Policy or a mandate, just looking to make people feel good. I want to do good. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. I suppose it would be funny, maybe, if we werent in the midst of a pandemic and it wasnt the president of the United States trying to steal an election. Here we are. This is todays latest development. Donald trump is flatout suing for the presidency. Just a short time ago in the wake of Rudy Giulianis stumbling appearance in federal court in pennsylvania yesterday, the Trump Campaign filed amended campaigns in which they asked the court to nullify the will of the people, prevent pennsylvania from certifying its own Election Results and have a judge declare trump the victor and or mandate, quote, that the results of the 2020 president ial general election are defective and provide for the pennsylvania General Assembly to choose pennsylvanias electors. Here is the kicker as articulated by the attorney, the Trump Campaigns proposal is that the Trump Campaign will obtain and count all or a sub set of the pennsylvania mail ballot envelopes and, based on the formula in footnote three, will let the judge know if he should declare them the winner. That seems reasonable. They will let him know. If you are confused about donald trump and his enablers are doing right now, youre not alone. That makes sense. Theres as far as i can tell no real master strategy to what were watching. They arent making some wellthoughtout chess moves here. They are kind of throwing everything at the wall. With trump tower and his supporters and crucially the institutional Republican Party, and that means all of them, the congressional leadership, the donor class, the people that work at the rnc, what theyre doing is trying to deny, disrupt and subvert one day at a time to extend the uncertainty and the turmoil for yet another day and then another day and another. If this seems doomed to failure and not to make any sense and wildly destructive to this country, it is all of those things but it is the way that donald trump has gotten to where he is. His entire life has been about lying flagrantly and shamelessly, denying reality, stiffing people, screwing people over, casting aspersions on his enemies, litigating wildly and frivolously all over the place. You know what . It has all basically worked out. His life is evidence that not caring about other people or the destruction you cause is itself a weird kind of superpower. It wont make you happy, obviously it will not, but you can get pretty far with it. Despite all of his fallures, bankruptcy after bankruptcy, failed business after failed business, never living up to what his father wanted to be, despite his stiffing of contractors, dodging, his alleged sexual predation all over the place, he stuhl still won the republican primary and was elected despite losing the popular vote. Nobody in his party did anything. Democrats tried to impeach him, republicans wouldnt remove him but for mitt romney who voted to do so. It has all worked for him so far. He walked in the store, picked up a rolex and is tiptoeing out to see if anyone stops him. No one stops him. Right now a huge chunk of the Republican Party is going along for the ride, no matter the damage it is doing to the country and the damage it is doing is real. Last night when i was speaking to you from this desk we had a disturbing moment where two very low level republican officials in michigan tried this wildly antidemocratic move to not certify Election Results in the majority black wayne county which includes detroit. We brought you that story last night. The good news is after national shaming and three hours of Public Comment in which they were assailed as racists they ultimately succumbed to public pressure reversing themselves and certifying the results. There was no reason not to do begin with. But those actions of the two individuals is a canary in the coal mine, what trump is pressuring people to do and what theyre willing to do in his behalf. To the extent theres a strategy here, it is this. As you saw in the pennsylvania filing they are trying to use pressure and lawsuits and delayi delaying tactics to slow certification of results and then want republican lawmakers to step in and override the votes of the people that we cast as americans for our leader. In arizona theyre trying to keep the Election Results in crucial Maricopa County being certified pending the results of a lawsuit. In wisconsin theyre paying for a recount, but only in the states two overwhelming democratic counties claiming without evidence ballots were altered. In georgia were officials are wrapping up a hand count theyre suing to stop certification results. In nevada they want trump declared the winner. Again, suing for victory. Just give it to him, why not . They have all of the lawsuits. Theyre applying all of the pressure to anyone who stands in the way. Keep in mind, this is an important thing to remember, any time that trump targets a person publicly, they get Death Threats and they have to get security. It is just an iron law of public life in the era of donald trump, who is browbeating people publicly and no doubt privately to collude with him to steal an election. Trump calling out Georgia Republican governor brian kemp, a guy not known