The way. While he is obstructing the transition of power, the administration is obstructing the free flow of information. Being afraid to answer questions or stand there and field the questions and try to dodge them. Press briefings have disappeared from the white house and from key Government Agencies. Lets start at the white house in the press Briefing Room which we havent seen much of lately. Now, Kayleigh Mcenany showed up on friday. It was her first briefing in seven weeks. She has been avoiding the press just like her boss. This is from october when the president spoke to the White House Press corps all the time in the days leading up to the election. Fast forward to november, and you will see he has not answered a single question from the White House Press corps in 19 days. This is an unprecedented streak of silence from the president of the united states. He is instead choosing to overturn the via twitter with some of the media using words like attempted coup to describe his actions. Look, we knew this was going to happen. He telegraphed this years and months before election day. He was eroding trust in voting all the while. Now his appointees are doing his bidding avoiding questions, avoiding answering the publics questions. We still havent heard from the again Services Administrator who is choosing to hold up the transfer of power. We have barely heard from trumps covid task force, including Vice President mike pence. There was this socalled press conference on thursday, but it wasnt a press conference at all. Because biden excuse me, pence abruptly left the room when reporters wanted to ask questions. So pence didnt take a single question. Look at jon karl, like all of us, taking his mic off angrily because the Vice President would not answer questions from report reporters. This behavior is not just happening at the white house or the gsa. At the pentagon Christopher Miller has not taken question from reporters when he announced this important step, withdrawal of thousands of troops from afghanistan and iraq coming up just before inauguration day. He went out to the briefing. He used the Briefing Room to announce this and then again he did not answer questions from reporters. Here is cnns ryan browne pointing out on twitter saying miller refused to take questions on that decision or anything else. You know, the last time the pentagon spokesman when a fullscale, fullfledged press briefing was back in july. And what about the former secretary of defense mark esper . He last held a briefing in june before being replaced. This trend, this phenomenon continues throughout trumps government. The last time secretary of state mike pompeo took questions from state Department Journalists was back on november 10th. He has been traveling the world with reporters but staying away from those reporters. This is a show of weakness. It is actually an insult to you. Not just to the press. But to you, the American People, when we are in the midst of turmoil, this transition, this state of limbo in america. For Government Agencies, taxpayerfunded spokespeople in Government Agencies to avoid questions and deny the reporters a chance to ask questiones is an insult to the American People. A show of weakness. So what about the incoming president . What about president elect biden . He has been somewhat available in recent days. He did hold two sessions this week on camera where he fielded questions from reporters, taking questions from five reporters on monday, four reporters on thursday. And notably, this sunday morning on all five of the biggest sunday morning shows, bidens speaks people, biden aides are available. They have all been interviewed on state of the union, face the nation, meet the press. That is notable because Trump White House aides are mia. Nobody from trump world is out there defending this reckless legal strategy. It is very notable the differences we are seeing between the biden camp and trump camp right now. For more, one of cnns best, our white house reporter, White House Correspondent kaitlan collins. She had an interesting experience with the other day. These access issues, its throughout the government. Do you have a sense of why, whats going on . I think really what it boils down to and why you see people like the Vice President not take questions at a Coronavirus Task force briefing, the first one of those kinds since the month of july when they last held one at the department of labor is because they dont want to answer questions about what the president is doing. This attempt to overturn the results of the election, which of course is going to be one of the number one questions every Single Person asked. You are seeing time and time again officials are refusing to comment on this or put themselves in a situation where they know they would be asked by this by reporters. Wi with Kayleigh Mcenany, its not just this pattern where she is only taking a handful of questions. Its an effort throughout the entire government. I think the reason this is so concerning is because this isnt this quiet twomonth period where the president is on his way out, joe biden is on his way in. We are seeing him actively block the Biden Transition Team from getting access to resources, to emails, money, things that they need to get started on their transition into federal government. But also you are seeing all of this other activity on behalf of the president. He is