statistic. as many as 57% of americans say they will not likely fly in a 737 and only 37% said that they would fly only after it's been in the air for six months. so i guess there's still a little bit of hesitation on the passengers' side to get back on the boeing 737 planes again. >> a lot of reasons to be concerned about flying these days, unfortunately. joumanna bercetche, thank you as always for being with us. that does do it, but we'll keep going. i'm going to take off my "way too early" hat and put on my "morning joe" -- i don't know if i have a fedora anywhere in this house, be if i did maybe that would be appropriate. i'm here with jonathan lemire. and we are in for joe, mika and willie again this morning. jonathan, great to see you. also with us we have former aide to the state department elise jordan. politics editor for the daily

beast, sam stein and processer at princeton university eddie glaude jr. so, jon, let's start off here. top stories roulette. we have whether the senate is going to take up the house-passed increase for stimulus checks for $2,000 and there was reporting on what caused trump to sign the bill in first place. his pivot was helped by some divots, thanks, alex for that one. we are one week away from the georgia runoffs and there's a far-fetched lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election. this time a republican congressman is suing of all people, mike pence and finally, joe biden is accusing the administration of hampering the transition. many directions we could go this morning. i think i'm focused quite a bit on just what a tough spot

republicans are in here with this stimulus check question, but i know you have obviously been covering the biden transition very carefully. so what do you think on this tuesday morning is the story that's going to be driving the next week? >> well, we have lots of options. i'm going to spin the wheel and i'm going to start with what got the president to change his mind. i should pull back the curtain here for our "morning joe" viewers that line you read about pivots and divots, alex told me that was the best he had written in weeks. it was an -- >> you're underselling his skills. >> including some of the president's closest allies, to get him to change his mind, not to withhold benefits any further from people who need them during this time of crisis. during a surging pandemic. in fact, it was lindsey graham. the president's frequent golf partner who played a christmas day round in west palm beach with the president, just across the water there from the

mar-a-lago. president's palm beach estate and they would play a hole and he'd work on him. the president's phone would ring and it would be another concerned, alarmed republican telling him, you need to sign this bill. you're making our life significantly harder by not doing so. kevin mccarthy who just had elbow surgery, who was recovering, under anesthesia, maybe had not worn off, also lobbied the president over the phone repeatedly to say we need this. we have been talking about the chaos that the trump administration seems to be ending familiar with what it began. but the difference here, of course, this president is going to be leaving office. the republicans are still trying to hold on to the senate. and that's why in particular one of those lobbying the president, to say you need to this say this, david perdue trying to keep his senate seat in georgia and i know you're keenly looking at that. >> right. well, david perdue in

particular, he actually has does a pretty strong relationship with trump and this of course is all -- i mean, we have been covering, okay, why do republicans try to stay close to the president, it's because there are so many scenarios like this one where he does something that is potentially going to blow everything up and there are some people that they can -- you know, they can get him on the phone and potentially try and make an impact. i think that's what we saw here. we also know and jonathan, i know you have reported on this, that president trump can be pretty vindictive. he won't talk to people who won't do the thing he wants them to do, which is of course, serves to try and force them into his good graces. one other thing, jonathan, that's interesting too. i think it's going to try the next several days, but potentially i think impacts perhaps the whole first year of the biden administration as well. and that is bernie sanders who came out and tweeted last night and said he's actually going to hold up the vote on the defense bill. remember the senate is voting -- planning to vote to override

trump's veto of the defense authorization act. he's going to hold it up to try to force the senate to hold a vote on those $2,000 checks and the senate process here is pretty complicated but any single senator has the ability to do this and right now the question before the senate is not whether those checks would pass. we may get there. the question is whether they're going to take it up and actually vote on it. and that potentially puts a lot of those republicans in a tough spot. especially, david perdue and kelly loeffler. so, you know, that i think is going to be something really to keep an eye on over the course of the day, jon. >> the dynamic that the biden administration is going to face from the progressives in the party is going to be wild to watch, not only in the transition period as biden still doesn't have an attorney general and we heard from him yesterday, after being down for a couple of

days for the christmas holiday and he said that the trump administration is still not working with them. >> from others, most notably the department of defense, we encountered obstruction from the political leadership of that department. the truth is, many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage. many of them have been hollowed out in personnel, capacity and in morale. in the policy processes that have atrophied or been sidelined, in the despair of our alliances and the disrepair of those alliances. in our absence from key institutions that matter to the welfare of the american people. and in general disengagement from the world and all of it makes it harder for our

government to protect the american people. to defend our vital interests. >> acting secretary of defense christopher miller denied any stonewalling toward the biden team, writing in a statement, quote, our dod and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support the transition activities and they'll continue to do in a collegial manner. quote, the american people expect nothing less and that's what i remain committed to. here's more of what biden had to say. >> right now, as our nation is in a period of transition, we need to make sure that nothing is lost in the handoff between administrations. my team needs a clear picture of our forced posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies. we need full visibility into the budget planning under way at the defense department and other agencies, in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up

that our adversaries may try to exploit. we have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the department of defense and the office of management and budget. right now, we just aren't getting all of the information that we need or the ongoing -- from the outgoing administration. in key national security areas. it's nothing short in my view of irresponsibility. >> elise jordan, you have a lot of experience in this field. can you walk us through why this matters, why it's so dangerous and why the biden administration -- incoming biden administration, 20 odd days out, is sounding the alarms about what they're saying is obstruction from the trump team? >> just for context, jonathan, the transition time during the bush administration to the obama administration was something that president bush took very

seriously. it was handled by top aides and i remember i was at the nsc at the time and there was just a lot of leg work and attention that went in to it. starting certainly with the bush administration who knew there would be a transition no matter what, but starting, you know, in the summertime, in late summer and so it really is outstanding that, you know, politics does not end at the water's edge with this administration and that they are being so obstructionist for president-elect biden to come out and publicly say that his team was not getting the assistance that they needed to prepare for a smooth transition shows that it probably is pretty grave of a situation if they feel that they are being stifled to that extent. and is it surprising that this is the tack that the trump administration is taking? at this final hour, not really.

you know, it's more par for the course and so you look at the information that the transition team needs to plan for what their situations that they're coming in to and it's troubling that you -- it's gotten to the point where the president-elect is publicly complaining about the job that they're doing. >> well, you know, elise, that's such a great point. sam stein, let's just pick up there because the reality is that joe biden, even more than many i think public officials is he has been so careful to not stoke the fires really. he has been deferential to republican senators. he has been trying to send this message of calm of a return to normalcy. and so for him to go out publicly and level -- i mean, this is a very serious

accusation. i mean, how many major national security crises are we facing here? the solarwinds hack has affected government agencies across the board. what does this tell you? >> one is that the issue is that the dod with respect to the transition are on a different level than any other agency. so when you're not getting cooperation from the current administration with your team then that's a big problem. that's an obvious problem here. the second thing is that joe biden has always kind of been a foreign policy guy, right? he chaired the senate foreign relations committee, even as vice president, he's -- his focus has been on overseas work too. i think he's acutely aware of things in the foreign policy realm and takes particular interest when things are not going well and understands the

severity of a bad transition. and three, just to sort of put a context -- current pushback from the trump team is there's not a complaint about any other agency. there's been some complaints about what's happening at ustr and the visibility there and there were early complaints about getting all of the specs and the information about covid relief and the vaccine distribution that also dove tailed with the dod, but those have stopped. so if they're complaining about one agency but not all others that suggests this isn't really opportunistic biden team but they're in fact encountering real problems here with the dod. i'm not sure that the trump pushback son the level here. now, let's see what happens. this has been a week and half since they -- two weeks since they last complained. if it hasn't improved over that period it's not doing to improve going forward.

remember, last point here, when the post 9/11 team looked at the attack, and why they were not ready for it, they cited a delayed process because of the bush v gore legal fight in florida. now, that was resolved over some time but i think at this point we're well past the time frame for what they did for a resolution. this could be potentially real world problematic. >> eddie glaude, great to see you this morning. i wanted to pick up a thread that sam pulled on right now. this is part of a larger pattern. let's remember that president trump lost this votes by more than 7 million votes and he has yet to concede. he has undermined the legitimacy of joe biden's victory. and we know that there have been roadblocks put up throughout

this transition to slow down biden's team coming to power. whether it's the gsa ascertainment or the early complains that the coronavirus distribution plan was not being shared with them. what can be done here, eddie, with three-plus weeks left of this trump administration? there are going to be more roadblocks thrown here. how should the biden team approach this? what should be their answer, not just for the specific dod problem which is a of course a grave problem, but the idea of legitimacy, trying to push against those potentially tens of millions of trump voters who are listening to the president, following his cues and don't think that joe biden should be sitting in the oval office on january 20th. >> well, first of all, it's just great to see you and kasie this morning. of course, elise and sam as well. i think what the biden

transition team did -- what president-elect biden did yesterday is absolutely necessary. and must do it moving forward. that is to shine the light on the process as best as they can. and that is to reveal the way in which the trump administration is engaged in obstructionism. to tell the american public the potential consequence and effect of that obstruction. in other words, bring light to bear on what is -- what they're actually doing. i think that's really important. i think it's important for us as the press to not give the trump administration in this instance the benefit of the doubt. just a few press cycles ago, we were talking about the dod saying that the biden transition team had agreed to a moment of rest. i forget the actual language we used and the biden team said, no we didn't. i think this is really important that they continue to shed light on the process in order to in some ways bring the american

public into -- i think up to date, rather, let's put it that way, to the challenges they face as we move from the trump administration to the biden administration, jonathan. i hope that made sense. >> always. >> well, of course -- yeah. the chaos we have seen from the trump administration i'm not sure anyone is surprised by what's happening, but we're all concerned. let's go now to georgia, because voters are turning out in incredibly high numbers with one week to go until these high-stakes senate runoffs. according to the u.s. elections project, more than 2.1 million georgians have voted ahead of the january 5th election. that's roughly 27% of registered voters and it's on par with 2020 presidential election numbers. wow. large metro democratic run countries are leading the early vote count, while rural republican strong holds including the district where trump will campaign next week are lagging so far. despite raising more than

