As covid winter grows darker by the day, president elect joe biden announced the key members of his team who will be responsible for getting us out of it, for getting the virus under control. You know, outside of a war or perhaps the economic crisis back 12 years ago, its hard to imagine a logistical challenge, a governing challenge in the midst of crisis being passed across from one administration to another at quite this level of difficulty. All while the Outgoing Administration is actively trying to sabotage the incoming administration. So here are the people who are going to have to figure that out to overcome that. The group is head lined by California Attorney general Xavier Becerra who will be nominated to lead up health and human services. Dr. Vivek murthy will returning to his role as surgeon general. He served as one before. Dr. Rochelle walensky will head up the cdc, an institution once viewed as the envy of the entire world and Public Health experts all over the place, that has had its reputation desecrated under trump. Anthony fauci will remain in his current role and serve as bidenes chief medical advisor. Marcella nunezsmith will serve as the covid19 Equity Task Force chair. Jeff zients will coordinate the administrations covid19 response, similar to ron klains role in ebola. Now, a big part of what this past election was about, which joe biden won by 4. 5 points nationally and almost 9 million votes was filling the leadership vacuum. Saying that we do actually lead National Federal leadership to battle the virus, which has been, i will note, the case is every single country that has managed to do it successfully. And the reason that obvious point was so important is because from the beginning, President Trumps plan was always explicitly to slough that responsibility off to other people. Remember back in the middle of march, this is right when everything went nuts. Everything closed and we were all home. The pandemic was really starting to accelerate and there was the shortages of all kinds of material people need. Ppe among them. Trump dismissed the governors pleas for assistance saying, quote, the federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, were not a shipping clerk. Its not my problem. Let the governors deal with it. At some level i think trump knew it was going to be a very hard governs challenge, one he was not up to, so he very quickly gave up on trying to solve it and immediately, i mean really first few weeks of the pandemic, immediately sought to push the blame to other officials. Other politicians. And this is what it looks like. This is what the pandemic looks like now as a result of months of that. The numbers continue to climb in an utterly horrifying fashion. There are more than 102,000 people currently hospitalized, which is another alltime high. Look at that, that slope just keeps going up. And while the Biden Administration has plans for a coordinated federal response, thats still 44 days away and theres a lot of damage, destruction, misery, death and trauma between now and then. Right now we have no federal response. In the absence of federal decisionmaking, what we have are incoherence and anger. Weve got rules that cut every which way. Weve got personalized Risk Management of people downloading apps that tell them whether they can do a thing or not. And we have the worst response in the world. I mean just look at the u. S. Compared to the european union, which has not exactly been crushing it, okay . But say this for the eu, they managed to totally avoid a summer spike. Thats tens of thousands of people alive who wouldnt otherwise be. And when cases did start to go up in the fall, they put in policies to stop the spread. Eu cases are going back down while ours shoot up at an exponential rate. Now, are shutdowns difficult . Are they bad for the economy . Yes, and yes. But when cases went up, the eu, the nations in that federation, spain and italy, germany, france and others, they said its not acceptable. And now fewer people will die there. Thats just the stark reality. Thats whats happening there while we stare into this unrelenting disaster. Former republican Alabama State senator larry dixon passed away from covid19 friday at the age of 78. And according to a close friend of dixon, some of the senators last words on this earth were, quote, we messed up, we let our guard down. Please tell everybody to be careful. This is real, and if you get diagnosed, get help immediately. Now, the idea that this virus is some kind of hoax is one of two dangerous myths. T that trump and the Republican Party have pursued and the other is the destructive and poisonous lie about the election being stolen. Even as court after court after court rules against him, they continue to push the lie. Trump was down in georgia at a rally ostensibly for the states republican senators but all he could do is peddle his own grievances. Telling the crowd he lost because the election was rigged. Heres an epitaph for the whole trump era whenever the end of it comes. Were all victims, everybody here. All these thousands of people here tonight, theyre all victims, every one of you. The other man, the point man at the intersection of both of these insidious and dangerous lies that covid is a hoax and the election is stolen, the man in the center of the venn diagram next to donald trump is Rudy Giuliani. And it has been much remarked upon that Rudy Giuliani must have either incredible luck or incredible Natural Immunity to the virus because he had been exposed to covid so many times without getting it himself. He