punching the top leadership at the pentagon. He is making moves about drawing down troops in iraq and afghanistan. They are taking all of these efforts that are things that typically a government would have to talk about. Of course, you are seeing time and time again officials are avoiding talking about it because they dont want to talk about what the president is doing. Right. They dont have answers. When mcenany called you an activist, what was that moment like in the room . To me its a reminder how far this white house has fallen, how pathetic the behavior is. If that happened in the clinton, bush, obama years, its unfathomable. We cant imagine that happening. So pathetic. Really the sad state of affairs is it didnt faze me or the other reporters in the room because we have seen Something Like that time and time again. Right. Great point. Not typical behavior of a press secretary in maany way. You are doing your job. You defended yourself. Kayleigh, you are not doing your job. What about the headlines this week . Coup, attempted coup, sedition. I wonder what the view is there at the white house . How do you and fellow reporters view this . Is this more of an attempted coup or more like a bad comedy . I think when you step back and you look at this, its easy to dismiss it as silly, to look at what Rudy Giuliani is doing and people kind of roll their eyes at him or see sydney powell, the other trump attorney making her claims without presenting evidence from that press conference last week. But whats important to remember is this is incredibly serious because you are right what you said at the top of the show. What the president is doing is not surprising but its shocking he is actively trying to overturn the results of a free and Fair Election, firing the official who said it was free and fair, but its incredibly serious, the claims that they are making. To see the trump attorney going on Television Last flight and accuse the georgia governor of crimes because they dont like the way the results turned out in the state, even though they did a hand recount that affirmed joe bidens win, while we have been very sure about saying joe biden won this election, he is going to be inaugurated in january and he will be the president , the president is misleading millions of his supporters currently by undermining the vote, undermining joe biden before he even gets into office. So he is setting it up for people to not view joe biden as a legitimate president. Those were the same accusations that donald trump felt he faced his first years in office. Instead of learning from that, he is trying to inflict that on his successor. Right. Great insight. Katelyn, thank you for being there today and always. Let me bring in our panelists. Airline lewis, political anchor, jane is a Senior Reporter for buzzfeed, focused on disenergies, and brendan is a professor of government at Dartmouth College specializing in media criticism. Biden made a little mistake yesterday. He went to Church Without the protected press pool. Normally a small group of reporters are with the president at all times, even when heading to mass. There was a kerfuffle among the press why he left them behind. Bidens team was on the sunday shows giving interviews. Biden has been holding press conferences, answering questions from reporters. Trump is in hiding and refuses to take questions. It seems these two approaches could not be more different between trump and biden. Thats right. And, listen, joe biden i think has decided if he is not going to have a regular transition, the way all of his predecessors got, he is going to have his own transition. He is the news. What he and his Incoming Administration are going to do are a thousand times more important than the insults and the obstructionism coming out of the current administration. And so i think reporters will naturally gravitate to him and notice things like him slipping off to Church Without telling the press about it. This overall is a good thing because to the extent that we have got norms and customs as opposed to firm laws that guide the transition, its going to be up to us to decide what a transition looks like. In this case, somebody who starts assembling a cabinet, talking policy, leading by example, and preparing to take the reins of power. Thats the essence of a transition. A transition official source said to me this morning, there is a new sheriff in town. By the white house not giving interviews today, quoted, they are basically admitting defeat but not even showing up to defend their absurd position. That does speak volumes. Brendan, you have a saying you use on twitter in crises like the one we are still in. What is it that you say . How do you want americans to view whats happening in american with this election denialism . I often ask, what would you say if you saw it in another country . We get tied up in all of the details and the things we know about this context, but the story, if you pull back, is very clear. A leader with authoritarian tendencies has lost a free and Fair Election and is trying to overturn the results of that process. He is trying to overturn the peaceful transfer of power. He told us he wouldnt faollow through on his duty under the constitution to enact a peaceful transfer of power. Thats interesting. The fact that it wont succeed doesnt make it any less pernicious, especially given that so many republicans are going along