$2 million, democrats ossoff and warnock are warning of grass roots funds waning. schumer doesn't want to ruin the donor relationships by asking for more money and his office is denying this report. sam stein, let's -- there's a lot here. chuck schumer frankly is under fire because he raised expectations extremely high for how he was going to do in the general election in the senate, he did not deliver. but on the flip side, you know, republicans have also been a complete divided mess, frankly, with the putting -- his supporters are saying don't even vote at all. i feel like my republican sources are pretty confident and my democratic sources are worried, but i'm curious your reporting and take? >> well, eddie went through the

people he was glad to see, and i was last. i will never forget that, eddie. i should be first on your list. >> we do it in order of age. you're always the youngest on the screen. >> yeah. this is for alex, i can't believe you don't pivot and divot with a chip which is the perfect golf analogy. look, we went through the 2020 campaign and expectations were exceptionally high for all of the democrats and there were a lot of face plants and that was despite a historic amount of money raised. the democrats are raising historic amounts of money, well over $100 million in the post election period for each of them and the conventional wisdom is that they will not win. just, you know, historical precedent shows that republicans tend to come out much more for these types of off elections. you know, georgia may be

changing demographically and politically. but really it hasn't gotten past that, you know? the margin for biden was what 15,000 or so. so i would if you're looking at your -- if you're a student of history, of course, the republicans are in a good spot here. the only thing that would give you pause is two things. one is clearly democrats have a good ground game in georgia. that's largely due to stacey abrams and the voter registration efforts put in place there. so they have the mechanics to maybe make this a race they can win. the second thing is the contextual stuff you're hinting at, kasie. there's a lot of chaos that's centered on georgia. it is based in d.c., but there's been weird talks of boycotting the election from, you know, fringy figures like lin wood and stuff and trump has sown a lot of discord in the republican party. could that man fest itself in a lot of trump voters saying not

only do i like the republican party, but i don't trust the seriousness of the infrastructure? i don't know. that seems like a big hurdle to overcome for the democrats. >> if you had put on a tie you would have gone up in eddie's viewing. >> oh. >> my reporting lines one what kasie is hurting, both sides expect this to be a tight race, but republicans are more confident than democrats at this moment. the democrats would like more visits from president-elect vice president kamala harris. or even obama. we know that president trump is returning to georgia for another rally. and first one was shall we say is a scattershot effort in which

he did support the two candidates but spent much of his time attacking the republican governor and the secretary of state. but i want to get your take on this, elise. the republicans there who -- those who feel they're sympathetic to the president or feel that the election is stolen, but they're coming out to vote. they understand what's at stake in the senate. >> i would tend to agree, but i give the republicans a tinsy edge in the runoff because how many of the voters are going to shy away because of the surge on top of the surge of coronavirus right now, and you see the early voting numbers look very strong for donald trump. but what's really going to happen at the end of the day when donald trump is not actually on the ballot, are we going to have more of a 2018 match-up or is it going to be a continuation of what we saw

happen in november? so everyone is on the edge of their seats for this race, just because i know there hasn't been that much polling done. no one really wants to venture too far forward after this had been -- after this had been so many wild cards in an election that didn't match up exactly with the polls and then you had donald trump behaving in such an increasingly erratic way and dissuading his strongest supporters from coming out in full force. you really just can't believe that donald trump isn't giving everything he has into securing the republican senate here. but is it surprising that at the end of the day it's again always about donald trump and he really doesn't care that much about seeing if republicans prevail in georgia given that he lost the state himself. >> for sure.

all right, still ahead on "morning joe," despite surging coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the tsa just reported the busiest day for u.s. airports since mid march. we'll get the very latest on the pandemic. plus, it's been eight weeks since the 2020 election, but president trump is still posting videos that look a lot like campaign ads. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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i've never heard snoring. ...exactly. no problem. ...and done. and now, the queen sleep number 360 c2 smart bed is only $899. plus, no interest until january 2024. ends monday. vice pl elect kamala harris and her husband will receive the coronavirus vaccine. joe biden received it on live television last week. and some good news, the covid-19 vaccine started to be distributed to residents and staff member at at seattle nursing home t place that reported the first deadly

outbreak in the united states. the first death in kirkland, washington, was reported in february and more than 40 people connected to the facility later died. yesterday was the first day long-term care facilities can receive vaccines under the federal partnership with cvs and walgreens which is handling shots for the long-term care facilities. meanwhile, this past sunday was the busiest airport day and concerns are heightened that the holiday travel may contribute to the spread of the virus. tsa agents screened nearly 1.3 million people on sunday. the most in a day since march 15th. however, the tsa has been facing staffing shortages due to the number of employees getting infected with covid. 743 of the workers had active cases of the coronavirus and many of them were contracted when the employee was on the job, but off the clock.

joining us now is dr. kavita patel, an msnbc medical contributor. let me start right there. how alarmed should we be about the tsa numbers, and just the surge in travel, despite the warnings from health experts like yourself from government officials, from governors who are saying, look, this -- we know it's the holidays, we know it's christmas, but this is the one year to sit this out. it seems like at least a lot of americans didn't listen to that advice. should we now anticipate in a few weeks from now a surge of infections and potentially hospitalizations? >> yeah. hi, jon, good morning. good to be with you. you're right. i think dr. fauci called this a surge upon a surge because we're dealing with kind of overwhelming numbers of cases and deaths unfortunately and then you add to it this kind of potentially transmissible variance under investigation in the uk, concern in the united

states and the traveling -- people who had the large indoor gatherings just without masks even have my incredibly concerned. i think especially in hot spots like southern california, tennessee, parts of the country where literally as you know and you have reported on, 0% hospital capacity this does bode very poorly for those regions as well as the united states that are just recovering and having numbers decrease where we expect to see as you point out in two to three weeks those numbers reverse course and increase. >> dr. patel, it's kasie hunt, good morning. nice to see you. can we talk for a minute about vaccine distribution because operation warp speed had suggested that they could get as many as 20 million doses into arms by the end of the year, but

we're seeing numbers that are much lower than that. why is that the case and what does that mean in terms of the time line for us ultimately being able to get back to normal life? >> yeah. kasie, i'm intimately aware of this. our clinic is one of the sites part of the vaccine distribution strategy for the district of columbia and let me put it into context. in october, we had heard from operation warp speed we'd have a 100 million doses by the end of the year and we thought that was unreasonable. that then dropped to an expectation around 40 million. and then as you point out, 20 million by the end of december. at we -- we at this point have distributed 2 million -- approximately 1.7 to 2 million, far short of the 20 million. i can tell you, kasie, from the policy point of view, a total abdication of federal strategy and then you have the public

health departments who are serially underfunded. in many counties, kasie, there's no local public health department. we're asking entities that are underfunded and already taxed with pandemic management to handle the vaccine rollout and the information systems, hospitals not being coordinated with the entities, we have lists -- we had lists that didn't correlate to the people showing up trying to get vaccines and then the district, for example, had to borrow doses from virginia and maryland. that's playing out all over the country. so what it tells me is that we really need to get our proverbial act together. i'm hoping that the biden/harris administration, they can't take back the control, at this point the state have made their plans, but we need to deploy help where help is needed and particularly

in rural areas where we have seen higher cases, higher death rates and the logistics of the vaccine distribution make those areas hard to reach. so this feels like the letdown so many ways, but kasie, i'm not surprised, sadly, given how testing has gone. and how we're getting caught off guard because of the lack of genomic variance. >> there's a lot of obstacles placed in front of the ability to put this vaccine in the hands or arms of the americans who need it. this seems to be another moment where the trump administration has farmed things out to the states, states that were not ready to handle this, local jurisdictions who couldn't do it, much like in march where the federal government abdicated federal responsibility to the states. there's vaccine promotion and awareness and the president of the united states still has not taken the vaccine himself on camera. and eddie, there's a lot of

challenges here to -- first of all, to convince americans to take this vaccine and just to be given the opportunity to do so. >> you know, i mean, look incompetence, gross negligence, we have seen it all in this regard. i want to ask dr. patel, i want to go back to the surge upon a surge conversation. i mean, we just had this -- you know, this horrifying data come at us about 1 in 17 americans have been infected with the virus. 1 in 1,000 have died. yet, we still see the surge in number of folks traveling over the holidays. you see the tiktok videos of folks surprising their folks or loved ones by showing up. i know this is a terrible ask to ask you, but i have to ask you. what do we need to do in terms of public messaging in order to bring home, right, the deadly effects of this virus. the vaccine is the sun at -- is

the light at the end of the tunnel but we have to go through this really dark time. what would you suggest to the leaders to the biden administration, that we need to be saying to the american public about what we're about to face in this moment? >> that's a great question. by the way, it's a question that's haunted me for the last ten months because it does feel like we're failing. i as a doctor, we as public health professionals, we're failing. people don't listen anymore and despite thinking about how the deaths should be enough to scare people, it's not working. it reminds me of past kind of public health campaigns in the reagan era telling people to just say no, obviously that didn't work. what we need to do is try to appeal. americans clearly do not like to feel their freedom is inhibited despite this being a public health emergency where freedom doesn't mean you can be healthy. so i think, eddie, the most important thing that the biden harris administration can do is realize that americans want

choices, but their choice needs to be clear that if they make certain choices like the tiktok videos that will lead too somebody dying. that's your high school graduation class, that's your church, and that's not incredibly crystal clear in the local context, then people are just going to continue to go on about their merry ways and believe a lot of the myths and false information that in fact the trump administration has been propagating. >> all right. dr. kavita patel, thank you very much for your insights this morning. we really appreciate you being with us. coming up here, amid overlapping economic and health crises, president trump is celebrating his presidency with a campaign-style video that looks a lot like a decades old advertisement. the question is why? we're back in just a moment. in. ♪

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what's for dinner? >> mom, i'm hungry. >> hey, mom, when do we eat? >> it's hard for kids to understand that you don't have all day to fix dinner. >> mom, i'm starving. >> but that doesn't mean you can't whip up a meal that seems like you had all day. >> thanks. >> beef, it's what's for dinner. >> no, you didn't travel back in time during that commercial break. that was the famous 1993 ad campaign with the well-known tag line, beef, it's what's for dinner. yesterday, this is what donald trump released. ♪ ♪

