hi there everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. it's your wheaties, the week ahead is likely to bring a topsy turvy crescendo to one of the weirdest and darkest chapters in trump's presidency. his six-week-long fraudulent attempt to overturn an election he lost, all eyes on georgia as the two senate seats in contention will determine whether joe biden's white house will be able to govern with his party in control of congress or whether everything will have to run through mitch mcconnell. georgia has also become the battlefield for donald trump's war on the gop, which is nearing its own climax today with trump calling on georgia's republican governor to resign and alleging that georgia's republican secretary of state, brad raffensperger, has a brother named ron who works for a chinese tech company.

fact check, raffensperger does not have a sibling who works for china. that's just another person with the same last name. donald trump and president-elect biden are both expected to travel to georgia in the final days as the conservative "wall street journal" editorial page is already blaming donald trump if both republicans lose on tuesday, writing this. quote, we'll see how this plays out in georgia, but the fault here isn't mitch mcconnell's, the political damage to the gom comes from donald trump who is lashing out at all and sundry in defeat no matter if it all helps to elect a democratic senate. democrats are feeling cautiously optimistic about their prospects in those runoffs. politico reports, quote, the early vote numbers show positive signs for ossoff and warnock with black voters making up a larger percentage of the electorate compared to november's election and higher early turnout in democratic congressional districts. as gop senator josh hawley today announced he would join trump's

assault on democracy by objecting to the certification of the electoral college vote, georgia goes one step further to assure those of us living in fact-based america that there was no fraud whatsoever in the november election there. from the atlanta journal constitution, quote, law enforcement and election investigators didn't find a single fraudulent absentee ballot during an audit of over 15,000 voter signatures. that's according to a report by the georgia secretary of state's office released tuesday. georgia on our minds as trump's attack on democracy looks like it could cost republicans control of the senate is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters. aaron haines, editor at large for "the 19th" and msnbc contributor is back. also joining us, john heilemann, nbc news, nbc national affairs analyst, executive editor of "the recount" and host of "hell or high water" featured r-rated

swear words. john heilemann, let me start with you. happy, happy, happy everything. happy merry christmas, happy new year. we wanted to start with what lays ahead -- >> hi, nicolle. >> hi. we're heading into, and maybe in our holiday stupor and all, what could be really the crescendo, as i said before, of all of these weird, intersecting dynamics. trump's war on the election, trump's attacks on the gop, "the wall street journal" sort of -- whatever that's called in football where you run ahead of a guy carrying the ball and protecting mcconnell from what looks like possible defeat for the two republicans there. where are we? >> well, yes, we are right here on the precipice, right? this is like -- i think the phrase you might have been looking for there is the crescendo of crazy, and this is it, right? we've finally gotten here. as we got further away from the

election, we sort of thought, okay, trump's madness, the madness of the king, will exhaust itself at some point when it starts to become clear that he's played out all the string, that all of the challenges have failed, that all of the legal theories are bogus, that no one's standing up with him. but it hasn't happened. and in some sense, i know you saw that david ignatius column in "the washington post" a few days ago talking about his continued concern on the basis of his reporting, that there are -- there's still danger. genuine danger that lies ahead. and i think that's a separate topic. on the political front, i mean -- a separate and very serious topic. on the political front, i agree about "the wall street journal," and as you know not a fan of moscow membership myself, but i think they're 100% right. the reality is, and we've said this on the show before, in any conventional runoff scenario, if you look at the way the votes are distributed in november in georgia, you think about what normally happens in runoff elections, republicans should be favored in both of those

runoffs. and the reality right now is, on the basis of everything we've seen in terms of turnout, the early vote, and you've got donald trump and others down there creating a kind of chaos that is absolutely -- we don't know yet what the final tally is going to be obviously, but everything they are doing is working to depress republican turnout, rather than enhance republican turnout. and so i think "the wall street journal" is exactly right. we're into the crescendo of the crazy, but we're also into a period where trump's madness may have a dire consequence, political consequence, for the republican party as it heads into the biden era with potentially losing both of those runoffs in georgia on january 5th. >> i'm glad you brought up the david ignatius piece. if anyone else was like me, off that day, it details something that i think all of us have probably heard from our friends who have or do work in national security functions, that there's still a lot of fear about what donald trump, as the country's

commander in chief, is capable of in the final days. so john, leave those two things together, because i'm glad you raised it. what's happened to the republican party -- my problem with "the wall street journal" is mitch mcconnell doesn't deserve being let off the hook for enabling four years of donald trump. >> of course, sure. >> and tenabling four years of d trump and the last 60 days of donald trump. i find it amusing they're trying to hang on to his maybe minority leader slot for him because we know how much he likes it. i do want you to crystallize just how robbed the republican party is, not just of its soul and its principles but of its pump. if the republican standard bearer is a threat to national security, the republicans stand for less than nothing. >> yes. and of course, that's been amply demonstrated the last four years. that is what we've learned, more than almost anything else. more than anything we've learned about donald trump, i think the lesson of these four years is that donald trump did not stage

a hostile takeover of the republican party, as so many of us said in 2016, but that the republican party was a hollow, bankrupt, principleless husk of what was a formerly great party when donald trump came along. and that trump is very much not a cause, but a symptom of a deeper rot in the party. and we're seeing that right now in the most vivid way possible. this period in the post-election, the number of republicans willing to acquiesce in trump's refusal to be part of the peaceful transition of power, his desire to continue to cling to power under any circumstances. this is what the ignatius column is about, about worrying signs that thingth are afoot, potentially, in the department of defense, in other agencies where trump is looking for excuses -- again, this is ignatius' reporting, that there's concerns among stalwart trump defenders over the last four years inside the administration that even they are looking at trump and saying, he is looking for an excuse to cling to power.

and they are looking at the moves inside the pentagon at one point to try to separate the nsa from cyber command, to try to maybe take control of the fbi, to look for excuse, whether in terms of civil unrest fostered by trump people on the streets of washington, potentially, on january 6th, whether it's iran and foreign activity that could provoke a crisis in foreign affairs. that trump is looking desperately for something, anything, to justify doing the thing that most rational noncatastrophizers thought, in the end he will do a lot of damage but he will not actually try to cling to power and overstage january 20th. and the ignatius column suggests that there is deep concern among former long-time trump loyalists, the most loyal of the loyals internally, that they are looking at trump and beginning to wonder and worry what he will actually do in january of this year.

and i think that is -- that piece ties into the georgia story in the sense that they are both symptoms of trump's madness and the fact that all he cares about is himself and not about this party, and that the party is absolutely abjectly unwilling to stand up and say, enough. enough. there is something bigger than you. this party is bigger than you. you must stop behaving this way, because there is a future beyond you. no one in the republican party right now, a member in good standing so to speak, is willing to stand up and say that to donald trump, to take that trip to the white house, like howard baker with richard nixon in the '70s, and say that to him. and that is ultimately the sign of the rot that i was talking about when i started this, when i uncorked this rather lengthy soliloquy in answer to your question. >> we will spend many hours on this program examining the rot. but today there was a development that i think makes the folks who are worried even more worried. eli stokols, donald trump has a

new ally for his assault on democracy in josh hawley, senator from missouri, today. just talk about this broader effort. you've got congressman gohmert suing mike pence, who in normal times are bosom buddies policy-wise, in terms of where they stand on the ideological spectrum. now you've got a senator -- here's "the washington post" describing the broader effort. trump allies launch desperate final efforts ahead of congressional confirmation of biden win. one lawsuit filed by a conservative group that supports trump targeted among others the electoral college, which does not exist as a permanent body. another lawsuit filed by u.s. representative louie gohmert against vp pence attempts to get a federal judge to suspend pence's power to affect the outcome arguing pence can choose to recognize alternate electors to support trump should we wish