with this clownish effort. What if this election are closer . What if they found 500 cases of fraud they could use as a pretext instead of talking about the ghost of hugo chavez . We are far from anything credible, yet still the president is pushing our Democratic Institutions to their very limits. Thats incredibly dangerous and we need to think about whats happening and not lose sight of the real danger being revealed here eastbound if it wont succeed. What would you say if this was happening in another country . Jane, you are based in toronto. As our canadian, you answer it. Well, this is a result of a disinformation problem that has been rampant not just over the last four years, but for the better part of the last decade globally. And the u. S. Feels like its one of the last countries to feel the full effect of that disinformation problem. The issue with the u. S. Grappling with whats real and whats not real is that it has a huge effect on global politics, including canada, which is, you know, americas as we are often described. So to allow for this distrust, this public distrust, for this disinformation problem to go forward, its going to be a case where its not just the u. S. And the u. S. Democracy being affected, but also other democracies around the world that rely on the u. S. , a beacon of democratic norms. Thats an important part of the story we have to keep bringing up in our coverage, that this effects the entire world. Coming up here, foxs big announcement that contradicts fox news channels onair commentary. And later, Rudy Giulianis new Favorite Channel newsmax tv. Still your best friend. And now your copilot. Still a father. But now a friend. Still an electric car. Just more electrifying. Still a night out. But everything fits in. Still hard work. Just a little easier. Still a legend. Just more legendary. Chevrolet. Making lifes journey, just better. I do motivational speakingld. In addition to the substitute teaching. I honestly feel that thats my calling to give back to younger people. 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Actually, i heard an answer on fox news earlier this week when marie harf articulated that connection. Heres what she said. This week those republicans have pushed two stories. They rejected covid restrictions that doctors are asking us to follow and many of them are pushing to reject the election results. Both are a broader trend that are really disturbing. They are a rejection of math, expertise, science, and both are really dangerous to the American People and to our democracy. So what does that say about the Republican Party . And their rightwing media complex . Does it speak to raz calization that is going on . With me, errol louis, jane, and brendan back with me. Brendan, you study this as a professor of political science. These links between covid skepticism and rejection of all expertise and science and math and data. What do you think is the troubling nature of foxs coverage the rest of the time . Marie was right about that during the day. At night i hear about masks and how, you know, masks are not that helpful and all of this kind of stuff that seems to be more about identity politics than Public Health. Thats my worry, is that they are turning these Public Health measures into a kind of own the libs mentality, having a giant thanksgiving is somehow going to own the libs or not wear a mask. Thats the opposite of what we need. When President Trump wore a mask we saw positive surges in sentiment online about maskwearing. Like he could really set an example. We need conservatives embracing Public Health measures saying you will really own the libs by having a soshlly distanced thanksgiving. That would be wonderful. These measures arent liberal or conservative. They are just going to save lives as we head into this likely very deadly winter. Its critical to not turn the Public Health measures that will keep us safe into a matter of identity politics. Thats unfortunately what we are often seeing in the own the libs Industrial Complex that thrives on fox and online. I am going to use that. Thats good. Its also hypocritical, by the way. A headline from variety this week. Fox corporation, which owns fox news, is keeping staff at home at least until april. Essential employees are making sure the networks stay on the air. Including some fox anchors. They are anchoring from home as they denounce the lockdown mentality. Errol, the election denialism part of this, does it all speak to a failure of the Republican Party leadership to lead its supporters . Well, yeah. There is a failure of leadership. Lets not give it a title like election denialism as if there were far too weak. And not accurate, honestly, brian, because its a power grab is what it is. The refusal, for example, to confirm Merrick Garland a couple years ago, that wasnt rooted in a political or legal philosophy. It was a power grab. Thats whats going on here. There is an organized strategic attempt to cripple and constrain the Incoming Biden Administration to deny some credibility before it ever is sworn into office. Thats what they are doing. I think thats what should be reported. And its very unfortunate because they are now putting pro Republican Voters into the untenable position of having to deny plain facts in order to be a part of the team. This is not something that anybody should ever want to do. It further sort of degrades our