>> absolutely. i'm sorry that it ever happened. i'm sorry for mike. i'm sorry for my family. i'm sorry for his family. this sunday, coronavirus cases soaring.da >> we now are at a viral tsunami. >> hospitals overwhelmed. >> it's the war zone, and we're asking for help and help's not coming. >> a more contagious form of the virus now in the u.s. >> it's going to lead to a lot more deaths over a period of time. and just because there's more cases. >> the administration's vaccine distribution system failing to deliver. >> the federal government doesn't invade texas or montana and provide shots to people. >> it's not an invasion! like, it's helpful. the federal government should be helping states. >> my guest this morning, dr. anthony fauci. plus, the republican attempt to overthrow the election. >> there's this feeling that

this election was stolen, that it's not fair, that there's all kinds of fraud. >> at least a dozen senate republicans supported by vice president pence will vote to deny joe biden's victory. i'll ask one of them, senator ron johnson, about this attempt to discredit a free and fair election. also, battle for the senate. two runoff elections on tuesday in georgia with control of the senate in the balance. >> we're going to do everything in our power to ensure first and foremost that every voter in georgia can be heard. >> my guest, voting rights activist stacey abrams. andst qanon. >> there's a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this global cable of satan-worshipping pedophiles out. >> how the qanon conspiracy theory has stretched from the fringe to the halls of congressa joining me for insight and analysis are peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," nbc news capitol hill correspondent leigh ann caldwell, and nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press."

>> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press with chuck todd."te >> good sunday morning and a happyay new year to everyone. 2020 iser finally in the rearvi mirror -- sort of. january's providing a bit ofrt 2020 hangover, if you will. donald trump's entire presidency has been a stress test b on our democracy, and th remains true even now. consider what has happened since election day. mr. trump has refused to concede the election. he and his allies have declared widespread fraud wherell none exists and tried and failed in court to overturn joe biden's victory. with plenty of trump-appointed judges turning away their nonsense lawsuits. but hoping to please the president, at least 12 senate republicans do plan to challenge the electoral college vote on wednesday. with vice president pence's encouragement, while mr. trump ispe urging supporters to show in d.c. to protest in washington that day, create a disruptive

environment. apt this week, rupert murdoch's pro-trump "new york post" headlined "stop the insanity." the president has also pardoned supporters tied toso the muelle investigation, of course, rewarding them with obstructing mr. mueller. the president vetoed the defense budget, which was overridden, and threatened to derail the coronavirus relief package, thef backed down at the very last minute. but one thing president trump hase not done is paid much attention to the covid pandemic, which took moreid lives in the month of december than any month so far. after the administration did a face plant on testing, now only a small percentage of the 20 million vaccinations promised by the end of 2020 have been administered, as a new, more virulent strain spreads from state to state. so, that's where we're going to begin, because joining me now is the single most respected voice on thed pandemic. it's dr. anthony fauci, directorho of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. dr. fauci, 2021 is finally here.

but obviously, we are still dealing from the fallout of what life has been like in 2020. and i want to put something in perspective. the last time you were on this program was november 29th, and i want to put up9t the number of people who have died since thenn it's an average -- it's over 83,000, and it's an average of 2,300 a day in those 36 days since you've been on last, which is the equivalent of six to eightof jumbo jets falling out the sky on a daily basis. so, here we are. how much worsere is this going get? >> you know, chuck, it could, and likely, will get worse in the next couple of weeks, or at least maintain this very terribly high level of infections and deaths that we're seeing. and the reason is that, you know, we'ree in that situation that we predicted a few weeks ago, as you get into the holiday season and people have done a considerable amount of traveling. there's beent congregate settis where people innocently and understandably werenn gathering for social and family

get-togethers against the advice of public health officials like myself, l even though it's very difficult to do that when you have a family-oriented season, and then you have the cold weather, people doing things indoors much more than outdoors, and this is what happens. it's terrible. it's unfortunate, but it was predictable that we were going to see the number of cases that we're seeing now. my concern is that it could get worse over the next couple of weeks as we see the lag that happens when an event occurs like the christmas and new year's holiday. you usually have a couple of week lag before you see an additional uptick of cases, which is always followed by hospitalizations and deaths. so, things are bad enough as they are right now with the numbers that you mentioned, which are really terrible, but it could getri worse. rather than sit back and throw up our hands and say, oh, my goodness, it's getting worse, we need to double down on some of

the fundamental things that we talk about all the time, chuck -- the uniform wearing ofg masks, the physical distancing, and the avoiding of congregate settings and crowds, particularly gsindoors. we've just got to keep doing that. >> i've gotoi to ask you, with e combination of the more virulent strain m that's out there that y be -- and we're still learning more, and i know you don't have full answers tokn this either - but itrs may, essentially, mean that a contagious person infects five people instead of two or something like that. arer we looking at a campaign, when president-elect biden becomes president -- are we going to need to do another 15 to 30 days stop the spread, maybe do a partial lockdown? between that and issue, and obviously, what's happening now. and it looks like hospitals, they were overwhelmed.