was one of the few people on trumps debate prep, remember that . That was like the white house cluster. Chris christie and all those folks, they all got it. Then everyone seemingly in the white house got it, through the president and giulianis son, andrew, a white house staffer, he got it. And weve been watching. Jaws agape collectively as Rudy Giuliani travels the country unmasked like its 2019, spreading lies about the election, speaking loudly and at length in cramped, small places indoors, even asking one witness last week to take off her mask. I dont want you to do this if you feel uncomfortable, would you be comfortable taking your mask off so people could hear you more clearly . Can you hear me now . Can anyone hear her clearly . We can hear you. Oh, okay. Leave it on, thats fine. It was then not that surprising yesterday we learned Rudy Giuliani indeed has the coronavirus. The president tweeted it out. Mr. Giuliani is at Georgetown University medical center, no doubt getting excellent care, and we wish him the best, just like we do the 102,000 other americans currently hospitalized with the virus. The vast majority of whom, i think it is fair to say, will most likely not get the care and attention that Rudy Giuliani will receive. While Rudy Giuliani hopefully recovers in the hospital and gets treatment for this vicious virus, while that happens, the ludicrous grift that he has been spearheading filing frivolous lawsuits and promoting lies about the election is in jeopardy of collapsing while hes in the hospital. Multiple reporting today that it is on its last legs, which feels fateful in a macabre way, that covid might be the thing that deals the final blow to the trump campaigns efforts to overturn the election. If its a day ending with y we get judicial opinions smacking down these lawsuits. Today out of georgia before we get to that, i just you know, ive watched lawyers, particularly appellate practitioners, attempt to communicate to those who dont do this for a living and dont regularly file appellate briefs just how bizarre and anomalous and nuts frankly this entire legal strategy and execution is. How would you characterize the bulk of it . Well, actually i want to connect the dots from something you introduced, which was the mythology of the covid virus and trump calling it a hoax last february and what you described as a myth of these charges. Ill turn to the republican state lawyers from georgia in their brief. They wrote much like the mythological cracken monster after which plaintiffs have named this lawsuit, their claims of Election Fraud and malfeasance belong to the crackens realm of mythos than they do to reality. I think that encapsulates this era, that the trump era is more about mythos and pathos and pathologies than it is about ethos or nomos or logos and reason. I dont want to go all greek here. And we used the word fateful before. Maybe the trump world is tempting the fates, but i think were heading towards perhaps at this stage sanctions by judges or lawyers filing motions for sanctions given that i think we have now crossed that line. Yeah, its interesting you say that because a lawyer on twitter that i like a lot, he says trump does not have a right to file bad faith frivolous complaints. It is his lawyers duty to advise him against doing so and withdraw from representing him if they resist. The lawyers should face sanctions or bar discipline. We are in a period which it is an abuse of the law and abuse of the credentialing function of the bar to engage in this. So early on i was a skeptic of this move. In november, weve talked about this before, chris, i wrote an oped in the Washington Post saying democrats should welcome these suits because they will resolve these questions. Guess what, they have. That worked. It was basically put up or shut up. And the Trump Lawyers had nothing to put up except for a a greek tragedy or comedy of different bizarre characters, one less credible than the next. So i basically regard november as the window of time for the lawsuits to have presented this material. In fact, it was that georgia one of the georgia officials, gabriel sterling, who was famous for calling on trump he said Something Like someone is going to get hurt. And so he said, look, he said if you just do the math, this dominion Conspiracy Theory, it doesnt even we go from greek tragedy to how about greek arithmetic. It would be a bizarre Conspiracy Theory if they were registering in the 50s for biden based on the precincts. Youre barely winning wisconsin because the counties that used the dominion machines were registering in the mid50s in pennsylvania, wisconsin. If youre going to rig an election, you might want to win some senate races or guarantee youre not winning by 10,000 votes. Thats a remarkable move there. The other thing, chris, i think in the big picture is that today is the anniversary of pearl harbor, a day that will live in infamy. Tomorrow is the date selected by congress thats the safe harbor. And that is why i think were getting to a real end game and maybe why theres real frantic moves by the lawyers. What that safe harbor means is that Congress Says he want the states to know that theres a date and a deadline to certify, and if those electors get certified, were on more clear ground for the electoral college. That day is tomorrow. And so once those already the states have certified. But if those if courts dont intervene by tomorrow to stop that certification, congress has already designated those electors to be clear and legally recognized when the electors get counted on