to do so. legal experts said the lawsuit was meritless and would probably be dismissed by a federal judge for multiple reasons. i'm not a lawyer, but i know that's sort of subpar legal reasoning there. today that subpar legal reasoning got a new boost from josh hawley, saying that he would object to the certification, which means that that objection now has a member of the senate and a member of the house. >> right. with one member of the senate, that's all the takes to force deba debate and a vote on the senate floor, to force all of his republican colleagues to take this vote. this is a political calculation that josh hawley is making. he's not an idiot. this is a guy who went to stanford, went to harvard, and who has calculated that in the short-term political benefit is to choose donald trump over the health of our democracy, over carrying out the obligation that you take an ocean to the constitution and that you are there to represent your constituents and protect the country. there are a lot of republicans, to john's point, who have looked at the short-term politics of

this and have decided to pursue or sort of fall in line behind incredibly anti-democratic and authoritarian aspects of trumpism. because in the republican world, the republican politics, that seems to be the smarter short-term play. this is not the land of ideology anymore, or philosophical debates over issues. we're living in an age of sectarian politics. on the right there are a lot of republicans who want to be the party's next standard bearer after donald trump who feel that the only way to really accomplish that is to fully embrace trumpism. the president demand is these loyalty tests in public all the time. that's what he's doing with the vote. for the stimulus money. it's what he's done on basically everything. it's what he's done with this january 6th final certification of the electoral college. he's looking at vice president pence and he's now looking at more republicans to fall in line and do what he has always wanted to do, which is to show his base that he's fighting.

the point of a lot of this has always been the fight, the resistance. and josh hawley's willing to do that. we'll find out if any other republicans are. i think the majority of the republicans in the senate would much prefer not to have to take this vote. but this is a consequence of the last four years and where the party is. when no one stands up except the people who are willing to be stooges to this president, this is where you are. >> i mean, you said he's a smart man, went to stanford and harvard. that's an interesting point. and almost speaks to, if he's not stupid, how did he become radicalized? because this is stupid. right? i mean, what does josh hawley think he's going to find that no judge nominated by democratic or republican presidents serving in federal courts found, what does he think he's going to find that rudegy and his band of misfit lawyers couldn't find? what does he think he's going to find that no republican or democratic secretary of state found? what is the debate going to consist of, eli?

>> nothing. it's a show. there's nothing -- no, they're not going to find anything. they know all these recounts, all these audits of signatures, everything that has happened has turned up no evidence that the election was at all fraudulent. and yet they continue to fight. like i said, this is not a party that is now living in a rational world where -- it's not governed by reason. it's not governed by ideology. it's governed by emotion and political sectarianism. the point is to be fighting. if you don't have the evidence, you just act like it's out there somewhere and you continue to fight. that's what donald trump wants, and there are obviously several people willing to do that. >> erin haines, atmosphere wewe if having spines of jell-o is a winning political position in the state of georgia. two republicans there fighting for their political lives, i think they're on three sides of the debate about $2,000 stimulus checks. they were against it, they were

for it, they're for it because trump's now for it but they didn't have enough power to get mitch mcconnell to fight for it. that's dead in the senate. and you've got an incredible early vote there. what is your sense of how everything we're talking about is playing out on the ground among voters in georgia? >> well, niceool, i think to your point, democrats have the party in power in georgia on the ropes. they are doing that largely because they are tying not only president trump but also mitch mcconnell directly to this pandemic relief vote as georgians are continuing to be impacted from the coronavirus surge from both the public health and economic standpoint. and so, you know, the pitch that these candidates and also their democratic surrogates are making to voters here in the home stretch is for voters in georgia to do in january what kentucky

was not able to do in november, and that is to take mitch mcconnell's power away. that's a powerful message that is resonating with people even alongside messages that local issues, messages that are resonating with georgians like bringing back rural hospitals and jobs and systemic inequality. let me also talk about the other dynamic that is really important here. before i say this, i just want to credit michael mcdonald at elect project for the epiphany that i had today, which was this. so for years i covered georgia politics and watched democrats really be on defense in georgia when it came to voter suppression, republicans are passing legislation shortening early voting periods, making voter i.d. laws, enacting -- elected officials were closing precincts, purging people from the rolls who were largely people of color, largely low-income. but something changed since 2018, and that is that democrats, particularly black women organizers, have really gone on defense against voter

suppressi suppression, which is interesting. they are proactively prejudice administering, id dating, and turning out voters instead of waiting to be disenfranchised and accepting defeat as a foregone conclusion. it's recognition of their power and also the power of black voters. it's remarkable. in terms of the shift in culture and mentality of these voters in particular. and that is what really could be the key to victory in this runoff on tuesday. while republicans, frankly, are still scrambling to figure out whether they should participate in an election that the president continues to cast as rigged, even as, to your point earlier, the facts, the courts, and republican state officials continue to prove otherwise. >> there's so much there. let me try to unpack some of it. you're right, let me put up the numbers first on what you just said. 89,556 early votes in georgia who didn't vote in the general election. that's 90,000 more people voting

early so far than voted in the general. and of that group, african-american participation is 40%. erin, the numbers. i'm going to say this. this is not hyperbole. i mean, with democracy on the line, we'll have african-american voters, as you're saying, african-american women who organized a lot of this, to thank for saving our democracy. and if you look at -- >> yeah. >> -- democratic control of the senate as imperative with the trump administration badly botching the distribution and injecti injections, if you will, of the vaccine, if there's ever an argument to be made for single-party rule in terms of being able to get things done and not dally dallying with gridlock, it seems that message is being heard loud and clear in georgia. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, the very group that has been disproportionately affected by both coronavirus and voter suppression is the group that has been galvanized by both of

those issues. to head out to the polls in record numbers. even as the coronavirus is surging anew, it really is remarkable, even as their representation in congress -- i mean, there will be no black women in the senate, remember, after kamala harris becomes vice president. and yet they are standing up and rejecting the politics of voter suppression. they are trying to hold their elected officials accountable for the relief that so many americans and so many georgians are calling for in the midst of this pandemic. they don't understand why the president, why congress, has not been more responsive to really their daily reality, which is colliding directly with this election and with policy-making in washington, even as we speak. >> erin haines, eli stokols,

thank you so much for starting us off this hour. it's wonderful to see you both. when we come back, this country is literally dying for a leader to do something about the raging pandemic, which is now killing 3,000-plus people every single day in this country. trump, who wants credit for the vaccine, is at the same time trying to wash his hands of it, not taking responsibility for the distribution of it. an update in the investigation of the raid that killed breonna taylor. an action holding more officers accountable in that case that sparked riots across the country. one state's coronavirus vaccination plan includes prioritizing the state's seniors. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for.

