good morning, it is sunday, january 3. i'm ali velshi. we're hitting frightening new coronavirus milestones. numbers continue to rise at an alarming rate. last night the nation passed a tragic marker. overall infections in the us

have reached 20 million since the start of the pandemic. we're 20% of the world's cases. a new strain of the deadly virus which first surfaced in the united kingdom has found its way to dozens of places worldwide including here in the united states. researchers believe it could be 50% more transmissible, more contagious than the original strain, potentially resulting in a much higher fatality rate. unfortunately all that have is overshadowed by the circus on capitol hill where our democracy is is literally under siege. trump's cult-like minions in the gop want to stage a modern-day coup d'etat. 20 senators and senators-elect, these 12, get a good look at their faces, say they plan to vote against certifying the

winner of the election, joe biden. it's steeped in lies, they're simply indulging trump's ongoing attempts to cling to power by propagating false claims of voting fraud, allegations that have been rejected, denied, or dismissed nearly 60 times by judges across the country including by the supreme court itself. as part of the assembling of this kangaroo court on capitol hill, these group of republicans issued a joint statement calling for a ten-day audit of election results in, quote, disputed states, also adding they would reject the electors from those states until the audit is completed. they're not disputed, they've all been certified by those states. overnight, the highest ranking trump lackey in the land, vice president mike pence, signaled his support for the first time of the action by the gop group to reject president-elect biden's victory. on saturday the vp's office

release a statement saying mr. pence shares the concerns of americans and welcomes efforts of the members of the house and senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the congress and the american people on january 6, end quote. to be clear, there is no evidence. there was no widespread fraud. no irregularities. trump just lost. he's a loser of the election. in another related matter regarding the vice president, a federal appeals court rejected an election lawsuit against pence. it said texas congressman louie gohmert had no standing in his effort to put the presidential election outcome in the hands of the vice president. on saturday the biden campaign weighed in, quote, this stunt won't change the fact that president-elect biden will be sworn in on january 20 and these baseless claims have already

been examined and dismissed by trump's own attorney general, dozens of courts, and election officials from both parties, end quote. look, let's be real about this. democrats and pretty much everyone else can see right through this ploy. republicans just don't want to louis. the qanon white problem issist nationalist racist supporters that hold donald trump so dear. this is literally the epitome of voter suppression has they try to overturn results of joints with largely black and brown populations. what republicans are trying to do now is reprehensible morally and politically. i said in the last hour, i'll say it again, no one is forcing you to do this. are you really that afraid of the president that you're willing to hang your entire political career and your reputation on the success of this attempt to subvert democracy? this stink will stay with you cowards forever. when republicans feed into this nonsense, they're being distracted from their actual job which is representing their

constituents in a pandemic, who are dying, who are jobless, who are going hungry. donald trump was fired by the american people. and he can't stand it. do not stake your political career on someone who is a racist demagogue, who is going to be out of a job in 17 days. not all republicans, by the way, have lost their minds. not all of them are jumping on the trump bandwagon at this crucial moment in history. believe it or not, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell will come out on the right side of thing. he's generally not one to be counted on to do the right thing but he told his senate republicans that this would be the most consequential vote of his career. he's been urging his republican congress not to join in on these objections. republican senator pat toomey of pennsylvania, which is one of the states being targeted in this coup attempt, released the following statement. quote, i voted for president trump and endorsed him for reelection but on wednesday i intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing

this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others. look at that, a senator standing up for his voters. former 2020 presidential candidate minnesota senator amy klobuchar cut to the chase during a saturday conversation with my colleague reverend al sharpton. >> let's make this clear. joe biden and kamala harris are going to be inaugurated and sworn in as president in her historic moment as the first african-american woman vice president on january 20th. democracy will prevail and this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. >> let's get to nbc's heidi przybyla who is joining us from capitol hill this morning. heidi, senate republicans are basing this coup attempt on what they call allegations of voter fraud. but this is circular. it's them who are making the allegations after donald trump made the allegations before there was even an election.

