country. as peter was talking, trump was tweeted 45 times today. and i have a different impression of russia and why he hasn't responded and it is not that he's cautious. i haven't observed donald trump to be particularly cautious about anything. but i wonder if you're picking up an appetite to under a daily -- in a white house when the country is attacked, there is normally an emergency war footing that the white house moves to. certainly my experience in the white house after 9/11, but also after intelligence shows and imminent threat. it is an ongoing attack in the words of tom bossert, it is the way frank figliuzzi described it, what are you hearing in terms of the footing that national security officials would like to be on to respond to an ongoing cyber attack from russia? >> yeah, well, obviously, they would prefer that the white house be a little bit more transparent about their response and about how they are going

about coordinating with the different agencies and trying to contain the damage that we've been seeing uncovered over the last couple of days with regard to the hack on all of the federal agencies. they have the -- they have stood up a cyber response group which is meeting on a regular basis to try to work on this issue and try to figure out how best to respond to it. but at the same time, what we're told is that the white house, one of the immediate reactions when it first sat down with robert o'brien after his trip, was to instruct the cabinet heads that were responsible for national security agencies to keep this very closely. to not go to the hill unless they were explicitly approved to do so by the white house. to basically say we don't want you to speak to -- unless we tell you that it is absolutely okay. so clearly they're trying to keep a lid on the p.r. disaster that has been unfolding here. because it does, as you mentioned earlier in the hour, it does look like there was a

massive intelligence failure here. so there is consternation and especially on the hill, especially among the over sight bodies and the national security focus staffers there, that they wish that the white house would be a little bit more transparent on this issue and a little bit more forthright and willing to perhaps point a finger at a nation state adversary that would have been responsible for this, because, remember, the russians still have not been directly blamed by the u.s. government for this attack. >> and donna edwards, there is a parallel here. four years ago this month barack obama issued harsh sanctions against russia for their hacking and meddling and attacks in the 2016 election. i'm quite certain there will not be a policy echoed to those sanctions. would you be thrilled to be proven wrong. nbc has now matched natasha's scoop in politico that the department of energy which

houses our nuclear weapons stockpile is part of this hack. and i want to read for you the agencies that we know of so far that have been targeted by this cyber attack. the treasury department, the commerce department, the united states state department, the national institutes of health, the homeland security department, the pentagon department, and as natasha is reporting and nbc could now confirm the energy department. your thoughts? >> this is a deep and expansive intrusion into our federal government. and it is actually shocking, although frankly not surprising, that we haven't heard quite a response yet from the president of the united states. and we'll all await that. but the fact that is that for four years vladimir putin has had in effect permission to do one thing after another, never getting any condemnation from the president of the united states. and here, for six to nine months, we've been experiencing

our entire government has been infiltrated. and i agree with frank figliuzzi, this is an attack. and it is -- and it is damaging. and we actually don't even yet know the extent of it. what i can say, nicolle, is that i have every confidence that the next president of the united states, that joe biden will treat russia like the adversary nation that it is and stop giving it a pass on what it is doing to our government and to our national security. and there has -- there is going to be a long line of oversight from the congress but i think perhaps even an independent panel that has got to look deeply at what happened here and figure out both the depth of the damage, but what we could do in the future. >> you know, frank figliuzzi, your name was invoked so i'm coming back to you. i wonder, the coverage of the trump presidency has forced us

to cover putin and russia at every turn because of what peter is talking about, what natasha has reported on, what donna just articulated, trump's sub servience to russia's policy objectives and whether it involves troops in europe or staying silent under russian attack i wonder what you think what russia's plan is for the next 37 days? >>, let's not forget the core premise of russian government intentions which is to sow discord and chaos. and so they are going to do that at every turn. and they're not going to take a break. in fact, they're going to step it up when joe biden comes on board because they're going to test his resolve. they've had four years of free license to do pretty much what they wish. they're doing some last-minute shopping so to speak before a new president takes over and they're getting done what they need do to. but there is is this other

level, chaos and discord and we need to understand this is going to continue. this is the new warfare. and as donna has said, this is again kind of a post 9/11 response, is the organizational structure of our government's ability to respond to this, after 9/11 do you recall we created a dni, we embedded cia and fbi together under one roof in a counter-terrorism center and created the department ofless. it is time to question whether our government is properly positioned to deal with the new warfare, the new threat. >> natasha, congratulations on the scoop. thank you for jumping on our air to tell us about it. thank you for joining us. peter baker, done edwards, frank figliuzzi, thank you all for starting us off on this busy afternoon. we're grateful. when we come back, much more on that breaking news from the fda. a second vaccine to be used to protect us from the coronavirus one step closer to being authorized for emergency use. it comes, though, as cases of the virus continue to hit

staggering new record highs. that story is next. plus congress is getting close to a deal on coronavirus relief. we'll ask one of the top democrats in the united states senate where things stand right now this hour. and later for us, after being rejected by the american people and the judicial system, donald trump is now facing a whole new kind of rejection. we'll tell you about it. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break so don't go anywhere. e.ies. (doorbell rings) thanks! splitsies? ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you? ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln

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just a few minutes ago, an fda expert advisory panel voted to recommend emergency use of moderna vaccine candidate with 20 in favor and one abstaining

clearing wait for a likely approval as early as tomorrow of a second coronavirus vaccine in just one week. operation warp speed expects to ship about 6 million doses to 3200 sites starting on monday. more hope and relief for the country mourning the loss of 309,000 lives and more than 17.1 million americans sickened from the coronavirus. joining our conversation, dr. celine grounder and infectious disease specialist at nyu school of medicine in bellevue hospital. she taught me the elbow greeting before we were all at home. i want to ask you, dr. grounder, about whether this emergency use authorization means that there will be more vaccines available or is this supply different from the authorization? >> so this means we're going to have a second supply of vaccine.

the vaccine coming out of pfizer and the vaccine coming out of moderna. and pfizer has promises 100 million doses and another 200 million that will be coming from moderna. so this is all very good news. it doesn't mean we have all of those doses on hand at the same time and both vaccines are based on a similar technology so some of the similar same ingredients are used in both. and that could potentially stress the supply chain, the manufacturing of both vaccines when you have both companies trying to scale up production of each of their vaccines at the same time. >> dr. grounder, how far are we from seeing the signs in our cvs or our walgreens that we see about a flu shot, have you had your coronavirus vaccine yet? >> well, i think it is going to be a little while yet, nicolle. first you're going to see the health care workers and staff

and residents of long-term care facilities getting vaccinated. i'm one of those front line health care workers as an infectious disease doctor and i still haven't gotten any shot and it is a while longer that i have to wait and that is just phase 1-a. after that we're looking at critical infrastructure workers, then people over 65 with chronic medical conditions, that will probably be around april or may. and i think for the general population beyond that, we're really looking at later in the summer and possibly even into the early fall. >> and that was the warning, i guess, or the alert that the biden team signaled today. obviously you're part of that, that mass vaccinations for the entire general public is not likely until late summer or fall. how do we make sure that 3,611 people aren't dying every day until then? >> well it means we'll have to

double down on the things that we have at our disposal now, the things that do work. that means we need to keep masking. and even if you have been vaccinated, you do need to wear a mask because we don't have proof that they prevent transmission, only prevent for the person and they can't still be infected and transmit the disease on to others. and then of course the other things. the six feet apart, spending time outdoors if you're around other people not in your household bubble and getting tested. >> dr. grounder, what is the theory of the case on why more people can't be persuaded to do the right thing. chris christie, a trump ally and adviser said this is not a nod to everyone.

that masks protect us and the people in our homes and in our communities or in the grocery store or at the walmart that we see from covid. why are we at this place where people are still so distrustful or defiant of the fute things that we can do to protect ourselves? >> well i think unfortunately the entire pandemic has been politicized. masks have been politicized. as i've said many times including on air here, it is like politicizing toilet paper. masks are a basic hygienic measure that should never have been politicized. and now we find ourselves in a different position. but i do think that americans are doing a better and better job over the last several months of wearing masks. they're not wearing them all of the time. they're not wearing them perfectly. but over 90% of americans now report they're wearing masks at least some of the time. >> and that is good news as well as a second vaccine on the way.

dr. celine grounder, thank you so much for spending some time with us. when we return, much more on the breaking news and the sprawling cyber attack that has now reached multiple agencies inside of the federal government including the one that maintains our country's nuclear stockpile. we'll get reaction from the top democrat in the senate when "deadline: white house" continues. you can get the perfect gift up until the last minute. let's end the year nailing it. ♪ [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

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try nature's bounty sleep 3 a unique tri layer supplement, that calms you helps you fall a sleep faster and stay a sleep longer. great sleep comes naturally with sleep 3 only from nature's bounty we are following this hour's breaking news on that russian

cyber attack that has breached at least seven u.s. agencies including as nbc news has just confirmed the branch of the department of energy that deals with nuclear security. according to politico who was the first to report the latest development, the attack on doe, it is clear that they accessed the networks belonging to the u.s. national enterprise. joining us now is senator richard durbin and we aired some of your reaction to this attack. i wonder with the breaking news just in the last couple of hours, that our nuclear stockpile may also have been -- information about it may have been hacked. what do you think the appropriate response is and at this point who do you call to see if the white house will do what is hoo-- what is appropria when it comes to russia. >> first the stories of the extent of the breach of the

national security by the russians and by the silence of the white house. why hasn't this president spoken out against the russians and what they have done. they've compromised our basic national security an the depth of it we still don't know. he's just as silent as he was about the russian bounties on american soldiers. i don't understand this president. >> have you worked the phones and reached out to -- you obviously have relationships throughout the national security apparatus. are you hearing the same sort of things from inside government that former advisers like tom bossert and others have said, that the damage could be extensive and that it is still unknown? >> i've been giving briefing materials based on my defense appropriate subcommittee assignment and read them this morning carefully. it is a terrible story. and it just gets worse by the minute. this breach occurred months ago. and our defenses that we thought were so good were worthless.