december 14th. Its a great point because it was part of the legal strategy from the beginning was to essentially blow the deadline as a predicate for the state legislators to step in but they didnt do that when they lost. Jed sugarman, as always, thanks very much. Thanks for having me. Over the weekend we got new reporting about the president calling the governor of georgia, republican brian kemp, and pressuring him to just flat out overturn the election, right . The rule of the people in his state, the people that voted, just overturn it, call some special session, get them to deliver the electors to donald trump. A sociologist who studies resistance to authoritarian regimes throughout the world writes that donald trump is attempting to stage some kind of coup, one that is embedded in a power grab and the professor joins me. Now, i really liked your piece because we have all struggled with what to call the thing that we are watching. It is impotent and inkpencompet. It has not been done well. It is not working, thankfully, but it is itself a crime in broad daylight. Its a crime against democracy to say throw out the votes. I thought your perspective as someone who lived through coups in turkey and every coup is kind of different was illuminating in this respect. Right. Its really important to try to focus on whats going on because theres so much like smoke and confusion. I dont know how else to say it, but this is a blatant attempt to steal an election. You would recognize it as such. I was just reading news that came out that he also personally called lawmakers, legislators in pennsylvania. I believe this is a third state where hes personally called elected officials to say can you overturn your states legitimate results and appoint electors for me. He has rebuked republican Election Officials in georgia begging him to stop with the enticements saying something is going to get killed. He has been just these frivolous lawsuits which as you point out, yes, we all have a right to legal process, but we dont have a right to endless frivolous lawsuits which are completely baseless making all these claims. More importantly, and i think this is the part where the smoke kind of needs to clear, is that the Republican Leadership has not come out and said you have to stop this right now. And thats really important, because this is not a child whose tantrum were watching. This is a man whos the president of the united states, someone we trust with the Nuclear Codes who has executive power and he is blatantly trying to, yes, very clumsily, very buffoonish, its clownish, its not going to work. The lawsuits are incoherent but its still an attempt to overturn a legitimate election, not through legal means but extra legal means. Im an academic person, is th this theres words like constitutional coup, theres democratic backsliding, so i can get even more and more precise and detailed about the technical term. But if you step back and look at it, it doesnt really matter what the exact term is unless were contesting our grades here. If im marking a paper, yes. But the reason people say coup is that it captures the spirit of whats happening. And the fact that its ridiculous does not make it unserious or not dangerous especially because the republican lack of concern, fury, anything about it when theres already so much minority rule entrenched in this country is something really worrisome. Well, that to me is the key point here. Because its not about him and not about his it is about the party. There are two major parties in american life. They are divided, you know, near the 5050 baseline at an actual level, 5248. They essentially have Different Levels of power in the system. And one of them right now, i mean Congressional Republicans right now, the house conservatives want a floor fight on the house of congress to overturn the legitimate election. You have, you know, Congressional Republicans, a quarter of them will acknowledge bidens win. This is the core makeup. This is 27 Congressional Republicans out of all of them who will say that biden is the incoming president. This is the core makeup of what will be one of the two parties, you know, whatever trump is doing down at maralago. Right. And the thing is this has been going on for a while, and thats kind of really the worrisome thing. Right now the u. S. Has a bunch of things that are supposed to hold us together. We have the senate and i think its like 19 states now, 17, 20 of the population, basically determines the senate. So its very, very undemocratic. But the idea of the most charitable interpretation is that its supposed to hold us together but thats not what its doing. The house is supposed to be representative but right now because of gerrymandering theres a 6 to 8 to republicans. State legislatures are gerrymandered. The courts have been President Trump has appointed, i think, about a third of district level judges, which is one of the highest since, i think, carter. So theres a huge lopsided power imbalance already entrenching minority rule on top of which if it were the other way around, if there was a clownish attempt and somebody was throwing a tantrum, id say, all right, lets wait it out because as everybody is pointing out, the lawsuits arent going to succeed, hes not that kpengt. But this is a terrible playbook. Institutions dont operate by magic. Institutions are what we say they are but the people in them act as if they are. And were now kind of hes writing a different playbook. Its four years, he started before 2016 about elections and there have been conservative