it's not coming from anywhere else, it's an entirely circular argument. >> reporter: right, ali, it was in 2020, which is now one for the history books, that these lawmakers, along with donald trump, propagated a lie on the american people. that lie was that there was widespread voter fraud. now in their own statement, they're using that lie and the fact that their people now believe it to justify their actions. they say in the statement that 67% of republicans, citing a reuters poll, now believe that there was this fraud, which they themselves must know is a lie, because they have taken it to every court possible, 60 different lawsuits now thrown out by judges from both republican and democratic appointed judges. you have the department of homeland security saying this was the most secure election ever. you have republicans in this party acknowledging joe biden's win. so it is stunning that you now have what amounts to about o

one-fourth of the republican conference here in the senate now backing this endeavor, this stunt, which can only serve to do a number of things. first of all, potentially splinter the party, because you have mitch mcconnell being very strong that he does not want them to do this, that he believes this is a very consequential vote. but also to provide a potential template for a number of trump apprentices here. you put their faces up on the screen. these are individuals who are taking these actions despite knowing better, despite knowing that that evidence was there. if it was there, it would have been presented in court. ali, this is a well-trodden path here. i bring you back to 2016 when, ironically, donald trump actually accused the ringleader of this effort, ted cruz, of propagating fraud in iowa and throwing out the results in iowa. and ted cruz of course accusing donald trump of being, quote, a pathological liar.

>> times change. heidi przybyla, thanks very much for your reporting. a big day there on capitol hill, a lot of new members of congress being sworn in today. a lot of people look at michigan politics today and say there's a lot of women in michigan policy takes today, back then there weren't. senator debbie stabenow, thank you for being with us. i'm speechless about what's going on in the united states senate. disregarding everything that heidi just said about the fact that there's no basis for this and it probably won't succeed, there is remarkable damage to us and our democracy and our trust in institutions that 12 united states senators are going along with this, there's a word we use in canada, i can't say it on tv, nonsense i'll call it. >> ali, first of all, it's wonderful to be with you as

always, i really appreciate your voice and your show. and of all the damage that's been done in four years, and there's been a lot of it, this is the worst, right? because we're at a point now where basically we've got 12 united states senators, republicans, saying it doesn't matter how people voted, it just doesn't matter, we've decided we want donald trump or at minimum, we're too weak to stand up to him, which i think is part of what this is all about. it's like the bully is going to bully them one more time. and so for instance in michigan, where joe biden and kamala harris won by over 154,000 votes this time, where they brought eight different lawsuits, none of them, none of them had any standing whatsoever and were thrown out. we know 60 lawsuits across the country including the supreme court rejecting them. and yet it doesn't matter. and unfortunately, it does

matter. so i think today at noon we'll be going in and our colleagues will be sworn in now for the next congress. and four of the folks on that list of 12 are new members, they'll put their hand on the bible, lift up their hand, and they're going to swear allegiance to the constitution of the united states of america. and then on wednesday they're going to go in and violate the constitution of the united states of america. so are they suggesting their elections shouldn't count, we should not swear any of them in for ten days for something to be happening here in terms of an audit, the folks reelected who are being sworn in today? we all know it's absurd. it is the worst kind of stunt, because it damages people's belief in our constitution, our democracy, and people around the world look at us and say what's going on in america.

the only good news is donald trump lost, he is not going to be president, and january 20th is the day i'm counting as happy new year. >> i want to ask you about the problem that really, if we weren't worried about this, we should be worried about, that every republican senator should be thinking about it, that's coronavirus, that's coronavirus relief, that's ending this pandemic. your mother was a nursing director at a local hospital. all we see every single day are front line workers, health care workers, nurses and doctors. they are literally crying, they can't take it anymore, they're the last people who see dying people, not their families. that's where all of our attention needs to be today. >> there's no question, ali. and i grew up in a small rural community in northern michigan. mom was director of nursing. mom at 94 is still actively engaged and was a nurse for over 40 years and know exactly what we're talking about here. first of all, our nurses and

doctors are exhausted, absolutely exhausted. and they need our help in every way, both getting their vaccines to as many of them and to as many americans as humanly possible. they also, frankly, could use a pay raise. this $2,000 that mitch mcconnell wouldn't bring up to the floor of the united states senate, and by the way, i wish the people objecting on went to our democracy would take that same energy and put it into fighting for people to get $2,000 checks, i wish the two senators from georgia would come back who have been fighting on the floor, for georgians, for those $2,000 checks. but these people on the front lines, they need our help and support, they need us to do the right thing by protecting ourselves and others and wearing a mask. they also need our support for them. they've got kids they're trying to figure out how to zoom schooling from home and address childcare and all the other issues that people have to address.