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accountable in that case tha accountable in that case that sparked riots across the country. one state's coronavirus vaccination plan includes prioritizing the state's seniors. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. k.

the trump administration is still or maybe again failing us. even as experts like dr. fauci warn that the worst of the pandemic is likely still ahead of us, even with more than 341,000 american lives lost, a record 66,000 of them just this month, and 16.7 million americans sickened with coronavirus so far. according to a new analysis from nbc news, the white house's vaccine distribution program is so slow that at the current rate, it would take nearly ten years to vaccinate enough of us to get the pandemic under control. yet the "i alone can fix it" president claims his job is done. trump tweeting today, quote, the federal government has distributed the vaccines to the

states, now it's up to the states to administer, get moving. here's president-elect joe biden on that yesterday. >> this will take more time than anyone would like, and more time than the promises from the trump administration have suggested. this is going to be the greatest operational challenge we've ever faced as a nation. we're going to get it done. it's going to take a vast new effort. it's not yet under way. >> this as we continue to face new threats from the virus. a covid mutation found to be 70% more contagious in the uk has now made its way, as it was expected to do, here to the u.s. and perhaps just as startling the infected man who lives in colorado had not traveled recently. joining us now, msnbc public health analyst and founding director of the national center for disaster preparedness at columbia university. from irwin redletter.

howard's still here. first on the vaccine distribution, i think we passed the point of time of asking why the trump administration can't do better. what can biden do on day one to speed things up? >> so it's worth talking about, nicolle, because biden's going to bring a really great team of covid experts, he's going to bring honesty and transparency, a whole new agenda for how the american public is going to hear about this. what he's not bringing is a magic bullet. this will not end on january 20th. this legacy of incompetence that has been set by donald trump is going to be an ongoing challenge. what we're seeing now is really what's manifesting in a huge challenge of getting this vaccine from the manufacturers to actually being injected into people's arms. and it was maybe six weeks ago that the states, all of the states, essentially, were complaining that they did not have the resources or the

capabilities of assuring a rapid and efficient ability to vaccinate all their citizens in the states. and this is coming home to roost. trump had promised 20 million people vaccinated by the end of the year. we're going to maybe be at 2 million, 2,200,000 or something. far behind schedule. this is going to mean a lot of work for the biden administration to amp up the resources available to the states and to make sure that the vaccines are getting to where they need to get as quickly as possible. no small feat, nicole. >> doctor, since we've been on the air, the governor of california has announced they have a case now of this new variant of covid-19, the one that is 70% more contagious. you have to explain to me again what that means, because i understood the defining characteristic of covid to be not its lethality, necessarily, but its incredible ability to spread rampantly. what does 70% more contagious mean for all of us?

>> yes, so this is actually a frightening thing to hear. let me put it in perspective, nicolle. these viruses are born to survive. they are survival machines. and if something's in their way, they'll mutate. that's what's happening. many, many mutations already. hopefully we're far away from seeing a mutation that will actually affect the vaccine's ability to stop it. but for right now, we're seeing vaccine strains, i mean virus strains, that are much more effective spreading from person to person. so that means that whatever the rate of spread was a few weeks ago, it's now improved, increased, by 70%. that's a problem. by the way, finding this in colorado is absolutely no surprise. we're so far behind the eye-ball. it's obviously been here for a while. it's in canada, it's all over europe. and we're just -- we just have to buckle down and really amp up our ability to sustain the

public health initiatives that we need to have to prevent spread as much as possible. because the vaccine is coming, but it's going to come very, very late for many people, nicolle. >> john heilemann, i keep thinking about what this new team is going to have to contend with when they walk in. with all these challenges, obviously there's an opportunity to lead, there's an opportunity to protect, there's an opportunity to heal. there are all these leadership opportunities, the very things that biden's entire campaign and candidacy were about. but you've also got a public that is, with this new variant, scared. with ten months of living like this, fatigued, angry. and you've still got what we were talking about in the first block, just a totally broken political system. how do you come in as joe biden, fix vaccine distribution, soothe the fears, keep people doing the right things? what is your sense of their mindset for this?

>> well, my sense of their mindset is that they have exactly the right mindset. dr. redletter said they don't have a silver bullet, they don't. the thing you just laid out is like we're on the brink in a lot of ways of total system failure. so there's not one line of code that's going to fix this os, right? the reality is that joe biden has the mindset, which is the mindset that donald trump -- you may remember this, back in march, you were off for a few days at the very beginning of the pandemic, and i was sitting in your chair. and it was the week that trump announced that he was going to be a wartime president. he said theatrically, i'm going to be a wartime president. then of course he gave that up within days. but what is a wartime president? what does that mean? it means leveling with the american people, it means being clear-eyed about the scale of the challenges, it means asking for sacrifice, it means being honest, it means being in some cases sounding kind of grim. and that's what biden has been doing. biden has been doing the thing trump said that week in march he was going to do.

but we know what churchill sounds like. we know what fdr sounds like. it's the absolute antithesis what was donald trump sounded like this past year, march onward that he pretended that one day. i think biden is not set up for wartime president, but everything he's been saying about this challenge over the course of the last weeks and months, particularly the last few days, suggests that he deeply understands that this is a wartime challenge and that we're not over the hump and that this is going to be -- there's going to be other challenges beyond the mutation, beyond the hidden trap doors that the trump administration has undoubtedly left, either intentionally or unintentionally. the thing is going to be worse on the inside than biden even imagines right now. they've not been given full access to the administration. they've not seen the books. they've thought been in the boiler room. i think when they get in there, they're going to find it's worse than ever. the key is are you clear-eyed about it, and do you level with the american people? i think biden's ready to do that, and that's at least a

starting point. it's not an answer but it's a starting point to an approach. >> you know, john, i keep thinking of the four-year 95 long assault on the deep state. what the deep state is in the real world is experts. you certainly i think can see from biden's picks that's the kind of people he's tapped to serve in this administration. >> yeah, that's right. and you know -- you and i, i've covered government for a long time, and you've been in it, so you know that's true, nicolle, expertise -- sorry, i didn't mean to step on anybody. i think that's the key thing. deep state is a paranoid conspiracy about what we though the big government is really made up of, which is experts and people who understand how things actually work. biden appreciates that deeply, donald trump thought it was a thet to his authority. that's one of the fundamental differences between the two. >> dr. redletter, you get the last word. >> yeah, so i was going to say, i want to relate this to what

john heilemann was saying. this attack on democracy, the attack on the credibly of government, another obstacle lied biden is going to have to face and get over. donald trump has so much destroyed the credibility of messages from government that just adds to the incredible complexity of dealing with this pandemic, a really unfortunate collision course of attack on democracy and a failure on dealing with covid-19. >> it's true. it's all connected, obviously for the purposes of this show we break them up, but they are, as john mentioned, the national security threat as well at the top of the hour, they're all connected. dr. irwin redlener, john, thank you. action is being taken against some of the officers involved in the killing of breonna taylor. so you want to make the best burger ever? then make it!

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> kentucky's metro police department has moved to fire two officers involved in the raid that killed 26-year-old breonna taylor in march. the department notified both the officer that fired the fatal bullet that killed taylor as well as the officer that obtained the no-knock warrant for her home that the department intends to terminate both of their employment. the decision marks a significant move by the troubled police department to punish the officers involved in the poorly planned nighttime raid that killed taylor just nine months ago, sparked national outrage

and protests. joining our conversation, msnbc contributor eddie glaud, chairman of the department of african-american studies at american university, and reverend al sharpton. i've turned to both of you to help me understand how and why -- i think there was one indictment for an officer who fired bullets into another apartment, but no one has paid a price professionally or legally for breonna taylor's death. does this move signify something good, rev? >> i think that this is a personnel move. it does not address the question of justice in a legal context. when this case started, and i remember breonna taylor's mother did "politics nation" with ben crump, the attorney, we call the attorney general of black america, she said, i want justice. they did get a breonna taylor law locally in louisville. they were able to get a civil settlement and some things from

the city. but they still have not gotten an iota of justice in terms of the killing of breonna taylor. what the metro police did today was a personnel decision that is good for the citizens, that two of them are off the force. but it does not answer the question of justice for the life taken of breonna taylor. it doesn't even begin to address the legal question here. >> i mean, eddie, my question for you is what it often is. absent the kind of reforms that leave us tools other than what the rev describes as personnel moves, it seems that we lack the ability to obtain justice, to seek justice, to do more than cover it and talk about it and then go home. >> right, nicolle. i mean, this is the contradiction at the heart of much of this, right? so you have these horrific acts,