and now we're in a position that we don't know what we've lost in terms of information and what they know that they shouldn't know. we have to try to repair the damage to close any openings they're using and assess where in the world we are in terms of our national security with russia. >> where do you put the blame? i mean, do you fault some of the chaos that donald trump has created by constantly attacking our country's intelligence and national security officials? >> well, i wouldn't doubt if the more al is at a low ebb after the last four years. i don't know who was responsible or which agency was responsible for this particular breach. but i really go back to the basics and say to the president of the united states, this is serious. this is about the security of america. it is about a known adversary of the united states that we have

been vying with for decades. say something. let the world know that we are not going to stand by idly and let some country do this sort of invasion into the united states security apparatus. >> but i think we both know that saying something is never on the menu. and as you said before, when the story was bounties on the heads of u.s. soldiers, he didn't say anything. and i guess my question to you is, you know the incoming president and you served with him in the senate. he was this country's vice president. how do you think he will deal with this when this is his problem in 37 days? >> i could tell you joe biden takes it seriously. have you ever heard his sign off when he gives a speech or makes a comment. god bless america and keep our troops safe. he feels it personally that the men and women in uniform are risking every single day and he won't stand silently by and assert the american right to defend ourselves and not look the other way when some country

like russia is violating our trust. >> i want to switch gears to the stimulus talks. could you tell us where they are and what brought them back to life? >> well, i could tell you that a group of us, eight senators, four republicans and democrats, started three weeks ago trying to put together a compromised package. we introduced it on tuesday and it seemed to be the catalyst that was needed. we now have the leaders in congress and the secretary of treasury actively negotiating and i believe they have two or three issues that are still to be resolved but we can't go home for christmas and take a break until we take the necessary steps to protect the people who are unemployed and to give the businesses a fighting chance and all of the things that are included in this bill. >> what changed? because we've been covering for weeks these talks as being basically permanently stalled. >> well, i'll tell what you changed. eight senators. we came together and said if we

could agree among ourselves, democrats and republicans on a reasonable plan to deal with what we need in america today, and make it public, it just might be what is needed to get the negotiations started. apparently it was. i don't want to take too much credit but the tact that we did get it started on tuesday and the good news is that on a bipartisan basis it appears to be making progress. just think about this, if we don't do anything the day after christmas, 12 million americans will lose unemployment benefits. imagine that. and think at the end of the month how many people will be evicted from places that they're living. that is a horrible situation in the middle of a pandemic. >> senator dick durbin, we always enjoy getting to ask our questions of you. thank you for spending some time with us today on the breaking news and the negotiations on stimulus. keep us posted. when we come back, the rejections keep piling up for donald trump. that story "deadline: white house" returns. ne: white house" returns

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the only thing a disasterng it. can't destroy is hope. donate now at redcross.org first, he was rejected by the american people. rather decisively in november. then he was rejected by the courts. almost universally. and now as donald trump's presidency comes to an end, he faces further rejection on all sides. on january 6th mike pence will oversee the final confirmation of joe biden's victory, the final nail in the coffin if you will of those efforts to overturn the result.

after that, politico reports that pence will skip town for a week embarking on a trip to the middle east and europe to reaffirm trump foreign policy but it is hard to ignore the distance physically and otherwise that he will suddenly and abruptly be putting between himself and his boss. then there is trump's home. he doesn't own a home so we're talking about mar-a-lago. trump's neighbors are seeking to enforce a decades only compact that said his private social club could not be used as a full time residence, another rejection. and this one might be heavy handed but for the right price you could blow up one of trump's defun defun defunct atlanta city casino. joining us, an msnbc political analyst and democratic strategist, basil smikle. eugene, it is not a picture that you would paint for someone

dealing with the pain and i know i've worked for winning and losing presidential candidates. it is a real loss. but donald trump has been so graceless and so self absorbed and willing to do so much damage to our democracy that as these things pile up, it is just interesting. >> right. graceless and self absorbed are perfectly good words. but they fall so far short of what president trump has been. it is just astounding. of course we've never seen anything like this before. we've never seen a president like there before and heaven help us we'll never see one again. but the thing that we have to look forward to is he will indeed leave. whether it is -- when he just goes to pmar-a-lago and whether he's dragging kicking and screaming from the white house

