shannon pettypiece is outside the white house for us. garrett haake on capitol hill. let me start with shannon. so, there is a cabinet meeting and i'm just surprised at how little coverage the president is wanting of it. that is somewhat unusual for this president when it comes to cabinet meetings, is it not, shannon? >> reporter: right, it could be a moment he could use to show himself as continuing to be the cabinet -- the commander in chief carrying out the business of the government. it is unclear what the agenda for this meeting is, why the president is having this less than 40 days before the end of his term. however, i would note and our reporting indicates that his cabinet is really one of the last group of allies he has out there. you talked about mcconnell, on the hill, another number of republicans in the senate now acknowledging that joe biden will be the president-elect, breaking with president trump on that front. the president has just great extent purged his cabinet of those who have showed dissent, like former defense secretary esper, the -- at the dep

shannon pettypiece, our senior white house reporter for nbc news digital. a.b. stoddard associate editor and columnist for real clear politics. and neal katyal, former acting solicitor-general during the obama administration. he's argued dozens of cases before the u.s. supreme court. everybody, welcome. so shannon, i do want to start with you on this back and forth with the president talking about how there really isn't a delay in distributing the vaccine and if there is one it's all on the states. biden saying it could move a lot faster. the numbers here don't lie, shannon. 2.1 million vaccinated so far. that is well short of where this administration promised we would be at the end of the year. what is going on right now with joe biden? what might he have learned today that caused him to go out and criticize this president so directly, which he's only done a few times since being elected in his effort to try and cool things down? >> right. and i will say that doctors advising the biden transition, close to the biden transition have been telegraphing to us for

joining me now is shannon pettypiece, senior white house reporter for nbc digital. non, thanks so much for being with us. shannon, the president is tweeting up a storm on this. first of all, 106 house republicans joining something like this, how do you explain that? >> reporter: i would say look at some of the poll numbers we've seen lately, andrea, that ask people about whether or not they think the results of this election are legitimate. and consistently, at least 70% of republicans, the vast majority of republicans, continue to say that they don't believe the election results are accurate, they don't believe they are legitimate. also look at the president's fundraising numbers since the election. the president has raised hundreds of millions of dollars off this idea that the election was rigged or fraudulent in some way. so clearly it's something that's a fundraising motivator and driver. so even as we hear other attorneys general coming out and saying that this lawsuit by the texas attorney general and the others who have joined on is nothing other than a public

for more on that, let's bring in nbc senior digital white house reporter shannon pettypiece.what's your information as to how the administration plans to use the vice president similarly? will it be similar for what joe biden did for president obama or a little different? >> reporter: the indications we've gotten from what they have said publicly about the role that the president-elect biden intends for her to play is that she would be an equal partner to him, and he has said to the effect that he wants her role to be helping with whatever the most pressing issue of the day is, and she has said that she sees herself as being the first person, and the last person in the room. that's sort of where they're at right now in the transition, and where they go in to the white house. but as we've seen with past vice presidents, once they enter the white house and the dynamics of a west wing and an administration, those roles and how they end up panning out can change. you already have so many power centers. in this biden administration, she's going to have to contend with a lot of lon

for that, we turn to nbc news senior digital white house correspondent shannon pettypiece. good to have you with us. we heard some disturbing things from the president and his allies in the wake of the election, but these comments made last night by michael flynn and white house trade addviser peter navarro may be among the most alarming. take a listen. >> he could -- within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. >> what i think we need to do tomorrow is appoint a special prosecutor to look at this issue. i think the georgia race needs to be postponed to february. we need to do something before inauguration day. otherwise, we're going to have an illegal and illegitimate president. >> has there been any serious consideration of these ideas? and has there been an effort made to try and tone down the rhetoric that is coming out from the president's allies? >> well, our reporting certainly does not indicate there's any plans to send the military into s

