carol lee, let me start with you. and sort of the president's obsession, he clearly is not focused on any parts of the job that are in front of him day-to-day. the virus, what's going on on capitol hill. he seems to be singularly focused on wreaking havoc on this election. is there -- is it really likely he could fire bill barr? is that really plausible here? >> it is, chuck. in the sense that with president trump, even those who are closest to him don't know whether he's going to, in a fit of rage, suddenly fire his attorney general. he's clearly very frustrated with him. he has been for some time. and he's expressed some of that frustration here and there. we heard it in an interview with fox where he said his attorney general and the justice department were missing in action and now he's being very plain about it. and i think what it underscores is a couple of things. as you said, the president is very myopically focused on the election. anyone who tells you, who you talk to in the white house, will tell you that.

carol lee joins us now. s story and doing this reporting in addition to all of your day jobs. but talk about what the pardon kind of brought together and brought out for you. >> well, it was really the kind of everything came full circle with the pardon. if you look at the arc of president trump an general flynn's relationship, it was started in a campaign with lock her up and then moved into the transition and that is when president trump really started to sour on flynn according to a number of people that i talked to for any number of reasons, everything from he didn't like that flynn didn't pass on that russian vladimir putin was reached to reach then president-elect trump. and he was angry about negative headlines around the conversations with the russian ambassador and having to repeatedly answer the question of whether or not they talked about sanction and as we know flynn said that they did not. which was a lie. and then they move into the white house and it becomes just even more complicated and kind

let's bring in carol lee at the white house and bill rucker. carol, what do we know about what seems to be an eroding relationship between the president and his one-time very loyal and long-serving attorney general? >> reporter: i think it's pretty simple. it's the president sees bill barr as somebody who is not on side with his efforts to make a case that there's been widespread election fraud, which he has not made a case and there's no evidence of that. this frustration started to reveal itself in an interview the president did with fox news where he said that the justice department was missing in action when it came to finding evidence of election fraud. then you have this associated press binterview the attorney general and from my own reporting, the president is not ruling this out. there are people among the president's team who are trying to convince him not to do this. there's only weeks left to go in this administration and by and large attorney general barr has been somebody who is seen as an ally of the president and done a number of

joining us now is mike memoli with the biden transmission team and carol lee at the white house. mike, this is a team that has a lot of experience. talk about what has people excited with this team and any criticisms against this team. >> reporter: ayman, i thought it was interesting because i think i heard from the president-elect an awareness of some of the criticism that you're hearing of this cabinet in the making, that is that it's a reboot of the obama administration, a third obama term. you heard him acknowledge there are some familiar faces here, but he said they bring bold new thinking as well. he said there's deep experience as well. jeff bennett referred to this as a cabinet of colleagues, rather than a team of rivals. you could speak to what we heard from everyone of the speakers just now which is this is a crisis cabinet. perhaps in a different circumstance biden might be putting together a different team. because of what's at stake here, the severe challenges they're facing, he needs to bring in familiar hands who can get the crisis under control, multiple crises. a

joining us, eugene scott and nbc correspondent carol lee. it's great to have you on board this morning. gene, let me start with you, with that lawyer on stage encouraging republicans not to get out to vote in georgia because the vote was potentially rigged which is, of course, a huge messaging problem for them. what do you make of the president's decision to retweet that last night? and also, of course, mitch mcconnell recognizing joe biden's win. i have a feeling that may be at least a little bit about the georgia runoffs, no? >> certainly, we see the president being upset with how things have worked out in his favor, and trying to keep the conversation on himself. but what he's actually doing is allowing a lot more people to see just how divided the republican party currently is in a moment where most countries would be moving towards unity following an election that was this divisive. how are the republican parties going to move forward after the president leaves office is still up in the air, it's still a question, because right now, we'

nbc's carol lee is behind that investigation. carol, i got to brag on you for a sec.of work. congratulations to you. >> reporter: thank you. >> you've been working for months if not years on this, and it's a fascinating examination of what basically triggered the president's sort of battle and this idea that forces are out to get him. >> reporter: yes, it is, and it started with michael flynn lying to the vice president and other officials in the white house, even before they got in the white house, during transition, and then that fbi interview that he did just on the fifth day of president trump's presidency, which he didn't tell anybody about, and the opening scene of the piece is later that night, michael flynn outside of his office in the national security adviser suite, which you know well is a corner office in the west wing, standing over his assistant as they scrolled through names of possible attorneys, so the weight of what's about to unfold is already weighing in, is already sinking in with him. meanwhile, nobody else in the west wing really understands at