for his fealty to Election Integrity for not doing enough to, i dont know, steal it for republicans. Now conspiracy theorists alex jones is calling on supporters to surround the georgia Governors Mansion to prevent Election Results from being certified. Trumps campaign has long been pressuring Georgia Republican secretary of state brad raf e raffensperger who had the audacity not to steal the election for trump, and because he has resisted republican pressure not to find ways to exclude ballots, he and his wife have resooefd Death Threats in recent days including a text that read, you better not botch this recount, your life depends on it. He is not the only one. Arizona democratic secretary of state says she too has faced ongoing and escalating threats of violence. She is calling out trump and others who are perpetuating misinformation. This video shows a group of apparent Trump Supporters outside hobbs house at night chanting, quote, we are watching you. I want to turn to henry olson, lifelong conservative, senior fellow at the ethics and public center, a columnist at the Washington Post hond rece. I want to set the table that you are a conservative in good standing. Youre not a Lincoln Project never trump per, you are not a prodigal son who has fled the flock. You are you are a lifelong conservative, you believe in conservatism and consider yourself part of the conservative movement, right . Yes, i am a conservative. I am a republican. I voted the republican ticket, and i have criticized the Lincoln Project in print for basically not being anything like republican. So, yes, my bona fides are clear. How would you assessor characterize the efforts by the Trump Campaign legally right now . You know, i havent had time to read all of the complaints. There are certainly so many of them, but basically theyre grasping at straws, that they lost the election, they lost it in a way that is obvious to anyone with any sense of familiarity with Election Results, and theyre trying to overturn things on the basis of unfounded conspiracy theories. The fact is donald trump lost the election because he lost votes in american suburbs. That was true in swing states. It was true in safe blue states, and it was true in safe red states, that he appealed to just one or two percent more of americans who live in those suburbs. He would be legitimately president for having won the Electoral College up and up. What do you think i mean it seems to me theres a certain point at which you bump up against certain lethal ethics. A judge on the show the other night said, look, it is better to have the cases actually in court because there are rules of argumentation in court and it is good to have them factually scrutinized and tossed out. To the same level theres a degree at which you are abusing the process and doing something dangerous to democracy about our conception of legitimacy by continuing to pursue this. What do you think . I think that the Trump Campaign if they were serious about this should have pursued different claims to begin with, much more narrow, more factually based and they chose not to do that. Im not going to pass on the ethics of a lawyer deciding which cases to take or not, but i would agree with that gentleman that having these cases in court means they actually have to meet rules of evidence and burdens of proof that are open to the public to see, and what you are seeing in all of these cases is that they either dont have the evidence or they cant meet the burden of proof or both. Thats increasingly fatal to any sort of rational way to back up what he is doing. At what point should conservatives, prominent ones again, people still inside the tent that are part of the conservative movement and the Republican Party say the plain truth here . It really does seem to me that, you know, this is kind of salting the earth a bit. It is salting the earth in terms of peoples perception. Theres polling that republicans largely view this as fraudulent and rive with fraud, and it does seem at a certain point incumbent on saying you may not like joe biden, you may love donald trump, but he did lose the election. I think most Republican Leaders and politicians have been waiting for the certification process. While most people dont follow the ins and outs of how elections are decided, what we hear on Election Night is not the final word in every state and in every county theres always a three to fourweek period when people check and recheck to make sure they got it right. I believe the republican officials are waiting for that period to run out before making their declaration that joe bidens the president elect. That will happen in almost every state within the next seven to nine days, certainly around if not before thanksgiving. I believe thats when most republican officials will say we didnt like it, but this is what the law says. Thats interesting. I mean theres a little bit of chicken and egg problem here insofar as the very thing theyre pursuing in the courts is delaying the certification, right . I mean the thing they want to do is push that off as long as possible so that that moment when everyone says, you know, arizona is certified, georgia is certified doesnt come and they could continue to spin this. Well, as you know, theres not been a single courtney where that h court any write that has granted one of the trump lawsuits to that extent. I believe mark elias who is a progressive lawyer keeping track of it says the Trump Campaign is one for 25, and the one case they one was a minor technicality that doesnt affect anything. I cant believe any court is going to not certify the elections on the basis of the evidence thats been produced, the evidence thats been produced has been speculative. It has been circumstantial at best and does not reach the question of was an election decided by illicit means. I cant imagine any court is actually going to step in and hold up certification on the basis of the weak and unsupported claims that are being made before them. All right. Henry olson, someone i have followed for a long time, argued with on twitter and whose honesty on this point i respect and appreciate. Thank you for coming on. Thank you, chris. One thing to always keep in mind with donald trump is that no matter what he is doing there is always a grift involved. Right now while this is happening his campaign is raising money and sending out increasingly desperate to deranged texts and emails four or five times day, trying to ring money out of his supporters supposedly to fund legal challengers though it is also being used to pay down campaign debt. Because it is trump world the grifts are fractile, there are grifts within the grifts. You have a completely unprepared Rudy Giuliani trying to sale a legal case that seems doomed to failure, while according to New York Times he seems to be seeking 20,000 a day in payment. One of the coauthors of the piece, author of the bestselling book donald trump versus the United States, Michael Schmidt joins me now. Michael, what is rudys role here . What is he doing . Well, rudy will make 20,000 more a day the longer that this litigation goes on. Thats really an important fact to look at here as the president continues to try and overturn the election based on these frivolous, baseless accusations, as you have pointed out, that have gone nowhere. The thing about rudy thats distinct here is that he is among a small group of people in trumps world who are pushing this. You dont see a lot of the lawyers that were with the president for many years here participating in this. This is a rudy led and produced show. You had rudy in court yesterday for the first time in 30 years, and theres no sign that it looks like hes going to give up. Yeah. This does seem to be an increasingly i mean if theres a Silver Lining here, this is a kind of dead ender play even within the trump circle. You had Mick Mulvaney saying it is not a Television Program and slamming giuliani. What is the other faction, the nonru nonrudy faction. What theyre doing sort of matters to the extent how dangerous this enterprise is. What is their view on this . Well, so as i chronicled in the book, donald trump is someone that is unmoored by the law, ethics and, you know, basically hes willing to do things no other president was willing to. That behavior forced the people around the president to try and stop him, to try to contain him. There were those containers in the first two, three years of the presidency. That doesnt mean that things did not go terribly wrong in that period of time, but they were able to stop trump from heading down these dark paths. One of the people that these containers of trump feared was Rudy Giuliani. They feared what would happen if giuliani got his tentacles into trump and could control trump and could basically use him, and that is the nightmare scenario that were seeing. These people that were around the president who tried to stop him, tried to keep giuliani away from him, and they failed. I just wanted to address a point. You said there was a Silver Lining here in anything. I think that regardless of what happens with giulianis arguments in court and all of that nonsense, the president and giuliani and the conservative Media Echo Chamber has dipped the president s base in lighter fluid here for the past two weeks, pumping into them these accusations that the election was fixed. That is not an easy thing to turn off. That is not just something that you can say, oh, well, the election was fixed but were going to forget about it. If you go back to things like benghazi, it is the same playbook, and we will be unspooling this for months if not longer to come. Right. So i mean that to me has always been the kind of two ways to view this, right. Theres the danger and the damage of the propaganda that basically says this was not a legitimate election, you know, this sort of baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, it was stolen from your guy. Then it is how seriously are they going to push the envelope trying to install an election contrary to 240 years of American Democratic tradition . I guess on the latter point it seems to me whatever rudy is doing, there arent serious efforts to coordinate at this point with the Pennsylvania State legislature or the Michigan State legislature to actually pull off this, right, or are there . I dont know. Theres never been but theres never as i wrote about in the book, theres never been serious plans about anything, yet the president has survived all of these Different Things because hes willing to do things thats right. That other people are not willing to do. Thats why were in the situation were in today. Were in this situation because donald trump is willing to question the results of an election that he clearly lost. That is just very, very different. That is the central problem of the trump presidency, is that you have the person at the top who is going to push the envelope in ways that people have never seen before and that we didnt think was going to happen. Thats what we see playing out, and that creates an enormous variable. Yeah, and i think that i mean to me the sort of institutional saving grace to the extent there is one here is that basically what he needs to pull this off is people taking a bunch of coordinated, affirmative steps on his behalf as opposed to affirmatively stopping him, right . What he needs is he needs them not to certify and award him the electors, all of these things that are not going to happen, and thats the saving grace. If you imagine the scenario coming down to one state with a 5,000 vote margin, theyve shown they were willing to take it away. No, look, the president is behind significantly in many different states, and it looks like there is no path here. But throughout his presidency the president has defied logic. He was under investigation for obstructing justice, continued to do things that raised questions about whether he was obstructing justice and managed to beat all of that. Im not saying that that means that hes going to be successful here. Im just saying that it is hes not a normal politician and hes not going to respond to the normal things. You were pointing out earlier those election board certifications last night, about how these people were called racist and stuff like that and they eventually gave in. Those are not things that are going to change Donald Trumps mind. Yeah, his behavior wont change. We just have to depend on the other people. Michael schmidt whose book is donald trump versus the United States. You can buy that now. Thank you very much, michael. Thanks for having me. Next, the Biden Transition Team is ready to get started. One person is holding up. Her name is emily murphy and she is the head of the General Services administration. The man who held her very same job during the gush v. Gore fight in 2000 is here with me with some advice next. Th me with some advice next. Wed be closer to the twins. Change in plans. At fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. 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Water tastes like, youre having one more bite no one more bite kraft. For the win win. Its moving day. And are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. It only takes about a minute. Wait, a minute . But what have you been doing for the last two hours . Delegating . Oh, good one. Move your Xfinity Services without breaking a sweat. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Xfinity makes moving easy. Go online to transfer your services in about a minute. Get started today. The law says that the General Services administration has a person who recognizes who the winner is, and then they have to access to all of the data and information that the government possesses to be prepared. It doesnt require there to be an absolute winner. It says the apparent winner, the apparent winner. Weve been unable to get access to the kinds of things we need to know. Today president elect joe biden had to explain to front line workers that trumps refusal to acknowledge his victory is slowing down his Incoming Administrations ability to respond to the coronavirus by weeks or even months. The one person in the General Services administration, thats the government bureaucracy that oversees this, who decides when to release the federal resources to the biden transition is the woman you are seeing there. Her name is emily murphy and she is the General Services administration. Cnn reports, quote, murphy is struggling with the weight of the president ial election being dropped on her shoulders, feeling like she has been put in a no win situation, which im sure is a bummer. But this was part of her job. The election was not close. Joe biden won in the Electoral College and the popular vote and she said sayso so that joe biden can get what he needs. David barron was the head of the gsa during the 2000 election battle take lasted over a month. David, it is great to have you on. First, i guess to sort of set the table here, can you explain to folks what the gsas role is in the transition between the election and that an Inauguration Day for the Incoming Administration . Sure. Well, you and you and joe biden did a good job of explaining it. The law is pretty simple. The gsa administrators job is to ascertain the apparent winner, and when once doing that, then turn over some appropriated funds. In this case i think it is close to 10 million. In my time, in 2000 it was about 5 million. And provide access to a lot of space that gsa has been putting together in the months preceding the election. In 2000 we the law was the law has been changed since. In 2000 it only had those i could only ascertain that and then give them the money and the space to one winner. Now they have been able, the gsa has been able to spend some of that money and provide some space to both campaigns before the election and then after in the case of this difficulty. But thats just one part of it. The second part, and what is really causing the problem right now, is that the gsa administrators ascertainment allows the winning the president elects Transition Team to meet with cabinet agencies all over the government who, by the way, have been preparing for months right. To work with the Transition Team, and i think probably in this case have all kinds of binders and Information Available for the Transition Team so they can hit the ground running. And because theres been no ascertainment, they seem unable to do that. They are unable to do that. You i mean 2000 was a very different situation. It came down to one state. That state was a margin of 537 votes famously. Also, it was litigated all the way to the supreme court. The winner was genuinely unclear. In this case thats not true. It is multiple states with thousands and thousands of votes. Theres, you know, this litigation. What advice did you give to ms. Murphy when you were talking to her before the election . Well, let me clear up a little bit here. She and i we had never talked before. She and i talked right around the election but before the before the problem became obvious. She was just imagining how difficult this could be and what did i experience. So i shared with her my experiences. We agreed and i said in life my mother always taught me if you do the right thing you can live with the consequences and you will be okay. She agreed with that. I think she really wanted to do the right thing. But youre right. You and george bush are right. This election today is totally different than 2000 and, you know, you both have said, you and george bush again have both said that the winner is clear and we should get moving on. So, you know, i think theres not much doubt left i dont believe, and i hope she will be able to make that decision pretty quickly. Joe biden and i think everyone else observing else observing this agrees. We should note she recently sent messages inquiring about employment options in 2021, a move that many think tacitly acknowledges. This is a relatively anonymous member of the administration. Im sure when you were gsa administrator you werent stopped on the street a lot for autographs and things like that, but the gsa is a wildly important operational part of the federal government. It is really, really huge control, huge budget. You know, it is a little bit like when you put pressure on a stick it will snap in the weakest spot. It is like no one really thought through that the peaceful transition of power was a gsa ascertainment, but it turns out that what it is. Well, remember, it was it was designed to find a way for the gsa to actually turn over money and space. I dont frankly remember exactly what how it moved from just that, and you would have to have some way to decide. So not allowing the Transition Team to meet with the agencies, thats theyre waiting for gsa to ascertain for that, but i think that we should be looking at the president of the United States and asking him like it would do any good. Asking him, come on, you know, lets make this transition work. But you all have spent hours and hours and words and words talking about how he is not allowing any of that to happen. So, yes, you know, i heard i think it was secretary hhs secretary azar say he wasnt going to turn over information to the Biden Transition Team on coronavirus until emily murphy ascertained. My reaction to that was, that is really unfair. You know, do it. Right. Not make her be the one to make to let you do it. Come on, show some courage. Yeah, thats a good point. Like these people can just choose to meet independent of the ascertainment. They can choose as cabinet officials to run their agencies in a responsible fashion independent of donald trump. The idea that the pressure is on emily murphy and not on, say, mike pompeo is a fair point. You know, i watched the ron johnson, senator ron johnson walk out of the room and not say it, not say anything, congratulate joe biden. I thought to myself, come on, you know joe biden. You know how the transition is supposed to work in this peaceful transfer of power. Why are you running away . You know, lets see a little courage and give emily murphy a little bit of cover here. I mean she has the responsibility, and i dont think it should anybody should be not that she has it. But she could do with a little of help from these guys. Thank you. David barram who just became one of my favorite gsa administrators. Thank you. Thank you. Wildly dangerous information coming from donald trump, wild whispering from dr. Scott atlas that will literally almost certainly cost people lives. 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Dr. Scott atlas, the right wing radiologist who runs americas coronavirus policy inexplicably and donald trump have been trying for a long time to create a false polarization around responses to the pandemic thats killing people day by day, basically lockdown completely and do nothing or go entirely back to normal. But it has never been like that and it has never been about that, and right now we have a perfect example to find a middle space, thanksgiving. Not only have to stay in their home but dont have big indoor thanksgiving dinners with people, thats dangerous. But no, no, no. Dr. Scott atlas thinks otherwise. This kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly who are now being told, dont see your family at thanksgiving. For many people this is their final thanksgiving, believe it or not. What are we doing here . I think we have to have a policy, which i have been advocating, which is a whole person, whole health policy. It is not about just stopping cases of covid. We have to talk about the damage of the policy itself. What are we doing here, scott atlas . Good question. Someone who is working on a piece right now for the daily beast about how people are spending their thanksgiving during covid, she joins me now. Some of the reporting, erin, is that at llas is actively tryingo stop states from implementing policies or messaging that would stop people from traveling or getting together for thanksgiving. Thats right. Weve heard a lot of different kinds of stories about scott atlas over the past seven months, but officials we spoke to at the daily beast are the most concerned about atlass recent rhetoric involving stayathome orders, lockdowns, mask mandates. He made a comment on twitter earlier in the week in which he called for people to rise up against governor whitmers new restrictions on covid19 for the next, you know, week or two. So what Officials Say is that, you know, they may have been frustrated with atlas in the past, some remarks he has made on tv, but they are now really concerned that the rhetoric thats out there not only from atlas but other Top White House officials is dangerous and it is putting american lives at risk. Theyre essentially advocating that people take back thanksgiving, right, that they continue to gather in whatever groups they want to, that they dont wear masks, and the whole idea is that, you know, it is a liberty. Americans can choose what they want to do for thanksgiving, but now top Health Officials, including those working on the Coronavirus Task force, say hes directly threatening american lives. Yeah. I mean i just want to make a distinction here because i think it is important. Theres policy, right . Theyre shutting down nonessential business, creating curfews, right . Then theres coherent unified messaging using facts and moral persuasion with the American People about what their behavior should or shouldnt be and theyre going tout of their way to send the wrong message. Theyre urging people to turned thanksgiving into a cultural war, to be inside and not wear mask so more people get sick. Thats right. So the scientists and Health Officials and, you know, stay tish ti st statisticians have been pushing back on atlass messaging for the past months. Now they feel were so far gone that large swaths of the country believe that the virus is a hoax, that Wearing Masks does nothing and theres nothing to worry about. Now with this new rhetoric from at l atlas and the white house spokeswoman you know, theyre essentially down playing the virus, saying go forward with your plans for thanksgiving. Dont let anyone stop you. This is probably the most dangerous kind of messaging we have seen in recent months from the white house. We should note, canada has already gone through this because they have their thanksgiving earlier, october 12th. You can see where it is on this chart. There it is, like right before that big spike. You know, it doesnt mean that caused it but it probably certainly didnt help. We have United Airlines saying that in response to growing Airline Travel demand theyve added more than 1,400 flights, and youve got nearly two in five people report in ohio state study they will likely attend a gathering of more than ten people, a third will not ask guests to wear masks. Like this i mean just to be clear, this is a bad idea. We are like it is bad right now. 1,800 americans died today. If we all get together for thanksgiving we can get it up to 3,600. I dont know if thats scott atlass goal. It feels like it honestly, but people should not get inside in big family gatherings indoors on thanksgiving, right. Thats what the other people on the White House Task force believe, please tell me that. That is true. That is true. They believe large gatherings, indoors, without masks is a terribly de. Not only because were going to see inevitably an uptick in cases but we are also going to see more deaths, and those deaths, you know, if you look at the data and how things have gone over the past seven months will likely come christmas, new years eve, start of the new year, before we have a viable vaccine, not just for front line workers but to the general masses. So theres so much more work we have to be doing to control this virus before we get a vaccine, and pushing people to ignore the rules, ignore the guidelines over the holidays is going to create an incredible spike in cases and deaths. It is going to create more heartache for americans, and it is just dangerous. At this point officials working on this task force are unsure what else they can do, primarily because they cant push back on atlas anymore because the white house is not allowing them to speak about this issue. Wow. Theyre not allowed to speak about atlass policies and his thinking. Theyre not allowed to go on tv and talk, you know, speak their minds. So who else is there to push back on these things . Thats where the real problem is. Just a random this day in history, today is the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre when 909 people lost their lives because they listened to a delusional, insane liar who caused them harm. Aaron banco, thank you for taking time tonight. Ahead, the governor still refuses to mandate masks. The crisis in south dakota is bad, coming up. Uth dakota is bad, coming up. Season, after season. Ace your immune support, with centrum. Car vending machines and buying a car 100 online. Vented now weve created a brand new way for you to sell your car. Whether its a few years old or dinosaur old, we want to buy your car. Go to carvana and enter your license plate, answer a few questions, and our technowizardry calculates your cars value and gives you a real offer in seconds. 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Before, in the last wave the highest we got was 60,000. Today, this is upsetting and troubling. 8,669 deaths, the highest death count since the first week in may. The white house Coronavirus Task force warned mike pence yesterday that if we continue on this course the u. S. Could see 2,000 deaths per day by christmas. Honestly, i think thats optimistic. By christmas. Our leaders i mean we talked about the republicans, but honestly on both sides of the aisle are not setting a good example, the kind of behavior we should be modelling if we want to have any chance of preventing that from happening. To give you some context here, there are eight members of congress currently in quarantine, at least six have tested positive including 87yearold republican senator Chuck Grassley of iowa. Grassley is president pro tempore of the senate, the republican with the longest record of continuous service. Last in the chamber on monday. He is the second oldest senator in the body after Dianne Feinstein of california. You might think it would be wise to exercise extra precaution but senator feinstein was seen not wearing a mask at a hearing yesterday in the halls of the capital. We all slip sometimes but it is really important here. This comes days after House Democrats plan to hold an indoor dinner party in a windowless room of the capitol for Incoming Freshman and members who won reelection at an event hosted by 80yearold Speaker Nancy Pelosi was cancelled at the last minute in the wake of an up roar of criticism. Then democratic Governor Newsom under fire for attending a 12person Birthday Dinner for a lobbyist at a michelline starred restaurant earlier this month. It was not fully outdoors as the governor claimed, which makes a big difference, by the way. Among the guests who sat close together unmasked apparently shut inside were, get this, officials from the california medical association. What are we doing here, people . What are we doing . These people should all know better. California added 9,800 new cases today, over 60 deaths. The governor is correctly requiring californians to mask up. This is not leading by example. They live in a part of the country where it is still pretty warm outside. It is california. Go outside. Go have socially distanced cocktail at one of your donors malibu mansions. In large swaths of the country, winter is here. People are being forced indoors. Adding fuel to the fire in places like the already hardhit midwest. Talk about the dire situation and lack of leadership in a state with one of the worst death rates in the entire world, next. Right connemara it is theres one gift the whole family can share this holiday season, their story. Give the gift of discovery, with an ancestrydna kit. And at fidelity, youll get planning and advice to help you prepare for the future, without sacrificing whats most important to you today. 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Glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. Try natures bounty sleep 3 a unique tri layer supplement that calms you helps you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Great sleep comes naturally with sleep 3 only from natures bounty today governor kristi noem of south dakota held her first News Conference focused on coronavirus since july. What is it, november . Thats a lot of months. And in that time, more than 60,000 of her constituents have gotten sick. Over 550 have died. South dakota, if it were a country, has the third worst mortality rate in the world right now, and yet governor nome still refuses to institute a mask mandate or any other restrictions that could help stop the spread of the virus. You may choose to wear a mask and be concerned about the virus, and if people are scared, im going to remind them they should stay home. But if People Choose not to, we still should treat them with respect and understand that theyre making a personal decision. I mean im all for treating people with respect and meeting people where theyre at. Thats fine. But this is kristi noem being an onbrand republican because thats probably going to help her with her potential future president ial run which looks pretty clear at this point. But its not helping the people in her state who have literally been dying while she spouts about personal responsibility and travels around the country campaigning for donald trump while her state is in crisis. North and south dakota are the epicenter of this outbreak right now, which really seems kind of crazy. Theyre among the least populous states in the country. Remember when were talking about density in new york back in april march and april . South dakota is also home to the annual sturgess motorcycle rally which took place as usual this august. Hundreds of thousands of people, bikers coming from all across the country to mingle closely in this small town and to drink and to party, and then dispersing out to their home states. Im joined now by tasha pelletier, who served as a coronavirus case manager for the Standing Rock sioux tribe which spans both north and south dakota. Tasha, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Can you first just give us a sense of how things look on the ground there in your community and the folks youre working with. Sure. Thanks for having me, chris. So right now we are seeing increasing cases across the reservation. And as you mentioned, we span across north and south dakota and so we rely heavily on good leadership from both states and their decisions impact our communities heavily. Yeah. I got to imagine that even if the reservation is distinct in terms of its governing structure and its sovereignty, it is, you know, inevitably intermingled with the rates of Community Transmission in the folks around you. Exactly. We rely on outside communities for shopping. People work off the reservation. We have offreservation people that come onto the reservation to work in our schools, in our health care systems. So were very much intertwined with those communities. You know, i think my frustrations as a Public Health professional is that we really need the leadership to be following the science and to be following the expert guidance on how Community Members can do their part in addressing the spread. And weve just not been effective at doing that. You know, let me ask you this. In new york, in march march and april, which was basically the worst outbreak in the world at that point and probably still, maybe a city in ecuador or brazil, but at that point the worst. People were inside. They heard the wailing sirens all the time, and it traumatized people. They were traumatized. They knew people that got sick. They knew people that died, and they were like, this is awful. What is the like social life world experience of this pandemic on your reservation and in those states now as the numbers per capita head towards new york levels . Well, i think it varies. You know, we have, especially in north and south dakota, we know that there has been major resistance to, you know, wearing face masks. Theres been a debate about their effectiveness and whether, you know, they even work and suggestions theyre harmful to our health. We have that attitude. But we also have within our reservation communities, we do have people that are taking this virus seriously. They know that we are losing precious lives. They know that its important for them to do their part to reduce the spread, and that has been what weve focused on when were educating our communities. Its about doing things for the greater good, making good choices, being a good relative, doing everything that we can to make sure that our communities stay safe and healthy. But we dont see that across the two states that we share territory with. What is the Health Care Capacity that your tribe and reservation has . So we do have an Indian Health service facility. It is a 12bed hospital, but we we definitely have reached capacity several times during the pandemic, and we rely heavily on outside Health Care Facilities to meet those higher level of care needs for our patients. And so when we talk about the Health Care Capacity across north and south dakota, you know, that is scary for us too because we rely on those Health Care Facilities. And when their capacity is dwindling, we know that were going to have to be searching farther and farther for our Community Members to have the level of care that they need. And we do have were disproportionately impacted by this virus. We have, you know, higher rates of the preexisting conditions that put us at risk of developing complications. So this hits us hard. When our people are getting sick, theyre getting really sick, and theyre needing those higher levels of care. Tasha pelletier, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thanks. That is all in this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now with ali velshi in for rachel. Good evening, ali. As always a great suggestion. It up for that. Have yourself a greet evening. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Rachel is quarantining after a close contact tested positive for covid19, but she will be back soon, real soon. Fun fact. Shes going to join us live from quarantine later this hour. Were also going to talk live with Stacey Abrams shortly, so lots to get to. But we start tonight on a damp and windy day in oxford, england, in 1954, when a 25yearold med student attempted to do something that no human being had ever done before. Oxford running against the university, Roger Banister limbers up for a planned attack. In may of 1954, roger bannister