voices, there have been to be fair, conservative voices that have been very clear saying this is election stealing but we need the Republican Leadership to come back to this idea of transfer of power peacefully. Yes, a basic its so unimaginable to say this, but thats where we are. That is where we are. As always, wonderful to hear from you. Thank you very much, i appreciate it. If you are frustrated by the patchwork of covid dos and donts from state to state and town to town. Youre not alone. Lack of federal leadership has left everyone in an impossible situation, next. Left everyone in an impossible situation, next. Uh uh, ny come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. One of the worst things about a cois how it can make you feel. But, when used at the first sign, abreva can get you back to being you in just 2 and a half days. Be kinder to yourself and tougher on your cold sores. Tonight, ill be eating a veggie 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 . I think its fair to say that american covid policy as a whole has increasingly descended into incoherence, leaving people angry and confused and scared. Take, for instance, this l. A. County Restaurant Owners frustration about a ban on Outdoor Dining that makes some sense, but while a film crew set up a catering tent next door. Im losing everything. Everything i own is being taken away from me and they set up a Movie Company right next to my outdoor patio. Tell me that this is dangerous. But right next to me is a slap in my face. Thats safe. Now, the l. A. County Health Department noted film crews are regularly tested and unlike restaurant goers dont tend to mingle for extended periods of time without their face covering. Okay, thats fine. But as an l. A. Times article lays out, its so hard to take seriously a patchwork of policies that allow Retail Stores to operate at 20 capacity while shutting down playgrounds and Outdoor Dining. This is replicated all over the country, but it is what you get when the federal government has told local leaders to go it alone and krouscrucially has of no second wave of Financial Assistance to help those leaders make choices focused on Public Health. Erica smith who wrote california politicians cant explain their covid19 rules, theres a reason for that, joins me now. I really liked your column, erica. Thank you. California, particularly l. A. , is in bad shape, really bad shape, and theres a new level of shelterinplace orders going in. How are the internal contradictions of the policy being processed . Yes. L. A. County is really in bad shape as is most of california. Most counties are on the verge of a stateordered lockdown or are already in one, like l. A. County is. Unlike the spring when covid was new, we didnt know all the rules, now theres a lot more anger and frustration about the rules and how they play out. For example, as you mentioned, playgrounds have been closed but shopping malls are still open, granted at a reduced capacity, so its hard for people to understand why one is safe but another is not, particularly parents who have their kids at home and havent been able to put them in school or do anything else with them while they work from home or are working themselves. So its pretty stressful right now. Your colleagues wrote a similar piece along the same line as yours reporting peoples frustration. One thing that struck me whats maddening in a place like l. A. , the weather is nice. Here on the east coast its freezing and you cant really see people outside, its uncomfortable. L. A. Should be a place you could function outside. When you look at the playgrounds, its like the government controlled the playgrounds and can close them and not put anyone out of business, so thats a way of signaling seriousness. But then to close a mall, which is probably more recommended for health reasons, would cost jobs. Absolutely. I mean i think youd be hard pressed to find a mall employee who wants to be at work as well with the cases surging the way they are. But it is frustrating. Im a midwestern native so im happy to be in california and not dealing with snow. But its easier to be outside than it is elsewhere in the country. Unlike over the summer parks, not playgrounds, but parks and trails and beaches are still open and you see on the weekend and throughout the week people packing them. Thats another point of contention because at the same playground same park where you see a playground closed wrapped up with tape, you see ten men playing basketball without a mask, so its kind of like how do you as a family, as a resident of los angeles county, understand what is safe and what is not. Its very contradictory policies. This is something everyone is sharing during the pandemic. Im here in 30 rock, right . Were testing, a lot, but when in april when the cases were lower, it was worse in new york, but we were all home, right . So theres a weird mismatch in everyones life right now between the seriousness of the pandemic, which is the worst its ever been, and the fact that when things let up, people got used to finding some semblance of normalcy that now feels like its being taken away. Exactly. Because that semblance of normalcy has come back a little bit, and for a long time cases were at a manageable level, people dont understand whats changed. Theres all sorts of speculation in l. A. County. Theres the dodgers winning the world series, theres the lakers winning the finals, theres the celebrations after joe biden won the presidency, theres just thanksgiving, which i guess were now starting to see cases trickle in from