nbc's carol lee, thank you. we'll be reading your expansive reporting on michael flynn at nbcnews.com and david ignatius. thank you as well. we really appreciate it. >> david, we're glad that you're safe and we're glad that you were not wearing pajamas. >> yeah. >> everything -- >> you didn't have the santa claus pajamas on. >>> still ahead, top democratic leaders have come out in support of a bipartisan $908 billion coronavirus aid package. senator dick durbin joins us to weigh in on where the negotiations stand right now. "morning joe" is back in a moment. how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. with sweet potato fries. eating a falafel wrap n-n-n-no-no (doorbell rings) thanks! splitsies? ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you? did you try it yet? comparing plans? oh yeah. they sure can change year to year. i found lower premiums - and lower prescription costs. and those new insulin savings! hundreds of plans, $35 a month. that'll save you money. s

our own carol lee talked with more than 20 current and former trump administration staffers to put togethere house during flynn's chaotic final days, and she joins me now. carol, first of all, what an incredible story. you spent three years covering every single development. years of legal and political drama. so what is your headline after this enormous amount of reporting? clearly this was not just a cover-up by michael flynn. >> yeah, that's right, chris. the big headline, i think, is just that flynn was lying to everyone. despite his efforts to try to withdraw his guilty plea, he lied to the fbi. he lied to the vice president. and he lied to his colleagues in the west wing, many of whom had asked him for weeks whether or not he had discussed sanctions with the russian ambassador and he repeatedly told them no, that didn't happen, that there was no discussion of that. then when it became public that, indeed, he did speak about sanctions with the ambassador, that led to some really tense exchanges in the white house in these early days. you had then-chief of staff confronting michael flyn

. >> mike memoli covering both those stories and carol lee at the white house. >>> federal investigators are uncovering of unknown tactics for penetrating government networks, including malware used to initiate what they're describing a grave risk to the federal government and state and local territory governments, as well as other private sector organizations. joining me now is craig timber who contributed to the "washington post" coverage of the nsa along with former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfarland, now a professor at stanford. craig, let's start with you. tell us more about the very latest reporting, what you're hearing from your sources on what all of this means, what this hack has done to our country. >> every day this looks worse. it first broke over the weekend. there's not been a day passing without learning something new about it. a different agency, a different corporation hit here. this latest news tells us this was a very sophisticated hack that involved more than just the initial malware we knew about. more and more seems to be coming. >> if you could sum up the

joining me now outside of the white house is my nbc news colleague carol lee. i want to start with these -- in some ways, you could call them damning disclosures out of both hhs and what we've learned from the staffers at the cdc, but in some ways, they just confirmed what we were all watching with our own eyes. which was a president using -- trying to downplay the severity of this virus whatever chance he got. >> yeah, that's exactly right, chuck. and also the president on one hand saying they weren't pushing for this idea of herd immunity and then on the other hand, obviously, this was something that was being discussed, not just in -- with the president's controversial health adviser scott atlas, once he joined the white house. but really a lot earlier than that. this july 4th email that's quoted here talks about the need to not infect everybody. infants, young people, keep colleges open and what we heard from the president publicly while there were some denials that was actually formulating any sort of policy or driving any policy decisions, he said in sept

collective reporting of our team here in wilmington, to include mike memoli, kristen welker, and carol lees a leading contender to serve as joe biden's attorney general. people who know doug jones know that he has a career, a lifelong professional career deeply rooted in justice issues. he prosecuted the case against those two kkk members who were involved in the 1963 bombing of the baptist church in birmingham, alabama, that resulted in the heinous killing of those four little girls. and so doug jones is someone who i'm told, if he is nominated to serve as attorney general, would have the backing of the congressional black caucus, he would have the backing of civil rights groups. remember, when he ran to essentially be senator of alabama, he had the support of the late civil rights icon john lewis, chris. so this is sort of a moving target, but the latest we're told is that doug jones is on that short list to include merrick garland, i don't have to remind you the unique space in history merrick garland occupies too. >> yes, former supreme court nominee. much more to come on this administ

this meeting so concerning that at one point according to a person familiar who spoke to our carol lee, pat sip loand the ch staff cut the meeting off. thought it was going in an alarming direction. at the meeting was mike flynn, the recently pardoned national security adviser who has been talking about president trump doing martial law to do a rerun of the election. the military leaders said they have no role in the election. lawmakers have said they would not stand for that. the president seemed to be shooting that down in a tweet over the weekend calling it fake news. that's track one for the president right now. track two is this continuing push through the courts as well as to try to mount some objection when the joint session of congress meets to affirm that electoral college vote on january sixth, and the president getting some backup from incoming senator from alabama who suggested he might support that. take a listen to what president trump had to say on rudy giuliani's radio show about the incoming senator over the weekend. >> i spoke to a great gentleman, tommy tuberville la

i want to start with one of my faves, carol lee in washington. let's talk about vice president pence got the vaccine. how about president trump? if, when does he plan to get it? >> well, what we know is the president has said he may not need to get it right away because he could have some antibodies from when he had coronavirus back in october. we know that the cdc recommends actually that folks who have had this antibody cocktail treatment that we know the president had should wait 90 days before receiving the vaccine just to ensure it's safe. the president is not 90 days out from when he had that treatment, when he had coronavirus in october. and the white house has said the president will take the vaccine when his doctor says it's the appropriate time for him to do so. there is some concern within the white house about the president looking like he's jumping ahead of others who might need it more than him because he potentially does have those antibodies from having contracted the virus himself. but the fact that the vice president is now the

vaughn hillyard, maura barrett and carol lee outside the white house.and senate are actually closing their offices today and not because of covid. they are closed because of threats of violence. can you explain this? >> stephanie, legislative official told us last night there were credible threats of violence here in michigan which led the senate and the house to tell its members to not come to work today. the capitol here is closed. typically open to the public. and you'll recall those images, the video from earlier this summer when militias entered the state capitol behind me armed. this is an open carry state. and you'll recall, it was just a few months ago in which 13 men were charged in alleged kidnapping plot of the governor here, gretchen whitmer. it was on november 23rd when michigan certified its election results. more than 100 protesters, including members of the proud boys were outside of this capitol here. gretchen whitmer will be attending here the ceremony, the event, this meeting at 2:00 pm eastern today in which the 16 electors will be o

. >> carol lee at the white house. tom, to you now. it could really be any minute the fda officially green lights the moderna vaccine. this is vaccine number two. it's one that's essential to make sure that enough people get vaccinate sfld. >> yeah. and the view is this is an incredibly effective vaccine. it's as effective as pfizer's, maybe even a little bit more effective after the first dose. and they've already got the doses ready to go. let's quickly look at the fda's statement this morning and again, the outside advisory panel yesterday recommended the fda go ahead with the emergency authorization, and so the fda has said the fda has informed the sponsor, that it will rapidly work toward finalization of emergency news authorization. the agency has notified the u.s. cdc for distribution. they're looking at close to 6 million doses of the moderna vaccine rolling out next week, assuming it's approved today as expected. that would be on top of another 2 million or so doses to the pfizer vaccine expected to roll out as well next week.

lee stites was reported missing. >> family members came from all corners of texas to comfort carol stites. she lost her youngest of five children, stacey lee. >> she had her plans, and now somebody's taken that away. >> i think you just about got it. >> are where am i sitting? >> there you go. >> it's been 24 years since you lost your daughter, stacey. tell me a little bit about stacey. stacey was your youngest of five. >> i found out that i was pregnant with stacey and i had cancer at the same time. and so i put off any drugs or any chemicals to keep that child alive until i had her. because that soul was more precious to me than mine. >> from the time she was able to breathe, she was up and at 'em. >> she was like the white tornado. that's exactly what they called her when she was little. she was into everything and did everything and friends with everybody. >> i was friends with stacey in high school. we were involved in some church groups and sports together. she was just kind of like a sunflower, sunshine. she was funny. she was always cracking jokes. she didn't really take a lot of th

carols... whatever tier you live in it is simple and safe. rob lee the fa ct encourage everyone tojoin in. the fact people like it is humbling, really. we wish you a merry christmas #we christmas # we wish you a merry christmas # we wish you a merry christmas #we # we wish you a merry christmas # we wish you a merry christmas # we wish you a merry christmas and # we wish you a merry christmas and and a # we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year! across town, naomi and her daughter have lived on this street for 20 years. we came together in lockdown, i went round and put leaflets to everybody‘s dosing if you need prescriptions picked up, so when i saw doorstep carols advertised i thought our street has to do it because it's just the sort of thing we like doing. i used to opt the tonight? definitely! and she is spreading the message up and down the road. # rejoice, rejoice # rejoice, rejoice # emmanuel shall come to thee # emmanuel shall come to thee # 0h, is real... in the town's abbey, denied cosmic event will replace the annual carol servi