what's going to happen in january? >> well, i g hope we don't haveo do the lockdown. we all know, chuck, how much covid-19 fatigue there is of people just really being worn down with this, but we certainly need to enhance and make more uniform our public health measures. president-elect biden has called for 100 days of everybody wearing a mask, uniformly throughout the country.ho that's really a good start. the idea about locking down is something that you might have to do but youth want to avoid. in certain areas of the country, such as in california, which is really being stressed with regard toes the hospital beds a theed personnel who are really getting exhausted with the number of cases that are coming in, you may have to have -- and they already have decided on -- some form ofon lockdown in certn areas of the state or specific regions of the country. so, that's not out of the question. we hope we don't have to do it countrywide, because we feel that if youau adhere to the pubc

health measures, you can turn things around short of a uniform lockdown. >> let'sfo talk about this mutad strain here. yourra level of concern about it -- and i assume you're like most other officials, you have to assume it's already running wild in this country.it how long will it take you to know more about the danger of this new strain? >> well, we're certainly following it very carefully and closely and taking it very seriously.ry a lot of experience is coming out of the united kingdom, of england, which have had this right now dominating the spread of virusna throughout their ou country. we have isolated multiple examples of the mutant being in this country, so there's no doubt it's here, and there's no doubt, given the efficiency of its ability toiv spread, that is going to spread. what we're hearing from our uk colleagues is that, although it does transmit much more readily

than the standardre strain, it does not appear to be more virulent, namely, making people sicker or greater incidence of dying, nor does it seem to elude the protection that's offered by the antibodies induced by the vaccine. but we want to find that out for ourselves. so, i utmean, we understand the data from the uk. they're very good. they know what they're doing. but we're going k to study this very carefully ourselves. bottom line, chuck, getting back to what we mentioned a moment ago -- the best way to counter this is to do the public health measures that prevent spread. >> right. >> that's the point. regardless of what kind of strain you have circulating out there, you've got to adhere to the public health measures, and that will stop the spread of any strain.h >> let's talk about the vaccination process right now. you, yourself, have already called the rollout disappointing. we're obviously well short of the 20 million vaccination goal. you and i talked about this a month utago, and you had had a t of confidence in the vaccination system in this country, would

really kick in and work. what is your explanation of why this -- why the government's promise fell so far short? >> well, chuck, you know, you have to look at it. there are multiple stages of this. there's the allocation. there's thes shipping. there's the distribution. and there's, finally, getting in people's arms. i had a conversation a couple of days ago with general perna, who was explaining that they had allocated 20 million. that's good. they've shipped about 14 million and distributed, namely to the individual clinics and hospitals and places who are going to be putting it in people's arms, to about 13 million. they had promised it was going to be 20. i asked why we're not at 20, and there was certainly a bit of a glitch, which he explained. but as we get into the first couple of days and first week of january, very likely we're going to hit that 20. so we're going to be somewhat behind by a few days. the real issue is getting it into people's arms. so, we p now have about 4 milli,

which is obviously below where we want to obe, but if you loo at theu last 72 hours, there's been about 1.5 million administered into people's arms, which is an average of about 500,000 a day, which is better than with that w 4 million over0 million proportion tells you.on so, what i'm saying right now is that, a, we're not where we want to be, we've got to do much better, but b, let's give it about a week or two into january tor see if we can pick up momentum that was slowed down by the holidayow season. so,li again, no excuses. we're not where we want to be. but hopefully, we'll pick up some momentum and get back to where we want to be with regard to getting it into people's arms. >> a handful of other countries, dr. fauci, have decided not to hold back a second dose and fully vaccinate, but essentially, hey, use all the vaccinations that you've got, get as many people a first shot as you can, and we'll worry aboutwe the second shot when we get the second shot.