democracy, frankly, and again i think the power grab should be reported as exactly what it is, and we should not help them by pretending this is some kind of a philosophy or theory behind what happened with what were clear, plain outcomes in this election. I have been impressed by the Television Networks calling out this undemocratic conduct, including on, you know, this week on abc and state of the union, cnn this morning. Anchors are not mincing words. Neither or the National Newspapers. Thats a good thing. Jane, what about twitter and facebooks role . Twitter has put up a flag or label on trumps tweets more than 100 times since election day according to the boston globe. This is unprecedented to see this kind of behavior by a social media firm. Is it working though . Do we know if its effective . Well, there is two things to keep in mind here. One is that twitter is just one social Media Network, and each social Media Network is treating disinformation coming from the u. S. President differently. Facebook, youtube, different types of labels. Of course, audiences across those social Media Networks are different. The other thing to remember is that the falsehoods that mr. Trump is tweeting are part of an ecosystem environment. They are a part of hyperpartisan news websites, of commentators and influencers who support the president , who also are very actively engaged in spreading false information that social Media Networks might not always catch. And one last point i want to make sheer is that while this seems like an extreme measure, and particularly in the u. S. , to bring back to what i was saying earlier, this is not a feature that is available to all democratic countries globally as they grapable with their own issues of disinformation and politicians spreading falsehoods. So while it is a step forward, it is a small step. Right. A small step. Thank you all. Thank you to the panel. Trumps string of legal losses also extend to the First Amendment arena. You heard all the times the team is losing in court, including pennsylvania yesterday with regards to the election. Let me show you other examples as well. His administrations attempt to overall the government voice of america suffered a set back friday. A federal judge issuing an injunction and saying trumps appointee has to stop investigating and interfering with the journalists of voa. This battle is going to go on. This on friday was a big win for editorial independence. Reporters at voa told me and others that they were feeling smothered, feeling under attack by these trump appointees. So thats interesting news. Here are two other recent examples of trump losing in court. You might remember that trump sued a bunch of news outlets earlier this year. His libel case against cnn was rejected the other day by a trumpappointed judge. And Trumps Campaign abandoned a suit against a small tv station in wisconsin that aired an antitrump tv ad. Loss after loss after loss in court not just when it comes to the election outcome, but also when it comes to attempts to interfere with the press. Coming up on reliable sources, how will president elect biden change the Media Business . Jim is standing by with answers. And later what Jesse Watters really means when he claims, look at that, he claims he is protecting the republic. Tonighte cheeseburger on ciabatta, no tomatoes. [hard a] tonight. Ill be eating four cheese tortellini with extra tomatoes. [full emphasis on the soft a] so its come to this . [doorbell chimes] thank you. [doorbell chimes] bravo. Careful, hamill. Daddys not here to save you. Oh i am my daddy. Wait, what . What are you talking about . With new rewards from chase freedom unlimited, i now earn even more cash back . Oh i got to tell everyone. Hey, rita you now earn 3 on dining, including takeout bon appetit. Hey kim, you now earn 5 on travel purchased through chase way ahead of you hey, neal you can earn 3 at drugstores. Buddy, im right here. Why are you yelling . Because thats what i do youre always earning with 5 cash back on travel purchased through chase, 3 at drugstores, 3 on dining including takeout, and 1. 5 on Everything Else you buy. Chase. Make more of whats yours. When panhe doesnt justs mmake a pizza. He uses fresh, clean ingredients to make a masterpiece. Taste our delicious new flatbread pizzas today. Panera. With this seal, this restaurant is committing to higher levels of cleanliness. The expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. Look for the ecolab science certified seal. Lets get checked for those around us. Lets get checked for a full range of conditions. Introducing letsgetchecked a Health Testing you do at home. Lets get round the clock support from a team of nurses. Lets get fast, accurate results. Know your health. Know yourself. Order now at letsgetchecked dot com you can count on me ill be home for christmas if only in my dreams so when you do, make it count with crest prohealth. If only in my dreams it protects the 8 areas dentists check for a healthier mouth. The 1 toothpaste brand in america. Crest. Sources. Im Brian Stelter. Obviously, the media ecosystem has been altered by the trump years. Now, what about the biden years . How will the biden era change the News Business . Joining me to discuss that and more, axios ocofounder and ceo jim vand high. Breaking all sorts of stories. A new piece about blunt 2020 lessons for media and america. Jim, the biden years, are these going to be less profitable times for News Companies and, if so, does that matter . I dont know that there will be less profitable. I would be shocked if there is not a big dip in cable ratings or dip in traffic around politics just because politics has been so visceral and so hot the last four years. That doesnt necessarily mean its bad business. Most of these businesses now are not tethered to having this mass audience. I think there is some really big challenges for the press. There has been a one, Donald Trumps not going away. Like at some point, yes, he is not going to be president , but he is going to loom large, announce he is going run in 2024, have the rnc under his control, be the literal head of the Republican Party. Is the media going to ignore him when he is shooting spitballs at joe biden every day . And are they instead going to cover joe biden who is going to be, and i say this in an affectionate way, more boring . Like more convention is al. You are not going to have the theatrics, the tweeting. The media is going to have to somehow return to normal in an environment where half the country literally hates the work that we do and doesnt even really believe in a common definition of truth. So media is in the middle of this. I think we have to do a lot of reflection about how can we do a better job of this, of serving people who do care and who still do have some level of trust in the work that we do. You know, when you bring up distrust, jim, i am almost finished with Barack Obamas new book. It is by far the biggest seller of the week. Its going to be the biggest trump of 2020 in terms of overall sales. In this book and especially in obamas interviews he is talking about a divide in the country, a media divide. The media bubbles are getting hard toer to pop, the media landscape is deeply divided. Do you have any answers or solutions to what i think everybody agrees is a huge problem . I do have some thoughts on that. I agree with the former president on this, and i probably have a darker view than he does. I feel we are going to have a decoupling. You are going to have not just like two americas in quotation marks, but two americas where half the country gives up on a lot of work we do and starts to create their own social media and communication ecosystem that is much more sort of safe and soothing because its people who share their views. And thats dangerous. If we lose this war on truth, i wrote it this week, i believe it, we are screwed. If we cannot collectively figure this out, figure out that there are certain things that might be that are true and from there we make good decisions, i dont understand how you have a democracy or capitalism that continues to be the dominant force in the world. And i think overall a dominant and very good force for the world. So i think on our side of things, on the media ledger side, i think we have to do some reflection. I am sorry, but our profession missed that 10 million more people voted for trump than last time around, that in the 100 counties we have the highest percentage of hispanic population, that trump did better in 78 of those. 78 out of 100 than he did in 2016. Some African American communities, trump did even abouter. And so something about what were doing isnt working. We are not able to fully appreciate how the other half of the country might live. I think that there is a tendency for a lot of us in the media, a lot of reporters arcs lot of editors to come from the same institution, living in similar cities disconnected from the rest of the population and we somehow have to figure out a way to understand the complexities of this country and be able to communicate to them in a way they trust us. Part of that is maybe stop popping off on twitter. Calm down when you are doing a segment with Brian Stelter and not make it so clear what your ideology is. Think about that person who is persuadable, who wants to believe in the journalism and be clinical in our language and how we hold ourself. At axe yoegs you are prohibited from popping off or talking about your views in public forums. In almost every case, everybodys done that. Whether you are a journalist or not a journalist. So i think these things are very possible, but they require a lot of restraint and i think some rethinking by us in the media. You know, jim, i didnt schedule the blocks this way, but you just set me up for the perfect transition. Thank you very much. Please read that piece on axios. Com by jim. Bett we are going to nebraska, south dakota and wisconsin to to see how small town journalists are keeli dealing with covid19 in just a moment. . burke happy anniversary. customer for what . burke every year youre with us, you get fifty dollars toward your home deductible. Its a policy perk for being a farmers customer. customer do i have to do anything . burke nothing. customer nothing . burke nothing. customer nothing . burke nothing. customer hmm, that is really something. burke you get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. See ya. kid may i have a balloon, too . burke sure. Your parents have maintained a farmers home policy for twelve consecutive months, right . We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum burke start with a quote at 1800farmers. Shingles doesnt care. I logged 10,000 steps today. 