and when you look at that $2,000 we're talking about, an awful lot of those checks would be going to them to say just a little bit of thank you, and here, we want to help you continue to be able to protect us and serve us while you are trying to keep your family together. >> senator stabenow, thank you to your mom, please tell her we appreciate her. when this thing is over i'm going to hug every nurse and doctor that i ever see and thank them for everything that they always do in a thankless, nameless way to keep us alive and healthy. senator, good to see you, senator debbie stabenow of michigan. joining me now, steve schmidt, gop strategist and co-founder of the lincoln project. i've seen your post where you talk about the seven different parts that comprise the core of fascist movements. there are times, i've seen you

be really angry on twitter and in person, and i've seen people say, come on, let's not get carried away. this is actually what's happening. a coup that leads to authoritarianism and fascism is actually what is happening right now. >> good morning, ali. it sure is, exactly. look, this effort will be unsuccessful. it will be unsuccessful in the way that the beer hall putsch was in munich in 1933, almost a hundred years ago. what will happen is faith and belief in legitimate american democracy will have been poisoned by donald trump and the members of the republican party. when this vote takes place, the republican party will split into

two factions and those factions have irreconcilable differences. there will be an autocratic faction and there will be a democratic faction. all republicans have collaborated, been cowardly and complicit in their silence, at least at the elected level, over these last years. but some of them have not yet crossed the rubicon from which there is no return, and that's about to happen. you're about to see the idea and ideals of the country stabbed in the back by united states senators. and the cynicism required for a ted cruz, princeton university, harvard law school. josh hawley, stanford university, yale law school, taught at oxford, a clerk to a chief justice of the united states. the cynicism, the ambition, the amorality of this is indescribable. it is such a breach of faith. and i think this morning about

the graves that overlook omaha beach and the american sell terte cemetery. all those graves face west, across the ocean over which they never returned. what would they think when they watch this sedition ready to play out on the floor of the united states congress, in the names nonsense, in the name of lies, in the name of donald trump's thirst for power which has been stripped from him by the sovereign will of the american people exercising their voting rights under the constitution of the united states of america? >> what's in it for these folks, hawley, cruz, who came closest to winning the republican nomination, marsha blackburn? is it that they're scared of trump turning on them? is it that they want to profit or benefit from the trump base?

is it that they want to run for president and that base continues to be strong and big? what do these guys get out of this? >> well, you have the leaders of them, hawley and cruz, who do want to be president. and then you have the sheep among them who will follow them. but in this contest between the autocratic faction and the democratic faction, let's look at it this way. liz cheney come january 6 will be the leader of the conservative faction, the democratic faction of the house republican congress. kevin mccarthy will lead its autocratic faction. mitt romney, pat toomey and others, ben sasse, will stand on the side of democracy on the floor of the senate. inside the republican party, that side, that side that has fidelity and commitment to democracy, will lose the fight to the ougautocratic faction.

them be steam rolled. it won't take very long, the '22 will be a bloodletting. they'll be steam rolled like the vermacht army was steamrolled in 1940. the autocratic side has utterly broken faith with the american idea. they say, we're exercising our power under the law, but this isn't about exercising a power or following the law to do some type of diligence. this, again, is poisoning faith and belief in the idea of american democracy. and over the course of the month of november and the month of december, historic months in this country, we have some 80% of membership of the republican party who does not believe that a fair, free, legitimate election was fast free, fair,

and legitimate. this is a slander against the united states. the people who are involved in this are giving a tremendous lift to every dictator and every autocrat and every ideologist around the world who has always maintained that america is not a true democracy, that american democracy is a lie. the damage they're doing to this country is incalculable. and i want to say one last thing. we've invented a lot of things in america, from automobiles and spaceships that can land on the moon and return to earth, the internet, iphones, the list goes on. automobiles. the greatest invention in the history of the country bar none is the peaceful transition of power which began in this country in 1797 and has been uninterrupted through the cold war, through the civil war,

through the great depression, through all manner of national tribulation. that is the great american invention. it has been the greatest american export, the idea that the people are sovereign, that the people of a nation can govern themselves. we need to understand something. there is no other system that exists but this one. it has parliamentary forms as it does in the uk, in canada, in australia. but the idea that the people are sovereign, that we choose, we decide, there are no other variations, no other alternative systems that maintain the freedom and the human dignity of the individual and the freedom of the society through the popular will of the majority of its population to decide the direction of, whether it's the town, the county, the state, or

the nation. that is what is being attacked here. that is what is being vandalized and assaulted. and as we come to the end of this catastrophic presidency, with hundreds of thousands of americans dead, corruption, malfeasance, division, the stoking of a cold civil war in our land, there is no sin that trump and his factotum have committed that is as egregious as this one, the poisoning of america's faith and belief in what 13 generations of american patriots have made blood sacrifices to maintain and expand. it is an appalling hour. and a dangerous one. >> steve schmidt, i recommend my viewers go to your twitter feed, you posted a string of tweets 12 hours ago and it is a worthy read. thanks for your time this

morning as always. steve schmidt is the co-founder of the lincoln project. health care workers, as you know, as we were just discussing with senator stabenow, had a tough go of it in 2020. we asked many of them what they're hopeful for in the new year. i'll bring that you to next. >> i really hope we are able to give each other a big hug, that's my one wish this year. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit,

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we're officially three days

into the new year. i think it's safe to say most of us won't miss 2020. last year was especially rough on our health care workers. month after month, medical workers rose to a challenge unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes, working around the clock, day in and day out, to save as many lives as they could. you would think it was a war. as cases and deaths continue to soar nationwide, we still need these health care workers now more than ever. several medical workers battling the pandemic told us just how difficult last year was, what they wish they could change about 2020 and what they hope to see happen in the year ahead. they deserve to be heard. here they are in their own words. >> one thing i would change about 2020 is to take back the entire pandemic. >> a snap of the fingers, to just, covid, go away. >> that there would never have been this terrible pandemic. >> without having that same incredible loss that we experienced. >> that the government was more proactive. >> masking at a much earlier

stage. >> to understand the importance of public health. >> and listen to science. we could have prevented some of the tragedies. >> to make our battle easier. >> one of those emts that passed away was my original partner, greg hodge, born and raised in harlem, worked in harlem, served the people in his community. the nicest guy on the planet. >> for all the people that lost someone special, i wish they could be back with us. >> that no one else would lose their life to this virus. >> that covid-19 no longer exists. >> that the pandemic is declared over. i think that's the same wish as everybody else. >> i really hope that we are able to just give each other a big hug. that's my one wish this year. >> just to hug my family, hug my mom. >> i'm proud that i was able to work during this pandemic. >> i'm incredibly proud of the people i work with. >> the nurses that i work with. >> they're absolutely fearless. they come to work and they put on their brave faces to take

care of sick patients. >> i'm really hopeful that this vaccine will work. >> my wish is for anyone who starts the year, january 1, ends the year, december 31, healthy and happy. >> thank you from the bottom of my heart to all those workers who continue to fight this virus every day. 2021 will be better for them and for all of us. next, america is far behind in its vaccination goal. we'll talk about what the holdup is. ices of the season on the sleep number 360 smart bed. can it help with snoring? 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.

new year, same problems, as the country sees a continued certainly of the covid-19 pandemic, far and wide one of the largest health care crises we've ever faced. as of this morning the u.s. logged more than 20 million cases and 350,000 deaths from the coronavirus. every day we are seeing increases of about 3,000 deaths from covid in the united states. this as we are finally working through a vaccination campaign that has inoculated about 4 million americans with at least one dose of the pfizer or moderna vaccine. but in three weeks we'll have a

turn swroeover in leadership fr very top. president-elect joe biden has laid out an extensive plan for vaccinations of the american people. >> this team will help get at the latest, at the last 100 million covid-19 vaccines, at least 100 million covid vaccine shots into the arms of the american people in the first hundred days. 100 million shots in the first hundred days. this will be the most efficient mass vaccination plan in u.s. history. >> the ambitious plan seems hard to fathom considering i want to we've only inoculated 1% of the u.s. population, far below the 20 million that the trump administration promised by the end of 2020. meanwhile another vaccine from astrazeneca and oxford university was just approved for emergency use in india yesterday. prime minister modi calling the move a, quote, decisive turning point to strengthen a spirited

