Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20201130

Thats something to be grateful for. Today and every day. Dont talk to me that way. Youre a lightweight. Im the president of the United States, dont ever talk to the president of the United States that way. Im going with another question. Go ahead. It warms your heart. It does. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is monday. November 30th. With us we have reporter from the associated press, probably the man who provoked our president into that really clarifying i must say thanksgiving message from the white house, Jonathan Lemire. We also we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of way too early, kasie hunt. Also, host of Msnbcs Politicsnation and president of the National Action network, reverend al sharpton. Mika is taking the day off. A little under the weather. So you would too if you had to eat my tadurket that i fried four times which didnt go it. I tried to i dont know what was in there, but it was bad. So Jonathan Lemire, quite a thanksgiving address by the president of the United States who most definitely didnt seem to be in the holiday spirit. The president hit the sweeping overarching notes to bring the nation together, a time to give thanks with the message im president and youre not. We certainly had an angry donald trump here this past weekend. That was actually jeff mason of reuters who is one of the classiest members of the White House Press corps who provoked him with straight forward questions this morning. These were mind you the first questions that the president has fielded from reporters since election day, since he lost that race to joe biden and he was not giving thanks, but rather it was a weekend of airing grievances there in the white house. Thanksgiving night, that was supposed to be an event meant towards thanking Service Members who are overseas for their service. And instead, it became about him and floating yet again more baseless conspiracy theories about the election which are notes that he hit all week long in a series of interviews as hes broken his silence here, as his Team Continues to mount futile legal challenges. He refuses to accept the fact that joe biden is president elect even though his team finally is quietly going along with the transition. Right. Yeah. Boy, tell you what, thanksgiving message that was meant to thank the troops but ended up being about the former reality tv host. I never saw that coming. Hey, kasie, we have some news from biden world. What is it . We do, joe. So president elect biden continued to fill out his cabinet over the weekend by hiring an allfemale Communications Team and adding more diversity to the top economic team. Seasoned spokeswoman jen psaki will serve as the white house director and Kate Bedingfield in the same capacity but for the white house. Former obama economic adviser Wally Adeyemo is going to serve under janet yellen. Labor economist cecilia reuss will chair the chair of economic advisers and center of america progress neera tanden has been slated to head the office of budget. This was met by opposition by john cornyns team and that she stands zero chance of being confirmed. And joe, mcconnells aide, josh holm, said this was a sacrifice to the confirmation gods in tanden. Im interested on their thinking on that particular pick and psaki tweeted said there are six moms of young kids on that team. I think thats something that a lot of working women are focused on. Its pretty cool. It is historic and its a cabinet shaping up to look like america. Tell me whats the problem with neera . I hope i hope that theyre not going to even to start to talk about deficits or debt since john cornyn and Mitch Mcconnell and every senator in the United States senate was part of the most massive expansive of our federal deficits and our federal debt and they actually passed the biggest, most bloated budgets in the history of this Constitutional Republic over the past four years. Even prepandemic, they were breaking every record for radical i would call it left wing spending levels. So they have they said anything about having a problem with somebody that didnt spend that much money running the omb . Joe, as you know, we have we have already seen some republicans come back to that gospel of deficit spending. I imagine its going to be part of the conversation about tanden. Part of me wonders whats going on behind the scenes of being aware of this concern and obviously we still have to figure out whos going to control the senate so maybe thats the answer in terms of whether she gets to head up omb. I think there could be some concerns on the left as well about her, but certainly your point is well taken about their concern. The other news that we have this morning, joe, is about joe bidens health. The president elect is going to be in a walking boot for the next couple of weeks. Joe biden suffered a hair line fracture in his mid foot while playing with his rescue dog major on saturday. His personal physician confirmed the diagnosis which was believed to be a twisted ankle. He was seen leaving the Doctors Office last night with a bit of a limp. President trump tweeted something nice, get well soon. I guess well let you, joe, be the judge as to whether that was sincere or