on january 20, he will leave. and i have a feeling, maybe i'm just feeling optimistic today, but i just think the world will then be' brighter place. he'll still by making noise and claiming that he won and claiming he won and this and that but he won't be president of the united states anymore and we won't have to pay attention to him in the same way, and i think it will be the first day of the rest of our lives. it will be something to look forward to. >> i feel exactly the same. i mean, bazell, the other thing, this is what his allies tell me kills him the most, he won't be news worthy anymore. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, it looks like, you know, mike pence decided to go to another part of the world and just sort of, like the rest of us, for different reasons put the trump presidency behind him. if i use what's happening in new

jersey as a bit of an analogy or metaphor for his presidency, he comes in like a lion and lays through neglect and how fitting that a boy's and girl's club in atlantic city is going to benefit from essentially blowing up his legacy. and that to me is just so fitting but yes, the fact he will no longer be news worthy i think is killing him. that has to gnaw at him because his mar-a-lago retreat, he can't even use as a sort of faux white house and invite people over there to make him continue to look presidential. that probably won't factor into the equation at all in his post presidency and that is something to be -- to think about. all the former presidents have a dignity and a legacy when they leave office. i can't imagine that he will as much as he's trying to scrape

one together. >> eugene, presidents also have a home to return to. he doesn't have a house. i don't know if he's adibldicteo the omelet buffet he he's going back to what he describes as the florida white house but it's a club. it's not a home. >> no, it's not a home. maybe i imagine he has or could borrow from deutsche bank to build a house someplace and have a house to live in and to go to and i imagine he'll be in florida because i can't imagine, we know new york doesn't want him back and i can't imagine him going to new york again. so yeah, but, you know, the thing that is going to kill him, former presidents don't have huge massive burros of reporters following them around covering

their every word forming motorcades to chase them around wherever they go and having to listen to everything they say and watch every tweet, they just don't. 12:01 p.m. january 20, that changes. that's over. and that lack of attention is just going to drive him nuts but that's just the way it is. >> and the president who will have a press core following him everywhere and all of us covering the news he makes is president elect biden. he's made two more appointments to his cabinet. what do you make of the incoming biden team, bazell? >> well, number one, it reflects the diversity of the collision that got him into office. certainly, i know there is some concerns about specific positions whether they should be occupied by folks who are more progressive but i would tell you

there are particularly with this interior department appointment, i mean, you have to have a sense of i think just pride in both our party and in this incoming administration. they have gone out of their way rightfully so to choose a team that is reflective of this nation. that's what we wanted. that's what we've been waiting for to get to and hopefully, as eugene said earlier, you know, it the first day of the rest of our lives in a nation with an administration that is much more reflective of the country and ideas. >> and -- >> nicole -- >> go ahead, eugene. >> one thing about the cabinet. it's normal. this is normal. >> that's right. >> you get experienced confident people that know something about their fields and you put them in the jobs and i mean, this is like -- this is news that it's

normal. >> i was going to make a similar but of course less eloquent point than you just did, eugene. as a former staffer and i know the democratic party now is the obviously bigger tent party and different views and different ideologies there but the rollout of this cabinet has been flawless from just an execution standpoint, the former staffer and me had to chime in. thank you both so much for spending some time with us. when we return, as we do every single day. remembering lives well lived. ery remembering lives well lived ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment.

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twice in the span of a week an icu nurse in oklahoma city had to call an ambulance to her home. the first one was for her husband, dennis. machinest and former bodybuilder, a good man through and through, the coronavirus hit him hard. three days later, the other ambulance was for her mother linda. a woman that loved her family, loved the beach, loved roller skating and ink issing. she was there with her in the hospital in full ppe when her mom died of covid-19. and as if that were not enough pain, just three days later, dennis died, too. according to the abc station in oklahoma city, she laid there in bed with him before he passed. she told him she loved hip and he told her the same. a few minutes later, he was gone. now luzanne has to cope with the loss of her mother and the loss of her husband without the other one there to comfort her.

it's more proof that you can be a victim of the disease without ever even contracting it. thank you for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we're so grateful. "the beat" starts right now. hi, yazman. you've been everywhere. >> i am in from the cold today. thank you for sharing that story, nicole. it's a reason we got so emotional seeing the first vaccines delivered a couple days ago because so many people lost so many loved ones, so seeing something like that is incredible to remind us what we've been through and what may lie ahead. good to see you, my friend. thank you. >> have a great show. welcome, i'm in for ari melb melber. we'll start with breaking news. we got a key fda panel just approved a second covid vaccine from moderna. data showing it is 95% effective