that, despite urging from Public Health officials to stay home. You also have just the contradictory nature of some of the politicians issuing these orders. Gavin newsom has gotten a ton of pushback for being outside and having dining with a number of friends for his friends 50th birthday. We have our San Francisco mayor who did the same thing. We have l. A. County supervisor who ordered Outdoor Dining shut but later was seen dining outdoors. So its very confusing once again for people to understand whats safe and whats not, particularly when you have some medical officials saying, sure, its fine to meet up with a couple of friends outdoors if youre masked and socially distanced and you have our Public Health director and others saying its not safe. I think people just want to find a way to get through this in a way thats sane for them, that is healthy, but i dont think were getting a lot of guidance right now from our Public Health officials about whats realistic. Yeah. Uniform policy and cdc recommendations and policy that focuses on collective risk as opposed to individual risk, which is what this is. Its like fire codes. You can cut corners on wiring one home and maybe get away with it. You cant do it for huge swaths of city blocks and thats the problem. But the problem has to be dealt with as policy and not as individual choices, but its very, very hard to communicate that coherently. Erica smith, thank you so much for making time tonight. Thank you for having me. As the federal government prepares for the Monumental Task of vaccinating millions of americans as quickly as is practicable, why is an antivaxxer testifying before a Senate Committee tomorrow . Thats next. Senate committee tomorrow . Thats next. Still warm. Thanks, maggie. Oh, alice says hi. For some of us, our daily journey is a short one. Save 50 when you pay per mile with allstate. Pay less when you drive less. Youve never been in better hands. Allstate. Click or call for a quote today. My hands are everything to me. But i was diagnosed with dupuytrens contracture. And it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. Thought surgery was my only option. Turns out i was wrong. So when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. Like you, my hands have a lot more to do. Learn more at factsonhand. Com today. Tomorrow is the day when we roll out the Coronavirus Vaccine across the whole of the uk, and its the beginning of the end of this pandemic. Were not there yet. Its so important that people keep doing the things we know we need to do, following the rules and the basics to make sure we keep this under control. But we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. Coronavirus vaccinations start tomorrow in the uk, as you just heard, where the Pfizer Vaccine was approved last week. Here in the u. S. , fdas vaccine Advisory Board is set to make its recommendation on thursday. If the vaccine is approved, as expected, then the focus turns very quickly to distribution and vaccination. Its an enormous logistical challenge that the incoming biden team is now going to have to shepherd because most of the vaccination will be done after january 20th. Theres also a huge Cultural Trust issue to overcome in a country that has seen a Strong Movement befoagainst vaccines. Ron johnson, chair of the Homeland SecurityCommittee Just invited an antivax vaccine doctor to be the lead witness at a Senate Hearing tomorrow. Seth has been following, questioning and reporting on the antivaxing for over a decade. Hes the author of the panic virus. Hes currently the director of m. I. T. s graduate science writing program. Seth, its great to have you on. First, as someone who has worked on this issue, written about it, reported about it for years, what are your thoughts as youre watching the discourse around this vaccine, both in the Mainstream Media but also online and all other kinds of places . Well, i have to admit when i saw that ron johnson had invited the head of the American Association of physicians and surgeons to speak, i thought it was a joke. They are a group that claim that obama won the 2008 election by hypnotizing intellectuals, young people and jews. They have been involved in junk science campaigns, trying to strike down indoor smoking bans, so this is not a group that is anywhere near the mainstream of medical opinion. I guess on the one hand i was shocked. On the other hand given the amount of disinformation thats coming out of the Republican Party at the moment i was not that surprised. But its exactly the type of thing thats going to make it so difficult, even when we get vaccines and even when we have enough doses thats going to make it so difficult to really defeat covid. Yeah, there was we should be fair here and say there was a lot of democrats and liberals who were very skeptical of the vaccine before election day, and i think there was some real reason for that because basically trump was pushing for it before election day and the fda said thats too short and they pushed pack and the fda ended up winning. Right now in the polling, youve got 61 of americans saying theyre willing to take it. One thing i thought that was striking and i recalled what i read in your book, theres a gender gap. And not the gender gap where you see women tend to be more liberal on a lot of issues than men do. Men much more likely to take it than women. And i think that has to do with some of the channels of information on vaccines that youve reported on. Yeah. One of the many interesting things about vaccine misinformation is that it doesnt break down on