not. Im sure it was. Well take it as sincere, but reverend al, i want to get back to neera and omb. I any republican, any republican over the next four years that complains about spending, that complains about deficits, that complains about debt, that complains about bloated budgets im going to put their face and how much of an increase in Americas National debt they were responsible for with their votes, im going to put their face up and all the bloated budgets that they voted for because it is gross and, by the way, just being a republican not excuse enough. I voted against budgets. I voted against appropriation bills. We ran Newt Gingrich out of town because we thought he spent too much money. Just because you have a voting card and your partys in power doesnt mean you have to be a coward and these people werent spending. These republicans werent spending like drunken sailors. They were spending like drunken socialists and when i mean the biggest spenders ever, they spent more money than barack obama. They spent more money than lbj. They spent more money than fdr. They spent more money and drove the deficit up higher than its ever been. They drove up the National Debt higher than its ever been. And the National Debt is higher because of donald trump than its ever been since actually world war ii. The only other time it was that high. So please, if theyre going to be preaching fiscal responsibility, four years too late. No, in many ways, neera could teach them about budget deficits because shes been involved in the kind of politics that did not bloat the deficit as they did. She should just bring what they have spent and allowed and voted for in the last three years with her to the hearing. And well see who are the ones that caused the most deficits here. I think the selection by president elect biden of neera and the rest are great. I mean, to look at the Communications Team, all women, will like ashley headley, a brilliant young woman. Much younger than me, but much smarter than me. When you look at Symone Sanders, Karine Jeanpierre with president Vice President Kamala Harris, who wanted the right team, we are the kind of the promises made are being kept. I think that when joe biden stood there that night and said that he was going to have our backs in the africanamerican community, when i look at this list of communications for both the president elect and the Vice President elect when i look at neera, when i look at the team hes going to announce to treasury, im beginning to feel like he may be serious about that. Were going to hold him accountable, but looking good so far in the initial appointment but the attacks on neera i think all i can say is come on with it. She is the one that can teach you how to deal with deficits. Yeah. So kasie, the president lost a couple Million Dollars in with and it ends up that he spent 3 million or so dollars trying to get some more votes out of wisconsin and ended up losing votes there. Of course more very tough decisions from federal courts. From the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Everywhere you look, everything is going just like we thought it was going to go after election night. You had scott walker of all people saying you can call for these recounts but its not going to make a difference. And the republicans who havent completely jumped on the crazy train with the tinfoil hats have all mainly started to say, you know, this election is over. And we have a lot more evidence of that over the past weekend. Yeah. President trump finally talking about how he will conceding that he will move out of the white house and this is as across the country the results joe bidens win becoming more and more clear as though it already as though it already wasnt. Arizona secretary of States Office will certify the results of the 2020 election today. And that will officially award arizonas 11 electoral votes to joe biden. The final tally shows he received about 10,500 more votes than President Trump there. State law allows the president to challenge the results within five days but federal law says any legal challenges have to be resolved by december 8th. And to what joe was just talking about in wisconsin, after paying 3 million for a recount there, President Trump fell short yet again. With president elect joe biden maintaining his lead of about 20,600 votes in that state. While trump picked up 45 extra votes in dane county, biden gained 132 votes in milwaukee county. So he added 87 more votes to his winning margin. Wisconsins Election Commission is expected to certify the results later today but the Trump Campaign vows to push ahead with the legal challenge there. Over the weekend, the president tweeted in part, quote, the wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, its about finding people who have voted illegally. And in pennsylvania, two election lawsuits went down in defeat over the weekend for the president and his republican allies. They were both unanimous decisions and man, this judge, the Third Circuit court of appeals on friday rejected the president s motion to overturn the certification on the grounds that republicans were disadvantaged by democraticleaning counties allowing voters to correct errors on their mailin ballots. This scathing opinion and this