fight. the approval followed its approval in the united kingdom last week. even though this vaccine has the potential to be cheaper, easier to store, and more efficient in terms of production, the united states is not on track to approve that vaccine until as late as april of this year. dr. celine gounder is a practicing disease specialist, an epidemiologist, and serves on the biden/harris transition covid advisory board. thank you for being with us this morning. what do you know about the logistics about getting from where we are today to a million doses a day? that's a big goal any way you cut it. but it would mean vaccinating people maybe on a much bigger schedule than we're using right now, maybe 24 hours a day, maybe having tents, maybe having federal vaccination plans. what is planned to get to us that kind of number? >> ali, i think a really critical piece of this will be cooperation and collaboration with congress.

unfortunately in this country our public health departments, our local and state public health departments have experienced chronic underfunding for decades and then you have the 2008-2009 recession when they suffered very, very deep cuts. so we lost about 50,000 public health workers across the country in the intervening years. so we're in a situation where we are having to rebuild capacity, rebuild capacity to vaccinate, to track those vaccinations, to bring in people for vaccination. all that have is a huge amount of work that unfortunately right now public health departments are really not resourced to do. we have, as many of us in the public health community, have been pleading for additional resources at the state and local level for a while now. so in order to really be successful in the plans that we have for getting those shots in arms in the first hundred days, we'll really need to see a

massive infusion of resources at the state and local health department level. >> we crossed 350,000 deaths, cdc says 400,000 before joe biden takes office. i can't unsee the tweets we saw or the comments we saw from donald trump in january and february and march where it's 15, it's going to go down to zero, it's going to magically disappear. donald trump tweeted this morning, again, i don't want to give air to this stuff, but his issue with cases. he says, we test more which is why we have more cases. he says the number of cases and deaths of the china virus, as he calls it, is far exaggerated in the united states because of cdc's ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report purposely very inaccurately and low. when it doubt, call it covid. fake news. i only bring this up because people's lives are at stake. he's lying, but what's he talking about? >> so when we code a patient's

diagnoses for, say, a hospitalization or a death, we put down all of the things that contributed to their illness. for example, somebody had a heart attack, well, their diabetes and high blood pressure also contributed to that heart attack. if somebody dies with pneumonia from covid, covid is certainly one of the contributors there. we know that coronavirus is also leading to any number of other problems like kidney failure or heart attack, for that matter. what we want is actually the most accurate, most complete reporting possible, not partial, not false numbers, because it's only when you have a full picture that you can really address the problem. >> we need the science, we need to not be thinking about it in different ways. dr. celine gounder, good to see you as always, thank you for joining us. dr. selene ground certificate a practicing disease specialist

and a member of the biden/harris transition covid advisory board. coming up, we'll dig into the economy. how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain,

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plant-powered creative roots gives kids the hydration they need, with the fruit flavors they love. and one gram of sugar. find creative roots in the kids' juice aisle. this morning one in six americans woke up not knowing where their next meal is coming from. and despite an unemployment crisis that isn't going away, the stock market is doing better than ever. the dow and the s&p 500 just ended 2020 at record highs, even as covid-19 cases surge and millions go hungry. you might be wondering how that's even possible. nearly 20 million americans ended 2020 collecting unemployment. so why aren't the markets taking a nosedive? i want to show you something. right now our economy is in the middle of a "k"-shaped recovery. things are getting worse by the day for america's working class, working poor, and unemployment.

but the investor class represented by the upward leg of the "k," things are looking pretty good for them at the expense of basically everyone else. what does this look like in real life? it starts with headlines like this one. with wall street minting 56 new billionaires since the pandemic began. at the exact same time, food bank lines are stretching longer in states across the country as millions struggle to put food on the table. this is how it's going in america right now. pain and suffering is par for the course in a recession but it isn't normal for the investor class to benefit this much while that happens. we've managed to take a bad situation and make it worse. but here's my question. is it too late to fix that, can we change that "k"-shaped recovery? caleb, thank you for being with us. the unemployment race has

bounced back a little bit since the beginning of the recession, but fundamentally lots of people are unemployed and have lost their health care benefits which are crucially important at this moment. >> thanks for having me, ali. it really is a tail of two commission. we saw this in 2008-2009. this 2020 pandemic, recession, and recovery, is even worse. the unemployment rate, 6.7%, that's down from 14.7% back in april when it was sky high but it's not down for everyone. african-americans' unemployment rate is over 10%. remember, 2008-2009, it took a decade for unemployment rate to come down below double digits for african-americans. for men 20-24, the unemployment rate is 10.5%. if you don't have a college education, it's 7.7%. it's uneven recovery. for white americans, it's about 5%. if you have a college education, you have credit, you have investments, you're doing okay in the "k"-shaped recovery.

but the labor market is very stubborn, leisure and hospitality, mining, energy, exploration parts of the economy, we're seeing sluggishness in the economy and so many people trapped in that. >> which makes sense because we're not moving as much, not buying as much oil, not traveling as much. let's talk about relief checks, we're debating $600 versus $2,000. basically people are going to get $600 per person and $300 in extended unemployment benefits if you were getting unemployment benefits before. how much does that do in terms of repairing the damage? >> not enough, not nearly enough. we've got about 11.7% poverty rate in this country, ali, 7.8 million people fell into poverty in 2020. poverty rate is $26,000 salary for a family of four. you can see how those checks don't really amount to much for people living on the razor-thin

edge of going into poverty and into food insecurity, in a country that's generated all this wealth. 50 million people are food-insecure right now, ali, 17 million of those are children. people are arguing over $2,000 or $600. they could use a lot more than that. $2,000 would go a long way to helping people put money on the table, pay the rent, stave off poverty in some cases and perhaps even save for a rainy day. and we know these rainy days have been lasting a very long time. >> caleb, good to see you as always. caleb silver is editor in chief for ininve veinvestomedia. take a look at one famous georgia couple, former president jimmy carter and rosslyn, his wife of 74 years, sharing a new

year's kiss, the longest married presidential couple ever. the photo was posted on facebook by superintendent of the jimmy carter national historic site jill stuckey. love is in the air on "she will have "velshi" today. we'll be right back. "velshi" today we'll be right back. exactly jen! calm + restore oat gel was designed for sensitive skin. uh! it's incredible! we formulated it with a super nurturing ingredient. prebiotic oat. it soothes skin and strengthens its moisture barrier, too. uh! i love it! i love it! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ oh. wait! wait! sabrina! there's a serum, too? of course, there is. of course, there is. i knew that. iwith vicks sinex saline nasal cmist.tionurse, there is. for drug free relief that works fast. vicks sinex. instantly clear everday congestion.

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i know you've heard this a lot, but one of the jobs of a journalist is to bear witness, so i have to keep telling you. 12 republican senators announced their plans to join missouri

senator josh hawley and vote against certifying joe biden's victory yesterday in what can only be described as a coup attempt. all in an effort to prioritize their personal politics over upholding the constitution which they are sworn to do. this dangerous and, honestly, embarrassing stunt only makes what happens in georgia on tuesday in the runoff elections that much more important. in what seems like years ago, during the impeachment of president trump, republicans criticized the decision as a coup, including senator louie -- congressman louie gohmert whose current lawsuit against vice president pence to interfere with the electoral vote count has been tossed out by two courts. in 2019 gohmert said, quote, these elites want to destroy the very idea of a government of and for and by the people and are willing to continue in the light of day their lawless coup attempt against a duly elected president. that was about impeachment, by the way, which is in the constitution of the united states.

ironic, isn't it? especially since they seem to believe the constitution is flexible. listen to this. >> january 20th cannot be changed, that's constitutional. but this whole certification thing -- >> well, it can be changed, we can go past that date. we can go past that date. we can go past that date if we need to. >> okay. >> no, you can't go past that date. georgians knew the importance of their voters in november and it's clear their enthusiasm will continue until tuesday because more than a dozen civic engagement groups in georgia are making an aggressive effort to mobilize black voters. while runoffs in the past have favored republicans in georgia, my next guest says millions of doors have been knocked on and texts have been sent because, quote, there was so much hand wringing in the immediate days after the november general election. joining me now is the ceo of the new georgia project, the group

