Republican party . And another vaccine heads for approval. Why estimates for hitting herd immunity are creeping upwards. I say between 75 and 80, 85 of the population. If we get that, we would develop an umbrella of immunity. All in starts now. Good evening from washington, d. C. Im mehdi hassan in for chris hayes. We still have 23 more days of donald trump as president. 23 more days where he will continue to do great damage to this nation, and that damage will extend well into the future. Just today, president elect joe biden said that trump and his political appointees at the department of defense and elsewhere are even now refusing to share crucial information with the incoming biden administration. Right now we just arent getting all the information that we need for the on from the Outgoing Administration in Key National Security areas. Its nothing short in my view of irresponsibility. Trump has spent the past four years flooding the zone with outrage after outrage, from praising neonazis to separating children from their parents to causing tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of american deaths with his botched response to the pandemic, to name just a few of his lowest points. But what he did this weekend is up there with the worst of the worst. In a stark illustration of his cruel indifference to the suffering of millions of americans, the president spent the past few days golfing in florida amid a temper tantrum driven by the refusal of some republicans to aid his efforts to overturn the election and basically end american democracy. The tantrum resulted in a heartless and pointless delay that earned him nothing but have disastrous consequences for millions of americans. The president refusing to sign a covid relief bill negotiated by his own administration with congress until it was simply too late too late. Too be clear, trump was trying to score some cheap political points by insisting on 2,000 direct payments to americans instead of the 600 agreed in the bill. It was a number that Many Democrats had long pushed for, but which his own administration and his own party had opposed. So trump refused to sign the bill as soon as it passed in congress. And then basically just golfed and tweeted the weekend away, and there was no grand plan here. Cnn reported that aides had prepared for president to sign the bill as early as christmas eve. In fact, the smaller of maralagos two ballrooms was prepped for a 7 00 p. M. Ceremony with a desk prepared and pens at the ready. But trump then just decided not to go through with it. Instead, the man we were told was the blue collar billionaire, the champion of working people waited to sign the bill until late last night. And as a result, millions of americans are expected to lose an entire week of jobless benefits, because benefits cannot be paid for a week that began before the bill was signed. And trump outrageously, cruelly, pointlessly did not sign the bill until the start of the week on sunday. Dealing with a president whonr has been missing in action and who througuiu 0v duration of this pandemic has oftenp, engaged in depraved and indifference tos7 human life amidst all the pain and suffering and death that the n experiencing. And then Mitch Mcconnell had long that they mcconnell had would gonr no higher than 5 million. nis7t so we were short of a trillion, but itnie1 has to xn a recognit at the end of the day that were dealing withjf ans on nat senat republican maoiity led by ther obstruction, Mitch Mcconnell, and a president whot on his best days is on the golf course, and on his worst days is families, middle class folks and those who aspire to be part of the middle class. Indeed. Its a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done on the joe biden leadership. Jf it isfa ac step in the right direction. And any fairminded observer would agree that Mitch Mcconnell is to blame here and is tn n req block. Im completely with you on that, congressman. But given that Mitch Mcconnell was also the senateq leader in october when nancy pelosice sai im not going budge from 2. 2 trillion, and those negotiations then did kind of comove, didnto quite according to plan, given you also lost seats in the house that many say you really shouldnt have, do fellow new york democraticco congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez and others are saying its time fo top . Speaker pelosi has had a good run, 17 years leading your party in the house. Faces, maybe even yourself. Well, i lookr to once again placing the namer pelosi into nomination. She has beent a historic one a led us through a lot of trials and tribulations and consistently our values and priorities have come out on top, given the circumstacf qahahat w find ourselves fain. Wec defeated mt7ko9z but we st o deal with ovingr ah h anything in the house . While we will certainly be leaner,fa were going peopleq on the hard left, peopl in the senateni have all said tt this is going to have to bring g us closer kntogether. Its going tolpfafa have to face more collaboration. At the end of the day, as democrats, what brings us together is fighting for everyday qamericans, working families, for middle class folks, forxd seniors, the poor, the sick and the afflicted. And wdkco can findok the highes common denominator together. Were still