we're not doing that. where is your head on that? and is there a point where you might say, look, i'm not fully in favor of it, but maybe it's better than a lockdown? >> okay. first of all, this related to a lockdown has nothing to do with a lockdown, i can tell you that. so, let me tell you where we are, chuck. it's obviously a question that everyone's asking. the issue of giving it to people andiv not having a guarantee you're going to get a second shot goes against the science. we want to do it according to the science. you give a first dose.ir if you have a pfizer 21 days later, you geter a boost. if you have the moderna 28 days later, you get the boost. the idea about stretching it out so you can give more people, that's if you have not enough vaccine and you have aat lot of people lined up waiting fog get a vaccine. that's not our problem now. we have vaccine. we need to get it into people's arms. so, it really is the right solution to the wrong question.

right now, if we do it efficiently, the way we've planned, it's much better than trying to stretch it out and not having a scientific basis of knowing, what happens if you wait, instead of 28 days, you wait 50 or 70? we don't know whether or not that's going to be good enough. we know what the science tells us. so, my feeling and my direct answer to your question, chuck, is let's do it the way the clinical trials have instructed us to do it, but let's get more efficient into getting it into people's arms. >> and final question. the president tweeted just before you came on, questioning the death toll, saying the cdc massively overcounts the death toll. many experts have told me we're undercounting the death toll. where are we on this death toll? it's over 350,000. are we overcounting in this country or oundercounting, dr. fauci? >> the numbers are real, chuck. you know, you're going to have some deviation, plus or minus a

bit, but the numbers are real. we have well a over 300,000 deaths. we're averaging 2,000 to 3,000 deaths per day. all you need to do, chuck, is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. those are real numbers, real people, and real deaths. >> dr. fauci, as always, sir, thank you. happy new year. 2021 couldn't get here fast enough. and let me just say, for a lot of us, we can't wait to get those vaccines. and i see you took one and you're fine, correct? >> i'm good. i'm fine. very, very little problem. just a little ache in the arm and it was it. we're good.it >> if it's good enough for you, sir, it's good enough for me and my family. so, thank you, dr. fauci. >> thank you. turning to the other story this > morning, the republican effort to delegitimize the election. they will reject it until an audit of alleged fraud is

completed. they now have f the support of e vice president. none ofpp this has any chance o actually overturning the election. there was no widespread fraud, number one, but it looks like it's being done to curry favor with president trump and his supporters. and among the senators taking part is ron johnson of wisconsin, and to his credit, he's agreed to join me this morning. senator johnson, welcome back to "meet the press." i want toac start with this. lastnt month, you told a newspar in your home state that you would not object to the electoral college certification -- "unless something surfaced, there have been 57 cases filed by the president orse his allies, not single court has found a single instance of fraud or any of this evidence a seen as legitimate." so, what has changed to suddenly put you on the side of questioning the results of this election, sir? >> good morning, chuck, and happy new year. let me first respond on covid. i think our greatest failure in responding to covid is we've completelyre ignored early treatment and we've vilified doctors who have had the courage to practice medicine and treat

patients with widely available repurposed drugs.ly so ire just have to point that out. we've utterly failed from that standpoint. to answer your question, i woull ask that all your listeners -- ask you, ask our critics, to actually read the letter. one of the points we make is that we are notnt acting to thwt the democratic process. we're acting to protect it. t the fact of the matter is that we have an unsustainable state ofe affairs in this country whe we have tens of millions of people that do not view this election result as legitimate. we have just come off of four years where the other side refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of president trump, and here we are again. and what we're saying is we need transparency. and you do notne -- when you're trying to investigate wrongdoing in elections, you don't have very muchle time, and so, what we're suggesting is, let's set up a commission, as they did -- i know it's a long time ago, 1877 -- but let's take a look at a bipartisan commission to organize allan of the allegatio. certainly, what i did in my hearing is the 3 1/2-hour

hearing, we barely scratched the surface. but organize the allegations. let's take off the table the ones that have been explained, but also acknowledge the problem areas that have not been explained so that we can restore confidence in our election system. this is an unsustainable state of affairs right now. that's all we're saying is, as long as somebody's going to be objecting to this and we're going to be taking a vote, let's propose a solution in terms of, you know, transparency, investigation, with the commission. >> all right. senator, i want to quote senator ben sasse for you, because what you're alleging is, essentially, you and your colleagues have created this uecontroversy. so, right now, we are locked into a destructive, vicious circle. in some ways, as you kind of outlined. except you made an allegation that there was widespread fraud. you have failed to offer specific evidence of that widespread fraud, but you're demanding an investigation on the grounds that there are allegations of widespread fraud. so, essentially, you're the arsonist here. president trump is the arsonist here.

you've started this fire and now you're saying, whoa, look at this, oh, my god, all these people believe what we told them because you didn't have the guts to tell the truth that this election was fair. >> chuck, this fire was started back in, you know, january of 2017. peoplef like mark zaid in his tweet, the coup is started, first of many steps, rebellion and impeachment to follow ultimately. this was started whenen the mainstream mediath stopped, dropped any pretense of being unbiased and actually chose sides during this aselection. this fire was started when you completely ignored, for example, our investigation of hunter biden. you know, no evidence of wrongdoing there. now we find out after the election, no, there is a fair amount of evidence to the point thatnt we have a real fbi investigation. so -- >> senator, already, i've had enough of hearing this. >> no, listen, i've had enough of this, l too. >> no, senator -- >> it is the bipartisan media that has created a situation where republicans and conservatives do not trust the mainstream media. and that is what has destroyed

the credibility of the media and our institutions, and really -- >> no, the destruction -- >> -- confidence in it the election result. so i didn't start this. >> i listen, you have spent -- d i'm just curious, senator -- you have spent much of your time in the last two years carrying a lot of this crazy conspiratorial water for president trump, whether it was the attempt to blame ukraine for the interference in the election, ratherth than russia. you've used your committee to sort of create the illusion of voter fraud, as you just described earlier, because there are, quote, allegations. i'm just trying to understand here, what are you doing it for? you're notre trying to overturn the election, youin just said. are you simply trying to curry favor with constituents of the president? is that what this is c all abou? >> no, i'm -- >> a cynical political ploy? >> i'm trying to be transparent. you know, one of the things we found outon in our hearing is, u know, the basic allegations kind of fall into three categories. i would say the first is the either violation of or lax enforcement of election law.

there is voter fraud. there always is. we had one witness talk about 42,000 people voting twice in nevada. >> just because you have somebody say it didn't make it true. s senator, none of these allegations -- stop. you don't get to make these allegations that haven't been proven true. here's what i don't understand. you understand how our government was set up. the reason we have a judiciary is because partisans like yourself weren't going to be trusted byen the public to deci who won or lost an election. let me ask you this, who carried the state of wisconsin? >> vice president biden has won by 20,000 votes, but there are also issues in wisconsin. one of the things i point out, was revealed in our hearing is i entered into the record three letters written by congressional democrats to the voting machine manufacturers. now, at that point in time, i didn't hear chuck schumer call it quakery or conspiracy theory or, you o know, a ridiculous

charade, but that's exactly how he attacked my hearing that i thought was a really good hearing that laid out somegh of the thissues. we had chris krebs testify. chris krebs said, you know, it's the most secure election, but in our hearing, he admitted, well, he wasn't talking about potential fraud. he was just looking at hacking. he also admitted that some of these election and tabulation machines are hooked up to the internet, which privately told me that that wasn't the case. so, again, i didn't criticize democrats when they were talking about potential hacking of voting machines, but now it's i quackery, it's conspiracy theory? problem, chuck. there's a double standard here and we are not being transparent and we are dismissing the concerns of tens of millions of americans. again, i didn't light this fire. this fire's lit over four years ago and we have destroyed the credibility -- you have destroyed the credibility of the news media by your bias. and of course, people like james comey, andrew mccabe, john brennan destroyed the credibility of the fbi and our justice system as well. we have an enormous problem in this country. it's unsustainable. and the only way you solve it is

with information and transparency and hearings and investigations. it's not quackery. it's not conspiracy theory. it's what's going's to be required. >> so, you -- let me ask you this, then why didn't you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers? there's plenty of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. so, you're basically saying if there's enough people who believe in a conspiracy theory -- >> i held c hearings on what i figure is the most relevant issues -- >> how about the moonmo landing? are you going to hold hearings on that?ow >> what i would like to hold hearings on, you know, what i was talking about, why did we not spend hundreds of billions of dollars exploring early treatment? why did we vilify doctors who had the courage to treat covid patients, practice medicine, try and find available, cheap, repurposed drugs to do so? why -- i'd love to hold hearings on that. there are all kinds of things i'd love to hold hearings on. you have to pick and choose based on priorities. right now we've got this

election. we've got tens of millions of americans that think this election was stolen. we need to gets to the bottom it. again, what's explained, we need to explain wit, get that off t table, but we also have to acknowledge there were somee rl problems here. there are some issuese that ne to be explored and investigated. >> again, you've got to ask yourself, when you tell people a million times that something was stolen or something was fraud and then they believe it, i think you need to look in the mirror andu ask yourself why s many people believe it. >> chuck, you need to look in the mirror and -- >> senator johnson, i need to let you go. i appreciate you coming on. >> -- campaign hoax -- that is what you did in the media. you carried that water for years. you destroyed the credibility of the press, not me. >>ie senatoratil johnson, other crediting you for coming on, i appreciate that, becauseng only two of your b colleagues had th guts h to say yes this weekend about this conspiracy theory that you're working on. thanks for coming on. that i appreciate. >> have a good day. when we>> come back, i'll tk to b voting rights activist stay abrams about tuesday's senate elections and control of the

senate, which is at stake. senate, which is at stake.

welcome back. control of the united states senate will be determined in two runoff elections on tuesday that have already set records for fund-raising. republican incumbents david perdue and kelly loeffler, top of your screen, are running against democratic challengers jon ossoff and raphael warnock. and no one has done more to register new democratic voters and fight real voter suppression than stacey abrams, founder of the organization fair fight. and stacey abrams joins me now. ms. abrams, apologies. i'm going to have a little shorter segment than i wanted because of what i had to do with the previous interview. but i want to begin with president trump's recent tweet, attacking your former opponent in 2018, governor kemp, essentially calling for his resignation, alleging -- he called him a puppet, said they're disasters for georgia, won't let, quote, professionals get anywhere near fulton county. could you have scripted president trump's behavior any better to help the democrats in your efforts to turn out voters? i mean, if anything, he is

dividing the republican party. >> i don't think our focus should be on the fights happening with the republicans. my mission and the mission of jon ossoff and raphael warnock is to turn out every georgian who wants relief from covid-19, who understands $600 is not going to get a family through the winter. we need jobs. we need access to justice. we need real health care in georgia and across the south. and we need leaders who actually show up to do their jobs. we have two feckless hypocrites in david perdue and kelly loeffler. they have waffled back and forth on whether they care about the future of georgia, and they've done very little to show any real concern for georgia lives. we know that john and raphael are the two men who will go to washington, d.c., and prove that georgia, indeed, stands with its people. >> if you come up short, what would be your explanation? you've had plenty of money. you've had plenty of resources. you've had, you know, in this -- is it -- what? is it the access to the polls?

if you come up short on tuesday, what's your explanation? >> that this was a competitive election and we didn't get the votes we needed. the reality is, in 2018, we were able to show in court multiple times that there were impediments to voters who had the right to vote. we were able to secure litigation and legislation to make changes to make it easier for voters to access the ballot. but at any time, i never challenged the legitimacy or the legal sufficiency of the election. i challenged the process that kept voters from being able to be heard. i am excited about the fact that georgia is a competitive state, that this is a nail-biter, and my hope is that democrats will show up and demonstrate that november is the beginning of a pattern, but if it's not, then it's going to further demonstrate that we have a force to be reckoned with and we will continue to fight not only for national elections and statewide elections, but fight to continue to improve lives at the state and local level. >> you know, if democrats don't

win one or both of these seats, some of them are going to come to you and say, hey, stacey abrams, i wish you were on the ballot. i wish you had run. have you had second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth thoughts, in the back of your mind, are you like, god, i wish i were on the ballot right now? >> no, not at all. i think we have two extraordinary candidates. jon ossoff is a warrior who's fought against corruption and there is no better foil than david perdue, who fought against the pandemic. and raphael warnock has fought for families and kelly loeffler has only made money off her time in the senate and chastised and undermined the credibility of communities who are doing their best to be seen and heard in our country. >> look, i am a data nerd, and i know you know the state, county by county and all this stuff. and you know, there's this generic take. it's essentially atlanta and the suburbs versus the rest of the state. but if the -- blow up that conventional wisdom. tell me someplace outside of

atlanta and savannah that you think democrats, if they do well there, that's a sign they're going to win this race. >> we're going to win metro atlanta. we're going to win columbus. we're going to win in albany. we're going to win in macon. we're going to win in savannah. i was recently in upson county, a county that is traditionally a republican county, but it has improved its democratic performance from '16 to '18 and from '18 to 2020. we know that in a lot of the ex-urban counties that are outside metro atlanta but not quite south of the nataline, we've seen improvements in participation. and we believe there are voters across the state who are going to show up. more than 100,000 voters who did not participate in november are voting in this election, have already cast their ballots, and they are disproportionately voters of color and disproportionately young voters. and i remind people that in the statewide election, you don't win county by county. you win person by person, and that's what we've been doing. fair fight has invested millions of dollars into organizations, smaller groups that have been doing the grassroots organizing

and mobilizing that it's going to take to win, and we are very hopeful and very determined to do so on tuesday. >> stacey abrams, appreciate you coming on. happy new year to you. thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> thank you for having me. >> you got it. when we come back, what mitt romney just called the dangerous threat to our democracy. the panel is next.

welcome back. the panel is joining us. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," nbc news capitol hill

correspondent leigh ann caldwell and msnbc news correspondent geoff bennett. okay, guys, the theme of this will simply be president trump's dividing of the republican party. peter baker, in the last ten days, he's called on the republican governor of georgia to resign, essentially called the entire runoff campaign illegal, threatened john thune with a kristi noem primary challenge. president trump here -- we knew that he might burn it all down. apparently, he wants to divide his party right to the very end here. >> well, i think that's right, chuck, and i think it's rather remarkable. you know, we have to put this into historical context. it's rather -- we just keep acting as if this is almost normal. it's obviously not normal. i think about 220 years ago, john adams was the first incumbent president to lose an election and gracefully hand over power to his successor without trying to keep control. that set a precedent for this country that has been the most important bedrock of democracy, arguably, in our history. and here we are, 220 years

later. no sitting president in history who lost an election has tried to hold on to power. this is something that has never happened before. and you're right, it is dividing the republican party, because there are republicans out there who say this is just a bad precedent all around because there will be democrats who will lose elections and then, suddenly, they'll be claiming with false allegations that they didn't, and trying to muck up the works and trying to take away the win from their side. this is just not the way the system has worked historically. and you're right, president trump's willing to go after anybody and everybody, no matter how close they had once been to him, no matter what party they are in, including mitch mcconnell, including to the point of almost upending the covid relief bill, in part out of spite for senator mcconnell, and it's all part of this unending, relentless campaign to convince the country that, somehow, he didn't lose. >> leigh ann caldwell, mitch mcconnell has called the publicity stunt that josh hawley and ted cruz now are all engaging in one of the most -- will end up becoming, basically, probably the most -- one of

their most important votes ever as united states senators. so, here they are dividing the party on this. how divided is this party going to be on this vote on that senate republican floor? we know what's going to happen with house republicans. they are the trump base. but senate republicans are not. will half vote against the president or not? >> so, chuck, i've been talking to my sources all weekend and there are a couple things. this group following ted cruz have not yet decided how many states or which states they're going to object to and how, perhaps, they might vote. all these things are under discussion. a lot of sources i've also been talking to, none of them say that the outcome is going to change at all. so, what's going on here? and it is that trump has a tremendous shadow over this party and a divided party, a divided country only benefits the president. and there's a lot of electoral politics that are coming into play here, especially with trump's grip on the republican base, on conservative voters.

it's not just 2022, the midterm elections, but it's looking ahead to the 2024, the presidential election as well, with people like josh hawley, ted cruz, who are perhaps possibly going to jump in that race, and even vice president mike pence, who's going to have a big role on wednesday, chuck. >> geoff, what's the end game for president trump? what's his end game here? >> the end game is, as it's always been, which was to find some off-ramp from this election to emerge as if he's not the loser. it has now resulted in the president trying to undermine a free and fair election. and it's an objective fact that the election results have been counted, recounted, certified, and litigated multiple times. president trump and republican allied groups are on the receiving end of about 60 court losses. and to leigh ann's point, this gambit planned for wednesday isn't expected to change the election outcome beyond, you know, potentially damaging our

democracy and damaging our standing in the world. and i've talked to some, you know, establishment republicans who are concerned that this fissure could create, on the one hand, a trump party and a republican party. and if that crack in the party hardens, and if that continues, it will be hard, if not impossible, for republicans to win swing states or swing seats, because there just aren't functionally enough republicans to support a party that's effectively split in two. and then, on the other side, i've been covering the biden transition from the very start in wilmington, and there are concerns among democrats that not only will this sort of leave this lie in the minds of millions of trump supporters, that joe biden is somehow not a legitimate president, it will also make it increasingly difficult for a president biden to get republicans who support donald trump to buy into what joe biden is pushing to fight covid. for every american to wear a mask, for every american to get vaccinated, not just once, but

twice, chuck. >> peter baker, if democrats sweep the senate seats on tuesday in georgia, the fallout -- i mean, it's painful obvious to any observer without a partisan hat that it will be donald trump will be the main reason why this happened. maybe you could say mitch mcconnell is a secondary sort of boogieman source there. but i imagine this will accelerate the divide inside the party, right? >> well, you would think so, right? because republicans did pretty well in the november 3rd elections, all things considered, except at the top, right? they gained seats in the house. they held onto the senate, even though they had more vulnerable members than the democrats did. and so, to lose these two georgia seats in a state that, frankly, is still pretty republican, even if it's trending now more democratic than it had been in the past, would be a pretty big blow. it would leave them outside of power both in the house and the senate. it would leave biden and the democrats in control of all three of those, you know, institutions. and i think that there would be a lot of recrimination. normally, at least, there would be a lot of recrimination.

republicans will be saying, why did we follow a leader who led us down this path who's, you know, the brand, the republican brand itself still has power, but it was trump, himself, who was the one who couldn't bring votes to the table, and we should move on. on the other hand, he still did get 74 million votes, and that's a really powerful force within the republican party. he's going to remain an outspoken figure, even from the sidelines. his twitter account with 80-some million people will receive his messages, no matter how true or false they are. and that's a factor for republicans, particularly those who want to run in the future. >> very quickly, leigh ann caldwell, does mitch mcconnell have anything to worry about, if, somehow, he is not going to have the votes to -- he's not majority leader anymore? would he have to worry about his leadership? >> yes. he needs to win georgia. he does -- every decision he makes is to ensure that he maintains his position as majority leader. a republican source of mine said that trump has been extremely unhelpful in georgia, chuck, and so, it's going to be a big day.

>> yep. all right. excellent panel, trio. appreciate that. when we come back, the conspiracy theory that has migrated from the internet fringe to the halls of congress, gets sworn in today. what exactly is qanon? gets sworn in today. what exactly is qanon? hey, i just got a text from my sister.

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♪ ♪ ♪ welcome back. suspicion of government and openness to conspiracy theories have long been features of american politics. recently, qanon, a blanket conspiracy theory that's part politics, part religion, and

completely irrational, has spread like a virus from the fringes of the internet to the political mainstream. the qanon phenomenon is also very pro trump, and its followers include at least one newly elected member of congress. as we first reported on "meet the press reports," which is on nbc news now on peacock, the issue for the gop is will it distance itself from this movement or welcome the enthusiasm of its support? >> do you believe there's a ring of high-profile politicians who are kidnapping and sacrificing children? >> i do believe that. >> qanon, once a fringe phenomenon, is now exploding online, a symptom of how susceptible america is to a conspiracy theory, supercharged by the power of social media. "the atlantic" adrian la france has spent months studying qanon and its mysterious origin. >> this figure, q, is somebody with military intelligence who's secretly working with donald trump to take down high-profile

democrats who are in private abusing children. >> kim holeberg says her fiance left her after being drawn into qanon online. >> the anti-vaxxers and the chemical trail people and the flat earthers and the spygate people and obamagate, and et cetera, et cetera. all of that has now found a home. >> according to a september analysis from dynata on qanon supporters, 63% are white, 58% are male, 55% of the household income less than $75,000 a year, and just 30% of a bachelor's degree or equivalent. and 58% said they were supporting donald trump for president. >> it is at its core a pro trump conspiracy theory. >> i've heard these are people that love our country and they just don't like seeing it. so, i don't know really anything about it, other than they do, supposedly, like me. >> the president has retweeted qan qanon-linked accounts hundreds of times and boosted congressional candidates who supported it, like georgia republican marjorie taylor

greene, who mr. trump called a future republican star. taylor greene was elected and will join colorado republican lauren bober, who has also praised qanon on capitol hill. >> there's a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this global cable of satan-worshipping pedophiles out. >> the republican party has grappled with whether and how to distance itself. >> big mistake. this is a group of nuts and cooks and he ought to disavow them. >> the house voted to condemn qanon. >> resolution is adopted. >> but 17 republicans and one independent voted against the resolution. the fbi has labeled qanon a domestic terror threat. >> we have had cases where that properly predicate cases involving violence, where people have been motivated by some of those conspiracy theories. >> in 2017, a north carolina man was sentenced to four years in prison after firing a gun at a d.c. pizza restaurant, where he was looking for a nonexistent child trafficking ring run by democrats, all of it an internet

lie. according to dynata, nearly half of qanon supporters say the coronavirus isn't real. and among those who say it is, a good chunk think it's being spread by 5g cellular technology. in the fall, qanon accounts pushed the conspiracy theory that president trump was not sick with the virus but carrying out secret missions in an imagined war. >> i believe that president trump was approached by military, and it's been a plan that's been in place for decades. >> we'll be producing a new season of "meet the press reports" on nbc news now and peacock very, very soon. when we come back, why we can no longer ignore movements like qanon. can no longer ignores like qanon robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are -