judge was appointed by donald trump. It reads in part, quote, charges of unfairness are serious, but calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges requires specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. He adds, the campaigns claims have no merit and it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters. On top of that, in harrisburg on saturday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit that was led by republican congressman mike kelly which argued a law permitting no excuse mail voting violated the state constitution and tried to invalidate millions of votes. They criticized the plaintiffs for filing the suit more than a year after universal mailin voting was established in the state and said they lacked due diligence. Joe, i dont know if i want to know how much money per added joe biden vote the Trump Campaign spent in wisconsin and that pennsylvania judge laid it out right there in terms of the kind of standing that these lawsuits have. Well, he really did. Again as you pointed out, kasie, hes a trump appointee. My only question is when are these judges especially the federal judges, when are these federal judges going to start sanctioning these attorneys who are coming in to court with these outrageous claims, with no basis in law. No base us in fact. I know if we did that in northwest florida and went into the federal judge in northwest florida at least while i was practicing we would be sanctioned in a second and probably kick us out of the courtroom on the spot. The opinion is unbelievably harsh, and Jonathan Lemire, theyre from trump appointees. You just you know, you just kind of get the sense that President Trump is going through the motions but, you know, his heart doesnt seem to be in it. He knows its over. So what is he doing . Is he is he playing for that announcement that hes going to be running again in 2024 . Whats going on inside the white house . Well, i believe the trump legal teams record of success is Something Like 1 for 37 at this point, which is a batting average, frankly, would have been good enough to beat the red sox starting second baseman last year but thats not going to overturn an election. But they have shown no signs of giving this up, at least not yet. Lets flash back a few days. Wednesday, when joe biden was delivering his president ial message to the country, we had the image of Rudy Giuliani and other trump team lawyers in a ballroom, in a Wyndham Hotel just outside of gettysburg, pennsylvania, holds a mock hearing to discussion alleged voting irregularities there which featured the president of the United States calling in and being placed on speaker phone and making more and more baseless allegations of irregularities. And we had over the weekend more of the same. And his team signalled the legal challenges will continue, but to your question, joe, theres no expectation within the white house, within the president s inner circle that is going to change. That joe biden wont be sworn in on january 20th. This is about projecting the fight. This is about sowing doubts about the election. Yes, this is about plotting whatever his next move may be. He did for the first time publicly say on thanksgiving night that yes, he would leave the white house when his term was up. If the Electoral College he said, if, the Electoral College did indeed give this race to joe biden which he said would be a mistake but everyone around the president knows that will happen. Its about what comes next. First of all, this weekend, we had the president suggesting that he will go to georgia to campaign for those Senate Runoffs which is being met with a split reaction from republicans. Some who fear he will spend a 90 minute rally criticizing the governor or the georgia secretary of state, a republican, who hes talked about and not helped the gop candidates there as they try to hang on to the majority. At the very least, joe, what im told is even if he doesnt officially announce a 2024 bid in the coming weeks hes going to suggest hes looking at it because he wants to keep his viability up. He of course upon leaving office is going to want to make some money. Theres some suggestion hell attach himself to a media venture, there is speculation it could be newsmax. An up and coming fox rival. He wont cede the stage quietly. But as long as he believes that he can string this out and more people are talking about him, that will damage the biden presidency and freeze the gop field if indeed trump does want to plunge forward for 24. Its all very fascinating, of course. You talk about the president in georgia. Theres a movement afoot there for people who are really upset with whats going on to start a writein campaign for donald trump in the state of florida. A lot of trump supporter georgia, im sorry. A lot of Trump Supporters are so upset and still so energized, they dont trust the governor. They dont trust the republican secretary of state. Kelly loeffler who has been brought into the Conspiracy Theory by sidney powell, claiming she and Governor Kemp, conspired to beat doug collins. So their best revenge is actually a writein bid for donald trump to be the senator from georgia and they believe the more votes they will get i cant do it with a straight face. What a strong leader he