shannon pettypiece over at msnbc news digital. and dr.erwin redliner, national center for disaster preparedness with an expertise in pandemics that we call on often. shannon, let's talk about this 46-minute recorded video. in the television business we call it paid tv. it is not news or part of a newscast or part of coverage, so you pay for the time. sadly, in this case it was on the taxpayer facilities with a taxpayer backdrop, the people's house, the white house, the president of the united states. what went into this? >> as you noted earlier, this was not one of those instances. i know it might seem like a shock to people watching it at home. but this was an instance where the president makes an address to the news media. reporters sometimes presumably would have a chance to ask questions afterwards. this was taped by the white house communications office. it was posted on the white house facebook page and twitter account. this was not anything the news media was involved with. it was essentially an info mercial and one of the p

. >> my north bay colleague shannon pettypiece has the latest from the white house where president trump has remained quiet on the hack. shannon, what's interesting here is that the president's national security adviser has been on a trip and he cut it short because of this hack, so it was the only, i feel like, acknowledgement in the west wing that this was a serious issue, that robert o'brien decided we had to return to the white house. but any explanation why we haven't heard from the president on this? >> reporter: well, the most the white house has told us is that the president has been briefed on this. so, okay, good. i would certainly hope so, but, yes, that's the only official word we're getting out of the white house. you mentioned, really, no remarks from the president about this at all. i mean, of course, it's not that different, though, than how he has been failing to acknowledge, respond, address the other big crisis in this country right now, the coronavirus pandemic, as it burns across the country. you know, i think a lot of this has to do with the fact that there is a gro

shannon pettypiece, thank you as well. joining me now is nbc news correspondent shaquille brewster. he is at a vaccine distribution center in olive branch, mississippi. shaq, what can you tell us about the distribution so far? any hiccups? >> reporter: well, it hasn't started yet. they're waiting for that green light, that emergency use authorization from the fda. but when that comes, things will move very quickly at the mckesson plant in olive branch, mississippi. mckesson is responsible for distributing the vaccine, turning moderna's stockpile of doses into individual shipments. what we know about the time line at this point, we're waiting for that emergency use authorization from the fda. next the cdc will then place an order with mckesson asking them and telling them where to send the specific amount of vaccines all across the country. mckesson is a company that has worked with the cdc before, not only for the seasonal flu vaccine but also for the h1n1 or swine flu vaccine about ten years ago. workers then will combine the vaccine doses in boxes with kits of medical supplies and

shannon pettypiece, mike memoli, kimberly atkins, thanks for starting us off this hour. >>> the white house is scheduled to hold a vaccine summit tomorrow and no one, no one from the biden transition team has actually been invited to that. joining us now is lois pace, president of the global health council and member of joe biden's transition covid advisory board. thank you so much for joining us. i'm curious to get your thoughts, your colleague, dr. saline gounder, said your team is not getting much-needed information from the trump transition, or administration, about its vaccine rollout. let me play for you this sound bite. >> you also need to have a plan to distribute them all the way down to the level of the health care provider, the nurse, who's going to inject that dose of vaccine into somebody's arm, and so we really need that level of granular detail on where they are with the vaccine distribution planning. >> you haven't gotten any of that yet. >> we have yet to see any kind of detailed plan. >> that was also echoed by president-elect joe biden last week in his press confere

joining me now to talk more about this is ruiis shannon pe y pettypiece and ashley parker. let's start with the legal cases. the president's team, the legal campaign, they're having no luck trying to overturn a democratic election. here is what a michigan judge said today rejecting a trump ally lawsuit. plaintiffs asked this court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. this the court cannot and will not do. this is how the people have spoken. people are not presenting any evidence. it is what we're hearing from republican officials who the president is trying to believe bully by calling them during announcements about certifications as we saw in arizona. are they willing to just go down in flames trying to say this election is rigged when by all accounts, all reliable accounts it was not? >> well the reason you're seeing these filings and cases laughed out of court is because at a certain point in cliff notes terms, the legal underpinnings have become donald trump wishing he had won this electi