going to have toco[ that we are going to be unified behind the presidency ofc joe biden, Vice President s Kamala Harris. Were lookingco forward to that. Ive been in exileok from the white house for four years. Ufr i lookq forward to having awoyw friendly voice for Everyday Americans back at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Xdryfani well, we have to leavee1 the ime. What happens to the americanxd finally been signed by the Police Department . I wantco to bringxdc in top ecot rob reich. Fa he is the authorw3 of the book get america out of out of lonf we needed a relief bill in the n trilles, didnt we . Ok i] we certainly do need a relf bill. Its very, very similar to what nancy am osi and theco democrat oskginally proposed. O you left out 3qj3 particular o element,i] and that is covid. Now that is the big, big el vanity in t room because we r dont know how long its going l tolpok go on. We hope byok june or maybe july enough americans are vaccinateds so that the economynb can actuay move onward. But between nowc anduandu then,e got five or six months and youve got millions, tens of know how theyre going to make it between now and then. nq so thats where the real issue comesqin uhow do we make sure tens of millions of people have enough money to get throughn when the economy starts up again. And were nowhere close. 5xqh lc bis weow cant affordqod that it was not that long ago r an almost 2jf trillion tax cut for the rich andx for big corporations, and they never they neverxdblinked. They didnt say well, we cantl so a debt problem weve gotlp to when republicans come tot thei 9of whether a tax cut aju big corpor rjju can becxd afforded, there is neverlp a problem. When they come to a question of for the people who are really in need in this niountry, or anyt kind of other 2,000 per person, 2,000 per person is nott goin nearly make it over the next si you try took pay the rent and ao p n food on the tableq and do Everything Else you need with w 2,000. Well, you just cant. 0ost people cant do it. Yeah. co well, and yet you have these tone deaf republicanse1 on the houseco floor today. T lpxd better spend more, some saying no, we spent moreconi than othe did. Isnt the real problem, robert, that stimulus money in the u. S. Compared to canada or germany because wenr have Health Care Costs that they dont. We dont have thexd kind of socl safety nets that they already have in place. Isnt that the i]issue . Exactly. Its comparing apples to pp oranges. Almost everyxd 9d19country innr1 this world has safety nets that are really thick safety nets. I] they pay for health care. N they paya5 for unemplo u9q insurancefa tofa a much greaterk extent. O they provide acfa paid family leave. They provide all sorts of things the harsh5 n form of capitalismjf existingxd among e advanced nation. Compare us to what we spentni or what theynikospent o covid really doesnt make much d sense. Ok have not spent very 3wmuch. They haveco spent much more. And if you include all of theib expending huge amounts. They arejfi] keeping people employed, or if theyre notlp employed, theyre at least keeping people on payrolls. They arew3 doing a very better t alleviating the anxiety and the okxdunderlying problems of insecurity that affect the american workforce. Faxdfa yeah. And i wonder, robert,lpt xd isr though, to this debate over 2,000 checks specifically, that nowe1o have republican buyin the form of ae1nr republican president f direct cashxd transfers from th government to ordinary americans, somethingq republicas have recoiled from for qyears. Now surely democrats can come odd for republicans to act as if its some sort of crazy socialist idea when its been publicly endorsed by their own former president a its going ton determine a lot of this really turns on january 5jfth. Letsxd face it. If you get two senators in tk5n that the senatejf flips and kama deciding vote in the senate. Everything i}different. Were in a very diff ifer Mitch Mcconnell is still tl controlling force in the senate, ifnr Mitch Mcconnell continues m do what he has been doing since the beginning of the obama administration, remember, this is the man who saidq my number one priority isni to make obama oneterm president , well, he is goingw3 obstruct everything. And anything that is done with regardt to covid, getting peop through this,fa providing survil benex uaknixd pro a 9 that getsrttt economy backi] on track, anything that isfafrtjat goingxd to have to probably be done by executive order or by regulation. Bablt yeah, orjf whether joe biden will be willing to use those executive orders, lets wait and seattle. Robert reich, lets thanks soqe much fornoqe h much fornk your time andfa tho incites tonight. We appreciate it thank you, mehdi. Next, the cruelty of President Trump holding the coronaviruk reliefxdhostage ah golfed in palm beach historian michael beschlossrnet the president s tantrum in perspective, after this. ni and its awesome. Its an allinone so its ready to go when i am. The cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. And the pad absorbs it deep inside. So, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. Plus, its safe to use on all my floors, even wood. Glad i got that off my chest and the day off my floor. Try wet jet with a moneyback guarantee boy r hhelping kids. S. dad helping families. women helping pets. vo these are the lives subaru retailers have impacted in our communities, through our support of over fourteen hundred Hometown Charities. In fact, subaru and our retailers will have proudly donated over two hundred Million Dollars to national and Hometown Charities through the subaru share the love event. vo get 0 for 63 months and subaru will donate 250 dollars to charity. 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. Has been the benchmark for afe historically terrible president. His own official white house biography describesc ow in the midstt ez the dark days of t depression, hoovers viewcwas that caring for hungry and cold americans, fat uote, must be primarilynia local andxdvolun leading his a opponents in congress to unfairly paint him as a callous and cruel president. Whether or not that was really an unfair characterization, hoovers name became synonymous with heartlessness and3w indifference to the suffering of ordinary americans. T ujtdbehavior, causing mps millions of struggling americans to lose their Unemployment Benefits for a weekt for no re reason, nonei] whatsoever, doese nownico top Herbert Hoover when comes tot jf callousness and cruelty . And as the covid death toll continues to rise, is he no longer just one of the president s in american history, but the worst . U history, but the worst . U who better to ask than michael beschloss, president ial historianco for nbc news and nd msnbc. He joins me now. Fa michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. Pleasure. co p does President Trump make oover look like mother xdteres . It doese1 make Herbert Hoove look like mother xde1teresa. Compassionate person. He helped people get48 oodcot world war i and after world war ii, but he did believe at the b time of the Great Depression witht millions ofxd americans l starving and dying infa someni o henbfelt it wast notxd the fed governmentsfa job to help them. That was somethingi]c rpa xdfdr feel. And what it leads to, mehdi, you always want someone asq presidet who has compassion andq empathy. A nilincoln, for instance, who early in the civil war there were so many uniono[ soldiers being killed that they said we want it . I] lincoln saidxd build it near my summer housea a because i want see the graves being dug. I want to see the weepingc widows. Itsni goingingc to be very pai for brcy but i want to always se thecot results of the terrible decisions im making. Thats what a real leader does. Thats what a real president yeah, as opposed to ther confronted with the covid death toll said it is what it is. C michael, many president s have sadly caused harm to the american xdlppeople, or been indifferent to the suffering of ordinary americans. But can youni point to another president who has done the kind of thing trump n this weekend,c delaying Financial Aid tot unemployed americansq for no other reason than he was having other reason than he was having a tantrum an there was no ideological or policy reason for doing what he did yesterday. Ogiccoe1 trump is thee1 kind oi u never, ever seen before in the presidency, and i hope we never, ever see again. And what i mean by that is someone who most of us, mehdi, when you get to thexd ag of 6, yj begin to care for other people and see the world through their eyexojf especial when theyreni suffering. You particularlyiq want that ina president of the united states. Dwight eisenhower was the Supreme Commander onw3cdday. The decisions he madexd meant te 6eth of a lot of Young Americans and others, and he knew it. For the rest of his life, eisenhower was a tough guy. Vt whenever he spoke in pu i]men, mostly men, some women onxd dday, hefa would cr chief over his face. Johnson knew what it was like for black people to be beaten u in the streets of the citi jof thisl country, and it mad na h want utdo something about it. When you go÷ ssv a president s no empathy, who has no compassion, you see a spectacle like what weve seen this week study the biographies of these men as you have, and of course theyve all been men, do you come across them open ply taly g about their legacies and wondering ho yes, they do. But they do it in terms of what can i do to make this country better so that 50 years from now people will say this is something that this president id did that was distinctive and maybe he did it against his own selfish political selfinczsl t. Hard to think of a case where donald trump has ever done that, and also, harry truman once saio he couldnt imagine a president who does not read history, because the only way a president he said can get any benefit from all the successes and failures of earlier president s and earlier citizens is to know where they succeeded and failed in history. He said that every reader will not be a leader, but every leader must be a reader. If truman came back and saw a president as completely ignorant and indifferent to history as er donald trump, i think he would have been shocked. Tory michael, arent you being unfair to donald trump . He says he studied history and s hes the best president since lincoln . Okay, well, im the king of romania, mehdi. I got ask you before i let you go, ive asked you this before, but ill ask you again. When do we go beyond saying donald trump is among the worst in history and within days of his leaving office, he is basically the worst . Well, a historian always has to account for the possibilitiet that 50 years later a president would look better in some ways than he did to his own generation. That having been said, donald trump is not goingen to change e record. He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of americans who did not need to die. Millions of others who suffer from covid who did not need to suffer. An economic calamity that is afflicting people tonight in a way that is not going to be alleviated by 600 or 2,000 while the president sits in palm beach and the Vice President sits in vail on a ski slope andk the secretary of the treasury is in Cabo San Lucas in mexico. This is merely fiddling while rome burns. Indeed. America is burning in so many ways today. At that. Thank you so much for the member pleasure of your time. So much from you. Thank you. The same with me. Appreciate it, michael. Still to come, as marco rubio gets hammered for his covid hypocrisy, why we should all be nevertheless paying attention to the shifting numbers regarding herd immunity. Thats next. Ifting [phone rings] hello, how can i sore throat pain . Try new Vicks Vapocool drops in honey lemon chill for a fastacting rush of relief like youve never tasted in. Honey lemon ahh woo Vicks Vapocool drops now in honey lemon chill marco rubio is doing that thing again where he annoys everybody by trying to play both sides of an issue. On covid, the republican senator played down the virus for months, including speaking maskless at a Campaign Event last month in georgia for kelly loeffler. But he nevertheless managed to skip to the head of the vaccination line more than a week ago. How nice. Yesterday rubio tweeted that dr. Anthony fauci lied to the American Public about masks and distorted the vaccination levels needed to achieve herd immunity. But hold on. Maybe as much as i hate to say it, does rubio have a point . Dr. Fauci is live, but the countrys top Infectious Disease expert has on more than one occasion shifted his statements on the coronavirus and how to handle it. The New York Times reported this very thing last week noting, quote, dr. Anthony fauci has been slowly but deliberately moving the goalposts on when herd immunity is possible from lower estimates of 60 to 70 of americans vaccinated to more recently 75, 80, 85 even. Quote, dr. Fauci said that weeks ago he had hesitated the public raise estimate because Many Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity. Now those kind of changes in messaging i think are not particularly helpful in fighting the pandemic, even though you could argue they might be necessary as we expand our knowledge about a new and vicious virus that has now killed one out of every thousand americans. Olivia troye is a former member of the White House Coronavirus task force. She worked with dr. Fauci. She is also a former adviser to Vice President mike pence. She joins me now. Dr. Fauci has become a living legend, a national treasure. He celebrated his 80th last week on christmas eve. The mayor of d. C. Declaring it Anthony Fauci day. I know youre a fan. I spot his picture on your wall over your right shoulder. But he is not perfect, is he . Whether its . Yw saying masks werent necessary at the start of the crisis to now shifting the goalposts on herd immunity levels. Correct. Here is the thing, mehdi. The thing about science is its all about gathering data and facts in a situation thats evol evolving, right. What we know about this virus has continuously evolved from day one, starting in january when we dont even have access on the ground to test the virus. Figure all that situation out early on. So what you have here is it is going to continue to evolve. This information, the data will continue to evolve along the way. And so i think, you know, mark rubios tweet, what he doesnt put into context is that dr. Fauci was talking about vaccinations. And in order to reach a certain level of immunity against the virus, youre going to have a significant part of the population vaccinated before you can reach a certain level of herd immunity. Actually his modeling is based on the measles virus, which is known to be the most contagious virus out there. And so thats what it is;,z bas on. And early on with the masks, there was a thing to date on the task force about how we were going message the masks so that there wouldnt be a rush that would prevent medical workers from getting masks. And so that was also part of it. But absolutely messaging is key. And i get your point of conflicting messaging is hurt l hurtful. But marco rubios tweet that he put out is even more hurtful because he is continuing to contribute to divisiveness on this pandemic. Yes. And well come back to rubio in a moment. I get what youre saying about the science changes. Its a new virus. I totally understand that. But he said in the interview with the times that the reason he didnt raise the herd immunity level before was because americans werent ready to hear it, but now he thinks they are based on the polling, based on how many people are willing to get vaccinated. Is that a wise thing to do from perspective . Rubio to accuse him to manipulate public hearing . Why not be honest from the beginning . I see how people will take the message, and it provides an opportunity for countertheyretives to come into play. I think what dr. Faucis point was he really was trying to encourage people to get vaccinated. We understand that this issue has been somewhat a divisive thing in our country where you have people who are scared to take the vaccine, who are scared of whether its effective. Look, im going to be very honest. My mom is 76 years old. She has told me she has concerns about taking the vaccine, and i want more than anything for her to be immune against this virus. So this division on the vaccine and whether to take it is j that. Obviously it hits home with me. So i think in terms of the vaccination, we do need to encourage and show that the vaccine is safe. There is a process that was under way, and we have operational speed and some of the statements coming out of the white house from the president and others have politicized it and to a certain extent. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned your mother is in her 70s. I have to say, what do you make of marco rubio, a healthy 49yearold who goes around without a mask on at rallies getting a vaccine before 99 of americans. How does that sit with you . Not very well because, you know, i remember the marco rubio of last march where he was telling people to take the pandemic seriously. R4÷ i remember the rubiopa. n of thi summer where he had concerns about opening schools and then suddenly he didnt have concerns about opening schools. So i dont know. When it comes to marco rubio being a recovering republican like myself, i watched rubio along the way always shift with whichever the wind is blowing. So its really more literally about politics than whats doing whats right for the American People, his constituents and the people of his state who are actually reallyiwp suffering in this pandemic. Yeah. I mean, he is definitely a wind shifter. But to get vaccinated and then be divisive on the issue of vaccinations is even a new low even for marco rubio. Olivia troye, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Well have to leave it there. Still ahead, why is congressman Louie Gohmert suing Vice President pence in the latest bid to steal the election for trump . Ill explain what in the world he is up to, after this. Smooth driving pays off. With allstate, the safer you drive the more you save. You never been in better hands. Allstate. Click or call for a quote today. Dreya hey how are you so good at this . Relax. Get into it aw, yeah ive got it rated everyone. Since youre heading off to dad. I just got a zerowater. But weve always used brita. Its two stagefilter. Doesnt compare to zerowaters 5stage. This meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. Our tap water is 220. Brita . 110. Seriously . But zerowater let me guess. Zero . Yup, thats how i know it is the puresttasting water. I need to find the receipt for that. Oh yeah, you do. With just nine days to go until the final procedural hurdle in the 2020 election, the formal counting of electoral votes by congress on january 6th, the trump deadend and the Republican Party are pulling what we can only hope will be one of their last stunts to try to overturn the outcome. Today Louie Gohmert of texas filed a lawsuit along with several of Donald Trumps electors from arizona to try to get rid of the rules that govern next weeks vote counting. By long, congress meets on january 6th to open sealed certificates from each state and read the results allowed with the president of the senate, Vice President mike pence presiding. Gohmerts lawsuit claims that pence should be able to ignore the results that give joe biden a majority of the electoral votes and count votes for donald trump instead. Its very unlikely that this long shot suit will go anywhere, but apparently its what the boss wants, and Louie Gohmert is still taking marching orders from trump. Quote tweet, if a president ial democrat had a election rigged democrats would consider it a act of war and fight to the death. Mitch and the republicans do nothing, just want to let it pass. No fight. Well, that kind of thing has happened before in the year 2000. Democrat al gore famously lost an extremely close election by way of a margin of 537 votes in florida, and a legal battle that ended with the Supreme Court essentially handing the election to george w. Bush, despite accusations of dirty tricks and voter disenfranchisement. Al gore was of course still the Vice President on january 6th, 2001 when Congress Formally counted the electoral votes. orq and surely, painfully he had to preside over the counting of president of the senate. There were protests from some democrats back then, imupset at the nature of their partys loss, but al gore of course played by the rules. Mr. Vice president , i rise to object to the fraudulent florida electoral votes. Is the election in writing and signed by a member of the house and senator . The objection is in writing. And i dont care that it is not signed by a member of the senate. The chair will advise that the rules do care andu÷ the signature of a senator [ applause ] the signature of a senator is required. The chair will again put that part of the question, is the objection signed by a senator . Mr. Vice president , there are gross violations of the Voting Rights act from florida and i object. And it is not sign bade senator. The chair thanks0dksw gentlewoman from california. On the point previously stated, the order may not be received. Al gore, the man who lost the election did what he believed was right for the good of the country that day, shutting down his own democratic colleagues in the process. In a little over a week, it will be the party of trumps turn. And well talk about that next. For People Living with hiv, keep being you. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. 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Thats why febreze created small spaces. Press firmly and watch it get to work. Unlike the leading cone, small spaces continuously eliminates odors in the air and on surfaces. So they dont come back for 45 days. Just imagine what it can do with other odors. The sleep number 360 smart bed. Prices of the season on can it help with snoring . Ive never heard snoring. Exactly. No problem. And done. And now, the queen sleep number 360 c2 smart bed is only 899. Plus, no interest until january 2024. Only for a limited time. Rupert murdochs tabloid newspaper the New York Post is now telling donald trump to move on, to stop, as they put it, cheering for an undemocratic coup. Forgive me if i dont totally by the posts belated change of heart. The paper, like the Republican Party, has spent so much time egging on donald trump that they long ago ceded their authority and even their identity to the man. Republican congressman matt gaetz made that point explicitly clear when he tweeted yesterday, quote, im not going back to yesterdays Republican Party. This is Donald Trumps party. For more on the future of Donald Trumps party, the gop, tina nguyen is a White House Reporter at politico, where she covers maga world. Jennifer horn is the former chair of the New HampshireRepublican Party, who announced this month that shes leaving the party over gop efforts to overturn the election result. Tina, let me start with you. Is it Donald Trumps party as f matt gaetz says . Its a strange situation because you cant tell where the party ends and where Donald Trumps supporters begin. You have a giant section of republicans who are saying, okay, we maybe need to move on and just deal with the biden presidency. Lets certify the results in Congress Next week and say, okay, biden won because here are the votes, or we could indulge in a fantasy and say that donald trump isnt going to leave the white house, and what we can do is somehow manipulate the rules of congress to do so. And thats where the split lies. Yeah. And in that split, jennifer, youve been part of that split. Youve gone beyond that split. I wonder, did you leave the gop because you believe not only that its trumps party but that it can no longer be anything other than trumps party . Theres no rescuing of it . Well, thats exactly what we learned when we watched how the Republican Party leaders behaved postelection. It became clear that they were willing to engage in borderline seditious behavior trying to overturn a legitimate election, the results of a legitimate election in the united states, in order to somehow protect and preserve donald trump. You know, the New York Post finally kind of coming to grips with reality a little bit might be a good thing, but its not going to have any impact on these republican lawmakers, would are going to remain tightly under Donald Trumps thumb for years to come, you know. They live in fear of a trumpsupported primary. Someone jennifer, someone keen to speak to you there. Ill let you stop that call. Maybe its someone from the Republican Party trying to get you back. Tina, in the meantime, let me come back to you. Will a New York Post front page make any difference in maga world . I mean fox news dared to call the election for biden, and Trump Supporters just switched over to oann and newsmax rather than expect the fox call. I think that might have happened with the New York Post as well. As youve been seeing in the past couple of weeks, any republican entity, even ones that are essentially protrump, such as Tucker Carlson or the majority of fox news hosts, the moment that they break from that narrative of, okay, there isnt evidence saying that the election was stolen, then maga world starts turning on them and going, oh, well, youve been bought out by corporate media. You can start seeing a bit of that with the New York Post oped where you have people looking at this oped and saying, okay, youre truly not believers. Here is all your corporate ties that we suddenly care about right now. So there will be other newspapers that theyll flock to. There will be other magafriendly Online Internet sources theyll start sharing on their social media feeds. But theres really nothing the New York Post can do to win them back other than retract any sort of story or pretend the story never happened and go straight back to Donald Trumps quest to overturn the election. Heres my question to you. If its Donald Trumps party, if its the trump gop, does that mean the 2024 candidate will be a trump, if not donald himself, then either don junior or ivanka . Thats a difficult question to answer right now. Obviously if the president ial candidate is trump, then the president is 100 is then the Republican Party is going to have to fall behind him because there is really no one else that can establish themselves against him. If he doesnt run, however, its going to be difficult for anyone to take on the party of trump without trump himself saying, i give my blessing. Who knows if thats going to happen . But you can see all these other republicans who have stepped in and tried in their own senate races or house races and say, i am superduper protrump. I support all these trumpian policies. Im even going to emulate trump. But if trump decides he doesnt like them at one moment, then trumps base immediately turns against them. You saw that with kelly loeffler. You kind of see that with the Georgia Senate race right now where these two candidates are trying so hard to hew to trumpian policies, say the right trumpian things, and theres still a giant set of maga supporters who think that they were the beneficiaries of a, quote, unquote, stolen election and some scheme in georgia to steal votes from trump. So at this point, its all trumps game. Can he give these voters up . Who knows . Yeah, and heres what i dont get. When you have this kind of trumpy Republican Party with a trumpy base, which, you know, says were going to twitch tv exams if we dont like the news we see, were going to switch papers if we dont like the front pages we see when you have a paper like that and then you have joe biden saying, as he said last week, once trump is gone, im going to be able to work with the Republican Party, and i just feel like isnt that a fantasy . It really depends on how prevalent trump will be in politics and whether he has a group of people left in Congress Whose priority is him above, you know, their own supporters or their own leadership. Thats a question that i havent been able to personally answer because the entire base of maga is all primarily, one, internetbased, and, two, not particularly concentrated in one area or one constituency, like geographical that could be represented by a house representative or a senate member. That is like honestly, i cant particularly tell if theyll keep going on this quest. Its going to be one of those waitandsee games although im very skeptical myself. Jennifer is back, i believe. I believe we can speak to her. I want to bring her back into the discussion before we run out of time. Jennifer, you quit the part. Steve schmidt and others have quit the party. Whats your advice to republicans like mitt romney and others who are staying in and fighting. Should they quit too . Its completely up to them whether they want to become independents or stay with the party. But its just imperative that they continue to speak up. You know, you mentioned joe biden talking about wanting to work with republicans when he becomes president. I believe joe bidens commitment is real and true. But as long as people like Mitch Mcconnell and Kevin Mccarthy are declaring, you know, war on the Democratic Party or on the democratic president , you know, declaring that this is about blocking and obfuscating at every turn, its going to be very difficult to get cooperation from any of the republicans. And frankly as long as the Republican Party continues to see themselves as matt gaetz said yesterday as the party of trump, i dont see a world where theyre going to be able to work on behalf of the American People in compromise with President Biden or any of the other democrats. Jennifer, weve got 20 seconds left. Quick last question. You quit the Republican Party. You became an independent. Do you have plans to join joe bidens Democratic Party . I dont have plans to join the Democratic Party. Im going to be an independent. I still hold a lot of my conservative values, and most importantly, i am prodemocracy, which the Republican Party is not at this time. I think thats a good position for all of us to hold, prodemocracy. I mean its crazy that we have to say that, but we do in 2020. Tina nguyen and jennifer horn, well have to leave it there. Thank you both so much for your insights. That is all in for this evening. You can always catch me onmy new show streaming on peacock every week night at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. The Rachel Maddow show starts now with my good friend, ali velshi in for rachel. Good evening, ali. I got a smile on my face when you said that part about how we just all need to be prodemocracy. It should be obvious, but its actually not, and i think the important thing to point out is whether youre republican or an independent or a libertarian or a liberal or progressive, it doesnt matter. Theres a choice to be made right now. Youre on the side of democracy, or youre not. Fantastic that we have to say it, but it is what it is. Indeed. 100 . Prodemocracy, the bare minimum. The benchmark. Yeah. Have a good evening, my friend. Good to see you. And thank you to you at home for joining us this hour. Rachels got the night off. There are just 23 days left in this presidency, 23 days until joe biden and Kamala Harris are sworn in. And yet after four years, another first. Tonight the house of representatives overrode a president ial veto for the first time in the trump era, overriding the president s veto of the annual defense spending bill. Thats the bill that pays the salaries of the men and women in the armed forces and funds the nations National Security apparatus. The annual defense bill is typically passed