traditional sort of what you think of as groups that adhere to science and groups that distrust science. It doesnt break down on liberal or conservative lines. It tends to be something that is fueled by social groups, a lot of online social groups and a lot of parental social groups. And so because still in this country women tend to be more involved in raising children than men, it doesnt surprise me that given that when asked about the Coronavirus Vaccine you get some of that disparity there. I think thats where thats likely coming from. We know through many, many studies that online communities earn enormous, enormous source of vaccine misinformation and peertopeer spread of that misinformation is really what occurs most often. Seth mnookins book called the panic virus is a great, great read which i recommend. Thanks for taking the time tonight. Thank you for having me. Coming up, the totally unhinged fight to the death as trump fights to maintain control and crucially shape the terms of opposition for the next four years. Thats ahead. On for the next for years. Thats ahead dreya hey how are you so good at this . Relax. Get into it aw, yeah ive got it rated everyone. 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. Metastatic Breast Cancer is relentless, but im relentless too. Because every day matters. And having more of them is possible with verzenio, the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopausal status. And its the only one of its kind you can take every day. Verzenio fulvestrant is approved for women with hr , her2 metastatic Breast Cancer whose disease has progressed after hormonal treatment. Diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. At first sign of diarrhea, call your doctor, start an antidiarrheal, and drink fluids. Before taking verzenio, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection. Verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. Lifethreatening inflammation of the lungs can occur. Talk to your doctor if you have new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. Serious liver problems can happen. Symptoms include tiredness, appetite loss, stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising. Blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. Tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you are pregnant or nursing. Every day matters. And i want more of them. Ask your doctor about everyday verzenio. Working, parenting, problem solving. At new chapter vitamins weve been busy too. Innovating, sourcing organic ingredients, testing them and fermenting. Fermenting . Yeah like kombucha or yogurt. And we formulate everything so your body can really truly absorb the natural goodness. Thats what we do, so you can do you. New chapter wellness, well done. Snarrow it down to alls the. Karate moms. With a sudden, desperate need for brown sugar. Meaning, you. Youre the one we made mywalgreens for. With pickup in as little as 30 minutes. To make saving, shopping. And holiday chaos a little easier. Wait are those ninjabread men . Hiya introducing mywalgreens. Join for 30minute pickup at walgreens. Com this is the runoff debate for the u. S. Senate seat currently held by senator david perdue of georgia. Before his election he sat on the board of five major corporations and cofounded perdue partners, a Global Trading company. Senator perdue declined to participate and is represented by an empty podium. Senator david perdue, republican of georgia, did not bother to show up for his debate yesterday so democrat jon ossoff was left to make his case next to an empty podium who was i guess too scared to answer questions about his record or his numerous suspicious stock trades while in office. Senator perdue i suppose doesnt feel that he can handle himself in debate or perhaps his concerned that he may incriminate himself in debate. It shows an astonishing arrogance and sense of entitlement for georgias senior u. S. Senator to believe he shouldnt have to debate at a moment like this in our history. As bad as the noshow looked for the senator, david perdue and fox did its best to spin it for him with a network reporting on perdue slamming ossoffs debate performance, the antipodium move may have been a better debate and the other one. Thats where Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat, refused to wrebreak with trump Election Fraud lies and tried to cast herself as a politician of the people. Look, i have lived the american dream. I want to make sure every georgian can do that from going from working on a farm, from waitressing, being the first in my family to graduate from college. I know that Free Enterprise is the way to lift everyone up. Kelly loeffler, a regular joe. The senator did not mention she and her husband are worth an estimated 800 million. Indeed shes quite possibly the richest politician on capitol hill. Shes got a private jet, 10. 5 million, 17 bedroom, 15,000 square foot mansion in atlanta, its got its own name. Three homes in florida, a condo in chicago, a 4. 