you have this haunting ritual of black families grieving the loss of a loved one. you have protests. then you have calls from people in power, political leaders, civil rights leaders, asking us to invest in processes, right? trying to bring these folk to justice. and so people, they mobilize their energies. and then some folks are arrested, some folks are fired, but we don't see justice. it's precisely what reverend al just laid out. what you get is this constant reveal, nicolle, that the process itself is broken. that it's not the exception. the exception to the rule is if a police officer is actually convicted. the rule that is they will get away with it. it has a lot to do with qualified immunity, has a lot to do with the standard of intent, as it were. so part of this involves -- what the result is, nicolle, is the loss of faith in the process. and that mixed with the grief

and the anger is a toxic mixture, it seems to me. >> eddie, stay with loss of faith. doj announced it was declining charging any officers in the death of tamir rice. if you have a son, you know the tamir rice case. because boys sometimes like to play with nerf guns. i don't care if you are black or white, you do not let a child leave the house with a nerf gun because of the tamir rice case. what i fear -- what i feel as fear, i imagine if you're a black mom or dad, you feel terror. talk about the tamir rice case and the impact. it's gone on so long. i'm not sure what took so long to decide to do nothing, eddie. >> yeah, you know, my heart goes out to his mother who has to relive this again, who's been out there fighting for justice for her son, for justice for black boys and girls around the country. it seems to me, again, this is

another piece of evidence, nicolle, that our lives in this country aren't valued by the justice system in so many ways. reverend al has been out on the front lines fighting this battle for as long as i've been on the planet. i don't want to make you that old, rev. but the criminal justice system is broken. and it is broken fundamentally when it comes to black folk. 12-year-old killed within seconds. and they have no evidence to hold anyone accountable, nicolle. folks go off and get other jobs. it deepens the skepticism. it deepens the skepticism . it appeals to having faith in process. it deepens the skepticism, seems to me. >> rev, are these the kinds of cases, the specific cases, you've talked to joe biden about, when you've talked about what you feel like the country needs in its next attorney general?

>> absolutely. we need the george floyd policing and justice act passed, and he needs to help champion that. he and vice president-elect kamala harris. we need new laws. what made the '60s the '60s? we all romanticize the '60s. the civil rights act became law in '64. voting rights act became law in '65. we are not looking for sympathy for breonna taylor's family, or tamir rice's family. we're looking for laws and people to enforce the laws. today, ben crock is in new york with a family where a young man was violated, when a woman accused of stealing a cell phone found out that her cell phone she left in an uber car -- she assaulted him and his father. that's against the law. we don't want pity, we want them to enforce the law. if we break the law, we don't say i'm sorry, we go to jail. if they break the law, we say,

oh my god, let's sit down and have a kumbaya moment, can we relate, can we deal with sensitivity? we need to have laws and enforce the laws. then we can have all this sensitivity session. but as long as we have a society where if blacks break the laws against whites, they pay. if whites break the laws, particularly if they're in a law enforcement position, they get therapy. then we will never be able to get to where we need to get in this society. we don't need understanding, we need enforcement. >> rev, eddie, i want to say one thing as this year comes to an end. i want to thank both of you for spending so much time on the air with me as we tried to cover, fairly and with some heart and compassion, understanding everything that's happened this year, including the murder of george floyd and everything that happened on the streets of this country and everything we cover now as we head into a new

administration. thank you, and happy new year to you both. up next for us, states today implementing some of the difficult decisions they've had to make when it comes to the vaccine, figuring out who goes first and who's responsible. a live report from one such state is next. some people say our trade-in

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will come to them as soon as tomorrow. drop off their new ride and whisk their old one away. because we make trading your car unbelievably easy. all so you can say... told you so. experience the new way to trade in your car with carvana. the covid vaccine shows us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. the way that the vaccine has been distributed so far has been complicated. states like texas and florida are ignoring cdc recommendations for the second tier of vaccine distribution and asking frontline workers like grocery store employees and transit workers to wait while they offer the vaccine to a broader group of their elderly citizens. while in arizona, they're not asking essential workers to wait, but also bumping people age 75 and older into that second phase of distribution. more than 500,000 of that state's residents. let's bring into our

conversation nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard live in sun city, arizona, arizona's oldest community. do people 75 and older know now they can get vaccinated, talk to their doctors about it, at least? >> reporter: i think that's the part that not only are local health officials grappling with, but also residents, understanding how do you get the vaccine? i think this is the part that we will be talking about over the course of especially the next two weeks. because we have to quantify this. folks have heard about that there's going to be that pharmacy partnership that hhs has signed up, essentially folks down the road this spring are going to be able to make an appointment and go into a pharmacy to get their vaccination. but in reality, that's actually a small part of this population in the state. instead, it is the state and local governments here over the course of the next two, three, four weeks that are trying to

figure out a way of how to disseminate and administer the vaccination. here in arizona, for example, nicolle, there are 7.4 million residents. the state and local government is responsible for vaccinating 5.1 million of so, when the state says, we're going to include folks 75 and older, suddenly, by the end of january, it's the local counties that are now trying to figure out how do we actually get 1.5 million people vaccinated in that short period of a time. >> is -- are the residents there asking you questions? are they eager? is there demand now to go to the pharmacies or call their doctors and find out how and where and when to get it? >> reporter: if folks around the country have learned one thing this year when it comes to covid response, it's been, patience. you know, folks waited in the 115-degree sun for hours for just a test, and i had that very conversation with some seniors here in this community this morning, and i'll let you hear

from one of them, because they're ready to be patient yet again, nicole. >> okay. >> they're doing the best they can. we're -- we are not prepared at all, but i say, give it to the first responders and the young people first. i'm sorry. i'm 81. i'm not going to be around that much longer. >> reporter: and yet, nicole, folks are making that very statement when covid is at its highest peak right now over the course of the entire year, record number of hospitalizations right now, record number of icu beds in use, record number of ventilators in use. for context, right now, the number of hospital beds in use for covid patients is 25% higher than the peak here in arizona over the summer, nicole. >> oh, that is incredible. nbc's vaughn hill yard, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. when we come back, remembering some of the good things in 2020. there were more than a few. we'll be right back. we mreore tw

we'll be right back. i am robert strickler. i've been involved in communications in the media for 45 years. i've been taking prevagen on a regular basis for at least eight years. for me, the greatest benefit over the years has been that prevagen seems to help me recall things and also think more clearly. and i enthusiastically recommend prevagen. it has helped me an awful lot. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

keeping your oysters growing while keeping your business growing has you swamped. (♪ ) you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo the year 2020 has become something of a dark punchline. but look a little closer. it's only part of the picture. 2020 also showcased some of the very brightest aspects of human nature, heroics happening every minute of every day. you probably know about chef jose andres, whose nonprofit helped deliver more than 12

million meals, putting $135 million back into american restaurants. the local level, there are people like sonny ho, a chinese immigrant from vietnam, a man who worked his way up to preside over 40 dunkin franchises in philadelphia, a product of that city's public schools. he donated a hundred thousand dollars to nutrition and fresh food programs for students there. those are some of the examples of the extraordinary, but look around. there are heroes everywhere. think about all the people on the front lines, doctors, nurses, first responders, brave moms and dads, husbands and wives, risking it all just to help those of us in need. what about our scientists? rarely is a vaccine, any vaccine, developed in less than five years under supreme pressure. they got it done in a matter of months. you want to thank a hero? walk into a grocery store and thank the person who rings up your groceries. or the delivery person who brings your amazon boxes. say thank you to them or to a bus driver, a shop owner, a mail

carrier. amid global crisis, they are the ones who risked everything and kept our country standing upright. and there's so much to say about our teachers. consistently underappreciated in this country, they answered the call, they're answering the call. a tough job that got tougher. they're getting it done. speaking of which, what about parents? remote learning turned living rooms into classrooms, kitchens into cafeterias, all that while jobs to do and bills to pay, work to do. that's hero stuff. finally, look in the mirror. you will never know for sure how many lives were saved because you chose to wear your mask, to wash your hands, to stay six feet away, to stay home for the holidays. all that. all that matters. you are saving lives. somewhere down the line in five or ten years, you might put on old jacket and find a face mask in the pocket. at that point, the year 2020 might feel like a distant bad

dream. if and when that happens, do yourself a favor and remember the good stuff about 2020. remember the heroes. the people all around us who kept calm and carried on. until then, mask up, stay sharp, because we have work to do. and for us, the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started