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Emotionally exhausting these front pages say. And in rapid city, south dakota, a daily headline about the rising number of cases and deaths. Look at this. 23 deaths, 53 deaths, every day another number a raising death toll. Reporting from those three states, ken bush, sarah sigh fert, a reporter for the u claire leader telegram in wisconsin, and david bundy, editor of the Lincoln Journal star in nebraska. Dave, coronavirus cases at a peak there right now . How do you gauge your readers level of interest or dern or fear . What are you heeg fraring from readers . We have had a tremendous amount of reader engagement. Selfisolation drove people to write letters to the editor, commenting on facebook. Its pretty easy to gauge what people are interested in. Its hard to strike the right balance. There is a little nuance involved, but i think i sort of broke down our reader ship into three areas. The folks who say just give me the data. Folks just say tell me what i can and cant do. Then there are folks that say, dont tell me what i can and cant do. And we have to strike that balance for them. Do you sense covid fatigue in the latter group . Is that a big problem . I think there is covid fatigue. There is covid conspiracy. There is lots of things at work. But, by and large, people understand we are weechg a peak. We set another record this week, and its getting way worse. Right. Sarah, same for you in wisconsin. What challenges have you experienced in getting Community Members to speak . You know, it seems we dont see enough faces, we dont know the names of the victims. Thats on a national level. Maybe on a local level thats not the case . Well, for us here in western wisconsin the most surprising thing is folks in the community are much more willing to talk now than they were earlier this year about their level in struggling with covid or their own experience on a ventilator. We didnt get here until about september. Right now our hospitals are full, our doctors and emergency room nurses are overwhelmed and struggling. In the last two months the community is much more open. We did struggle with some of that not wanting to talk about the virus in the first six months. Interesting. Youre in the newsroom in rapid city, south dakota, this morning. How are you dealing with sfoeks w folks who dont want to cooperate, tell their stories, or people who think this is all conspiracy . Yeah, you know, i mean, we have some of that here. We had a mask mandate passed by our City Council Just this week. We had 150 people who were at a rally to actually protest having that mask mandate. So we have some of that. We have people who are tired of the restrictions, tired of thinking about it. Of course, in south dakota we have very few restrictions. So, you know, for us, its a very important story to tell. And like dave said, striking that balance between the data, the hard news, the difficult news to tell, yesterday we had five deaths reported in our county. If these people died for any other reason, it would be a major news event that we talk about years from now. Yesterday it was the third paragraph of a story. I mean, magnitude of the pandemic makes it difficult to maintain perspective. Thats why i think daily local reporting so important. Thats a great point, ken. If a man broke into a nursing home and shot and killed five people, it would be the biggest story of the year there. But it keeps happening. Yeah. Every day. And that story next year. Right. Let me squeeze in a quick break and bring you back. When we come back i want to hear about how covid impacted your election coverage in an unexpected way. Unch . Pizza. Tacos. Pizza what about subway . Its a good call and everyone loves it. We raised our kids on it. 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This pandemic has completely changed how we approach our jobs. Its tough not to meet face to face with the people we cover. We have had to get used to covering the virus were every angle, from your School Meeting will end up being about covid, the zoning meeting will end up being wiabout covid. That also means its a relief to work on a story thats not about this virus. Hef headlines in the paper every day with hundreds of new cases and a couple of deaths each day. Those numbers are a shock in a community our size. But it also makes you really grateful to be able to report a story about the strength and the humor that our community has as well. I think it builds trust in the community and with newsrooms as we cover the story. Kent, what about you . What about your staff . Because, you know, reporters are not immune, obviously. Reporters are at risk when they are covering everybody else being at risk. Yeah, the pandemic really got south dakota in march, and since then i have sent reporters to cover things that i worried that i was putting them at risk. The july 4th Mount Rushmore celebration. The sturgis motorcycle rally. Local fairs and sporting events. I just worry i was sending them into a situation that was unsafe. We went more than eight months without the pandemic really affecting us directly, and then suddenly we covered an election night. In 25 years in the newspaper business, i have covered more than my share of election nights. I didnt have any concern at all about sending them to cover that, and within a week we had more than half of our staff had tested positive. And so its really hit us hard lately. And its something that we wore so much and we have done so many things to keep them safe. To have something as simple as election night, it shows you how contagious and difficult it is to stay safe when the pandemic is going as hard what a warning ahead of thanksgiving. And speaking of thanksgiving, dave, ive been thinking about all the pictures were seeing, people at airports, people at bars, people getting ready to travel. What we dont see are all the folk whos stay at home. What we dont see are all the folks who are hooked up to ventilators in hospitals. The hard part of covering covid19 is we dont see the people, a, that are being responsible and being really, really cautious. And, b, we dont see the people that are sick and dying, do we, dave . No. And its funny that you bring that up. Todays front page of the journal star was really about those stories. And its an interesting thing because we frame the conversation in journalism about stories. But a long time ago covid stopped being a story and it started being real life. Reporters have been up to their armpits in all the same issues that our readers are. And because of that, our natural curiosity parallels exactly with our readers. Our editor said this isnt going to be a sprint, we need to pace ourselves. Right. And our coverage has struck me as more of a 4by100 relay. There is already somebody in our staff sprinting, and there are always other people ready to sprint. Dave and sarah, thank you all for being here and thank you for your service. As a reminder here as always, when you subscribe, you help local news survive. New research that helps explain the demand for election content. Its kind of like these pictures. So dont go away. You can even order on the subway® app did i just get picked off by Deion Sanders . You sure did now in the app, get a free footlong when you buy two. Because its footlong season™ may your holidays glow bright and all your dreams take flight. Visit your local mercedesbenz dealer today for exceptional lease and financing offers at the mercedesbenz winter event. Tonight. Ill be eating Cheesy Cauliflower Pizza with extra broccolini. My tuuuurrrrn tonight. 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Some of the biggest shows on fox news are still giving ample air time to trumpdeadenders including members of his own family. There are about 74 Million People out there who do not feel like the result of this election that has been presented is accurate. Feel . Facts do not care about your feelings. Thats what conservative commentator ben shapiro famously said several years ago. And its still true today. The facts are the facts. Bidens win is being certified. Its not every trump voter that feels this election is rigged. This conspiracy crap is just like Trump High School antimedia enemy of the media. Election denialism is like a middle finger to democracy. A rude gesture to the left. But its Something Else too. Its tribal. Its entertaining, almost like a sporting event. I know that sounds strange, but these professors from u. T. And texas state say for highly identified trump fans, the electoral loss poses a personal identity threat that must be mitigated accordingly. So its about tribalism, allegiance to a team. Quoting here, Sports Communication research has found that the more closely you identify, the more closely your identity is wrapped up in a teams identity. The more likely you will blame a loss on the refs. Youll blame the referees. Youll say the other team cheated. Because its about identity. But at least in sports people believe on the numbers. They believe the numbers on the scoreboard. In politics game is over at this point and the losing players are still working the refs. They are still trying to change the score. But this is not a game. Undemocratic conduct cannot be excused. Authoritarian tendencies cannot be covered up with rightwing coverup. Protecting the republic, jesse waters says, protecting the republic. He and his colleagues who are defending trump to the bitter end are only protecting their profits, Rupert Murdochs profits. Id love to know what paul ryan was thinking when this happened on thursday when fox news and one america news all showed giulianis melt down for 90 minutes. Fox is feeling pressure from the right, from newsmax. I think thats why they aired the press conference because newsmax was airing it. Their ratings are going up, up, up because they are providing an alternative reality for trump fans. They claim the election is not over. Greg kelly is the highestrated host on the network. He is saying anything trump says still prevails. Kelly and people like him are ignoring trumps delusions. Thats what it is at this point. Look what happened on his twitter feed the other day. Trump thanked his sister for tweeting her support for him. But the account appears to have been a parody. Look at the headline in the new york times. No, trumps sister did not publicly back him. He was duped by a fake account. He was duped by a fake account. He was fooled by someone pretending to be his sister. Its sad at this point. Its sad. If youre going to be seeing your sister or some other Family Members this thanksgiving and youre going to be talking about politics, all i can say is good luck. Well see you next time for more reliable sources. Stay home for the holiday. Covid cases skyrocket across the country. As the cdc warns americans not to travel for thanksgiving. How soon might promising vaccines turn things around . M