3 Million Dollar pad along the georgia coastline. I think weve got them all. As for her Hard Scrabble story of pulling herself up by her bootstraps. When she needed 90,000 for an mba at depaul, she mortgaged land inherited from her grandparents. Thats a good solution, all those folks who are in food lines right now or unemployed or Small Businesses getting shut down, just mortgage your grandpas land, obviously. You dont need more pandemic relief. Just move some of that land that your grandparents left you and mortgage it. Its easy. The poor performance by loeffler and cowardly noshow by perdue could make real differences in these races. Theyre very tight, as you can tell in the polling, very, very close. As you probably know by now, if democrats prevail in both runoffs, the party will take control of the senate, and the senate is not all that republicans could lose. Right now donald trump and his enablers are fomenting a fullifull h fullout civil war within their party. We have more on that after this. Party. We have more on that after this. Man 2 vo proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis. Woman 2 vo . With humira. Woman 3 vo humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. Its proven to help relieve pain, stop further irreversible joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. Humira is the number one prescribed biologic for psoriatic arthritis. Avo humira can lower your ability to fight infections. Serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Man 3 vo ask your rheumatologist about humira. Woman 4 vo go to humira. Com to see proof in action. Tonight. Ill be eating roasted cauliflower tacos with spicy chipotle sauce. [doorbell chimes] thank you. [puck scores] oooow yeah i wasnt ready you want cheese to go with that whine . . Introducing the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Now temperature balancing, so you can sleep Better Together can it help keep me asleep . Absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. Can it help with snoring . Ive never heard snoring. Exactly. No problem. And done. So you can really promise better sleep . Not promise. Prove its our cyber week special, save up to 1,000 on the new sleep number 360 smart bed and adjustable base. Plus, 0 interest for 36 months. Ends monday. You work hard for your money. Stretched days for it. Juggled life for it. Took charge for it. So care for it. Look after it. Invest with the expertise of j. P. Morgan, either with an advisor or online, through chase. After all, its yours. Chase. Make more of whats yours. There are two big outstanding unanswered question about next year as far as i can tell, right . One of them is about the trajectory of the virus and the vaccine and whether the Biden Administration can competently administered rapid vaccination to get us back to normal. The other is about the politics of that year thats coming up and what the Republican Party looks like and whether crucially donald trump controls the Republican Party functionally in opposition as a kind of government in exile. Thats what the battle in georgia right now is about. It is the first battle for donald trump to impose his will on the Republican Party for the postpresidency part of his career. Thats why the stakes are so high over and above control of the senate in those two races. T. M. Mitchell is the washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal constitution where shes been covering the race, and david jolly, former republican congressman who left the party almost two years ago. David, thats what strikes me about whats happening right now. So, you know, the fraud delusion and theres the sort of gamesmanship about mcconnell trying to kind of tame the tiger long enough to get the voters to go vote in georgia. But what its really about is creating a set of sort of initiation rituals of subjugation humiliation and objection from various republicans for them to say ludicrous things out loud that are wrong and they know, to make it known that he is the person who controls the Republican Party even when hes no longer living in the white house. Yeah, chris. The remarkable thing, though, in terms of just the electoral calculation is this is a strategy and a man in donald trump that lost the state of georgia, right . The first republican nominee to lose in almost 30 years. So why perpetuate that losing strategy and bring to the state the losing candidate at the top of the ticket from just a few weeks ago . But set that aside. Your question is perfect because, look, to be very honest, the likes of Mitch Mcconnell and josh hawley and marco rubio and mike pompeo, and nikki haley, they want donald trump gone. They wont say it publicly, but they want him gone. They have their own ambitions to move to the next level, and its not to abandon trumpism. Trumpism has worked largely to allow the Republican Party to at least hold serve. It hasnt expanded its coalition, but its held serve. What is suffocating the party is donald trump the man. Trumpism is working for republicans. Trump the candidate, trump the man is not. They want him and need him gone. So what is it like down there in terms of how the Republican Party you know, youre the washington correspondent for the ajc and in terms of the establishment of the Republican Party in a state that has been run by republicans now for quite a long time conceives of this moment and their relationship to trump. I think the republican establishment was not prepared for what could happen when trump turned on them. Right. So its taken, i think, a lot of the Republican Leaders by surprise because they are big trump supporters. Georgia, you know, save for joe bidens win recently, georgia has been a red state, and georgias leaders are trump people. And so now theyre troubled because, you know, trumps coming after them. Hes criticizing the way the states being run. Hes criticizing the election process, and it has them reeling. But at the same time, theyre for the most part, particularly at Governor Kemp and with senator loeffler and senator perdue, theyre still working hard to stay on trumps good side if they can. I think what this has