national counterterrorism security office and mohamed shafi chief executive of the ramadan foundation in the u.k. thank you all. thousands of people have rallied in central london against the government's new coronavirus restrictions. people held up honors accusing the authorities of tyranny for a district in the movement of people the protests taking place a day after the british prime minister announced a new lockdown for all of england. we've got to be humble in the face of nature and in this country alas as across much of europe the virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst case scenario of our scientific advisors and so now is the time to take action because there is no alternative from thursday into the storm to december you must stay at home you merely leave home for specific reasons we're not going back to the fool's gold locked arms of march and april the measures that i don't mind the less bruited less restrictive but i'm afraid from day the basic message is the same stay at home protect the n.h.s. and save lives just some of the details the new rules take eff

using counterterrorism and national security legislation to silence. french foreign ministry also put out a statement condemning the arrest but egypt's foreign minister quickly rejected the statement saying it is an interference in egypt's internal affairs. we will have to see what happens. -- shariff abdel, abdel kouddous, thank you for joining us democracy now! , correspondent and a reporter for mada masr based in cairo. please be safe. that does it for our broadcast. a happy birthday and fond farewell and all the very best to our digital intern. democracy now! is looking for feedback from ople who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] >> fears of a humanitarian crisis as violence in northern ethiopia sends tens of thousands across the border into sudan. ♪ >> i'm imran khan. this is al jazeera from delhi. uganda presidential candidate bobby wine is released from custody two days after his arr

national election crisis task force, norman orenstein, resident scholar of the american enterprise institute and joshua gautsler, executive director for georgetown law's -- he's also the former senior director for the counterterrorism at the national security council. gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me. full disclosure, i've also been part of that task force. which is why every time we have this conversation you two come to mind. norm, i want to start with you. we are right now it seems that the president has tried to create every single lever to create doubt and sow doubt in the election system and try to call it fraudulent. but he seems to have been stumped by all legal angles. what do you make of this? what other avenues may he have? >> you know, he's now 1 for 20 or 1 for 21 on legal challenges. which really tells you something. and he's been forced to make rudy giuliani the voice of his administration and the legal process, which shows a sense of desperation right there. the thing about all of this that's heartened me a little bit, maria teresa, is that all the election officials, democrats and republicans, secretaries of state on down, made this a remarkably safe and secure election and they're all standing behind a reality

national security in terms of its counterterrorism efforts. and we should also point out that this is some of the same advice that was given to the u.s. president from top officials in the pentagon. but what's notable about this is the fact that the president just last week in fact, put in place a number of loyalists at the pentagon in order to push this through that share his thinking, this perpetual war. as you heard, discussed there, this is something, as you mentioned, that donald trump campaigned on in 2016 ending these endless wars as he called them . but even his critics will note that this announcement falls short of that goal as well. so it appears the president trying to make good on that, but not quite meeting the mark because as we heard there, well there is going to be a reduction in forces. this is not a complete withdrawal. this will still have a small troop player as president in terms of numbers in iraq as well as afghanistan. so this is going to be met with a lot of criticism because it doesn't seem to please the pentagon off

yesterday saying he's replacing esper with director of the national counterterrorism center, christopher miller. let's get more from national security courtney kube. so you've reported esper was already preparing his resignation letter. what are your sources telling you about why the president made this decision now? >> that's really the big question here, chris. why now? the timing. so back up to before the election. there was widespread belief secretary esper was likely to either be fired or asked to resign right after the election. soon after the elections. people were even talking about wednesday of last week. then we had a situation where we didn't have election results for several days and we're still now in a situation where president trump hasn't actually conceded that he's lost the election. because of that, defense and pentagon officials last week and into this week were saying, well, we think he might actually -- that the president might not actually ask secretary esper to leave until there really say result that the president has accepted. then, of course, we had the surprise tweet monday. we know it surprised secretary

national security in terms of its counterterrorism efforts. but we should also point out that this is some of the same advice that was given to the u.s. president from top officials in the pentagon. but what's notable about this is the fact that the president just last week in fact, put in place a number of loyalists at the pentagon in order to push this through that share his thinking, this perpetual war donald trump campaigned on in 2016 ending these endless wars as he called them, but even his critics will note that this announcement falls short of that goal as well. so it appears the president trying to make good on that, but not quite meeting the mark because as we heard there, well there is going to be a reduction in forces. this is not a complete withdrawal. well, in are all the headlines this hour. ethiopia's government is saying, troops have achieved significant victories in its conflict with forces in the northern 10 region. and national army has carried out strikes near the region's main to have mcmullen, a. the primary base for the

pressure, theres with a letter today from 150 national security officials, former officials, generals, admiralsfolks who work in many different counterterrorism agencies saying president-elect biden needs these classified briefings, if he doesn't get them there could be immense consequences for national security. >> woodruff: and yamiche, what about at the white house? any movement today in terms of how they are handling, how they see this transition and any movement in terms of the president accepting the election results? >> there isn't much movement. the president remains angry, isolated and unwilling to acknowledge that joe biden is in fact the president-elect. and it was one week ago today that the president took to the white house podium to say that he had won the election and was doing what no president before him had done which is challenge the integrity of the election. and the president has continued to do that over and over again in tweelts and messages but one thing we have to note, this is the longest period of time. the president has not spoken publicly in his entire presidency. the president is someone without likes to speak in

he's a retired army general who helped shape america's counterterrorism strategy but his tenure as president trumps national securityisor was remarkably short, just 22 days after trump took office, flynn resigned. after it was revealed he misled president mike pence about his communications with the russian ambassador to the u.s. he pled guilty to a single felony count of willfully and knowingly making false statements to the fbi. in january of this year, he moved to withdraw that plea and in may, the doj announced it intended to drop all charges. the case was still on hold when the president issued his pardon today and the last hour, general flynn tweeted god bless family. the doj official told fox they would've preferred to see the matter in court but this was obviously an appropriate use of the president's pardon power. >> mark: i i would've liked to have seen him acquitted in court because that dirty, rotten, stinking federal justice system really stitched him up from top to toe. joe biden plans to staff his administration with corporate lobbyists and establishment swamp creatures, he's quite open aboutyi it. bi

national counterterrorism center. mean while, president-elect joe biden is expected to announce some top hires this week, including chief of staff and national security. but his transition team is being blocked from accessing federal resources normally available after a campaign ends. a trump appointee at the general services administration is blocking funding and access for the biden atm. the president-elect's transition team is considering legal action. >>> happening today, supreme court justices will hear arguments in the latest legal challenge to the affordable c.a.r.e. act where some 20 million americans could lose health coverage if the conservative- controlled court strikes down the law. under the act, health insurance companies can't refuse coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. because of the pandemic, the governor said some things have changed. >> 6.1 million californians have pre-existing conditions. don't forget, it's very likely as we watch through the covid- 19, the pre-existing conditions of covid-19 transmissions related to covid, the coronavirus also can increase and add to that number. >> the governor said that california wi

she helped set up facebook's counterterrorism program after spending six years at the pentagon, the national securitya targeter for special operations in afghanistan. >> frederick: gen z lives on this. gen z is gonna grow up someday. do we want all of that information sort of hanging out there for nation state adversaries to scoop up to integrate with other datasets? >> whitaker: but is, is it different from what other apps collect? >> frederick: so a lot of applications do collect these, you know, fulsome, comprehensive, digital profiles; they collect your digital behavior. however, tiktok is owned by a beijing-based company called bytedance. >>> whitaker bytedance is a $140 billion chinese company, founded by this man, 37-year-old zhang yiming. known as an a.i., or artificial intelligence savant, zhang created the cutting-edge, a.i. driven algorithm that fuels all of bytedance's platforms, like" douyin," the chinese version of tiktok, with 600 million daily users. both apps use the same logo, and similar algorithms, which analyze exactly how long users watch a video; experiment with new offerings;

supporting and working with and through local partners such as the afghan national security forces, the elite iraqi counterterrorism service and the local kurdish and arab fighters of the syrian democratic forces. the situati we face today is totally different than what we faced 10 years ago. we do not have hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged in combat abroad. we do not have hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged in combat abroad. we're not an occupying force. today our limited american military presence in the middle east is supporting local forces and enabling multinational efforts. we're playing a limited -- limited -- but important role in defending american national security and american interests against terrorists who would like nothing more than for the most powerful force for good in the world to simply pick up our ball and go home. they would love that. that's why last year 70 senators -- a bipartisan supermajority -- voted for an amendment i authored that acknowledged the progress made in syria and afghanistan, identified the risks that remain, and cautioned that precipitous withdrawal would cre

counterterrorism operations, it's really going to have to cut back its train, advise and assist mission, which means that the afghan government is the one that's going to feel the brunt of its national securityrmy and its police, which are going to see much fewer training, assistance and advice. so i think that's where we'll see it in the state of the war. and the afghan government, afghanistan as a whole, is hardly stable at the moment. how damaging, then, could it be? well, i think what we'll see is a major taliban offensive in early 2021. i mean, at this time of the year, violence levels usually decline somewhat because afghanistan goes into winter, especially in the mountainous areas. i'd expect the taliban to come come out with a vengeance in 2021 and start to attempt to retake cities with a much lower international presence. and to be clear, you think that will happen because of this move by president trump? i think it's certainly in part. i also think what we're seeing now is stalled peace negotiations, so at the moment we have no success in peace negotiations, we have a us and partner forces that are going to be leaving afghanistan. i think this is an open avenue for the taliban, whi

national security, president trump fired defense secretary mark esper on social media yesterday by tweeting in part, "i am pleased to announce that christopher c. miller, the highly respected director of the national counterterrorismsecretary of defense, effective immediately. chris will do a good job. mark esper has been terminated. i would like to thank him for his service. nbc news reported last week that esper had already prepared a resignation letter since the pentagon chief and president trump have been at odds over several issues. for example, esper was working with congress to rename military bases named for confederate soldiers. that's a move that the president opposes. and over the summer, esper pushed back on sending active-duty troops to put down protests and also distanced himself from trump's photo op at st. john's church. john kelly, the former white house chief of staff, told the "washington post" that esper, quote, made the decision to stay loyal to the law and constitution and paid the price. speaking to the "military times" last week, esper himself aid, quote, who's going to come in behind me? it's going to be a real yes man. and then god help us. joining us now, nbc news national security and m

national security circles as someone who might be a yes man for donald trump? >> look, you hear -- he's someone who worked -- he's head of the national counterterrorism center. he worked at the nsc doing counterterrorism issues. prior to that he's a former special forces officer in the army so he's somebody people respect. the problem or the concern that people have is not so much whether he would stand up to the president just given his background, but that he's put in this position as acting secretary with just weeks to go and he doesn't really have the clout. so the question is whether even if he wanted to push back on things and his character might encourage him to push back on things, that given the position that he's in at this point in time that he's not necessarily equipped or set up to push back on things that the president would want. most people e tketo think that he would not initiate -- follow through with anything that's illegal, but it's not illegal for the president to say he wants all troops out of afghanistan or iraq and those are things people are concerned. >> nbc's carol lee, thank you. >>> still ahead on "morning joe," despite scant evi