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what he is doing, and those who support him are doing, is breeding in the american public and certainly amongst the hard core trump supporters this belief that the election itself was illegitimate and any time a democrat wins, it must be illegitimate. that is ultimately going to potentially end in the overthrow of democracy. at some point, there will be a successful attempt by republicans at the state level or national level to throw out a legitimate election just because a democrat won. we don't do this in this

country, right? we put our country before our party and our personal beliefs. senator hawley's efforts are not going to change the result of the election, but they pose a grave threat to american democracy. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east. don't bother calling the republican party the party of lincoln or reagan, because it is officially the party of trump and his dangerous anti-democratic delusions that threaten our country and our democracy. cemented today when gop senator josh hawley announced he will object to the certification of the electoral college when a joint session of congress is set to count the votes a week from today. hawley and his statement making clear he's capitulating to donald trump's lies about voter fraud, lies that have been denied or disproven in more than 50 court battles and multiple state recounts since election day. but what hawley's announcement means is that on january 6th, what was supposed to be just a

procedural thing will now be drawn out. nothing will change in the end. politico describes what will happen. "the missouri republican's announcement guarantees that both chambers will be forced to debate the results of at least one state and vote on whether to accept biden's victory, a process that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has urged republicans to avoid. despite pressure from president donald trump who's urging republicans to overturn the democratic results. though hawley's challenge will have no bearing on the ultimate outcome of the election, numerous gop senators have accepted biden as president-elect, it will delay the certification of biden's victory and force every member of the house and senate on the ordinary affirming biden's win." going on the record could have major consequences for the gop. what hawley will have accomplished is to put a big target on the back of senate republicans, lots of republicans up in 2022, blunt, portman,

grassley, thune, langford could face maga primary challenges unless they vote with trump against their own beliefs. and vice president mike pence will be under the microscope that day as well. trump allies are hoping pence, as the one presiding over the vote, would be able to change the results. our friend points out in his latest op-ed, though, that pence's role that day is simply symbolic. nothing in either the text of the constitution or the electoral count act gives the vice president any substantive powers. his powers are administerial. and that circumscribe role makes general sense. the whole point of an election is to let the people decide who will rule them. if an incumbent could simply maneuver to keep himself in office, after all, a maneuver to protect mr. trump also protects mr. pence, the most foundational precept of tour government would be gravely undermined. in america, we, the people, not we, the vice president, control our destiny.

the surrender, again, of a political party to its leader who just lost re-election is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. the aforementioned neil, nbc legal analyst, law professor at georgetown university, and former acting u.s. solicitor general is back. also joining us, elizabeth newman, former assistant secretary for threat prevention and security policy for the department of homeland security, now an advisor to the group defending democracy together is here. and mark, "new york times" chief national correspondent and msnbc contributor is also back. mark, take me through how this landed today. because my understanding is that where we were before today is you had congressman gohmert, who was suing and had agreed to carry this out in the house, but one of the defining features of mitch mcconnell's rule of the senate is his iron grip on that caucus. he seemed to have lost that today. >> yeah. i mean, i think a lot of people thought that it was somewhat

inevitable that one senator would sort of step out and be the first one. tommy tuberville, the incoming senator from alabama, had talked about being the first. there was a lot of talk that someone like ted cruz or tom cotton, some of the young, ambitious republicans who were thinking about running in 2024, would be among the first, and hawley went and did it. and for all the reasons that you laid out before, this is a very, very problematic and uncomfortable situation for every other republican in the senate, which is why mitch mcconnell has been trying desperately to try to avoid this. so, yes, josh hawley will now have the distinction or the infamy, depending on how you look at this, as being the person who actually kind of forced the issue in the senate, and ensured what i think many of us assumed would happen all along, but who ensured that this would actually degenerate into something unusual and something potentially reckoning next week when the senate finally meets. >> mark, does josh hawley think that there's election fraud? >> probably not.

i mean, look, josh hawley is a bright guy, and i think that it's not really obviously, i don't know what's in josh hawley's head, but some of the people i mentioned before, ted cruz and tom cotton and josh hawley, these are all ivy league educated senators, they're all extremely calculating, extremely bright, you know, they have -- they're very well educated. i think they know what's going on but i think this is politics in the trump era of the republican party and i think they are making a calculation based on any number of jumbles of ambition, of sort of covering their base, out of trying to appeal to somehow this is a winning strategy, that somehow will end well for them. it's unclear as a party if that's possible at this point. >> neil, nothing -- well, something against ivy leagues but i don't think you have to believe in democracy to be admitted to one. i mean, do you think that it is going too far to say that they are all taking a stand against democracy, to now try to fabricate some function on the

6th where they can block the will of the american people? i mean, what's your -- what's your take, not just on the move and how it's going to end, because that seems to be the lens that a lot of the coverage is focused on, but the move itself? what they're trying to do is invalidate an election that none of them believes was fraudulent. >> i mean, it is, nicole, fundamentally undemocratic and un-american. it is, you know, at the height of it, what senator hawley is saying is, i, senator hawley, get to decide what's going to happen in the election and not the votes of you and me, the american people. and you know, and then there's this other move by representative gohmert to basically give it to the vice president. you know, if the vice president could pick the next vice president, we don't have a democracy. i mean, you know, that isn't just, like, something putin would provide. i mean, i think you have to go back to the original stalin for something that ridiculous. and so you have on the one hand, this really fundamentally anti-democratic move now being embraced by hawley and the

republican party, and then on the other, just watching your montage just a moment ago about all the local heroes, i just can't help but think what are the missed opportunities? i mean, here, donald trump had the entire party in his hand, the republican party. they were so scared of him that they would do anything for him, say anything, as senator hawley, who's one of the brighter members of congress, evidently showed today. imagine what he could have done with that, whether it was a minimum wage or stimulus checks that were $2,000 or more or a vaccine delivery or true economic reform. i mean, all these squandered opportunity that trump had with all of his power, instead of using it for good, he used to just try and perpetuate himself, you know, which is -- it's un-american and also despicable at the same time. >> what do we do, then, neal? i mean, in two hours, three of you have described mr. hawley as bright, but if you no longer

associate being well-educated, which i guess is the point, he went to stanford and harvard, with being a good citizen or valuing the country in which you live, what -- i mean, what is happening if we say, well, he's really smart so we know he doesn't think that trump's lies are real, because even rudy couldn't prove that they were real. 50 judges threw all the cases out, as mark's colleague has chronicled all of the legal defeats, the georgia secretary of state just did an audit of the signatures, which was donald trump's last gasp attempt to prove fraud. they proved there was none. every republican and democratic secretary of state in a swing state has certified that their votes were free from fraud. this was the most secure and fraud-free election, probably, in all of our lives. what are they -- what are they doing, neal? because it seems to me that when we're all back here again, maybe it will happen if the republicans lose in georgia, saying they're not going to concede because they don't accept the results. it seems that we're putting in

motion something more dangerous than we're exposing. >> yeah, well, look, i was never smart enough to get into stanford so i can't speak to that. >> me neither. >> but being smart and having a high iq is not a good predictor of judgment, as we see time and time again. and you know, here, i think one of the big problems that senator hawley has is he's just incomplete. he doesn't tell the full story of what happened. so, for example, with respect to his press release today, saying he's going to challenge it because of vote irregularities in pennsylvania, well, you know, disputes arise like this in every election and the 12th amendment and the electoral count says get your processes in place ahead of an election and then follow them and if you do, then you meet the safe harbor date by december 8th, you can't really challenge that. and all of that happened here. you had trump who lost the election in november. you then had, you know, local election houses and local officials reject trump's

challenge. you had the pennsylvania secretary of state reject trump's challenge. you had the pennsylvania supreme court reject trump's challenge. and you have effectively had the united states supreme court reject the challenge as well, because they're sitting on it with no hurry despite trump's attempts to try and get them to move quickly. so, what trump and hawley want is essentially a seventh do-over after losing these other six stages in the process? but none of that, of course, he tells you. and then in the press release today, he says, well, this is something democrats did before, raising objections. well, when maxine waters tried this in 2016, again, he doesn't tell you what happens. joe biden said, quote, there can be no debate as he's presiding over that mishmash in congress. and the republicans literally booed maxine waters on the house floor and paul ryan was sitting there snickering and laughing at her. so the idea that this is some, like, time-honored tradition that senator hawley is embracing today with this maneuver is a joke. and i think that's the only

proper response to what senator hawley did today. laughter. >> elizabeth, senator hawley is smart, as we've all said, but he is smart enough to get into stanford and yale. i misspoke. he did not go to harvard. so, he's a, i guess, proud product of stanford and yale. i want to read you, elizabeth, something that the "new york times" writes. this is what mr. hawley is now not just enabling but augmenting. quote, if anything president trump has given the movement to limit ballot access new momentum while becoming the singular charismatic leader it never had. after declaring outright that high levels of voting are bad for republicans, he persuades his base that the election system is rotten with fraud and to view that fiction as a bedrock party principle. several recent polls have shown that majorities of republicans think the election was fraudulent, even as election officials across the country report that it went surprisingly

smoothly, even in a pandemic with exceptionally high turnout and no evidence of fraud aside from the usual smattering of lone wolf bad actors and mistakes by well-intentioned voters. i guess my question is, how are we proceeding with any notion that what mr. hawley is a part of is rooted in anything more fantastical than trump's lies about the election when there are members of the house who were elected on the same ballots that republicans are now going to hold up the electoral college certification to say were fraudulent. if they're fraudulent, they should all resign their seats because they were on the same ballots that's right. and this is just a continuation of the circus that is trump world. i cannot wait for january 20th when he fades into, i don't know, he'll still be -- there will still be a circus but maybe he won't be center ring anymore, and we can slowly but surely wean ourselves off of the distraction, the chaos that he

foments on a moment by moment basis. i really think, yes, i mean, it's so obvious that hawley and others like him are just posturing for 2024, but i think they're making a significantly bad calculation, and maybe i'll be proven wrong, but i just have to think that you get to the other side of the pandemic, people start -- they're able to get back to their normal lives, they are back in their offices and schools, worried about, you know, things like little league instead of masking at the grocery store, and they're able to just go back to being what feels like human to them, and you know, four years is a long time. a lot can change in four years. and it creates opportunity for alternate voices to come forward from -- it will still need to come from the right, but alternate voices that, like romney and sasse and liz cheney

so say, like, hey, guys, here's what truth is. this is what it looks like to have integrity and we in some ways need to return to core principles of what the party used to be about, not saying there isn't need for reform from some of the mistakes of the past, absolutely, but more than anything, we need to return to integrity, and i think that the good hardworking men and women of this country value integrity, and while many of them have been deceived by the right-wing media, i think that given time and space, that they will be able to see truth and they will also start to look at the hawleys and the cottons and others that are trying to carry on the trump legacy, and they might have a backlash of rejection of those that participated in the grift and the great deception, and that's what i am hopeful for. i might be wrong. but i think there's opportunity here for integrity to make a

comeback, and i think even biden's -- the way that he is carrying out his transition, the way that he appears like he's going to carry out his presidency, i think he will contribute to that by proving all of that fear mongering wrong, that he's not turning us into a socialist nation, that it isn't the end of the world that he was elected. give time and space and i think you'll find the american people kind of come back to home base of what do i really believe in and wow, that -- that circus, i don't want to go back to that anymore. >> i do not share your optimism but i'm happy to hear it and here's why. this is an outgoing republican congressman. i'm going to play this. this is what he said, he was primaried, he's on his way out and this is him telling the truth now. he may have done it the whole time but it didn't breakthrough. this is the first time i've seen him talking about the impact, the danger, the corrosive nature of disinformation. congressman denver riggalman of

virginia. >> number one, this is the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone. you inject this information into the constituents and then use that disinformation as a rationalization to protest this. it's unbelievable, and it's how disinformation works, right? it's a self-licking ice cream cone. number two, fund-raising. a lot of people are fund-raising off a fantasy and there comes a time you have to get more and more provocative. the thing is that provocative nature can cause radicalism and people to act on this thinking that it's true when it's not. >> elizabeth, it seems like we've spent so much time talking about disinformation and radicalization, it seems like it's going to take more than a romney and a sasse speaking gentlemenly truths in that deliberative body to shake the republican party free from all of this disinformation that the congressman calls a self-licking ice cream. >> i fully agree with congressman riggleman. i think he has really good insights into the radicalization

of the republican party. i also think that the way that you deradicalize is usually not some abrupt, loud moment where the spell is broken and everybody wakes up. it tends to be a slow and steady process. it tends to occur through community, through one-on-one conversations. i will say that one of the hardest parts of doing that deradicalization process is going to be the conservative media echo chamber and as he described, that self-licking ice cream, there's going to have to be a break-up or a shift of the way that that right media works and i don't know how we convince them that what they're doing is so damaging. part of the reason i chose to speak out was because i realized this is way more than politics at stake. by radicalizing so many people in our country, we are creating

opportunities for small percentage of them to commit acts of violence. so for just the sake of preventing future violence, we have to figure out a better way to communicate with one another in this country. >> elizabeth newman and mark, you always expand my horizons, thank you for starting us off this hour. wonderful to see you both, and happy new year. neal is sticking around a little longer. when we return, donald trump leaves office in three weeks, yes. he's leaving. no matter what. three weeks. there are signs that his legal troubles are mounting. we'll take a closer look at the latest moves for prosecutors in new york and what they tell us about this trump investigation. plus, the six days to go before the crucial senate runoff elections in georgia, we'll get a live report from there where democrats hope to benefit from the civil war donald trump is escalating against the state's republican leaders. and the surprising number of coronavirus patients who suffer long-term effects and find themselves back in already-overburdened hospitals. "deadline white house" continues

after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. republican leaders. republican leaders see every delivery...

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new reporting today gives us a clearer preview of just what awaits donald trump on january 20th back in new york when his very real and legitimate loss to joe biden leaves him out of office and facing a mountain of legal problems. according to "the washington post," the manhattan district attorney has hired expert forensic accounting analysts to assist his ongoing probe into several years of the trump organization's business operations. "the post" writes this. as prosecutors ramp up their scrutiny of his company's real

estate transactions, according to people familiar with the matter, vance has contracted with fti consulting to look for anomalies among a variety of property deals and to advise the district attorney on whether the president's company manipulated the value of certain assets to obtain favorable interest rates and tax breaks. according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. neal katyal still here, also joined by branding and marketing expert, our friend, donny deutsche. neal, what does this mean in terms of where the investigation is? because i read this and was thinking, once they've got people to help them make sense of it, they must have a lot of stuff, and if you think about how many people have pulled back the curtain from michael cohen's cooperation with federal and state investigators to, i think, a few people also cooperated with the campaign finance case, how much stuff do you think cy vance's office has, that they're at this step of needing forensic

accountants? >> nicole, it's a very serious and ominous step and before going into why, let me say a moment about the conversation that you were having about the future of the republican party, indeed radicalization, because i think it's true if you look back at the last four years, republican party looks like that self-licking ice cream but at this point, it's an ice cream cone that has melted and donald trump is trying to hold the liquid he drops and the crumbling cone together but it falls apart on january 20th, and we shouldn't underestimate how much that changes the dynamics for the republican party. i mean, he goes from being in a flash the world's most powerful man to being the biggest loser ever. so, with respect to the investigation now -- >> i like that. let me get donny in on that. you're right to keep that going. it's a really important point that doesn't get enough attention, because as egregious as his conduct is, he, in many ways, is no longer the story now, but on january 20th, i

think he has an even harder time making himself the story. and donnie, i think the story, what we've been focused on since election day, are all the accomplices, all the enablers, all the people now pulling the levers of government that all still control to allow for his attack on democracy, but what do you think of neal's point? >> i couldn't agree with neal more. i think it's such a great insight, and i keep talking about, stop looking at trump today. let's imagine trump six months from now or a year from now and also understand something, that this guy came in and said, i'm bigger than the house. i'm -- i play by other rules. i'm bigger than democracy. so if you think of every law enforcement person, whether they're fbi, whether they're in the attorney general's office, whether it's in the u.s. attorney's office, they are going to spend the rest of their careers trying to say one thing. nobody is bigger than the house. and that's why the stories about, i think, what neal was so insightful in bringing up the

republican party because what they're going to be looking at a year from now is a guy who's under indictment from every which way. donald trump is a criminal and i believe the attorney general -- the u.s. attorney is going to rico him and i talked about this before. rico is a racketeering thing that giuliani brought years ago, ironically, that basically says that somebody who's in the middle of an organization, whatever is done in that organization, they can be held accountable. that's the way they got crime bosses and donald trump is nothing more than a cheap crime boss. but the things that he has done, financially, are so egregious. he'll take an asset, one document say it's worth $10 million for a tax reason, and say it's worth $100 million for an insurance reason or a loan reason on another document. absolute bank fraud. anybody will go to jail for that. he's done things where he's just written off consulting fees to his kids. just say, i'm not going to pay a million dollars in taxes because i gave a million dollars to my daughter. no taxes. things that everybody goes to jail for, and the point being,

why he's going to continue to be such a target until the end of time, because this is how the stories are related. any law enforcement official, whether they are somebody that went to an ivy league school or not, is going to -- their reason to be is going to make one statement. that guy that you have been looking at at the top of the pyramid is nothing more than a cheap criminal. and that is going to be the theme going forward. >> well, and neal, where this may box republicans in is, do you believe that no one is above the law? it used to be a central tenet of anyone, man or woman, democrat or republican, at any level who wanted to be a public servant and anyone who doesn't think that what donny just described should proceed with vigor is not sharing that belief and no one should be above the law. >> exactly, nicole. that's the most foundational american precept. no one is above the law.

lady justice is blindfolded. you get the same justice whether you're, you know, rich or poor, man or woman, or the like. and what we've seen over the last four years is trump basically got a free pass with his attorney general blocking the investigation in the southern district of new york into what donny is talking about, rico and perhaps other things, he was individual number one. that investigation was stymied and trump will, i suspect, try and pardon himself to try and avoid a federal rico action. but you know, even if that happens, and even if the republican party still believes that trump is innocent or that they shouldn't have to enforce the law, this is now moving into the realm of another administration, career officials who are going to investigate this, and of course the new york district attorney's office. and so, you know, there are all sorts of accusations which really trump looks like he's guilty, but that, of course, doesn't make him guilty. they've got to prove it. and that is why trump, for four years, has tried to block any

turning over of documents. he went to the supreme court. he lost unanimously at the supreme court, including his own appointees, justice kavanaugh and gorsuch ruling against him and now those documents are going to have to be turned over. he's mounting some sort of frivolous fight at the end of this but those documents are going to have to be turned over and to donny is absolutely righ. law enforcement investigators are going to look at this, make the right call based on the facts they find in the documents and i suspect that call is going to be very bad for trump and that is what the news today about fti consulting, why it's so important. i mean, i've worked with fti. you don't bring them in on a lark. you bring them in because they're very serious people. you bring them in because you have a serious investigation. >> donny deutsche, a lot of people that know trump describe him as having this rep tillian survival instinct. do you agree with neal that he will seek to pardon himself from the things he can pardon himself

from? obviously, cy vance's investigation isn't one of them. >> right. obviously, he can't do it with the attorney general -- with the new york state won either, can't do it with cy vance. of course he will. we know that. i don't think it's even a question. probably end up weighing -- the supreme court will weigh in on that. a few names to be conscious of that slipped in the news. all of a sudden, unceremoniously, a woman by the name of rosemary resigned from deutsche bank mysteriously a couple weeks ago. she was donald trump's personal banker since 2011. and a gentleman by the name of dominic, who also worked on trump's account with her, they both resigned. no -- nothing was said. we don't know why. you'll hear a lot of those names. the other name you'll hear a lot about is alan -- >> do you think they'll be pardoned, donny? >> absolutely. i think that's what you -- you know, and i do think that that is -- to go back to neal's point, we've lensed donald trump as a winner his entire life or,

you know, as a fake winner. he's going forward to be a loser, not just losing the election. a guy is very different when you start picking up rocks and you start to see, oh my god, this guy was really a scam and he's going to jail or he might go to jail. it's like putting a pin in a float, you know? that float we keep seeing, that big fat of him in diapers sometimes in new york, it's like imagine putting a pin in it. so, i do think he is not going to be having control of the republican party in another year or two. i think guys like josh hawley are making horrible bets, and i think the world -- i'm going to go back to a little bit of what elizabeth was saying, and i am optimistic that there is a pendulum in this world and nicole, you know this better than anybody, having lived in politics, and i think the pendulum is going to swing two a little bit more decency. i really believe that in my heart and soul. >> i agree that the pendulum is heading towards decency.

i'm just not sure that republicans are going to get a ride on the pendulum. i think they might be left behind. the die may be cast. we will watch it together. neal, donny, two of my favorite humans, thank you both for spending some time with us today. when we return, just days before the all important senate runoff elections in georgia, the state's republican governor is just brushing off trump's call for him to resign. we'll get the latest from georgia. that's next. get the latest from georgia. that's next.

we are in the home stretch, just six days to go in the georgia runoff elections, which will decide which party controls the senate. yeah, just that. just this morning, president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris announced they will travel to the state in the final days in hopes of pushing jon ossof and raphael warnock to victory there. the state continues to break turnout records for runoff election with more than 2.3 million voters already having cast ballots via absentee mail or early voting. let's bring into our conversation nbc news coordinator priscilla thompson live in lawrenceville, georgia. what's the latest there? there's so much happening on donald trump's twitter feed, on the "wall street journal" editorial page, but none of those things matter as much as the momentum and the views of the voters there in georgia. >> reporter: exactly, nicole. while donald trump appears to be sort of relitigating what happened in the november

election after the georgia secretary of state last night released the results of their signature matching audit, signature match audit, which found zero incidence of fraud, there were two issues, but in both -- the two issues they found, the eligible voter was the person who had actually completed the ballot. it was just an issue around the signatures. but that is what donald trump is tweeting about today. meanwhile, here in georgia, we're in the county where there have been long lines of voters waiting to cast their ballots in these key senate runoff races, even as the president tweeting overnight, continuing to tweet throughout the day. i think even in the last hour, he's tweeted twice on georgia. again, talking about things that happened in the november election, and the governor, brian kemp, held an impromptu press conference earlier today and he had something to say about that. take a listen to what he said. >> all these other things, there is a constitutional and legal process that is playing out, and i'm very comfortable letting

that process play out. but that horse has left the barn in georgia, and it's headed to d.c. right now. the next vote is going to be there, not here. >> reporter: and so you hear him there talking about where the focus should be, and he also talked about where his focus is, saying that things like those tweets are a distraction, but he's focused on his covid response in this state and also ensuring that republicans maintain control of the senate. and one of the things to point out here is that as the president is talking about all this fraud, what does that mean, if these republican candidates win in january? does that mean that this runoff election, too, has all of this fraud that he claims occurred in the november election, even though there's no evidence of that? nicole? >> it's so interesting. there will be so much to watch and talk about in the coming days, and we'll continue to call on you. nbc's priscilla thompson, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. when we return, new details

on the long-term effects of covid as more and more coronavirus patients find themselves back in hospitals already reaching full capacity. that's next. y reaching full capy that's next. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis

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in southern california where the highly contagious new covid strain first identified in the uk was just identified there today, amid the already surging cases that have pushed icu capacity to zero percent and forced some hospitals to extend their icus to parking lots, chapels, and gift shops, many hospitals are warning of what could happen next. they may need to start rationing care. this as recent studies reveal that in a country where at least 6% of the population has now contracted covid-19, the chances that the virus can send someone back to the hospital weeks or months later is shocking. "new york times" analyzes the findings today like this. data on rehospitalization of coronavirus patients is incomplete, but early studies suggest that in the u.s. alone, tens or even hundreds of thousands could ultimately return to the hospital. joining us now is msnbc medical contributor and former obama white house health policy director, our friend, dr. patel, and mara, "new york times"

editorial board member and msnbc contributor and importantly a brave person who has shared her own stories about covid, and i wonder, to you, you've tweeted about your first runs and some of your trips back to doctors. is this overdue, some of this science and some of this reporting on the long-term symptoms of covid? >> yeah, thank you for your support, first of all, nicole, and for allowing me to talk a little bit about it. i appreciate it. you know, the whole time, the whole pandemic, we've seen these stories here and there, and some good coverage about these long-term effects, but the conclusion that we reach in these news articles and from doctors who are interviewed is, we just don't know. that's fair. that's true. we don't know how long this will last, who will fully recover, who may have some lingering symptoms or some flare-ups, but i think we really need to move now away from that and move into helping this large group of

americans who was previously healthy and now needs serious support, and that means research, dedicated research. that means finding new treatments and sometimes it's going to be older drugs that actually work wonders in long-term covid patients. that's going to be emotional support and also some people are going to need to go on disability and already have. so, there's a whole constellation of people who are dealing with all kinds of issues, and i think, you know, just to give a little bit of hope, i mean, i'm getting better slowly. a lot of us are. so, it's really not enough to just say, well, some people may never recover or may have some long-term symptoms. what does this look like? what does healing and recovery look like for people? and where can they get that help? it's really time to start that conversation. there are going to be, unfortunately, millions of americans in this position. >> mara gay, you stop me in your

tracks the way you talk about this and you always change, i think, how i think about why we're protecting ourselves or protecting ourselves for the most vulnerable. we're protecting not just ourselves but we're, as rachel maddow now talks about, after susan got sick, we're protecting the person on the planet we love most. but i want to just push you even further. i mean, have you built your own community in the absence of all of this? we don't have any of this. we don't really track these patients. we don't have the emotional support, really, for anybody. we just don't do a good job at that in this country. but what have you been able to build from your own experience and your own willingness to talk about it? >> sure. one of the biggest blessings that has come from sharing my experience, other than people who say thank you to me, just for, you know, forcing them to take the virus seriously, are the americans who have reached out to me, offering help. some of them are pulmonary rehab specialists who i'm working with now. i'm in pulmonary rehab twice a

week. i'm somebody who just, as a reminder, never had asthma, no preexisting conditions, 33 years old when i got sick. that's helping a lot. i've taken up yoga. there are support networks, which have, i think, have been very helpful for a lot of people. there's this small group of doctors in the country who are talking to one another who are, you know, the experts, so to speak, if anybody is, on all of this that's going on. they've been very helpful. it's very overwhelming and difficult to find the right help and the right team of doctors, and i think that's one thing that these survivors are dealing with, and i think just emotionally speaking, it's very difficult to go from being extremely -- perfectly healthy to having a long-term or a chronic illness that you're taking months and months to recover from, to regain your life. so i think, you know, having support from friends, i'm very fortunate, and frankly, also, from your employer, and the "new york times" has been extremely supportive and understanding,

and i couldn't do it without all of this support, so i often think about what happens if you don't have healthcare. what happens if you don't have access to an acupuncturist, to a yoga aside and treated as though we don't exist or as though it's hopeless. we are getting better. slowly. >> dr. patel, a lot of what i know about this struggle, i know from mara sharing what she's been through and other people that i follow and inquire and curiosity compels me to ask them what this is like but why isn't there more information out there for people like mara and for people who maybe are in the hospital but are dealing with lung damage or dealing with

long-term symptoms? >> yeah, that's a great question. mara, your story honestly, i had three patients in clinic today who had different versions of what you've gone through, all three young healthy women and i'll tell you, nick coal,ole i out to friends and doctors in new york where they had an incredible amount of covid patients and said the same thing to answer your question. well, we just don't know and we're watching this unfold as it's going along but it reminds me of when we were treating other diseases that were novel or other kind of viruses or illnesses that were novel and it took us awhile to get the literature together. that was okay 20, 30 years ago. mara's story reminds me, there is no reason today we could not set up a much more national surveillance system that provides realtime kind of information and feedback so that when i see a 33-year-old woman

who was previously an athlete and now is just struggling to, you know, finish half a mile, then i can find out. like what are the following tests i need to do and where can i send her if i need to have more followup work? that's something we should be doing. i know the nih is trying to understand the experience of covid-19 patients. they focus primarily on hospitalized patients. we need to be doing that for all of the people that have gone through covid and understanding their experience so we can learn from it. >> i want to ask both of you to come back in the new year and maybe we can start some of this here, ask our viewers to send stories and create a place on, you know, somewhere where some of these stories can exist, where we can just hear what people are experiencing and just your experience is comforting and your knowledge, dr. patel, i'm sure will give people hope

and at least know someone is listening. that will be one of our new year's resolutions together. thank you for spending some time with us tonight. really important. when we return, also important, we will remember lives well lived. ant, we will r lives well lived but we've alw. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do.

her name was don wails but america got to know her as good girl marry ann. the "gilligan island's star got

her start representing nevada in the 1950s. she followed up that with roles before exploding into stardom on "gilligan's island" in the mid 60s. in the years that followed, she appeared in movies, on stage and other major television series like "growing pains, the bold and the beautiful" and "bay watch." in the '80s she created a clothing line and to honor the 50th anniversary of "gilligan's island" she wrote a book, a guide to life, what would mary ann do? we're sad to report don wails died this morning from causes related to covid-19. a life well lived indeed. she was a young 82 years. we will be right back. g 82 years we will be right back.

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2020 has been an unforgettable year. thank you for letting into your