shown them is that sometimes that requires hard choices, and sometimes thats a line that even when youre just doing your job, you can get on his bad side. Right. Thats right. Brian kemp has not gone out of his way to antagonize donald trump, who he obviously likes and admires and feels warmly towards and has modeled his public leadership after. He is an ally of the president. He just certified the Election Results in the state, and that was enough. And thats what i mean, david, about the you know, the increasingly preposterous litmus tests that are being erected that everyone has to jump to, which is you must commit to an alternate reality in public or youre on the outside. Yeah, chris. And its interesting. In any walk of life, particularly in politics, individuals reach an inflection moment where you either lead or you follow. And one of the themes of the Trump Administration has been the number of people who otherwise would have been political leaders who are now followers. Right. And theres this riskaverse personality, right . And what happens is these politicians think that history judges the followers more lightly, right . The real indictments are for the leaders. But what perdue and loeffler and other republicans on the hill need to realize is history judges followers just as harshly in this moment as it does the leader, donald trump. Yeah, although i mean history is contentious, right . History doesnt do any judging. You know, weve got monuments to traitors all over the country, and theyre only coming down now. I mean tia, my sense is that david perdue and Kelly Loeffler and the Republican Party of georgia is thinking not of history. Theyre thinking of january 5, light whatever is going to get them through the door. Exactly, and i think thats again thats the hardline because on one side, they want voters to feel confident enough in the election to participate because this election is all about turnout. But on the other side, they dont want to turn off trump supporters, and thats something that we saw at the rally over the weekend is that those maga conservatives, the farright voters are in many ways trump voters. Trump is the leader. Yep. And in a lot of ways, theyre following whatever he says. So they dont want trump to turn on them, so theyre hesitant to say or do anything that could get on his bad side. It was striking to me, david, to watch these politicians, perdue and loeffler, two examples, right . You know, loeffler was she talks like a republican who is trained in republican, you know, candidate school, right . Like Free Enterprise up by your bootstraps. She probably was. The funny thing is thats not the way donald trump talks. He doesnt talk about Free Enterprise and he talks about screwing over the people that are trying to screw you, and youre all victims, and these people are frauds and thieves, and were going to go get them for you. Like its not part of tias point about theyre there for him is that no one else actually does it the same way he does, i think because partly because no one has a sort of intuitive sense of it but partly because theyre just not personalityequipped to do it. No, thats true. Look, what donald trump sells is angry populism and that is a very toxic drug for a lot of people. The question is can you move from angry populism to responsible populism. Donald trump had that opportunity maybe for a brief second, blew it and showed no interest in responsible populism. What youre seeing the Republican Party, the likes of perdue and loeffler, kind of almost the jeb bush wing of the party try to do is reconcile conservatives with trumps populism when populism is selling better today than their conservati conservatism. Thats exactly right. There is no constituency for Kelly Loefflerism. Thats right. Or paul ryanism. Theres a constituency for donald trumpism. Theres also a big constituency for antidonald trumpism as the state of georgia just found out. And that to me, tia, is also so interesting, is like how democrats in the state calculate the electoral advantage of making it about trump as well since the last election was about it and they won by 10,000 votes. Yeah. I think democrats are working hard on building a coalition that is tired of four years of trump, and theyre hoping to, you know, just as much as loeffler and perdue are tying themselves to trump, democrats are doing the same thing and saying, do you want these types of leaders to remain as your representative at the senate . Yeah. This is its such an interesting question, watching him try to put a stamp on this party and this movement and this faction thats onehalf of american governance as hes going to go out the door, is sort of the key question, and its going to be a key question for what this year brings, right, david . Oh, it absolutely is. Look, youre seeing that in perdue not showing up at the debate. One of two things hes seeing in the polls. Either it is too toxic for him to be in kind of hand to hand engagement with ossoff, or he sees polls that, say, Lindsey Graham saw against jamie harr harrisison which is if i just keep my mouth shut and ride the maga wave, i can get there. You started this segment with a most pressing question. What does the Republican Party look like next year . I think that verdicts still out. Well, and its still out because theres lots of high stakes questions that are going to be resolved, particularly if the republicans retain the senate, like governance of the country will depend on it. Thank you both. That is all in on this monday night. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated