washington capital. he just announced a veto of a stimulus bill that has bipartisan support behind it, citing as a reason to rename bases named for confederate officials. donald trump can soon expect the first successful veto override of his presidency during his financial weeks in office. this move just the latest in what has been a 24-hour storm of upheaval coming from the white house, which began last night with a pardon spree that's triggered alarm among his critics, and included his former campaign adviser, george papadopoulos, along with over a dozen other people, including several former republican congressmen, all allies of the president. that was just hours before the twitter video that landed with a thud on capitol hill, in which trump blasted the desperately needed coronavirus relief bill that had just passed the house and the senate. trump threatened to derail

months of work in congress to deliver a desperately needed $900 billion coronavirus relief bill, calling for $2,000 per-person direct payment checks. more than three times what was agreed to in the bill. this, of course, after he sat out negotiations on the bill, and declined to make his demand throughout the months that the aid was being negotiated. it is worth pointing out the bill he's blowing up was so universally embraced by both houses of congress that it passed with an overwhelming veto-proof margin. "the washington post" reports on the consequences of trump's 11th hour standoff with the legislative branch, quote, the video landed like a sonic boom in washington. his own aides were stunned. congressional aides were stunned. stock market futures quickly slumped on the prospect that the economic aid could be in doubt. and the implications for what happens next could be severe. if he refuses to sign the bill, the government will shut down on

december 29th. the $900 billion in emergency economic aid will be frozen and the race for the two senate seats in georgia could also be upended. it's difficult to ignore the backdrop to the head-spinning meltdown. trump's doubtless and fruitless ploy to upend the results of the 2020 election and reverse the lawful result already certified by the electoral college. joe biden's victory already acknowledged by the leaders of trump's own party. "the new york times" describes an extraordinary 24 hours in the final chapter of donald trump's presidency this way. quote, he spends his days flailing for any hope. of not of actually reversing the outcome of the election, then at least of building a coherent case that he was robbed of a second term. it is not clear that mr. trump's latest behavior is anything other than a temperature tantrum, attention seeking, or form of therapy for the man who controls a nuclear arsenal. if nothing else, it will make for especially anxious next 27

days in washington. and that's where we begin this hour, with "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker. also jake sherman, senior writer for politico, and former republican congressman carlos curbelo of florida. all three msnbc contributors. all right, jake, tell us where we are. how doomed are we? well, it's tough to say, because we have no idea what the president's strategy is, what he's truly thinking. the people around him don't know what he's thinking, don't have any idea what he will or won't do, but the facts are as follows. the government shuts down on monday, the bill to fund the government passed earlier this week with massive margins as you noted. unemployment benefits run out on saturday. congress is home for the holidays. so we don't really know -- we know that if he vetoes this bill, very badly needed aid is frozen, the government will shut down on monday, and congress

will have to start over from square one in the middle of a massive pandemic in a holiday season, perhaps with the government shut down. and it's worth noting, the last congress ended with the government shutdown. this congress began with a government shutdown. and it's totally possible that this congress lewill end with a government shutdown right back where we started. it's just a really confused time and i associate myself with maggie's reporting that the president seems to be acting out of anger that republicans on capitol hill are abandoning him. and that seems to be what this is about from all possible evidence that we have on hand. >> congressman, where does that then leave republicans on the hill? >> alicia, there is growing frustration among republicans. it has taken four years, but finally, a lot of republicans are starting to understand that this uncomfortable marriage with donald trump is not tenable. that this is someone who only cares about himself, who will

only reward those who are absolutely loyal to him. not those who help him, but those who are absolutely loyal to him, no matter what endeavor he is taking upon, even if that means overturning an election to stay in power. republicans are worried. they think his actions will grow more and more reckless and severe. this is a man who can feel power slipping away by the minute and is acting out in very dangerous ways. in this case, just a few minutes ago, showing that nothing is sacred for him. not even our country's troops. there's a pay raise for these troops in the bill that he vetoed and it is all to gain relevance and to try to grasp desperately to power as it slips away. >> peter, is it juniyour sense there's anyone who has the president's ear that is urging him to stand down? >> those are two different things. are they urging him to stand down? do they have his ear? it doesn't look like. at the moment, the president

wants to hear from people who are telling him what he wants to hear, that he didn't lose. and those are the people that are coming to him with the most radical ideas and the most radical suggestions like pounding voting machines and appointing a special counsel and all of that. the people not telling him that he was robbed, that he was, in fact, a landslide winner, are the ones trying to tell him, how do you want these last 27 days to go, it's time to concede, it's time to settle down and not making crisis where they don't exist and that's not the kind of people he's listening to right now. you have mark meadows, the white house chief, pat cipollone, who are trying to counsel the president and quite frustrated that he's acting out in a way, not live look to them very much. and a lot of the other people he's listened to over the years have either fallen away or stiff armed. even jared kushner, who has been one of his most influential aides isn't even in the country right now.

he's in the middle east working on peace issues there. so the president is left in the white house in a shrinking circle, acting out, it doesn't matter to him that he's creating great chaos for his own party. and it's going to be a test for republicans whether after these four years of more or less fog h following him, whether they'll override his veto not on one, but possibly two major bills in his last weeks in office. that's not going out a winner, that's the other way around. but it may be time for the republicans to say, we're ready to move beyond donald trump and he's given them a way to say, that's what they're doing. >> jake, i'm sure you saw this tweet from house speaker nancy pelosi, which essentially said, let's do it, writing, republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the president wanted for direct checks. at last, the president has agreed to $2,000. democrats are ready to bring this to the floor this week by unanimous consent. let's do it. schumer, striking, of course, a slightly different tone in his

own tweet, tweeting, we spent months trying to secure $2,000 checks, but republicans blocked it. trump needs to sign the bill to help people and keep the government open and we're glad to pass more aid americans need. maybe trump can finally make himself useful and get republicans not to block it. again, jake sherman, the sense is that these $2,000 check are dead in the water, but is he giving a gift to nancy pelosi? >> yeah, i don't know what he's doing, to be frank with you. i guess he is giving a gift to nancy pelosi. kevin mccarthy, the republican leader and one of the president's closest allies just said on a party conference call that the $2,000 checks are not going to go through. there is not unanimous consent in the republican party on the house side. and on the senate side, certainly not either, for these $2,000 checks, but here's the ultimate irony here. if the president had been involved in these negotiations all along, which he was not, he would have gotten these $2,000 checks easily. i mean, this is -- the movement

has gone towards these direct payments. the vibe in the capital among republican lawmakers was to get a deal done at practically any cost. and if the president wanted $2,000, he would have gotten. the other things in the bill he's complaining about, some of the foreign aid and other policies are policies that his administration had requested. he's complaining about the kennedy center and aid to burma. these are things his administration asked for in the bill. so it's like, it's like walking into a -- i can't even think of an analogy here. it's such bizarre behavior, and there's no real way to put this back together, as mr. curbelo and peter both know from their experiences, this was a really hard-fought compromise that had aides and lawmakers in the room for hours. if you move one piece, the entire thing unravels. so i'm not exactly sure here what his ultimate game plan here is, besides just sewing chaos. >> listen, jake, it has been a

long four years. you are allowed to be all out of analogies. congressman, i wonder if you agree with jake's analysis there that had the president been at the table for these negotiations, he could have gotten republican members of congress to sign on to these $2,000 checks. >> without question. the president was totally disengaged, personally. now, of course, steve mnuchin, his treasury secretary was intimately involved in these negotiations. spent a lot of time on the phone with nancy pelosi. so in a way, the white house and the president were there. it's just that right now, the president has concluded that it is in his personal interest. it is his personal desire to sew this chaos, to punish congressional republicans for not supporting him and his efforts to overturn the election result. and alicia, this case is different. we've seen a lot of different episodes over the years where white house staff buy time with

the president, maybe distract him, maybe give him the end-around. january 20th is approaching. there's no buying time here. the clock is ticking, time is running out for him. and that's why his actions are growing more and more desperate and severe by the minute. and of course for nancy pelosi, this is a gift. this is a gift, because it gives her and chuck schumer and the entire democratic party the opportunity to highlight the growing rift between congressional republicans and donald trump. it has been an uncomfortable marriage for four years, but both sides have derived some benefits from that marriage. right now, that is all falling apart with a very important election approaching in georgia. and of course, the beginning of the new congress and a new administration in just a few weeks. >> right. and we'll look back to that question on georgia, but first, peter baker, one of the most astounding things about that twitter video is watching the president of the united states conflate the spending in the omnibus and the spending for

covid relief, which just underlines the fact that he has never been interested in legislating, interested in governing, even four years later, peter. >> well, that's right. for viewers who might not have followed it, there are two separate pieces of legislation that have been grafted together for the purpose of passing them. one is the covid relief, which is the $900 billion that jake has covered so well over these last few months. and the other is the spending bill necessary to keep the government going. and because we have these two parallel tracks going, they say, let's put them together for the purpose of getting through this holiday period. but the fact that there is spending on foreign aid in the omnibus spending package, it has nothing to do with covid. that's just the fact that the government does spend money on foreign aid every year. you may want to have a debate on that, may say foreign aid is good or bad, but as jake pointed out, the administration itself asked for money from foreign aid, because it's the thing that the government does every year. and that's not realit realitied

covid. and these are not related. and it's just -- it is a fundamental misunderstanding or maybe a distortion of the way that government operates and one that i think, you're right, you know, betrays a lack of interest on the part of a president who never spent any time in government before. remember, this is the first president in the history of the united states who never spent a day in either the government or the military before taking office and has only shown sort of sporadic interest in the mechanics of it over the last four years. and here we are in the last minutes, the last hours of his presidency and the consequences of this are pretty radical, pretty severe. >> congressman, we've talked about the generalized anxiety among members of the republican party, but the president is also naming names, going after some very specific members. i want to pull up this tweet @johnthune, saying he'll object to the electoral college challenge, saying republicans in the senate so quickly forget, right now they would be down eight seats without my backing them in the last election.

rhino john thune, mitch's boy, should just let it play out. south dakota doesn't like weakness. he will be primaried in 2022. political career over. three exclamation points. and then you think about it, it is not just thune, it is murkowski, sasse, kemp, dewine, duncan. it's also, you know, these rumors about ivanka trump moving to florida to potentially primary marco rubio. where does that leave republicans? how much longer do they anticipate this trump hangover to last? >> alicia, that's why even though it has taken very long, way too long, a lot of republicans are now starting to realize that this just isn't going to work long-term. why? because donald trump will turn against you the minute you disagree with him on any issue. the minute you decide you can't go along with one of his plans. it doesn't matter if you were loyal a hundred times before

that. it doesn't matter what you've done for him. it doesn't matter that you sat quietly while he did some reckless things over the last four years. if you're not with him today, you are his enemy and he will do everything he can to hurt you. and a lot of republicans are finally starting to understand that it's impossible to have a long-term partnership with someone of this nature, and that's why you're going to see this break come stronger and stronger, and at the end of the day, donald trump is going to have a very small number of republicans, who are going to stick with them. most will realize or are starting to realize already that this is just too difficult to work. >> jake, the stakes of that most obvious and most immediate in the state of georgia, that race, of course, just days away. i want you to take a listen to senator perdue's recent campaign ad. take a listen. >> senator perdue never gave up.

perdue again delivered real, meaningful help for georgians. $900 billion in new covid relief, direct checks to georgians. critical funding for vaccine distribution. small businesses, public schools, and help for folks out of work. >> jake, how do these most recent shenanigans on the part of trump ultimately play out in these two georgia races? >> well, they're going to have to most likely take that ad down at least for the time being, because those things are not coming. the checks are not coming, none of this aid is coming, because the president is signaling, at least, that he might veto the bill. now, we don't know if he's going to, but the entire campaign in georgia, from both of these senators, at least a good deal of it is about this covid relief package. they flew back to washington to vote on it. david perdue has portrayed himself as somebody who is a serious legislator, who wants to get things done and stood with trump to get direct checks and all of those things. and ivanka trump was down in

georgia the other day with them, with kelly perdue and -- kelly loeffler and david perdue and also touted this. so i know there's a lot of panic in those campaigns. i don't know how they square that circle. and i frankly, i think the president doesn't grasp or doesn't really care, frankly, that the entire power structure for the next congress comes down to these two races in georgia. republicans lose them, they're in trouble. >> peter baker, jake sherman and former congressman carlos curbelo, thank you all so much for starting us off. when we come back, trump's chaotic response to the legislation on capitol hill shouldn't distract from his move to pardon convicted murderers and corrupt cronies. we'll look at that move, the why and the what's next. plus, president-elect biden today introducing us to his pick for education secretary. a former teacher himself, reminding all of us that it shouldn't take a pandemic to realize just how important educators are. and news today of another

big delivery in the vaccine to fight off coronavirus, boosting the supply in the u.s. as deaths here hit another tragic one-day record. all of those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. e when "deadline: white house" continues after this in a land not so far away,

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♪ on the third day of croodsmas my neighbor gave to me ♪ ♪ three.♪. dun, dun, duns. ♪ 2 shrieking girls ♪ and a... whoa, peanut toe. ♪ in a pack of croodaceous families ♪ go to watchcroods.com. you've got a president who's using them to serve his own needs. pardoning congressmen who use campaign funds to put their pet rabbit on an airplane. pardoning people who money launder while they were members of congress. pardoning people who committed heinous murders in iraq. pardoning people who were part of an attempt by the russian

government to undermine our elections. what do these things all have in common? because they're really different crimes. some pled guilty, some were found guilty. what they have in common is that they involve corruption and they have direct ties to him or his political police. this is wrong. and as i said, he is trying to literally burn the house down as he goes out the door. >> with just a few weeks left in his presidency, president trump has gone on a pardoning spree, granting clemency to 20 people, including political allies, former associates, and even people convicted of war crimes. the list includes three former gop congressmen, including duncan hunter and chris collins, who were among the first lawmakers to endorse trump back in 2016. as well as two people caught lying in the russia investigation. former adviser george papadopoulos and attorney general, alex van der zwann. trump also pardoned four men working for blackwater, a company run by erik prince, a trump ally and brother to education secretary, betsy

devos, who were convicted in the killing of 14 unarmed iraqi civilians in 2007. "the times" reports that the pardons, quote, appeared in many cases to have bypassed the traditional justice department review process. more than half of the cases did not meet the department's standards for consideration and reflected mr. trump's long-held grudges about the russia investigation, his instinct to side with members of the military accused of wrong doing and his willingness to reward political allies. joining our conversation, ab stoddard and msnbc legal analyst, berit berger, former federal prosecutor for the southern and eastern districts of new york and a former assistant u.s. attorney. good to see you both. berit, i want to begin with you. presidents often issue pardons in their final days. why are these so unusual? >> i think these are so unusual for a few reasons. one, they really seem to have bypassed the traditional process by which the president would get

recommendations from the pardon attorney general and from the department of justice. these pardons do not seem to have gone through that process. they have one key characteristic, they have some connection to the president. you see the president pardoning people he knows, people from his political party, people who have been ardent supporters of him. that's a key difference here. these are not cases where you have somebody where injustice has been served, somebody getting an extremely long instance that we now in hindsight recognize was unjust. these are people with the inside track to the president who are benefiting because of that personal relationship. >> ab, pick up where berit left off. where does this fit into our big-picture view of our president? >> well, i don't think it comes as a surprise that the president is very enamored with the awesome powers he has as president, particularly the pardon power, which is so

unencumbered and so limited in many respects. and i think that you can see, as berit describes, that he is looking to use them as sort of party favors to people who are important to him. and they don't have to show any mercy -- they don't need any mercy, they haven't recommitted to pay their debt to society. this is really all about rewarding people who stuck by president trump, no matter what he did. he has dangled pardons. there's been reporting throughout his presidency of him saying, look, just do it, and if it's against the law, i will pardon you. and so he has dangled this to people in the past. it's no surprise that president trump was a serious disdain for process and rules would not be, you know, checking with t justice department and he would bypass the usual process. i think that as we see all of

this explosion on capitol hill happening with the redoing of the defense bill, the prospect of himomnibus and the stimulus relief package, we don't really know what he's doing. what we do know, though, is on pardons, he is not finished. he is going to use them to the fullest extent in the days to come in january. and i think we can expect them, obviously, as has been reported of himself and members of his family. >> you do. you believe that he will use it for both himself and his family? absolutely. he -- i don't think he cares about the political repercussions. i think he's going to do whatever he can to protect his family, even though that doesn't protect them from state charges. he is being investigated, so are members of his family in new york state. but whatever he can do, even if it's preemptive, i think he absolutely will. and it's interesting he did it now. it's interesting telling all the

voters he's telling that the election has been stolen from him, that he has lost, even though he's trying to insist that hen hasn't lost, but the number will increase and it will include his family and himself by january 20th. >> berit, i want to know both if you agree with a.b.'s assessment and also for all of us and as we watch this go down, does this beg questions about a need to reform this process? >> so the first part of your question, do i think he's going to pardon his family members? possibly. i mean, if we've lander oearned thing over the past four years that president trump is a wild card and does things that surprise us every single day. the only reason why he wouldn't pardon somebody like his own children or his closest associate, rudy giuliani, is that while it is not an admission of guilt, per se, there does carry some sort of, you know, a public taint of saying, you know, why do you need a part if you haven't done anything wrong. so, i could see that being some

sort of a driver. if you have ego enough to assume that you are untouchable and that you have never done anything outside of the bounds of, you know, what is appropriate or legal, then maybe you wouldn't want to assign a pardon either to yourself or to your close associates. now, this certainly would not apply to somebody like paul manafort or julian assange, people that actually have been charged and in some cases convicted of offenses. but for those who haven't been charged, i could see him potentially not doing it for that reason. but, yes, there may be need for reform, if we've seen, you know, a president abusing this. and i'm more troubled, quite frankly, than what ab mentioned about his dangling of pardons. to me, that is the most corrupt aspect of all of this, tis the prospect of promising a pardon in exchange for cooperation or in schauexchange for some sort political favor. that is the most disturbing part of that. >> a.b. stoddard, berit berger, thank you for spending some time

with us. up next, biden continuing with his pledge to build a cabinet that, quote, looks like america. his education secretary introduced today, credited with successfully leading a state school system during the pandemic, we'll tell you all about him, next. l tell you all about him, next. network at a record pace. we were the first to bring 5g nationwide. and now that sprint is a part of t-mobile we're turning up the speed. upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g. to bring speeds as fast as wifi to cities and towns across america. and we're adding more every week. coverage and speed. who says you can't have it all?

and my water broke. at only 23 weeks. andrew: we had to stay in the hospital for 10 weeks, 1000s of miles from family. our driver kristin came along in our most desperate hour. suzanne: bringing us home-cooked meals and gifts.

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♪ ♪ i was blessed to attend the public schools in my hometown of meriden, connecticut, where i was able to expand my horizons

and become the first in my family to become a teacher, a principal, an assistant superintendent in the same community that gave me so much. that, that is the power of america. and i, being bilingual and bicultural, am as american as apple pie and rice and beans. for me, education was the great equalizer, but for so many students, your zip code and your skin color remain the best predictor of the opportunities you'll have in your lifetime. >> that was dr. miguel cardona, president-elect, biden's pick for education secretary. speaking today at his introduction. biden chose cardona, currently the education commissioner in connecticut, after saying that he wanted a secretary with actual classroom and public school experience in contrast with the current education secretary, betsy devos, who has not been the biggest champion of the public school system.

if confirmed, cardona will be tasked with the challenge of getting the majority of the nation's students back into schools, something biden has pledged to do within his first hundred days. joining us now, joel payne, democratic strategist, a former senior aide to hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. and "washington post" national political reporter, covering the biden transition, matt viser. matt, how steep of a hill is this to climb for cardona? reopening schools in the next hundred days? >> it is a steep hill to climb. but that was frankly one of the reasons that the biden campaign or the biden transition chose him for this role he's had a lot of experience in connecticut with this issue. he's been an advocate for opening the schools. there are some 70% of schools in connecticut right now are offering in-person learning. so it has been something that he has championed, but as you point out, the task is big on a national scale, and one thing

that distinguishes cardona from some of the other nominees that biden has picked for other roles is the experience level. cardona is pretty much a completely fresh face to the national stage and is coming into a department that he has not run. a lot of biden's nominees have run the departments before. cardona, instead, is having this sort of meteoric rise in his own career, being an assistant superintendent, just two years ago. and now, on the cusp of being the secretary of education for the entire country. >> i mean, joel, reopening the schools is one piece of a much larger puzzle. president-elect biden ran on a very ambitious plan for education. i want to read this from "the time times". mr. biden has also vowed significant elementary and secondary education policy changes, like tripling federal funding for poor schools, increasing teacher pay, and reversing the trump administration's civil rights

policies. in higher education, he has promised free public college, expanding federal financial aid, and canceling some student debt. i mean, joel, is it your sense that all of that happens in tandem with the reopening of the schools or does it ultimately take a backseat until things are stabilized? >> well, it seems pretty clear that the president-elect has prioritized reopening of schools. he says that that's something that he wants to do within his first hundred days, and having a professional that believes in the power of education supports that. it feels like this is a trend with all of the biden cabinet picks. picking people who actually believe in the power of government, believe in the power of using their office to help, as opposed to the trump nominees, where you had betsy devos, who didn't believe in public education. you had climate deniers who were in charge of the epa and things of that nature. so, biden, just by picking people who have invested their career and believe in the power

of government as a tool for change, i think that, in itself, is a statement. >> joel, in that corn koucopia refo reforms, where is the interest, where is the will within the democratic party to prioritize those reforms? >> i think the reopening piece cannot be understated. in new york city, for example, we know it's been such a real challenge for mayor de blasio to, you know, pick that balance between keeping students safe and keeping the schools open. but look, the list of other things that you ran down there, whether it's teacher pay or equality in school systems, those are all priorities, not just for democrats, but really for all americans. that was the agenda that joe biden was elected on, and i imagine he will have a very robust agenda for secretary-elect cardona to pursue once he is sworn into office. >> matt, this announcement comes set against the backdrop of the other two big stories that we

have been following. the president both saying that he may not be willing to sign the covid relief dill unless there are $2,000 checks and they are something that democrats support, members of his own party didn't want to see checks that big. and of course, the pardons that we're seeing rolled out. have you heard any response from president-elect biden's team on either of those two important stories? >> yeah, i mean, i think that they -- you know, you heard the vice president-elect or president-elect, excuse me, yesterday, talking about the congressional relief package. kind of putting a final coda on its passage and talk about the bipartisanship and hailing, you know, coming together and finding, you know, everything was aligning and providing him with, you know, as he put it, the down payment for something much bigger. now that entire package is thrown into chaos, through the actions of president trump. and so, i do think that biden is hoping that there's some resolution to this.

i don't think that they've necessarily opposed the $2,000 check limit that president trump has outlined. but i think for biden, he's wanting some stability so that when he enters office in just a couple of weeks, there's not an all-out crisis around covid economic relief and something that the economy is at least a little bit more stabilized, so he can focus on what he wants to do, which is another package. but if this further goes off the rails, i think biden has a lot more hurdles that they, at this point, are not anticipating. you know, having to deal with things from square one. they feel like congress did something, and they want to move forward to the next thing, and not have to redo what's already been done. >> jill payne, matt visor, thank you both. still ahead, some positive news in the race to give more americans the covid-19 vaccine. we'll tell you about that and the other headlines today in the

struggle to contain the virus. le rustggle to contain the virus. i'm here to bring you all the news

from across this great world of ours. "news of the world" is a lovingly crafted drama. little girl is lost. and i'm taking her home. it's soulful and stirring. how much you want for her? this child is not for sale. tom hanks is magnificent... in a towering piece of moviemaking. she needs new memories. i think we all need to acknowledge that on january 21st, things are going to be bad. it's going to be dark. right now, we're already in some dark times. i do think that we're going to have more deaths, more surge after the christmas and new year's holidays. and all of those are going to manifest, on, you know, around the end of january. >> that was president-elect joe

biden's pick to head the cdc this morning on the challenge and loss of life still to come, even when the new administration takes over. her straightforward warning comes after a record number of americans died from the coronavirus yesterday. 3,350, yet another record, nearly 19,000 died in the last week as case trends sbreefrs day in most of the united states. and our nation's top doctors monitor new, even more transmissible covid strains spreading in the uk, one they say is likely already circulating in the united states. but some good news today. pfizer will provide the u.s. with an additional 100 million vaccine doses under a new deal with the trump administration, further ensuring that every american who wants to be vaccinated can be by the summer. the cdc says over 1 million americans have received their first dose, though that's still 19 million short of operation warp speed's december goal. joining us now, nbc news and

msnbc public health analyst, dr. irwin redlener. he is the founding director of columbia's university's national center for disaster preparedness. dr., good to see you. what will 100 million more pfizer doses really mean for the u.s.? >> hi, alicia. so, yeah, it's obviously big news. but it's important to keep in mind that with the new cdc director said is true. that tennis not going to magically end anytime soon, in terms of the raging pandemic. those doses are not really guaranteed until next summer, until july. and it's good, and plus, we'll have other vaccine doses from moderna and hopefully another manufacturer or two so it's all good, now the vaccine will be, can we get the vaccine distributed sufficiently throughout the country to make sure mempb hamerican has it ands real equity in how it's distributed. we don't know that, and we have

lots of people who are going to be resistant to taking the vaccine and we'll just have to see how that plays out. hopefully the messaging will be good and really convincing people that it's critical to take that vaccine. i, for one, will be getting it absolutely the day it's available to me. and i think this should be the guideline for all of us. >> it is going to fall to the biden administration to roll this out. so i want you to unpack for me two things you just said. both the messaging element of this, what that should look like, and then another piece, which is how you make sure that the communities that have been hit hardest by this virus also have access to these vaccines. >> yeah, so this is going to be a really big job. you know, developing the vaccines was very, very difficult. it started years ago. really during the sars epidemic of 2003. but the point is that as hard as that was scientifically, the messaging and communications

agenda for joe biden and kamala harris's team is going to be really, really complicated. there's a lot of very firmly established anti-vaccination attitudes out there that are reinforced by lots and lots of misstatements and you know really bad conspiracy ideas out there. and so that messaging job is going to be critical. and as far as how they're going to get to the communities that have been underserved, there's a couple of challenges here. number one is that the communities hardest hit really overall are black and hispanic communities, which have been -- populations which have had trouble getting to access to regular health care. it's going to be really difficult to make sure that they are getting the messaging correctly for those communities. i'll tell you something, those communities deserve our full attention. as far as i'm concerned, they should be very near the top of the list in terms of priorities for getting the vaccine. this is going to be a tremendous logistics problem and a

communication issue. i think the biden team will be up to it. but it's almost as hard as getting the science right to develop the vaccines, to make sure they actually get into everybody's arms as quickly as possible, alicia. >> doctor, we've heard from so many health care experts who have said, do not travel this holiday season. and yet we know there are millions of people traveling right now. if there are people who have already made the decision not to heed that warning and to travel, what is your best counsel, best advice to them on how to keep themselves and their families safe? >> well, first of all, traveling this holiday season is bad -- it's a dangerous thing to do. we want to keep our gatherings very small, limited to household members only. if somebody must come, look on the cdc website. it will tell you how to make sure that people are tested and quarantined appropriately. but if you do travel, you must stay off of the airplanes or trains as much as possible. if you can go by car, do that, if you absolutely must go. but no matter what, we have to

really make sure we're not stepping back from the guidelines of safe distancing, wearing a mask, and all of the other guidelines we've, hearing about so much. this is going to be a deadly january. because what i just said is not likely to be followed by many people. and the thing is that we're going to have people dying. so as much as it's painful not to get together with relatives, it's a heck of a lot more painful to lose them to this lethal disease. now, one final thing, if i may, alicia. so what the redlener family did on thanksgiving, we had a big party, 42 people were there. but it was by zoom. it was great, it was an hour. we got together. we reconnected. there was a lot of laughing, but we stayed separate and we did it virtually. people should think about that. yeah, we're yearning to get back to normal, we're just not there yet. and if we don't understand these warnings, we're just going to see a lot more people succumbing to covid-19, alicia.

>> i am with you. we are celebrating advisovia zo well. dr. e dr. irwin redlener, of control. a live report from los angeles next. nextrumbles ] [ 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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- my pleasure captain. please call now. if operators are busy with all the other caring people, please wait patiently, or you can go to loveshriners.org to give right away. - [alec] big or small, your gift helps us all. - [both] thank you. (giggling) california's hospitals are reaching a breaking point, running out of room and healthcare workers to treat

covid-19 patients as the state prepares for the virus surge to go from bad to much, much worse ahead of christmas. already, southern california is out of icu beds. let's bring in nbc news meagan fitzgerald, live in los angeles where the numbers are particularly staggering. with another surge expected in california, how bad are things in l.a. county? >> reporter: i can tell you it truly is a dire situation here. los angeles county, for instance, never seeing a situation this bad. let's take a look at the numbers. they're looking at a seven-day average of daily infections at 13,000 a day. more than 9,000 deaths. then i want to show you this graph here that's on the screen, showing the projection for hospitalizations by next week, by new year's eve, some 1,400 people a day to be hospitalized. that is ten times more than what we saw in october when 150 people were hospitalized today. so, healthcare systems across the state, certainly across southern california, being creative, doing as much as they

can to try and accommodate this influx and surge of patients flooding the hospitals by putting up tents in parking lots as a makeshift icu ward. there's a hospital here in los angeles county that has transformed a gift shop into a makeshift icu ward so that certainly shows you just how desperate the situation is here and continues to get. now, i want you to listen to a doctor here in los angeles county, how he describes the situation. take a listen. >> there's an overall feeling of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty as we head into christmas and the new year, and patients as well as the workforce are really starting to wear thin. and i think many of us are very concerned that as we head into the holidays, our resources will simply be outstripped by the incredible demand. >> reporter: and that is why these doctors and nurses continue to plead with the public not to travel and

certainly not to gather over the holidays. alicia? >> all right, nbc's meagan fitzgerald, thank you. when we come back, trump's desire to do what he wants with four weeks left on the clock after those 20 pardons last night, is he burning down the rule of law on his way out? a look at that when "deadline white house" continues after this quick break. "deadline white house" continues after this quick break

this is what you get when you elect a corrupt president or corrupt man as president. you get corruption. and you know, it's like the old adage, garbage in, garbage out. it's what we've come to expect of this president and this

administration. none of these people deserved any form of clemency. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east, i'm alicia menendez in for nicole wallace. a president on his way out the door, more than eager to continue dismantling one of the country's bedrock principles. the rule of law. last night, donald trump announced the pardons or commutations of 20 individuals who ranged from two people convicted in robert mueller's russia investigation to foreign military contractors who had been convicted of killing 14 unarmed iraqi civilians in 2007 to three former republican members of congress. a move "the new york times" describes as a remarkable assertion of pardon power by a president who continues to dispute his loss in the election and might well be followed by other pardons in the weeks before he leaves office on january 20th. which is exactly what the "washington post" reports. trump has told advisors he wants to be liberal with pardons and plans to sign more before leaving office.

the white house has been flooded with requests from dozens of members of congress. one senior administration official said, as well as lawyers, lobbyists, allies, and other supporters of the president. in fact, in just the last hour, we saw this reporting from jonathan swan of axios, who says trump will announce more pardons and clemencies as soon as today. a flood of requests coming to the white house shows how trump's dishing out of pardons last night and throughout his presidency follows a pattern. it's all about his self-interest. michael schmidt of the "new york times," who broke last night's pardon story, spoke of that pattern to our friend, rachel maddow. >> it's something that the president can create instantaneous loyalty when he does, and because of that, if you look at the past numbers that he has granted, the pardons he has granted, of the 45 that he had granted up until today, 40 of the 45, 88%, were either tied to one of his allies, someone who had special access to him, or was tied to something

that politically benefitted him personally. >> as axios details, the absolute power of a pardon is very appealing to this president. trump loves pardons for the same reason he relishes executive orders, pure power and instant gratification. a long-time trump official says that pardons are uniquely satisfying to trump because he can overturn the work of another branch of government, the judiciary. trump's undermining of the judiciary and the rule of law was commented on back in 2016 by retired law professor david post, who said, quote, this is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary. post's comment was eerily prescient. he made it after trump's comments on the judge overseeing two cases against trump university and what we saw unfold was a presidency featuring the hallmarks of an authoritarian ruler. trump attacked judges on multiple occasions. he interfered in federal investigations to help himselfovhimself

or his allies. he attacked his own appointed heads of the justice department. he fired or removed numerous inspects general across the government. he publicly called for investigations into his political rivals, even attempting to leverage the powers of his office to persuade a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political rival. and not to mention the ten instances of potential obstruction of justice by trump that robert mueller identified in his report. former top prosecutor in that sweshl counsel investigation, andrew weissman, summed up trump's time in office in a tweet last night. since 2016, trump has turned the u.s. into the type of corrupt autocratic nation we see around the world that we deplore. a lame duck president trigger happy with pardon power is where we start this hour. joining us, the aforementioned andrew weissman, former fbi general counsel and nbc legal analyst is here. also with us, "washington post" contributing columnist and msnbc contributor, former congresswoman donna edwards, and tim miller, the political director of republican voters against trump, contributor to

the bulwark and the former communications director to jeb bush's 2016 presidential campaign. andrew, i don't know that there is much more to say than what you said in that very pithy tweet, but i wonder, at this point, with some time to reflect, what you make of these pardons and of these commutations. >> well, i think that it's really important to remember what the rule of law is supposed to be. the rule of law binds the department of justice when it decides who to prosecute and who not to prosecute to exercise its discretion in a way that we don't take into account whether the person is a democrat or a republican. we don't take into account whether somebody is a friend or foe of the president. and what we're seeing is that the president, in exercising his constitutional power to pardon, is not taking into account what we're supposed to, which is the rule of law.

no one in their right mind can say that convicted murderers, corrupt politicians, the largest healthcare fraud perpetrator ever, all deserve to be pardoned more than anyone else who is currently in custody. yet, that is what this president has just done. so, your introduction about the -- this really being a frontal assault on the rule of law, i think, gets it exactly right. >> andrew, can you just underline for us who would ordinarily be looking to receive a pardon at the end of a presidential administration. >> all during a presidential term, people seek pardons, but there's a process normally followed within the department of justice where prosecutors, defense lawyers, people in the white house vet all of that to make sure that they are

considering people equally. obviously, in the -- in our past, there have been anomalies. mark rich is a classic example. but usually, a president goes through those, and there is generally a history of having more pardons at the end of a term, but the idea here is that you are applying neutral principles to who gets a pardon in the same way the department of justice is supposed to apply neutral principles as to who it's going to prosecute and who it's not going to prosecute. >> donna, this is all happening set against the backdrop of the president continuing to attack a fair and safe election against practices like encouraging local election officials to overturn the election, conversations about the use of martial law to rerun elections that he lost multiple times. do you think, in the face of these defeats, it is actually increased his appetite for pardons? >> well, alicia, i really do.

and i think that, in fact, you know, the president has demonstrated, really since the beginning of his presidency and before, his disdain for every branch of government, for the rule of law, for the underpinnings of our constitution, and so while his actions in these last couple of days is not a surprise, i think that it does not bode well for what is to come over the next couple of weeks. i think that he is going to use his powers extraordinarily. i think we have to be on guard for that, and i have begun to look prospectively of what the congress of the united states and the next president should do in order to safeguard all of our institutions and systems for a tyrant and authoritarian like donald trump in our future. >> tim, i think donna is exactly right, that this conversation is

all about what is coming next. i want to pull up this tweet from my league, lawrence o'donnell, who writes, trump is trying to create pardon outrage fatigue by the time he pardons himself and his children. i wonder, tim, what do you expect to see in the next 28 days when it comes to pardons? >> well, look, we know the worst ones are coming. i think andrew mentioned the mark rich example. that came on the morning of the inauguration of clinton's successor. so, it's certain there are more pardons that are coming. i think there are very good reasons to believe that bill barr felt uncomfortable with some of the pardons that were to come and that is part of the reason he was leaving early. as well as some other requests. i mean, and so if you're going farther than bill barr is comfortable with, that's deeply concerning. and so, whether it's his family, whether it's rudy, whether it's a personal pardon, i think those are all up in the air. what we do know, though, is look, the bulwark said this morning that trump is incapable

of understanding abstract virtues like justice. his whole pardon list screams me, me, me, me. so when you think about what are the corrupt pardons to come? they're all going to be related to donald trump, donald trump, donald trump, and his family and their personal interests and their financial interests and we've got a number of weeks left for those to dribble out. >> andrew, we know that he has hated having the russia investigation hanging over him. i wonder what you make, specifically having worked on that investigation, of the pardons related to it. >> i have two thoughts. one is if you look at the actual justification given by the white house for each of those pardons, i read the facts and i was -- and i should put facts in air quotes -- and they left out so many damning facts, and they mischaracterized even the ones that they used to try and justify what they were doing. on the bigger picture, it is

really a bad precedent to not hold people to account who lie and obstruct a special counsel investigation, because if you think of the only tool that we have to hold the president and the presidency to the rule of law, it currently is just the special counsel rule. and if you are basically saying, you know what? it's fine to obstruct that investigation because the president -- the same president who was under investigation can encourage that investigation to be thwarted and lied to and obstructed, then there really is no way to hold the presidency to account. and that, i think, is the larger message of what we're seeing here. >> starts to function like a get out of jail free card. andrew, i want you to stay with me, because bill barr leaving his position today as attorney general and the "new york times"

reporting this. mr. barr, whose last day on the job is wednesday, has told associates he had been alarmed by mr. trump's behavior in renault weeks. other advisors have privately said they feel worn out and are looking forward to the end of the term. andrew, how do you read barr's departure? >> i have to say i am cynical because even if i take all of that to be true, it is way too little, way too late. i mean, this is a man who started by misleading the public about the special counsel report. he filed papers in the flynn case and in the stone case that were clearly just taking favorable positions because those people were friends of the president. that's just three quick examples of ways in which bill barr has himself not applied the rule of law as our chief head of the

justice department. he should be emulating and embodying that rule of law. so, you know, i think at this point, for him to express regret, maybe it is a reflection on what the president and his mental state and what he's up to, but i don't give any credit to the attorney general given his track record and what he has done to the department of justice. >> donna, with 28 days left, are you concerned about what trump could potentially ask of acting attorney general jeffery rosen? >> well, i'm very concerned. i mean, he is clearly -- trump is clearly very satisfied with the fact that bill barr is leaving and that jeffery rosen will be operating for him. he's always tried to use the justice department as his own sort of lawyer, and i think that that will continue in the ongoing days. but the fact is, no number of

pardons, no fact that bill barr has walked away, he can't rewrite his history, and those pardons don't change the fact that donald trump is an impeached president who has been demonstrated to surround himself with people who are criminals and who act against the interest of the united states. >> tim, what we are talking about, big picture, is the rule of law in america. where does that stand four years into this administration? >> look, alicia, i think shaky. when you consider the fact that the -- one of the two major parties has basically, you know, embraced this sort of soft fascism, certainly this anti-democratic nature, and they've -- haven't gone all the way with him in his effort to, you know, attempt this clown coup, but what they have done is stand silently, and they've enabled him every step of the

way. up until, you know, this very, very last step, which we'll see how it shakes out with the electoral college vote on january 6th. and so, i think that he has ceded the ground for a party that is comfortable with a lot of anti-democratic, anti-rule of law actions going forward. i think that a lot of the people that were uncomfortable with that, people like myself, have been basically cast out from the party. and it's not a good -- at a good place in this country when you have an anti-democratic party and a pro-democratic party, an anti-rule of law party and a pro rule of law party. you know, the way that our system is structured, the republicans are inevitably going to take power again, and so if this isn't resolved, like donna said, new reforms during the biden administration or with maybe a push -- a switch back within the republican party, i think there's more danger ahead. >> andrew, almost since the

beginning of this administration, we have been talking about morale inside of the justice department. but given that we are now 28 days out from what could be a new beginning, what will it take to rebuild that morale? >> i think that morale is going to pick up inevitably on january 20th. there's such a hunger for, you know, somebody who's going to uphold the rule of law and all of the names of the people that we're hearing to lead the department of justice are people who have that ability. so i do think it's just going to be an inevitable sort of sigh of relief and that this period is behind us. you know, this is a presidency where we have seen something that no one has seen in the department of justice, whether there was a republican or a democrat in the white house,

which is career people over and over again resigning and pulling themselves off of cases. it's hard to underestimate just how much that does not happen, and the public needs to understand that, that people understand that there are policy differences with a change of administration, but it's just been remarkable. so, i think that morale is going to inevitably increase as soon as the new personnel come in, whether people agree or disagree with the policy changes. people are going to appreciate people who apply the rule of law. >> all right, andrew weissman, donna edwards, and tim miller, thank you for starting us off this hour. when we return, california soon to be newest senator picked to replace senator vice president elect kamala harris will join us. plus how far and how fast will the biden administration be able to roll back donald trump's immigration policies?

and as covid cases hit staggering new highs, scientists identify yet another mutated strain of coronavirus. we'll talk about what it means for the fight to get the pandemic under control. those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues. e" continues. husband and my water broke. at only 23 weeks. andrew: we had to stay in the hospital for 10 weeks, 1000s of miles from family. our driver kristin came along in our most desperate hour. suzanne: bringing us home-cooked meals and gifts. able to roll back donald trump's continues. : day after day. able to roll back donald trump's continues. kristin: oh my god! andrew: kristin is the most uncommonly kind person that we've met. suzanne: thank you so much.

(kids laughing) ♪ upbeat tempo ♪ sanctuary music

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can you imagine what mom would be thinking now as i ask you if you want to be the next u.s. senator of the united states? the great state of california. >> you serious? >> this is the official -- this is the ask, brother.

>> i'm honored, man. and i'm humbled. because of them. i can't tell you how many pancakes my dad flipped or eggs he scrambled trying to provide for us during the many, many years, and my mom was cleaning houses, doing the same thing. >> that was california governor gavin newsom offering the senate seat that will be vacated by kamala harris when she becomes vice president to alex padilla, california's secretary of state. padilla has described his family's story as, quote, the american dream come true. the son of immigrants from mexico, padilla graduated from m.i.t. and was all set for a career as an engineer when he was suddenly drawn into politics by proposition 187, an anti-immigrant measure on the ballot back in 1994 that would have denied undocumented immigrants access to healthcare, education, and other benefits. now 26 years later, he will make history as the first latino senator from california, the

state with the largest latino population in the country. joining us now, alex padilla, california's soon to be next senator. great to see you, secretary. first, tell us what does this mean to you, to your family, to your community, and to the great state of california? >> thank you, alicia. it's been a whirlwind, a roller coaster of emotions. just honored and humbled by this tremendous opportunity, responsibility, really, but as you saw in the video, can't help but just reflect on my family's journey, you know, my parents came here in the '60s in pursuit of the american dream. never would have imagined that one of their kids would grow up one day to serve in the united states senate. but it's exactly what's happening, and our family story is one of hard work and struggle and sacrifice, just as it is -- just as that's the case for millions of families throughout california and throughout the country, and i'm just proud to be able to bring their perspective and their voice to

the policymaking process in the senate. >> well, to that point, how does your upbringing inform what you see as the legislative priorities before this next u.s. senate? >> yeah, look, i think over time, a lot of issues to make an impact on, from expanding healthcare access to all to tackling climate change, making our democracy and our economy more inclusive, but let's be clear-eyed about this. priority number one is covid, covid, covid. yes, it's helpful to have this relief package that was adopted this last weekend. it's helpful for now, but nowhere near enough. the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight. and so, families are going to need ongoing support. small businesses are going to need ongoing support. and even with the vaccines that are beginning to be distributed, it's going to be months and months and months until sufficient number are distributed and administered for us to truly get to the other end

of this curve, as dr. fauci puts it. >> right, and we've heard democratic leadership say this is a down payment, that it should be a floor, not a ceiling. what do you think is actually necessary to see us through to the other side of this crisis? >> you know it's got to be an ongoing commitment until the numbers truly drop. we've had multiple waves in 2020 alone and we're in the middle of not just the holiday season but winter. we've been hearing since march, during the winter, because of the weather changes, more people staying inside, there's a chance that the numbers are going to go up. so we can't predict, you know, are we going to be over with this in march, april. is it going to be june, july? is it maybe next fall? and because of we can't predict the length of time, you can't predict the dollar amount that we're going to need to sustain the economy, sustain people's livelihoods. it is literally a matter of life and death for far too many americans. >> even as many people cheered,

celebrated the historic nature of your nomination, there are, of course, those who are frustrated that there is not going to be, now, a black woman serving in the u.s. senate. what do you think needs to be done to ensure that this critical core constituency within the democratic party sees itself reflected in the party's leadership? >> yeah. i hear you. and it's important to have them in positioned of leadership at the federal, state, and local level. it's one of the tremendous assets of california, right, our beautiful, rich diversity. if you look at all of our statewide elected officials, for example, you do see african-americans and asians and latinos. you have men, women, and even the lgbtq community is represented in california's leadership. that should be the case across the country, not just in one state. so, that being said, i want all californians to know that as proud as i am to bring my life

experience and journey to this process, i will do my best to be the best senator i can for all california families. >> as secretary of state, you pushed to make it easier to vote, which is refreshing, especially in this moment. automatic voter registration, preregistration for 16 to 17-year-olds, state also sent ballots to all voters this year because of the pandemic. do you think, given what we have just seen in this past election, that this should be a priority of the democratic party? >> absolutely. you know, and we saw not just in california but a number of states, record participation, whether it's record registration or record turnout or both, despite the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic. and a lot of that success was built on policies that we've been championing simply to increase access to the ballots, which, by the way, also improves the security and integrity of election administration. so in my mind, it is a no-brainer. the way the constitution lays it out, states run elections.

they're not federalized. they're not centralized. but i do think there's a significant role for the federal government to play just as it does on the security side to help advance and fund the reforms that will help our democracy. >> there's always the hope that as new members come to capitol hill, that they will be able to shake things up. what are the lessons? what are the experiences from your time as secretary of state that you hope to bring to your new post? >> well, my time as secretary, my time in the state senate prior to that, and even on the los angeles city council, once upon a time, i think, you know, it's all about ideas, how to improve people's lives and the relationships to build support for those ideas, but at the end of the day, you want to make a big difference? you want to make a big impact? you got to think big. you got to be bold and you got to be fierce in fighting for what we're trying to achieve here. >> all right. alex padilla, we will all be watching. thank you so much for your time.

when we return, president-elect joe biden promises to reverse donald trump's immigration policies, but however and how fast can he go? that's next when "deadline white house" continues. that's next when "deadline white house" continues

the american academy of pediatrics called it government-sanctioned child abuse. the trump administration policy of separating migrant families at the border. our colleague, jacob soboroff, spoke to a group called seneca family of agencies, working to

reunite those families. and it is abundantly clear that many of those families now face irreversible trauma. >> reporter: the team inside this california bungalow has a seemingly impossible task. when you hear people talk about the search for separated families, this is one of the places where that such starts. >> absolutely. yeah. our job is to find the families that are affected by this policy. >> reporter: melissa sanchez works with seneca family of agencies, a nonprofit providing mental health care to migrant families reunited after being separated by the trump administration. that is, if they can find them. the u.s. government handed over a bunch of data to you all, and that data, what, is sitting on your computer right now? >> actually, yes. >> reporter: but much of that data wasn't current and for some families, the government had no contact information at all. just one reason parents of separated kids are still unaccounted for. you guys are literally going through one by one? >> one by one.

yes. >> reporter: called sponsor number and spoke with someone. it wasn't the correct family. >> correct. >> reporter: i searched for a class member on white pages, didn't find any information. you guys basically are detectives in a way. >> exactly. that's the scope of the job. >> reporter: another families have remained missing is politics. in 2019, the white house rejected a deal to fund seneca's work connecting families, which a judge later ordered. today, seneca's treating around 250 families. she introduced us to a father and son from el salvador who were separated for over a month in 2018 and are now in therapy for their trauma. in the two years since you got back together with your dad, how have you been feeling? i was happy, but at the same time, nervous and scared. >> translator: i still had the feeling a separation could happen again. >> reporter: what would you say to other families who maybe are scared to pick up the phone when seneca calls? >> translator: to really not be scared. i know a lot of us get nervous answering the phone and providing information, but i'm a

real-life example that this really helps. and all they want to do is help us. >> reporter: as families like this one receive treatment, the search for hundreds of others continues. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff and victoria, assistant dean for civic engagement at the university of texas at austin. director of communications for latino decisions and an msnbc contributor. jacob, we've heard a lot of different numbers thrown around. how many children, how many parents are still not reunited? >> well, 628 is the most recent number, alicia, in the court filing from the aclu in the case against the trump administration. the children that seneca is dealing with is about a third of those. two-thirds have been deported. that is a group that advocates are pushing the incoming biden administration to bring back to the united states. but then there's the larger question, when it comes to the biden administration, what about what are hey going to do about this mental health program?

will they end up extending it? i talked to a couple transition officials yesterday and they're not ready to commit to any of that yet. they say they're still going through all of this information and because of a memorandum of understanding with the trump administration, they can't disclose what information they're getting, what they're not getting but people are very anxious to know how they're going to deal with this. >> i mean, jacob, joe biden has been saying for months that he wants to immediately reverse trump's border policy on day one. yesterday, though, he told reporters that to enact a more humane policy at the border would probably take the next six months so it will not be done on day one. can these families afford to wait? >> no. when it comes to separated families, they can't. and that's just not me saying that. that is doctors. it's experts. it's lawyers. and when you talk to families themselves, trauma is compounded on a daily basis. especially the trauma of the separations, which, you know, i know you described american academy of pediatrics says was government sanctioned child

abuse. physicians for human rights literally called it torture. these are things that you can not go back on and every day you wait, the pain and suffering that didn't have to happen, that was deliberate and did not have to happen, is only going to get worse and that's just one of the restrictive immigration policies that the biden administration is going to have to deal with. >> vicky, i saw two headlines this week, and i want to pull them up and show them to you side-by-side and get your thoughts on them. the first was from "the new york times" and it says, some 700 foreigners in france who were exposed to the coronavirus through their work will be put on a fast track for naturalization as a reward for their commitment during the pandemic. and then you have this one from nbcnews.com on a study by the pro-immigration group forward.us which says 69% of undocumented immigrant workers have jobs deemed essential by the department of homeland security according to the study. the study also estimated that nearly 1 in 5 essential workers is an immigrant. i mean, if there was the

political will, vicky, to do it in france, can that be replicated here in the united states in light of what these workers, these immigrants have done in the face of this pandemic? >> absolutely, alicia. i mean, our frontline workers, our grocery store workers, our folks who are providing food for us during this pandemic, medical services, are disproportionately made up of latinos, immigrants, and in many cases, daca recipients, so i mean, the idea that once a biden administration comes into office, this should be a priority, should not be questioned. that being said, there is going to be substantial pushback because the -- if we zoom out, we look at the past four years with over 400 executive orders related to immigration and immigration restrictionism. as a biden transition team comes in and then the biden team comes in, in january, they're going to

have a tsunami of restrictive immigration policy to try to start to undo, so programs such as that, that we see in france, that make a lot of sense, are probably going to be at the bottom of the pile in terms of undoing all of the other hundreds of policies, recommendations, regulatory reforms that happened under the trump administration. >> jacob, as vicky just laid out so elegantly, there is both the undoing of what the trump administration has done and then there is the proactive architecture of building a biden administration's plan for immigration. for someone who does not follow this issue as closely as you do, what can they expect? what are advocates telling you they are looking for in the first weeks and months of the biden administration when it comes to reforming america's broken immigration system? >> well, in terms of the immigration enforcement system specifically, you know, they want to see a wholesale

reimagining of that system. you know, a new approach is not a new approach if it still results in death and suffering of people who end up coming to this country to seek refuge, and while i do think that there is a real genuine sentiment within the transition to create a more fair and just and orderly immigration system, you don't just undo decades of failed bipartisan deterrence border policy quickly, and in fact, that's why donald trump was able to separate families like this because bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, all too many part in this system that ultimately harmed migrants who were caught in its crosshairs and so advocates want to see action on this quickly. they want to hear plans about this quickly and i think there's some apprehension from the transition itself because they're worried about the perception, if many people do show up on the doorstep of the united states, and what i'm hearing from advocates is, we have the capacity, we're able to deal with people who come here. let's get working on those plans, the specifics of those plans, and how we're going to

undo some of the most restrictive immigration policies of the trump administration. >> vicky, every time jacob repeats his point about how this has been categorized as state-sanctioned torture, i am reminded of the morality of this story, right, and the way in which it has really crystallized for a lot of americans who are otherwise not paying attention to this issue the morality of america's immigration system. how, if you are an advocate, if you are an elected official who wants to see this system reformed, do you make sure that you maintain that thread as the story becomes larger and becomes about the immigration system overall? >> well, i think there are two things here. and the first is putting a human face on what this issue is, right? it's not just a policy issue. it's not a policy case study. it's about lives. it's about mothers and their children. fathers being separated. and i think this is why jacob's work has been so integral to this, because he's putting names to these faces, these arcane

policies, you know, immigration reform from 1965, what does that mean? well, let's follow the thread and see what the face of that is. so, i think that is the first part. and the second piece, for those who may not, you know, be able to be moved by the human piece of it, the emotional piece, is getting down to the cold hard facts, because we know from decades of research, from renowned economists on both sides of the aisle, that a fully functioning immigration system that accounts for the push and the pull, the demand and the supply, is actually a net benefit to the united states. it helps us in terms of gdp. it helps us in terms of innovation. of research and design. it makes a country stronger when you have folks coming in. so i think these are the two things that we need to think about as we approach immigration reform. immigration isn't a bad thing. it's a good thing. and it's also very human thing, and most of us, with the exception of few, are the

descendants of immigrants. >> nbc's jacob soboroff and victoria, thank you both. good to see you. when we return, how effective will the coronavirus vaccines be against those new mutated strains of the virus? we'll ask a top vaccine scientist next. l k asa top vacc scientist next we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right.

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we've detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the uk. both are cases -- both are

contacts of cases who have traveled from south africa over the past few weeks. this new variant is highly concerning, because it is yet more transmissible and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant that's been discovered in the uk. >> the uk health secretary warning today of a second new covid strain that he says is even more transmissible and more advanced than the one found less than a week ago. the uk is placing immediate restrictions on travel from south africa where the newest strand was first identified and expanding strict lockdowns to more parts of the country where cases have risen 57% in just the last week. the cdc says the earlier new strain found to be up to 70% more transmissible is likely already here in the united states. as we deal with an unprecedented number of covid-related deaths, yesterday, a record 3,350 americans died and more than 18,000 in the last 7 days.

this morning, the trump administration reached a deal with pfizer that brings a little more hope with more than 100 million additional doses that could help vaccinate every american by this summer. joining us now, dr. peter hotez, the founding dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. doctor, good to see you. how concerned are you about this new strain that could be more transmissible and what do you believe the united states needs to be doing now in order to protect its citizens? >> yeah, thanks, alicia. you know, the covid-19 virus, the sars 2 coronavirus is an rna virus and rna viruses are known to mutate so that's no too surprising. the concern is that this -- both of these strains, the south african and the uk strain, may be outcompeting some of the other virus strains. by that, i mean, when you do sampling in london or in southeast england, you're starting to see more of the uk

strain and the thinking is you may start seeing more of the south african strain, and on that basis, there are calculations to suggest that they may be more transmissible, but there's no experimental evidence for that yet. so, that has to be confirmed. so far, it looks like those two variants probably won't affect the vaccine. we're doing confirmatory experiments on our vaccine by looking at serum from laboratory animals that have been immunized or you can do this with individuals who have gotten the vaccine and show that it could still neutralize the virus in the test tube and that's what probably would be reflective of the fact that the vaccine will still work. my two concerns are this. one, one of the things we've learned from information released from the cdc yesterday, our centers for disease control, is that we're really not doing a lot of genomic virus surveillance. in the uk, they've done the whole genomes of 150,000

viruses, covid-19 virus lineages or groups. in the u.s., we've done 50,000. so, on a per capita basis, that's ten times less. so i'm worried we could be having some of these same variants here in the u.s. or even additional ones that we still don't know about yet so i'm a little disappointed that we haven't upped our game in terms of viral genomic sequencing, given the fact that the u.s. has been pioneers in sequencing for decades. so, that's problematic. and then the other is, these viruses will continue to evolve and we'll have to watch them. right now, i'm not so worried about our vaccines, but maybe years from now, this could be an issue. in which case we're going to have to be ready for that. >> i do want to inject just a little bit of hope into this conversation, because we also have this deal for 100 million more pfizer doses. what does that mean for the u.s.? what does it mean for the timeline of everyone who wants to be vaccinated having access to that vaccine?

>> well, you know, the pfizer vaccine, the new commitment, my understanding is that would be for additional vaccine in june and july. in terms of good news, i'm pretty optimistic now that in addition to the have four or five or six vaccines by late in the winter, early spring and i think that represents a high likely hood we can get a significant percentage of the u.s. population vaccinated. there is good news before christmas and that vaccines are on the way. >> dr. hotez, zoom out for me.

it's easy to lose track where we are. we have incredible news about multiple vaccines and at the same time, we're seeing some of the highest death rates we've seen during the entirety of this pandemic. big picture, where are we? >> yeah, this is the great tragedy that's upsetting so many of us in the scientific community. vaccines we'll have enough to vaccinate the u.s. population and yet, people are still not taking this virus seriously. they're not social distancing nearly as much as they should. they're still traveling. they're still defiant of face masks. it heartbreaking to realize people are going to lose their lives on the eve of having so many vaccines available and this should never have to happen. it's a matter of trying to get the american people to understand this and yet, we're now looking at around 400,000 americans that will lose their lives a week after the

inauguration and half a million by early april and it's just a matter of reaching out to these communities in every way we can to get them to social distance and wear masks. >> all right. dr. peter hotez, thank you so much for that sobering reminder. when we return, remembering lives well lived. when we return lives well lived (kids laughing) (dog barking) ♪ sanctuary music it's the final days of the 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. and a complimentary (announcer) do you washed pounds? stress? do you want to flatten your stomach? do all that in just 10 minutes a day with aerotrainer, the total body fitness solution that uses its revolutionary ergonomic design to help you maintain comfortable, correct form.

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whether it's the coronavirus or cancer or a car crash, your

loved ones can go at any time, and there is no saying what's going to happen. so just make sure that you love your mom or your dad or your family members as much as you can and don't ever let them forget it. >> it is a powerful reminder this holiday season. that was trey talking to the nbc news social news gathering team about his mom, michelle. trey was joined by his mom's i dent kill twin cynthia. both were medical assistants that worked through the pandemic and lived together. when one got sick, so did the other. by the time cynthia was ready to go back to work, her sister michelle was actually getting worse, phenomena, a ventilator, blood clot and soon, she was gone. let remember michelle but also her son's advice. if you talk to people you love this holiday season on zoom, on face time, tell them you love them because we only have so many chances. we'll be right back. i have been suffering with migraine for years and years.

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spending the afternoon with us. we are grateful. you can catch "american voices" every weekend from 6:00 to 8:00 here on msnbc. "the beat" starts right now. hey, amen. >> good to see you. welcome to "the beat." i'm in for ari melber this evening. right now, president trump is on his way to florida to ma r-a-lao for the holidays leaving behind quite a kchaotic scene in washington with the stimulus bill, his aides worried about his bid to overturn the election. "the new york times" reporting erratic behavior and detachment from duties have some of the most loyal aides and advisors deeply concerned. one of those