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welcome back. joining me now to talk about the danger posed by conspiracy theories like qanon are nbc news national security analyst clint watts and nbc news investigator reporter brandi zadrosny. bran brandi, i want to start with you. donald trump has been a central figure in the qanon conspiracy. what happens to qanon on january 21st? >> well, cults and, you know, churches don't generally just give up their messiahs, and we don't expect that to happen now, whether trump's in the white house or not. trump seems to be the central figure with this group, and he seems like he will continue to be, as only proven right so far as we look toward his claims,

his baseless claims that the election was contested, that he actually won. they are the main people sort of shepherding this lie. and so, that's expected to continue. >> clint, the social media companies, i would argue, particularly over the last, say, three months, did seem to make some efforts to purge themselves of qanon, in a way they didn't before. looking back, how successful have they been? or are these folks going to just migrate over to the parlors and the more extreme sites around the internet? >> chuck, you know, we do have some parallels that we can look at. there have been purges of different extremist groups over the years, and we see them try to coalesce on different platforms. and unless the platform is really strong, meaning that it equals engagement, it allows people to facilitate, it's easy to get to in terms of an app, the groups really struggle. and so, what i think is

considering about qanon and sort of this migration right now is you see this new app, parlor, really come online, and you're seeing a coalescence of people moving there. ultimately, though, i think it was a little bit too late on the social media companies' part. once they're already there, it allows them to spread and recruit. and this is consistent of all belief systems. the longer they're on these mainstream platforms, the longer they're able to connect with like-minded people around the world. >> brandy, qanon, the whole qanon conspiracy, in some ways, sort of fit hand in glove with the pandemic, whether we like it or not, right? whether it was the mask mandates, whether it's anti-vaxxers, there is a lot of parts of the pandemic that we're all dealing with that it feels as if the qanon conspiracy is either using to build followers, or what. how would you describe it? >> yeah. the qanon conspiracy theory really acted as an umbrella. it sort of covered everybody who was interested in the

antilockdown protests, the election, and people who were arguing that the pandemic was either a hoax or that measures to sort of protect us from the pandemic were ridiculous, antimask, stuff like that. and what happened was, you know, we studied this on facebook using this tool called crowd tingle, and we could see the membership spike in march during the lockdown orders. so, we would watch these qanon groups before the platforms got rid of them, and we saw it worked like a line. and then right in march during the lockdown orders, you saw a crazy spike. and those just continued. and that happened in antivaccination groups and qanon groups, and we saw this incredible overlap. you know, the biggest antivaccination group actually became explicitly a qanon group that had hundreds of thousands of members. and then we saw it spread to instagram. we saw, you know, these really flashy posts. someone calls it pastel-anon. but it's lifestyle influencers, mommy bloggers, fitness gurus,

alternative health people, and over the summer, you know, we even saw qanon protests in some 200 different cities across the country. so, we just saw it blanket everything. >> and clint, we have our first member of congress, marjorie taylor greene got elected to congress, a qanon follower. she's since tried to distance herself a little bit. but here she was at her orientation tweeting, "our first session of new member orientation covered covid in congress, masks, masks, masks. i proudly told my freshman class that masks are oppressive. in georgia, we work out, shop, go to restaurants, go to work, and school without masks. my body, my choice." what's it mean for the qanon movement to have somebody an official member of congress? >> what's always been strange about this is conspiracies about deep states usually don't happen when a symbolic leader like president trump that they admire so much is in power. usually it's -- you know, part of the information insurgency

comes from outside and it's deep state. and in the case of this congresswoman, i think it's going to be similar. now she's in charge to some degree. she's going to be calling upon people to testify, making decisions about votes and how those votes line up against an ideology that's pretty amorphous. so, at what point does it begin to collapse on itself or not? meaning, no matter what she does, her supporters will continue to believe these conspiracy theories. they will make excuses oftentimes or change time lines or that it's part of a plot that's going to unfold in the future. and it really just shows the demand for this disinformation that we have in our society right now. the conspiracies combining with populism, all brought together on social media, it's a way for a belief system to sort of orchestrate itself and then when they do come into power, what will they do with it? what is the deep state when they are now part of the state? >> well, that's what it is. it's the ease with which this has surfaced. clint watts, brandy zadrozny, thank you both. thank you all for being with us today. that's all we have. thank you for watching.

we'll be back next week from our new studio next door to the capitol. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." so, what are we going to do here, folks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. you know, we have that in spades already. >> wow. president trump pressures georgia's secretary of state to overturn the 2020 election results in an extraordinary hour-long phone call over the weekend. the question is, did the president break the law? plus, a group of republican senators announce they'll challenge joe biden's electoral college win this week. their protests aren't expected to change the outcome of the election, so the quest