♪ >> so setting aside the fact that that ad makes it look like donald trump won perhaps multiple nobel peace prizes, sam stein, we of course know that we should be grateful i suppose that the president didn't use

the tag line the other white meat with that ad. and i suppose it's also fitting that a political odyssey that began with the fraudulent trump stakes ends perhaps with that ad and the own erroneous claims. sam stein, break down what we just saw right there. >> this is why i'm on this show -- i'm glad i can lend my expertise. how nasty did that sloppy joe pizza look so gross? i didn't remember it being that gross looking. i need to get that out of the way. secondly, it's not -- the song is aaron copland, let's not just call it the beef what's for dinner song. but trump loves this stuff. he wants to make online videos go viral. he likes being a figurative

president, not a literal president. so when i look at this stuff, it's kind of ridiculous and silly and interesting. but i also wonder and this is a serious point, like this is the thing that he's going to be doing in his post presidency too. he's going to be producing these ads that are meant to, you know, keep his base engaged but also just to poke at joe biden. i can only imagine how many more aaron copland, leonard bernstein, whatever composer songs will be the back drop for them. hopefully nothing to do with beef though. >> john phillip souza is on stand by for the next ad. i think we'll be seeing more of this, with rallies, still acting as president he has the money to do it. eddie, your turn. tee it up, go. >> i just find it ridiculous. i mean, i appreciate sam's effort.

it was valiant, sam, but, you know -- >> thank you. i try to bring something -- >> the president of the united states -- when you think about the president of the united states posting that video, in this moment, when over 330 plus thousand americans a day, the president of the united states posting that in a moment when americans around the country lining up for food, who are worried because he delayed signing a bill that would extend their unemployment benefits, right? this is more than just playing the fiddle while rome burns. right? this is madness. so on the one hand, it's absurd. on the other hand, it's profoundly, profoundly decadent and reveals the depth of how callous the president of the united states actually is. it seems to me. >> there are so many american lives that -- right now that do

not line up with the gauziness in this video. thank you for making that point. still ahead here, congressman louie gohmert and others are trying to overturn the results of the election. this time, suing vice president mike pence. "morning joe" will be right back. university of phoenix is awarding

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welcome back. investigators are still searching for a possible motive in the christmas day explosion in downtown nashville. while the fbi was able to quickly identify the suspect as 63-year-old anthony weber, a motive may not be clear for weeks. investigators are trying to develop a comprehensive time line leading up to the explosion. people who knew the apparent

suicide bomber described him as a loner who had recently retired from his job as an information technology consultant. he didn't intend to survive after giving away his car and home, telling the recipient he had cancer. the associated press reports that in the days leading up to the explosion, the suspect told a neighbor that, quote, the world is never going to forget me. yesterday, president-elect joe biden had this to say about the bombing. >> this bombing was a reminder of the destructive power of an individual or a small group can muster and the need for a continuing vigilance across the board. i want to thank the police department in nashville, particularly those five police officers who worked so quickly to evacuate the area before the explosion occurred, risking their own lives. >> in contrast, jon, president trump has yet to publicly comment on the attack.

i mean, has he just stopped being president? >> in many ways he has. we haven't heard from him on the virus in weeks and he's not offered a word of sympathy or even thanks to those who responded to the blast in nashville and the governor of tennessee said he's heard from the white house who offered resources of support and the mayor of nashville said he had not heard anything from president trump. elise jordan, this sort of fits into a pattern where we often don't hear from the president after matters of domestic terror. when he has been so quick, however, as both candidate and chief executive to do speak out when it's more of a perhaps an international incident. what do you make of this? why do you think the president has yet again remained silent on this? is it simply he isn't president anymore? >> sure looks that way. i wish that, you know, to be

that narcissistic and just have the lack of empathy where you could have so many people dying every day from coronavirus and you could have a suicide bomber explode in downtown nashville and yet not bat an eyelash, not worry at all and just go along playing golf and making your videos about how great you are and rage tweeting, it just really is incredible. and if the suicide bomber had been perhaps of a different ethnicity, do you think that donald trump would have raised a little bit more holy hell about it, yes. so i want to -- i don't want to talk before we know the full details of what happened. it seems like it was a very

elaborate suicide and with a bomber who didn't care about collateral damage, but luckily no one was killed. it's crazy that this many years after 9/11 when for so many years we were worried about getting bombed at walmart, something like this happens on the streets of a major american city and it's kind of just -- you hear a collective whatever and the american president doesn't even comment about it. >> it really is absolutely stunning when you put it that way, elise. alexei navalny could face jail time if he does not return to russia today. he was accused of violating a terms of a suspended sentence for fraud.

his conviction was ruled arbitrary and unreasonable. he is currently in germany after he was poisoned. several countries including the united states say that navalny was poisoned by a soviet era nerve agent called novacek. he has recovered and he claims to have tricked one of the russian agents sent to poison him to confess. the kremlin denies involvement. russian's president putin said he could have killed navalny if he wanted to. that's grim. all right, coming up next here, house lawmakers pass a bill to beef up coronavirus stimulus checks to $2,000 and now the fate rest with the gop-controlled senate and there's been nothing but silence from mitch mcconnell. "morning joe" will be right back. onnell "morning joe" will be right back lp you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's something you shouldn't try at home... look, liberty mutual customizes home insurance

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i am telling donald trump don't just talk about it, act.

the senate republicans have followed you through thick and thin. get them to act and support the $2,000 checks. >> strange bedfellows in the final days of 2020 as that's democrat chuck schumer imploring republican president trump to get gop senators in line for a measure supported by democrats and the president, but not republicans. that's where we are. welcome back to "morning joe." tuesday, december 29th, i'm jonathan lemire alongside kasie hunt. we're in for joe, mika and willie this morning. we have crashed the car just yet. elise jordan and eddie glaude jr. are still with us. joining us is peter baker and from the dot inc., authors of winners take all, anand giridharadas. kasie, explain to us that moment we just saw from the senator -- from senator schumer and the

bizarre dynamics we have unfolding right now on capitol hill. >> well, we've got a beautiful sunrise, but red sky at morning, it's going to be a rough day for mitch mcconnell. we're looking to him this morning for any clues about what he is going to do because it is now up to the senate after the house passed that bill yesterday that would increase coronavirus relief checks to $2,000 for certain americans and 44 republicans approved the legislation. 275-134, narrowly reaching the two-thirds majority that the bill needed to pass. it would increase the direct payments to $2,000 to americans who earned less than $75,000 last year and senator minority leader schumer said he'll try to pass the bill by unanimous consent today but it's unclear if senate republicans will get on board with the measure and

mcconnell has declined to publicly address as of yet how he plans to handle the issue. at least one senate republican, marco rubio, has voiced support for the increased payments tweeting i'm concerned about the debt but working families have been hurt badly by the coronavirus. if given the chance, i will vote to increase the amount. peter baker, this puts republicans in something of a bind and, you know, bernie sanders may try to force the issue, force mcconnell to hold a vote on this by threatening to hold up the defense bill. but "the wall street journal" editorial page is out this morning saying president trump has helped out chuck schumer in all of this. it's republicans -- it's just making it so clear it's republicans standing in the way of this very popular proposal to send americans more money. >> well, that's exactly right. it's forcing the republicans of course to abandon the position they have taken for months or abandon the president who lost

the election and still has the largest bullhorn in politics. you have a situation where the republicans can make a deal with the president and suddenly the president blows it up. in this case it happens to be president trump. what is going to happen when the president is biden and mitch mcconnell and joe biden come to the deal on something whether it's to keep the government going, whether it be a future covid relief bill, they pass it with bipartisan majorities and then suddenly, you know, you get the former president who will be the former president at that point weighing in and forcing his own party once again to either -- you know, to take on the base that this president -- this former president still has great command over, or, you know to go along with a bipartisan deal. it's a really, really interesting test for republicans at this point. are they willing at this point to defy this president on the way out the door who lost an

election, one term loser, or, you know, are they still -- you know, enthralled to the base that he commands and are going to follow his directions. he is very popular with many americans who are hurting and who could use the money in this tough time. >> and you are really terrific at pulling back at 30,000 feet and obviously, there's no question that $2,000 is better than $600. mow americans would prefer the $2,000 rather than the $600, but shouldn't -- i believe you have argued this, but shouldn't there be bigger measures here? don't americans need more right now? should we have any different conversation in terms of what the government can do to offer relief, to offer stimulus and help to americans who are suffering in this historic pandemic with economic devastation? >> that's a great question and in a way the argument about the

$2,000 is the beginning of that bigger conversation. and, you know, for 40 years, on these issues of government spending to help people, we have actually witnessed a republican party in lock step against it and a democratic party that is often split and what is fascinating about this moment is it's the republicans who are split. and i think what the significance of that to me in terms of the larger conversation is, i think we're witnessing listening to the death knell of the age of austerity. for 40 years we have been told since reagan that the people are best left to themselves, that government is the problem, and that ideology has been a defining ideology in american life. bill clinton and barack obama lived under it as much as they chafed at it and that consensus has not held up for years with a widening inequality and climate crisis.