is one of a handful that have helped put biden over the top in georgia in november and forced the senate runoffs. talk to mimi about what you mean, there was hand wringing after the election in georgia. >> i think that because the margin of victory between vice president biden and president trump was so narrow, we're talking about 0.25 percentage points, that people didn't think that it was real, that this multi-racial, multi-ethnic progressive coalition in the deep south that we've been talking about for years was perhaps a fluke or perhaps they could dismiss it as antitrust sentiment. there were people who would throw out turnout numbers, historic turnout numbers for runoff elections at us. so explaining that, you know, historic turnout for democrats was always low, always depressed, that republicans enjoy the structural advantage because their electorate is older and wider and we are

seeing in these days leading up to the runoff a complete and total defiance of conventional political wisdom. that we have had historic turnout across all demographics, across all political ideologies and it is going to come down to whose votes get counted and who shows up on tuesday. >> when you are motivating voters in georgia, particularly voters of color, black and brown people, what motivates them at the moment? the representation that they are going to have in congress or the fact that they might be the last defense in a democracy and they might be the manifestation of efforts across this country since november 6, prior to november 6 and since november 6 to continue to disenfranchise black people in this country, all of those lawsuits that the trump administration or the trump campaign and republicans filed were all in places that

black voters voted for joe biden and kamala harris. >> i think that it's all of the above, quite frankly. georgia voters are hyper aware that they may be the last line of defense in stopping an attempted coup, that there are treasonous traitors that are choosing themselves and their personal interest and their loyalty to trump over the constitution and our country. they are voters -- they are voters who watched mitch mcconnell block the $2,000 aid package and basically steal $1,400 out of their pockets. right now we are in bullock county in states borrow, georgia, we were in savannah yesterday and we are on our way to macon, georgia. if it's kitchen table issues that hit people directly in their pockets or if it's a sense of we are stopping these attacks on our democracy, georgians understand the importance of their vote in this moment and that is why we've broken turnout

records for early voting and that's why we're going to see an elevated turnout rate on tuesday, in the next 48 hours, that's why vice president biden -- i'm sorry president-elect biden will be in atlanta tomorrow, that's why vice president-elect harris is in savannah, georgia, today, because this matters. there's clarity about that and georgians are responding to it. >> and the president is already calling this illegitimate before it's even happened. the idea that there are runoffs in georgia was invented so that black people couldn't win statewide elections and now the lenlts lay to legislature is talking about the use of no excuse absentee mail-in voting which has been in place since 2005. so when it was working for republicans mail-in voting was fine. in fact, the president himself uses mail-in voting. when it works for black people it's all of a sudden broken and fraudulent. >> right. absolutely. and, again, georgians see through it.

georgians see the hypocrisy. again, secretary of state brad raffensperger i remember in the aftermath of the november general election i felt a lot of pressure to praise him for refusing to participate in a criminal conspiracy to steal the election and now we see that he is who we always thought he was and that instead removing barriers for people to participate he's already planning to hijack the 2021 legislative session with additional barriers, making it more difficult for people to vote in future elections. >> good to see you as always. thank you. i'm going to let you get back to your work because it's a sunday morning and there is work to be done. the ceo of the new georgia project. and that does it for me this morning. thank you so much for watching "velshi." i'm glad i had you to talk to this morning because i have had a lot on my mind about the state of democracy in this country.

you can catch us every weekend morning from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming up next it's "the sunday show." jonathan capehart joined by jon ossoff just two days before those all important critical runoffs in georgia. go cav nate because it's sunday and you a're just getting start, you're watching msnbc. started you're watching msnbc. see every delivery...

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as republicans brazenly plot to subvert democracy. good morning, i'm jonathan capehart. this is "the sunday show." ♪ >> this sunday, congress turns over a new leaf, as we speak the house is wrapping up the business of the 116th congress and in just two hours both the house and senate will convene the 117th congress for the first time. new members and senators will be sworn in and the house will elect its speaker. this year the pomp and circumstance will be especially wrought, members will be sworn in in groups in order to ensure social distancing while overnight the u.s. hit another terrible milestone, more than 350,000 americans have died since the pandemic began. meanwhile, a growing number of republicans say they will refuse to certify president-elect joe biden's elector