but this year it's been undeniable. unignorable that that consensus to minimize government is a fraud left consensus and when you have so many people in pain, so many people thrown out of work, up through out of health care because they're thrown out of work, so on and so forth, the notion that government doing less, doing the least is now a laughingstock. you are seeing -- it may be donald j. trump, irony of ironies who helps to ring that death knell for the age of austerity. >> you were trying to address how to solve the problems, urging democrats to fight harder. people on the left to fight harder. perhaps give more speeches, talk more inspirationally about these kinds of things, but i mean, is that the answer? what can they do to make the changes the way that you're

outlining? >> well, i mean, i think you saw a template for it. the premise of your question is very correct. which is that we're an immovable country where on very few issues does anything make a difference to anybody's mind and that's a big problem, but it's not the case and nothing moves ever. and you know, you covered this. health care on the idea of taking away people's health care, pre-existing conditions and things like that, the ability to raise that as an issue in elections has scared people about the particulars of their lives and gotten republicans to back down or shifted public opinion. likewise, i have no doubt who is responsible for the politics of austerity right now -- republicans. republicans bear the entire blame for this. however, it is the case that democrats i think could make a more muscular, eloquent, thundering case that backs republicans into the corner,

makes this an easier vote for them to taken that not to take. changes politics and public opinion. i don't think for my taste have heard from joe biden enough. i think we should revive the fireside chats from fdr, he can start right now and do it on every platform from snapchat to tiktok to youtube dropping sundays or whatever. you see nancy pelosi and chuck schumer smart inside operators, but i would struggle to quote one line that someone has said as a democrat from memory in the last month of this fight, whereas there should be a historic speech should be given every damn day given the stakes of what people are feeling and experiencing right now. >> elise jordan what do you think? is the age of austerity over or and as a part two, this bind

that the president is putting the republicans in particularly in georgia but more than that, do the which this trumpism, pseudopopulism he is pushing, is that going to resonate with republicans once he's not in office anymore? >> to your first question, i think the age of austerity has been delivered a death knell by the utter hypocrisy of so many republicans over the last four years that have no problems spending when it's donald trump and if donald trump says to and they seemingly forget their concerns about the deficit. and cutting the deficit when they're actually in power. so it makes it very hard to return to the tea party talking points of let's not spend, let's keep our deficit low. when the other guy is in power. and i don't think that we have seen the last of the trump populism. you look at josh hawley of

missouri who had embraced it to some extend and you look at the popularity on the right of someone like a tucker carlson who essentially has more -- a more intellectualized if you would call it that view of trump's own philosophy. so i think that you're going to see more of that competition on the right as the struggle, frankly, for an identity, if there is going to be one to emerge in any semblance of principles in the post trump era. when the cult leader isn't at the top of the stage anymore, what is everyone going to ascribe to? so that -- that's really what i'm watching right now. >> i think you're absolutely right about the sort of ideological changes that we may be seeing here. i mean, marco rubio has been making that argument too, that republicans should be the party of the working class and that

means supporting a different set of policies in many cases than what the party stood for for a long time. i'm glad you raised it, because i want to show you the other side of this argument in some ways. the deficit hawk argument from the "wall street journal" editorial board. they have a new piece out entitled, trump gives schumer an assist. he writes a $2,000 check to make the democrats the majority. the senate republicans oppose it for sound reasons, but mr. trump has put them in a political spot. on monday, they passed the larger amount through the house 275-134. that leaves mr. mcconnell with a tough call, as democrats bang away against gop incumbents loeffler and perdue, or he can

upset the fiscally conservative voters. either way it is an in kind contribution to schumer and biden. trump is lashing out who isn't helping him overturn the election and this includes those who need to win in georgia to block mr. biden's ability to indulge the democratic left. mr. trump's narcissism isn't news, but if the georgians lose, the democrats should thank mr. trump for their tax increase. that's some fighting words from the editorial board. what's your take? >> well, i think it's right to a certain extent, right? so let's be clear. so republicans can oppose the $2,000 stimulus check on sound -- you know, have sound

reasons to oppose it. but that doesn't mean they're compelling reasons. and i think what's -- what we're seeing here, kasie, is something very interesting. trump has provided cover over the last four years for mitch mcconnell and republicans to pursue their policy agenda. and by pulling away in this instance, the republican party, they are being seen for what they are. they are having to face -- they will face without trump providing cover the judgment of the american public they're going to block a $2,000 stimulus check in the midst of unimaginable suffering in the country. i think that's important because we have been talking about trump as the source of the problem. as if the republican party hasn't in some ways governed in such a way that has enabled trump and that has in some ways pursued policies that has deepened the precarety of

everyday life. this isn't about left or right, but about the circumstances of everyday americans. i think the "wall street journal" is right, but democrats need to call this for what it is. trump has been a problem. but the republican party that currently holds the senate, they are a problem too. and i think trump has allowed us to make that argument very clearly, i think. >> peter baker, these are certainly way important conversations, but i'm not sure that the president you and i cover really thought about this. this is much more about impulse, about reaction, about anger about his defeat. and he seems not to care that much about how difficult he's made life for his fellow republicans and of course had to be talked in to signing the bill at all over the golf course with senator graham. on the phone with congressman mccarthy and others. walk us through what looks like is next. we know the president is in mar-a-lago for the week. he'll head to georgia to campaign for those senators, and

i believe the republicans are apprehensive as to how that will go. has he stirred this up and issued some sort of calm with his signature, what's next for this president? what could he do? >> i think you're right. i think if he genuinely cared about the stimulus checks f he thought they should have been $2,000 he would have weighed in earlier before the bill was passed and by his own administration. he had months to tell congress that he thought the checks should be $2,000 and he didn't. he had months in which he could participate in the negotiations himself, he hasn't. he hasn't spoken with speaker pelosi in more than a year, he played no part in the crafting of the covid bill. at least that we saw. for him to say, hey, i think the

checks ought to be bigger, again, he could have done it at any point prior to that. what comes next? that's always the $64,000 question with this president. i think you can assume we're not done with the trump era. i mean, he's got 20 some days left in which to draw attention to himself. that seems to be main priority at this point. he'll go to georgia, he'll lay out the grievances and he may talk about the senate races. he will talk about his own feelings about the election and the continued efforts to convince the public that the baseless fraud allegations may have some bearing in reality and nobody else says that they have. i think, you know, he's got many tools in his arsenal left to continue to draw attention and spark outrage which is what he seems to enjoy. including possible pardons, including anything that might happen with the pentagon and, you know, overseas actions in these final few weeks. i think one thing we can say for sure, it's not going to be quiet

and smooth on the way out. he's going to do something to get people's attention and it won't be necessarily helpful to his fellow republicans. >> it's almost like we have gotten so inured to it. but the way you lay it out, peter, this is not the normal -- this is not how things are supposed to end especially when we're fighting a global pandemic. peter baker, thank you. let's turn to the latest with coronavirus which is the enormous problem facing this president. joining us is dr. ashish jha. the one thing that the trump administration has really tried to point to as a success is the development of a vaccine and certainly our scientists, our researchers, deserve just enormous credit for getting that vaccine together so quickly. but now the challenge is to get

that out the door and we do need the government for that. so far, those numbers are a lot lower than what they had promised. what's going on and are you concerned about how this rollout is taking place? >> yeah, good morning, thanks for having me on. back in early october, secretary azar said a 100 million doses out by the end of the year and then that was revised by 40 million and now 20 million people will get vaccinated by the end of the year. well, we're at the end of the year, we're at 2 million. i believe we're at higher than because there's a lag, and i believe it's 4 or 5 million. but it's not 20 million. the federal government has does a good job for setting up the infrastructure to get the vaccines out the states, but very little in the way of getting the states getting the vaccines into people's arms. states are really stretched, they have gotten little money. the latest covid relief bill finally gets some dollars to states which will help, but states are trying to figure this

out on their own and 50 states figuring out vaccinations on their own this is a repeat of testing, ppe. and at each step the federal government hasn't done their part. >> doctor, i wanted to get you to elaborate a little bit more on this. so it's reminiscent of march where the federal government sort of deferred to the states on some of the vital medical equipment, ppe, respirators and washed their hands of it and said, here you go. and then secondly, update on the vaccines themselves. there are two i believe currently in use now. where do things stand with the others? because that was such a big part of operation warp speed was funding a bunch of candidates at once so therefore, they could all trigger and flood the markets. when should we start to see some others out to americans? >> on the issue of the federal state thing, we have a federal

form of government. we want states to play an important role. states know a lot about their own populations better than the federal government does, that's all true. but the bottom line is in the national crisis, we don't say to every state, hey, good luck, figure this out. when like the federal government has an important role here and they're not doing that on getting people vaccinated in a way that's necessary. you know, on the issue of vaccine candidates, it's absolutely true we made a bunch of -- and the good news is two paid off handsomely and at least three i expect between january and february will come on line. astrazeneca and johnson & johnson, i'm hopeful to hear about their results in january and novavax, hopefully by february. i think that part of operation warp speed has been good.

but it's getting it into the people's arms that's really tough. >> so little good news with the pandemic. that's encouraging, doctor. anand, you have a question, and the floor is yours. >> dr. jha, thank you for your work and all your explanations over the months. you know, it's the end of the year, a lot of people are taking stock of what this terrible, bizarre year has been like in their life and what life has looked and felt like this year. can you give us a sense of what 2021 will look and feel like in most average people's life, people who are in the first batch of getting this for whatever reasons. for the average person, what does 2021 going to be like given what you know about the rollout? >> it's a good question. i think 2021 will be much, much better. look, life is going to begin to get back. but the question is at what speed. again, i think january is going to be pretty hard month. probably february. but as we get into the spring

months, late winter/spring, the vaccine will get out. we have a new federal team coming in that's pretty committed to using the power of the federal government to help the american people out. states are going to figure this out. it's going slowly but they will get there. it would have been great -- again, if we had been making the plans for month but i think states are going to figure it out. i think anybody who will want a vaccine will be able to by may or june and life will get back to normal especially for a vast majority of americans getting vaccinated. we won't maybe go back to the totally normal and there will be scars for a long time but i'm hopeful especially about the second half of 2021. >> that's nice to hear. dr. jha, joe biden, the president-elect, mentioned the defense production act. just quickly, i'm curious, how do you think invoking that act will change this? what kind of impact do you think it will have in terms of the time line?

>> there are a lot of pieces that go into making the vaccine. it's the vials, the syringes, all of the elements and it's not lake we have millions of these things lying around. the whole world is trying to get vaccinated so we're trying to make billions of vaccines. it is helpful to use the federal government to make sure this gets moving as quickly as possible and i think the defense production act that we should invoke in a matter of crisis and i'm glad to hear president-elect biden being very clear to he'll use whatever means necessary to get everybody back to normal as quickly as possible. >> dr. ashish jha, thank you. anand giridharadas, thank you so much to you as well. still ahead here on "morning joe" we'll break down the biggest legal battles of 2020. have they panned out? plus, meet the candidate being backed by new york city

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there is yet another far-fetched lawsuit to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election. this latest one comes from texas congressman louie gohmert and the arizona slate of electors. they are suing mike pence over his role in presiding over the electoral vote count in congress. in a statement, gohmert says the electoral count act that established his role in the vote count directs mike pence to legitimize those in violation of

the elector's clause and the 12th amendment. they claim the 12th amendment grants the vice president the sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count and gohmert is asking a trump appointed district judge in texas to agree. constitutional lawyer tweeted, if the 12th amendment somehow gave the vice president the power to throw out the electoral vote for the other guy in favor of their own party one would have thought they would have noticed by now, but i guess they're just idiots. i felt like al gore would have been president if he had this particular option. not sure why he wouldn't have done that if that's what the constitution allowed. i noticed that mike pence's former spokeswoman said, hey, gohmert, maybe you should worry about winning back the house in 2022.

>> i can think of a few vice presidents who would have used that to grab the big chair, so we have them suing the vice president of their own party for the position to stage a coup. so let's move on and speak no more of that. so that's how -- that's just one of the ways how we're closing out 2020's year of legal stories. a year that began with impeachment of the president and ends with that. we have from the northern district of alabama and legal analyst, joyce vance and dave aronberg from palm beach county. joyce, let's start with the legal challenges, perhaps not that one. but we have seen a flurry coming from president trump trying to invalidate the results of the election. let's start at the end of the year. give us your sense of the importance of -- at least to this point, the failed electoral

challenges by trump and his people. >> we have seen an awful lot of losing to be honest, jonathan. something like 89 judges have had reason to consider one of trump's suits, one of his supporters' lawsuits and they have all ruled against the president, including the supreme court. the legal theories have gotten crazier and crazier. this is the stuff that bar grievances are made of and some of the lawyers have damaged their credibility. but i think the most important takeaway is that the courts have held. trump appointees have ruled against these specious challenges. they have refused to overturn the voices of american voters. and we will ultimately have the courts to thank for a smooth -- sort of smooth transfer of power come january. >> it seems like he tests the

limits of the courts and dave, he tested it previously last summer which of course with his phone call with ukraine which led to the events of this year, his impeachment and then acquittal with the senate. i know that president trump's impeachment feels like 187 years ago, but give us -- but weigh now as to the import of that as something that's still only happened a handful of times in american history. >> well, jonathan, it was a perfect call, wasn't it? >> it was. >> the reason -- right. the reason why he did was that because he got away with it when it came to russia. the mueller report had been pushed aside and he had been exonerated his words by the u.s. senate and he decided to -- he had been exonerated by bill barr and so he decided to go ahead and make that call to ukraine. that's what led to his impeachment. it was not a perfect call.

it was something that the founding fathers would have been appalled at, and but for politics he would have been removed from office. only one u.s. senator, mitt romney, had the courage to vote to remove him. and that is going on the a legacy moving forward. because how else will you remove a president for impeachment conduct if not for this case? it will be a political battle and the republicans have set the precedent that it's an extremely high bar to ever remove a president because this looked like a solicitation of a bribe. if it's not removable, what is? >> eddie glaude, every time we speak on the phone that call is deemed perfect. >> of course. >> but i want you to step in here and take the next question on this, our legal year in review. >> absolutely, jonathan. joyce, i wanted to ask you this question. we could talk about barr's resignation and his role in all

of this, but it just dawned on me as i was thinking about the trump -- trump's four years in review, about emollients, blumenthal's case. what do you make of that, because it speaks to the grift and the corruption that we believe has been at the heart of the last four years. >>. four years, no one other than a few law professors had thought very much about the emollients clause and presidents aren't supposed to benefit from their time in office. that's really the legal principle that the emoluments clause stands for. no huge surprise that trump ran afoul of there. there are matters still in process, but look, your takeaway as an average observer watching the president run the trump

hotel around the corner from white house and knowing that foreign visitors and those who seek to curry favor have spent money at the trump hotel with very inflated rates on some occasions doesn't look right. there will be a lot of work for congress and for the next administration to make sure that we can't have a repeat of this kind of behavior. >> so, dave aronberg, i'm curious what you think we'll be talking about what happened this year that we'll be focused on in 2021. there are so many trump associates whose fates are in the hands of the courts. lev and igor come to mind. the investigations into the trump organizations and other things. what do you think we'll be

talking about this time next year? >> well, the pardons will have a lasting impact but it will be increased pressure on state prosecutors to get involved. the fact that flynn, manafort, stone were all pardoned only clears them from federal charges that have been incurred up to this point but it doesn't clear them from future misconduct or from state charges. state charges are pardon proof. you can see state prosecutions possibly in new york, pennsylvania. it depends on the aggressiveness of the state prosecutors but kasie, i think the conversation we'll have moving forward in 2021 will involve the national conversation on racial inequities. i think that the george floyd death will have long-lasting repercussions as the cases go to trial. you'll continue to see questions about police misconduct and whether there should be police reform. it is telling in past year that three states including the red state of iowa enacted police

reform and then you have the breonna taylor case. we'll see if the black lives matter has staying power. >> certainly, the george floyd case helped to shape this year and the presidential election. elise, the president and his team have made it very clear they have telegraphed the pardons, they won't be the last ones. >> well, that's what i wanted to ask joyce if. if you have any predictions, i hate to ask you to make predictions when the actor is unstable, but if you had any predictions about how more pardons will proceed, what do you think donald trump has in store for us? the idea of the preeminent -- a pardon ahead of time before the person has been accused of anything, what do you make of that? >> it's a really great question,

elise, because this is the final act in the president's complete violation of the rule of law. we have the foundational notion in this country that no man is supposed to be above the law, but we have a president where there's a lot of suspicion that he's used the power of the office and is now using the pardon power to insulate the truth from coming forward. and this goes back to the mueller report, much evidence he sought was concealed from him and that his view of the situation could have been different if he had had access to all of that evidence. we know that he detailed at least ten instances of obstruction that involved the president himself. you'll recall like i do that there were open reports that trump was dangling pardons at his friends, at his cronies, essentially saying in exchange

for your loyalty now, for your silence now, i'll deliver a pardon to you on my way out the door. so as we watched these pardons being delivered, it's tough not to have some suspicion about the legitimacy of these pardons. the pardons will stand for all time, the president's plenary power to pardon is broad. but there is a lot of concern around these pardons. so who else might he pardon on his way out the door? i suspect we'll see him continue to use the pardon power in a way that benefits himself. anyone whose silence he needs is probably on the list right now. >> and i think any of us who are not lawyers are surprised how incredibly broad that pardon power is. but i want to go back to something that dave aronberg was talking about because i just -- i think it's important as we talk about what may come next. i mean, black lives matter has been such an important part of

the conversation that we have had over the course of the last year. it has been so impactful for so many americans. we have a black lives matter plaza here in washington, d.c. so eddie glaude, i wanted to give you a chance to weigh in on that, because there are so many questions as we look ahead to what the law enforcement -- what justice frankly looks like in 2021 based on what has happened this year. your thoughts. >> well, we'll see what the biden/harris administration what they will actually do in terms of substantive criminal justice reform. we think of walter wallace in philadelphia, the young man in ohio, so black lives matter will continue i think to bring pressure to bear on a biden/harris administration, to address substantively police reform. criminal justice reform. i think as long as we continue

to face this unseemingly ritual of black families having to grieve in public as they bury a loved one killed at the hands of the police, the intensity may shift the registers of the argument, it may shift because of the change in the white house but i don't think it's going anywhere. we're still in the midst of this storm. let's be clear, the trial for the former officer chaven, the man who murdered george floyd soon. depending on what happens we may find ourselves in a tense moment. >> we have so many legal stories we didn't get a chance to touch on. we did touch on impeachment. but immigration, the post office.

maxwell, harvey weinstein, amy coney barrett on the supreme court. thank you. i'm sure we'll have many more conversations with both of you to come. thank you for being with us. we will be right back. thank you. we will be right back. stock slices. for as little as $5, now anyone can own companies in the s&p 500, even if their shares cost more. at $5 a slice, you could own ten companies for $50 instead of paying thousands. all commission free online. schwab stock slices: an easy way to start investing

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so as the coronavirus vaccine makes its way into the arms of americans, a high-tech way to prove you have been vaccinated could be a key to the eventual return to normalcy. kerry sanders has more. >> reporter: nurse christine cummings got her first moderna shot. for the moment, the paper cdc card proves the vaccination, but in january the system to prove who's had the immunizations will go digital on smartphones. >> in order to get back to certain things in life they have to show they have gotten tested or gotten vaccinated. we're providing a platform that enables people to do that while protecting their data privacy.

>> reporter: the apps created by several developers use existing technology used at concerts and for airline travel. >> it sounds like you have to get vaccinated because without that proof you will be excluded from many of the things we do every day. >> i think certain institutions will make the decisions and ultimately what we want to do is provide people with the safe and secure way of establishing and presenting their status. >> reporter: developers say these digital passports are designed to prevent forgeries. >> it's not stored on the cloud. it's not stored anywhere other than on your phone and in your control. >> our thanks to nbc's kerry sanders for that report. and still ahead, our next guest aims to use his experience on wall street to help new york city and its economy recover from the pandemic. candidate for mayor ray mcguire is standing by. he joins the conversation next on "morning joe."

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the world has changed my fearless new yorkers. 24,000 of our neighbors have died from covid-19. a million of our sisters and brothers were thrown out of work. restaurants, barbershops, coffee stands, nail salons, bodegas, arenas, stadiums, cathedrals, churches, mosque, and synagogues, broadway all closed. hopefully, in the for good. it's crazy out here. bananas. people asking, is this it? is new york over? >> that was part of a campaign ad for ray mike gate to wire. an ad narrated by spike lee. he is now running for the mayor

of new york city. he joins us now. thanks so much for being here. let's talk a little bit about the job you are aiming to get. i covered new york city hall for quite some time. you are facing not just a crowded field in the democrat prime minister b primary, but a city with an extraordinary amount of challenges, one rocked by protests in the aftermath of george floyd's death last summer and grappling with the pandemic that has had thousands upon thousands of new yorkers die and also a virus that has wreaked economic devastation and real concerns for the city's future. >> thank you for having me. it's a serious time in new york. it's a serious crisis which requires serious leadership. i love new york. it is where i met my wife and where we are raising our three children. but we now have a crisis. we have 1 million people or so who are unemployed.

1 million people who have experienced food insecurity and growing. 600 plus food lines, soup kitchens. thank goodness for the relief that is now coming from washington, that $600 will mean so much to so many. i know the despair of not having money, of poverty, of discrimination. but i also know the power of education and opportunity. i have managed businesses and i know business big and small. i have managed budgets that are in many ways larger than most state budgets, and i have proven leadership ability, proven leadership skills and relationships to stage the largest and the biggest economic comeback, most inclusive economic comeback in the history of new york city. and that's why i'm running for m mayor. >> your path is reminiscent of the one, michael bloomberg in

2021 ran for mayor at the heels of a crisis, the september 11 terror attacks. he drew from the corporate world like you do. there are some differences. you are running as a democrat. he wasn't. and while most observers deemed his time running new york as effective, by the end of his term there was certainly an urge for a change leading to the election of a very different type of mayor, bill de blasio. walk us through this bloomberg comparison. what things do you want to emulate from mike bloomberg and what things do you want to do differently? >> i would look at this and say i would have me judge me on my own merits, the things that i have been able to accomplish, judge me on who i am. i am moving forward. there were many things accomplished under that administration. but judge me for who i am. judge me for the things i have done, on the merits. who i am is critical to understanding why i'm doing

this. i come from the other side of the tracks, a single mother who raised me and my two brothers, a social worker. i know what it's like to experience what we now call environmental injustice. i grew up across from the howard paper mill that sometimes emitted fumes so strong where the only way you could breathe was opening the refrigerator door. i know what discrimination is like. i lived it. when you have to decide whether or not my mother is a social worker, bless her, she is 94 and prays for me whether or not, whether or not she is going to pay the power and light bill, put food on the table, titans in t titans in the church. i know the importance of education. >> mr. mcguire, it's kasie hunt. how do you think -- how would you evaluate the job that bill

de blasio did in handling the black lives matter protests over the last year? what would you have done differently? >> i think what the reports showed, again things that we know already. i want to be clear. as i said before, what george floyd and covid have revealed, and this is a big reveal, are things that have taken place for 400 years. 400 years of systemic inequities in education and economics and health care and the incarceration system. we know that. we know what it has demonstrated to us, there were inequities that occurred during the protests. these things shouldn't have happened but they are persistent. what that calls for is reform. a reform. we want better policing. better policing. respect, accountability, and proportionality. the culture needs to be that.

r.a.p. republican, need respect, be held accountable and response. that didn't occur in the black lives matter movement. let's be clear about that. the report was clear, in the statement of things that were shortcomings, on my watch we'd have a different culture. >> all right. democratic candidate for mayor of new york city, ray micguire, thank you for being with us here. still ahead, with less than a month until inauguration day president joe biden is sounding the alarm about obstruction. what he is saying about the roadblocks from some trump appointees that his transition team is facing. "morning joe" is back in just a moment. t a moment good moves. or hydration. neutrogena® hydro boost. the number 1 hyaluronic acid moisturizer instantly delivers 2 times the hydration. and keeps hydrating all day long.

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♪ welcome back to "morning joe." i'm kasie hunt alongside the ap's jonathan lemire and we are in for joe, mika and willie this morning. also with us we have former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments elise jordan. politics editor for "the daily beast" sam stein and professor at princeton university eddie glaude jr. so, john, let's start off here, top stories roulette. we have whether the senate is going to take up the house passed increase for coronavirus stimulus checks to $2,000. there is, of course, reporting behind what caused trump to finally sign that relief bill in the first place.

it seemed his pivot was helped by some divots, thanks, alex for that line. meanwhile, we are one week away from the georgia senate runoff elections, and now there is yet another farfetched lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020 election. this time a republican congressman is suing, of all people, mike pence. and finally, president joe biden is accusing the trump administration of hampering the transition. so many directions that we could go this morning. i think i am focused quite a bit on just what a tough spot republicans are in here with this stimulus check question. but i know you have, obviously, been covering the biden transition very carefully. so what do you think on this tuesday morning is the story that's going to be driving the next week? >> kasie, we have lots of options. i am going to spin the wheel and start with what got the president to change his mind.

i should pull back the curtain for our "morning joe" viewers. that line that you read about pivots and divots, alex told me that was the best he had wrote in weeks. >> you are underselling his skills. >> some of the president's closest allies to get him to change his mind, sign that coronavirus relief bill, to not withhold benefits any further from people who need them during this time of crisis, during a surging pandemic. in fact, it was lindsey graham, t president's frequent golf par r partner when played across from mar-a-lago, and he said that they would play a hole and then he'd work on him. he would lobby him or the president's phone would ring and it would be another concerned alarmed republican telling him, you need to sign this bill, you are making our life significantly harder by not doing so.

kevin mccarthy, who just had elbow surgery, was recovering, the anesthesia maybe or had not warn off on the phone repeatedly saying we need this. we have been talking about the chaos that the trump administration seems to be ending. very familiar to the chaos with which it began. but the difference here, of course, this president is going to be leaving office. the republicans are still trying to hold on to the senate. and that's why in particular one of those lobbying the president to say you need to sign this, david perdue, trying to keep his senate seat in georgia and i know you are keenly looking at that. >> right. david perdue does have a pretty strong relationship with trump. this of course is all -- i mean, we have been covering, okay, why do republicans try to stay inside, why do they try to stay close to the president. there are so many scenarios like this one where he does something that is potentially going to blow everything up and there are some people that they can, you know, actually get him on the

phone and potentially try to make an impact and i think that's what we saw here. we also know, and johathan i know you reported on this, president trump can be pretty vindictive. he won't talk to people who don't do the thing he wants them to do, which is, of course, serves to try to force them into his good graces. one other thing that's interesting, too, and i think it's certainly going to drive the next several days, but potentially i this impact perhaps the whole first year of the biden administration as well and that is bernie sanders who came out and tweeted l.a. night and said he is going to hold up the vote on the defense bill. remember the senate is voting, planning to vote to override trump's veto of the defense authorization act. he is going to hold it up to try to force the senate to hold a vote on those $2,000 checks. the senate process here is pretty complicated, but any single senator basically has the ability to to do this, and right now the question before the senate is not whether those checks would pass. we may get there.

the question is whether they are going to take it up and actually vote on it and that potentially puts a lot of those republicans in a tough spot, especially david perdue and kelly loeffler. so i think that's going to be something to keep an eye on over the course of the day. >> yes. it's going to be wild to watch throughout not just the transition of power of course as joe biden still, mind you, building out his administration. still doesn't have an attorney general. we will dig into that a little bit later on. we heard from the president-elect yesterday after being down for a couple of days for the christmas holiday in which he accused the trump administration of continuing to obstruct the transparency process, particularly on matters of national security. >> for some agencies our teams received exemplary cooperation. from the career staff and those agencies. from others, most notably the department of defense, we encountered obstruction from the political leadership of that

department. the truth is many of the agencies that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage. many of them have been hallowed out in personnel, capacity, and morale. in the policy processes of at trophy, have been sidelined in the despair of our alliances and the disrepair of those alliances. in our absence from key institutions that matter to the welfare of the american people and a general disengagement from the world. all of it makes it harder for our government to protect the american people, to defend our vital interests. >> acting secretary of defense christopher miller designed any stonewalling to the biden team, writing our dod political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule and

they will continue to do so in a transparent and collegial manner that upholds the finalist traditions of the department. miller says the american people expect nothing else and that is what i remain committed to. here is more of what biden had to say. >> right now, as our nation is in a period of transition, we need to make sure that nothing is lost in the handoff between administrations. my team needs a clear picture of our forced posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies. we need full visibility into the budget planning underway at the defense department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to exploit. but as i said from the beginning, we have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the department of defense and the office of management and budget. right now we just aren't getting all the information that we need for the ongoing, outgoing and

from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. it's nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility. >> elise jordan, you have a lot of experience in this field. can you walk us through why this matters, why it's so dangerous, and why the biden administration, incoming biden administration 20-odd days out is sounding the alarms about what they are saying is obstruction from the trump team? >> just for context, jonathan, the transition time during the bush administration to the obama administration was something that president bush took very seriously, and it was handled by top aides and i remember i was at the nsc at the time and there was just a lot of legwork and attention that went into it, starting certainly the bush administration knew there would be a transition no matter what, but starting in the summertime

in late summer. so it really is outstanding that you, you know, politics does not end at the water's edge with this administration and that they are being so obstructionist for president-elect joe biden to say that his team was not getting the assistance that they needed to prepare for a smooth transition. it shows that it probably is pretty grave of a situation if they feel that they are being stifled to that extent. is it surprising this is the tack that the trump administration is taking auto at this final hour? not really. it's more par for the course. and so you look at the information that the transition team needs to plan for their situations that they're coming in into. it's troubling it's gotten to

the point where the president-elect is publicly complaining about the job that they are doing. >> you know, elise, that's a great point. sam stein, let's just pick up there because the reality is that joe biden, eastbouven more many, i think, public officials, he has been so careful to not stoke the fires really. he has been differential to republican senators. he has been trying to send this message of calm, of a return to normalcy. and so for him to go out publicly and level -- i mean, this is a very serious accusation. how many major national security crises are we facing here, the most recent of which that major hack, the solarwinds hack that affected government agencies across the board. what does this tell you about just how serious this is? >> a couple things. one is the issues that the dod,

with respect to transition, are on a different level than any other agency. and when you are not getting cooperation from the current administration, with your beach team, that's a big problem. that's an obvious problem here. the second thing is joe biden obviously decades of experience in washington has always been kind of a foreign policy guy. he chaired the senate foreign relations committee as vice president and he did a lot of domestic work. his focus was on overseas work, too. i think he is acutely aware of things in the foreign policy realm and takes particular interest when things aren't going well and understand its the severity of a bad transition. three, just to sort of put in context the pushback from the current trump team, there is not a complaint about any real other agency. there has been some complaints about ustr, about visibility there. there was early complaints about getting owl of the specs and

information about covid relief and vaccine distribution. that also dovetailed with dod, but those have stopped. so if they are complaining about one agency but not all others, that suggests this isn't really opportunistic by the biden team, but that they are, in fact, encountering real problems here with dod. so i am not sure that the trump pushback is on the level here. now let's see what happens. this has been, what, a week and a half since they, two weeks since they last complained. if it hasn't improved over that period, there is not much confidence that it's going to improve going forward and that could be a real problem. remember, last point here, when the post-9/11 commission looked at the attack and what led up to it and why american intelligence units were not ready for it, one of the things they cited was a delayed transition process because of the bush v. gore legal fights over florida.

that was resolved over some time. at this point i think we are well past the timeframe for what they did for resolution. so this could be, you know, potentially really problematic. >> still ahead, georgia helped determine the race for president in snowflanovember and it's aboo the same for the senate. we will get those two tight runoffs next on "morning joe." f" i got uh sausage - you can do better, steve! get a freshly made footlong, from subway®!

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♪ eddie glaude, great to see you this morning. i wanted to pick up a thread which sam pulled upon now. this is part of a larger pattern. let's remember, of course, that donald trump lost this election by more than 7 million votes and is yet to concede, that he has, without fail, nearly every day since november 3rd undermined the long islandegitimacy of joe

victory. there have been roadblocks put up throughout this transition to slow down biden's team coming to power, to make it as difficult as possible whether it be the gsa ascertainment, talk of a special council for hunter biden and the important complaints from the biden team that the coronavirus vaccine development and distribution plan was not being shared with them. what can be done here, eddie, with three-plus weeks left of this trump administration? they are goi there are going to be more roadblocks. what should be the biden team's answer not just for the specific dod problem, which is a grave matter of national security, but the idea of legitimacy, the idea of trying to push back against those potentially tens of millions of trump voters who are listening to the president, following his cues and don't think that joe biden should be sitting in the oval office on january 20th? >> first of all, it's great to see you and kasie this morning.

and elise and sam as well. i think what the biden transition team, what president-elect joe biden did yesterday is absolutely necessary and he must do it moving forward, to shine a light on the process as best as they can. and that is to reveal the way in which the trump administration is engaging obstructionism. to tell the american public the potential consequence and effect of that obstruction. in other words, bring light to bear on what is -- what they are doing. i think that's really important. i also think it's important for us as the were he is to not give the trump administration in this instance the benefit of the doubt. just a few press cycles ago we were talking about the dod saying that the biden transition team had greagreed to a moment rest, right? i forget the actual language we used. the biden team had to come out and say, no, we didn't. so i think this is really important that they continue to shed light on the process in

order to, in some ways, bring the american public into it, i think, up to date rather, to the challenges they face as they move from, as we move from a trump administration to a biden administration. jonathan, i hope that makes sense. >> always. >> of course, yeah. i mean, the chaos we have seen from the trump administration, i am not sure anyone is surprised by what's happening, but of course we are all concerned. let's go now to georgia because voters are turning out in incredibly high numbers with one week to go until these high-stakes senate runoffs. according to the u.s. elections project more than 2.1 million georgians have voted ahead of the january 5th election. that is roughly 27% of registered voters and it's on par with 2020 presidential election numbers. wow. large metro democratic-run counties are leading the early vote count while rural republican strongholds, including the district trump will campaign next week are

lagging. despite raising $200 million in the final stretch, jon ossoff and raphael warnock are warning of dwindling grassroots funds. nbc news republicans that schumer is pessimistic and doesn't want to ruin donor relationships by asking for more money. his office is denying this report. sam stein, let's -- there is a lot here. chuck schumer, frankly, is under fire because he raised expectations extremely high for how he was going to do in the general election in the senate. he did not deliver. on the flip side, republicans have been a complete divided mess, frankly, with the president putting his supporters out there saying don't even vote at all. what's your sense of where this race stands? i feel like my republican sources are pretty confident. my democrat sources are worried. i am curious your reporting and take. >> let's not overlook something

important that happened on the show. eddie went through the people he was glad to see and i was last. i will never forget that, eddie. first on the list of people you are glad to see, okay? >> we do it in order of age. you are the youngest one on the screen. >> secondly, and this is or alex, i can't believe you went with pivot and divot instead of flip and chip. the easier golf analogy. on georgia, obviously we went through the 2020 campaign were expectations were exceptionally high for the democrats, frankly that was despite historic amounts of money being raised. what's interesting here is that the democrats are again raising historic amounts of money, well over $100 million in the post-election period for each of them, and the conventional wisdom is that they will not win. you know, historical precedent shows that republicans tend to come out much more for these

types of off elections. georgia may be changing demographically and politically, but it really hasn't gotten past that. the margin for biden was 15,000 or so? so i would say if you are a student of history, of course you would say, okay, the republicans are in a good spot here. the only thing that would give you pause is two things. one is clearly democrats have a good ground game in georgia. that's largely due to stacey abrams, the voter registration efforts she put in place there. and so they have the mechanics to maybe make this a race where they can win. the second thing is the contextual stuff where you were hinting at, kasie, there is a lot of chaos. it's based in d.c. but there has been weird talks of boycotting the election. trump has sewn a tremendous amount of distrust in the georgia election party.

could that manifest itself in a lot of trump voters saying not only do i dislike the republican party, but i don't trust the seriousness of the election infrastructure? i don't know. it seems like that's a big hurdle to overcome for the democrats. >> sam, if you had put on a tie, you would have gone up higher in eddie's rankings this morning. >> i knew it! >> elise, my reporting lines up with kasie's, that both sides expect this to be a tight race but republicans are a little more confident than democrats at this moment. some democrats are saying in the last week or so they would like more visits from vice president-elect harris and particularly from former president obama and maybe first lady michelle obama. the former president was in georgia a few times before the election. the first lady did some virtual appearances but not any on the ground campaigning. on the republican side their big ticket is coming. that president trump is returning to georgia in a few

days for another rally. his first one was, shall we say, a scattershot effort in which he supported the two candidates, but spent much of his time attacking the republican governor and secretary of state. but it seems at least for now, elise, and i want to get your take on this, republicans there, even those who feel, those who live in that state who feel they are sympathetic to the president, feel perhaps that this election was stolen, they are angry but they are going to society, they understand what is at stake to control the senate? >> i would tend to agree, jonathan. i just give republicans a teensy edge in this runoff. how many of their voters are going to shy away because of the surge on top of the surge of coronavirus right now? and you see the early voting numbers look very strong for donald trump, but what's really going to happen at the end of the day when donald trump is not actually on the ballot. are we going to have more of a

2018 matchup, or is it going to be a continuation of what we saw happen in november? so everyone's on the edge of their seats for this race. i know that there hasn't been that much polling done, and no one really wants to venture too far forward after there have been so many wildcards in the aftermath of an election that didn't match up exactly with the polls and that you have donald trump behaving in such an increasingly erratic way and dissuading his own strongest supporters from coming out in full force. and you really just can't believe that donald trump isn't giving everything he has into securing a republican senate here, but is it surprising that at the end of the day, it's again always about donald trump, and he really doesn't care that much about seeing if republicans

prevail in georgia given that he lost the state himself. >> coming up, renowned author salmon rushdie. just ahead on "morning joe." "mo" ♪ sanctuary music (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,

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vice president-elect kamala harris and her husband will receive the covid-19 vaccine later this morning in washington, d.c. president-elect joe biden received the first dose of the vaccine on live television last week. and some good news the covid-19 vaccine started being distributed to residents and staff members at a seattle area nursing home. the place that reported the first deadly outbreak in the united states. the first death associated with the life care center in kirkland, washington, was reported in february, and more than 40 people connected to the facility later died. yesterday was the first day long-term care facilities can receive vaccines under the federal partnership with cvs and walgreens which is handling shots for the majority of the states' long-term care facilities. >> meanwhile, this past sunday was the busiest day at the ports

as coronavirus cases surge. according to "the new york times," tsa agents screened nearly 1.3 million people on sunday. that's the most in a day since march 15. the tsa has been facing staffing shortage due to the number of employees infected of covid-19. 743 cases had coronavirus as of monday. many of the cases were contracted off the clock. joining us physician and fellow dr. kavita patel, a former obama white house health policy director and a msnbc medical contributor. how alarmed should we be about those sort of tsa numbers? the infection of employees, of course and we wish them well, but just the surge in travel that despite the warnings from health experts like yourself, from government officials, from governors who were saying, look, this is -- we know it's the

holiday, we know it's christmas, we know you want to be with your family but this is the year to sit this out. it seems like a lot of americans didn't listen to that vadvice. should we anticipate in a few weeks a surge in infections and potentially hospitalizations? >> yeah, hi, good morning. good to be with you. you are absolutely right. i think dr. fauci called this a surge upon a surge because we are already dealing with overwhelming numbers of cases and deaths, unfortunately, and then you add to it this kind of potentially transmissable variant that's under investigation in the u.k., under concern in the united states, and those travel numbers, avery concerning pictures i have seen on social media of people who had these pretty large indoor gatherings without masks even despite all of this had me incredibly concerned. i think especially in hot spots like southern california, tennessee, parts of the country where literally, as you know and have reported on, zero percent

hospital capacity, essentially this does bode very poorly for those regions as well as part of the united states recovering and having numbers decrease where we expect to see, as you point out, in two to three weeks the numbers reverse course and increase. >> dr. patel, kasie hunt, good morning. nice to see you. can we talk for a minute about vaccine distribution. operation warp speed had suggested they could get as many as 20 million doses into arms by the end of the year, but we are seeing numbers that are much lower than that. why is that the case? and what does that mean in terms of the timeline for us ultimately being able to get back to normal life? >> yeah, kasie, so i am intimately aware of this. our clinic is one of the sites, part of the vaccination distribution strategy for the district of columbia, and let me put it into context. in october we heard from

operation warp speed we would have 100 million doses bit the end of the year. we all thought that was unreasonable. that then dropped to an expectation around 40 million and then, as you point out, 20 million by the end of december. we at this point have distributed approximately 2 million, approximately 1.7 to 2.2 million doses of vaccine. far short of that 20 million. i can tell you, kasie, this starts from a policy point of view, a total abdication of federal strategy, and, unfortunately, that state -- who are incredibly high stressed, public health departments that have been sear yuially underfunded. in many counties there is no local health department. there is nobody. so we are asking entities that are underfunded, stretched, and already taxed with ten months of pandemic management to handle vaccination rollout. the information systems, hospitals not having coordinated with those entities have all kind of resulted in what we're

seeing where we have got lists. last night we did a vaccines clinic. lists didn't correlate to the people showing up trying to get vaccines and the district, for example, had to borrow doses from virginia and maryland. that's playing out all over the country. so what it tells me is that we really need to get our proverbial act together. i am hoping that the biden/harris administration, they can't take back the control at this point. the states have made their plans. but we need to really rapidly deploy help where help is needed, and particularly in rural areas where we have seen higher cases, higher death rates, and the logistics of vaccine distribution make those areas almost incredibly hard to reach. and so this feels like a letdown in so many ways, but, kasie, i am not surprised, sadly, given how testing has gone, tracing has not existed at all, and how we are getting caught off guard by this new variant because of our lack of genomic

surveillance. >> thank you. coming up, jordan, tyson, tiger, ali, they are some of the greatest names in the history of sports, and our next guest has spoken with all of them. acclaimed broadcaster jim gray joins the conversation with his new book on the stories behind some of the most iconic moments in sports history. that's next on "morning joe." ♪

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[ cheers and applause ] ♪ ♪ >> that is president george w. bush throwing out the ceremonial

first pitch at yankees stadium before game three of t2001 worl series just a month after the attacks of 9/11. the greatest sports moment he has seen in person. joining us now, 12-time emmy winner and hall of fame sports broadcaster jim gray. he is author of the new book "talking to g.o.a.t.s: the moments you remember the stories you never heard." jim, it's great to see you. we are excited to talk to you about this book. it is a list of g.o.a.t.s, ali, brady, michael jordan, tyson, tiger among those to the presidents you talk to and talk about in the book. let's start with that moment in 2001. i am a yankees fan, but i got chills just watching it now. what was it like to be there when you consider the circumstances around that first pitch by president bush? >> well, it was a very tense and sad time in new york city. anthrax was going around the country, so nobody knew what was going to happen next.

everybody was anticipating from the cia down perhaps another terrorist attack, were imminent. when president bush went out there and threw that pitch, it was just a great moment for america. it was a symbol of us. he was so courageous to go out there by himself. it was the first time i remember going to a game through a metal detector. then he went out and threw a perfect strike. and he was saying a lot like fdr did, many, many years ago during the war, he said, we are going to grieve, we are going to mourn, but now we are going to play baseball. a little sense of normalcy. and, boy, to be there, you were so proud to be an american. proud of this young president, proud of the yankees, major league baseball and then the yankees won the game. that moment in mohamed uhammad lighting the torch were the greatest moments in sports for me and they weren't the people participating in the game. >> the '96 games in atlanta you

were there as well. talk about chills again. . the sight of this american to icon standing shaking from parkinson's disease, but holding that torch firmly. >> willie, the grace, the humanity, the fragility of life, greaten, the courage, dignity, all of that wrapped in one. there he was, the man who had done so much in the ring and so much for social change, injustice, his stance against the war outside of the ring, and there he was, there for the grace of god go i, andhe shook t torch strug, as you said, from parkinson's. everybody there, it showed what always of us can be. it brought out the best of what the world can be through this amazing symbol of muhammad ali. i still get chills thinking about it. and i heard bob caostas and dig em brel in my ear, oh my.

>> jim, mike barnicle has a question for you. >> jim, so much in this book, you know, it's hard to choose what to pick up and talk about. but i have a couple of things i want to talk about. both of them anecdotal that are in the book. one involves donald j. trump. you are playing golf with him and he asks you a couple of questions during your golf game. the first question he asks you, is he, am i the best amateur you have ever played with? and you point out you played with tiger woods when he was an amateur. later on in the match he asks if you -- if he is the best golfer over the age of 60 that you have ever played with, and you have to tell him, no, you have played with arnold palmer. and upon reflection, what does that tell you about where we are now as a country? >> well, all of my interactions except for one interview with him after he was elected president and sworn in at the super bowl, all of my interactions came with donald trump while he was involved in

sports, the sphinx and tyson fight, the ul when he was an owner and this golf piece that we did. he just wanted to have the moniker of being the best. and so he went down the list until we finally got to am i the best player that you played with in new jersey? i haven't played golf in new jersey, mike. so i said, yeah, sure. you're the best governor in new jersey. he says, well, make sure that gets into the piece. you know, it was all fun and games, you know, this was long before he was president. so, you know, we went out and played golf and he was collecting these golf courses and it was actually, you know, pretty funny that he just kept going down the list until we found something we could use that he was the best at. >> the other element in the book, and again there is so much in the book, pete rose, there is that infamous interview you had with him at the all-star game when you were trying to correctly pin him down on whether or not he was guilty of

gambling in baseball and he wavered. do you think that pete rose belongs in the hall of fame? >> mike, i believe this. i believe that the rule was changed in 1991 about being on the banned list and not being eligible. it was retroactively done so he would be excluded from being on the ballot. and i believe this. we don't live in the soviet union. you don't wipe out a man's records. you can't say that what he did didn't exist. did he do wrong? has he admitted that he gambled on baseball? yes. is that a horrible thing he did? yes, and he admitted that mistake. that doesn't erase him being the hit king. so there should be a plaque and something that notes what he did so that that is also ingrained into the minds of baseball fans, and it should be up to the voters. let the senior committee decide. baseball should not have a stand on this at this point because if you are going to link and couple them together, then his infractions came before they made that link.

so i would -- i think that it should be up to the voters bs and then they have to weigh, does a man's accomplishments outweigh the integrity that he displayed or lack of integrity? >> jim, i will never forget watching the tyson/holyfield fight in 1997. i remember my friend's house where i was sitting, the couch where i was, i remember his dad paying for it on pay-per-view, and he infamously bites evander holyfield's ear. i remember immediately after that you hop in the ring with mike tyson, the fight is over, he is disqualified, and you stand toe-to-toe with him quite literally with a man, frankly, we didn't know what was coming next and ask him some tough questions. what do you remember about that night in that moment? >> i remember the total dchaos and i remember seeing the ear-biting when it happened, him spitting it out, that part of the earlobe and everybody looking on the canvas to see what it was and him doing it again, and then disqualifying

him because he did it the second time. there was chaos in the ring and the sheriff's department. and then mike ran out and they got him out through the crowd. i went to the locker room. my producer saved go use your relationship. so don king was walking in and i said to don, don, on air, we were on air, and i said, don, what are you going to do? people paid, i think it was $60 at that time in 1997. to make sure that mike tyson comes out and answers questions so you don't disappoint these fans? they have already been let down that they are not seeing the fight. we should hear from mike as to why he did that. don king delivered. he brought him back out. tyson answered the questions. it's the only time in my career, willie, that i had seen the inside of a man's skull. the opening over his orbital bone was so deep, that wound, that you could actually see the white of his skull. he came out and answered the questions. i admired mike because of that because always there is a pr

flak who says they can't do it or release a statement four days later, they say my lawyers won't let me talk because the nevada state athletic commission is going to have a hearing. mike tyson at his worst moments was, always came out, faced the music, was accountable and took responsibility for his actions. >> extraordinary moment. we've only scratched the surface ever what's in this book. it's called "talking to g.o.a.t.s, the moments you remember and the stories you never heard" with a forward from tom brady. gone gratulations on the book. thanks for being here. and we'll be right back with more "morning joe."

have you ever wanted to learn to direct like ron howard or dance like misty copeland or play chess like gary kasparov. master class offers classes from various disciplines. joining us now, award-winning author saman rushdi.

i know master class well. they do a great job. what was it that you wanted to teach your students? >> well, you know, i never really tried to teach writing before. and the teaching that i do at nyu is all literature. it's books. i thought it maybe about time that i tried to share some of the stuff that i've learned over the course of kind of like 50 years of doing this job. so it's been -- i have really been very impressed with the master class people. they're talented and professional and disgracefully young. >> yes, disgracefully young. i agree. and also, they really help you crystallize, put into words what it is that you have been doing so well. what did you learn about the art of storytelling and writing? >> well, i mean, you know, over the years you do pick up stuff.

there's a -- i remember there's a wonderful thing that hemingway once said where, when he was asked about whether writers should be committed, you know, should have commitments. and he said the only commitment a writer needs is the commitment of the seat of his pants to the seat of his chair. and that idea you have to sit down. sit down and stay sitting down, otherwise nothing gets written. >> that's actually the hard part. >> that's the hard part, yeah. so there are very practical -- there are very practical things one can pass on to young people or to older people. people who just are interested in making the journey from being -- from reading to writing. if you like, trying to cross that -- to cross that boundary to one side of the page to the other side of the page. >> mike barnicle has the next question. mike? >> so mr. rushdie, you just mentioned through ernest

hemingway, one of the keys, obviously, is discipline. the discipline to sit and write what you've seen, what you've heard. but what about the other aspect of writing, of storytelling itself, and that would link it to imagination. how do you plan to use master class to develop and have people articulate and live with their imaginations, which in some cases are filled with incredible stories. but you've got to draw it out. how do you do that? >> one simple way, i think, particularly for people who are starting out, who are inexperienced writers is to kind of imagine that you're telling a story to a friend, to somebody you know very well. just imagine that you're sitting together side by side on a settee and you want to say, look, here's something interesting that happened. let me tell you a story. and because you're talking to somebody you know, you can be

relaxed and intimate and so on, but you also have to be interesting because if somebody you know is bored, they'll get up and walk away. so if you imagine to yourself that you're telling the story or maybe even write it down in the form of like a letter to someone that you know, tell somebody a story in your mind, somebody you choose as a -- as an audience person and that's a good way to start because we all tell stories. it's not just professional writers who do it. in order life we all tell stories. families have family stories. some true. some untrue. some embarrassing. some not embarrassing. but all of uyou know, in a family, when somebody joins a family, you tell them gradually the family stories. it becomes a way of belonging. and stories, they have that. they become a way of belonging. >> mr. rushdie, great to have you on this morning. some of the writing you've been doing recently, including in your novels but also in newspapers around the world has been to talk about america in

the age of donald trump and as we approach the end of the year, i'm interested to hear where you think we are right now. a lot of the writing you have written this year has been to tell americans, you know, i've lived through despots, i've seen it. i see how it ends. what's your thought about how it's ending for donald trump and where we might be on the other side of it. >> i deeply hope we're at a better moment. we're at a better moment in terms of government and a better moment in terms of the deadly pandemic. you know, and i really hope that 2021 is a year of optimism and a year when, as president-elect biden said, we have to turn the page. literary metaphor. i'm in favor of turning pages. >> especially after 2020. salman rushdie, thank you so much. have a safe holiday. you can get his lessons on

writing and storytelling at masterclass.com. and that does it for us this morning. yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage right now. >> hi, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian in for steph ruhle this morning. it's tuesday, december 29th. here is what is happening this morning. all eyes on the senate today as the chamber comes back in session soon. the fate of really two important measures now in their hands. first whether millions of americans will get $2,000 stimulus checks instead of the $600 already passed after the house voted to pass that measure with 44 republicans joining most democrats in approving it. the senate's top democrat now asking the president to convince senate republicans to back the bigger payments today, too. >> i am telling donald trump, don't just talk about it, act. these senate republicans have followed you through thick and thin. get them now to act and