is, if they do those writein votes for donald trump in georgia in those senate races. Both senate races. Yeah, thats one way you could actually show your support for President Trump at this time. So, kasie, let me ask you. Despite the madness in georgia, despite the fact that you have the secretary of state and the governor of georgia being attacked by donald trump, being part of this Conspiracy Theory, theyre in good company. The head of the fbi who donald trump actually nominated and selected and his selection of course to be attorney general of the United States also being attacked over the weekend by donald trump. Sydney powell attacking Kelly Loeffler in the state of georgia saying that she and Governor Kemp rigged the process to put her in the runoff instead of doug collins. Im wondering what impact does that have on the race . Do republican insides, are they expressing any concerns about that or do you think do think they its just much ado about nothing . Well, joe, the they have a problem, they know they have a problem. Its i dont think theyre convinced yet that the problem is so bad that its going to take down these two candidates and, you know, the fundamentals they think are still probably in their favor. But they have never dealt with anything like this before. We never had the majority on the line in a state that is just swinging from red to blue, is now firmly in swing state territory. But you know, there have been enough conspiracy theories floating out there, i noticed the other day donald trump jr. Was tweeting that republicans needed to go out and vote for loeffler and for perdue and that there were some people who were suggesting that people in georgia shouldnt go out and vote for those candidates because it was there was some sort of conspiracy related to President Trump and the president s son felt like im sure i was reporting it out behind the scenes but clearly the Senatorial Committee needed some help from somebody who talks to that quote unquote, the make America Great again crowd who needed him to say, please vote here. Theres a disconnect going on between the Republican Party used to running these kind of elections and the group of people that supports donald trump. Theres this is a place where the misinformation is causing a problem with republicans for republicans. And that obviously has huge implications. I mean, if youre Mitch Mcconnell its kind of head exploding stuff. Yeah. I mean, if youre Donald Trumps supporters in the state of georgia youre hearing the president say theres actually a conspiracy from the republicans in the state of georgia against him, from the governor, from the secretary of state. If youre listening to sidney powell, youre hearing someone say whos of course been fighting for the president s cause, youre hearing somebody saying that Kelly Loeffler and the republican governor of georgia were in a conspiracy to illegally put her on the ballot instead of doug collins. So thats why some people are just saying, hey, show your support for donald trump in the state of georgia by just writing his name in, to show how much you still support the president of the United States. You know, also this weekend, Donald Trumps focus in his attacks and his false claims with cities, not surprisingly, cities specifically with high black populations. He railed against philadelphia, detroit, atlanta, milwaukee, and a number of tweets lying about corruption there. He also said this on fox news. Now detroit and philadelphia, milwaukee, these are among the most dishonest political places. Look at the past history. Im not being rude to anybody. These are highly corrupt locations politically. But poll watchers were walked out by thugs out of the building. I mean, reverend al where do we even start . Walked out by thugs, out of the building. Talking about actually, counties that had black voters in it that were responsible for donald trump losing michigan, pennsylvania and of course georgia. Here is the further criminalization of blacks that donald trump has engaged in throughout his career. Lets not forget he was the one that called for the Death Penalty for five black and brown young men who were accused wrongly of raping a white female in central park. A very despicable act but they didnt do it. He wanted them to have the Death Penalty and to this day says they should have never been given a settlement for the wrongful actions by the city. When he pinpoint this, he singles the cities with the large black populations and there are many cities that ended up voting against him. But this is his racial dog whistling and this is what hes done throughout his career. What makes it so egregious, were doing this in the year that we john lewis who was beaten for giving the blacks the right to vote and we lost david dinkins. He has an in effect has shown how far we have to go to continue to beat down bigots. I spent a lot of this weekend reading the Joe Scarborough book on harry truman who rose from segregated parents to signing the law or signing the act that really broke down segregation in the armed forces. Donald trump did not grow from a segregated in effect, a segment of queens new york. Hes gone backwards and reminds us of the yesteryears that we keep trying to march and get away from. And you are right. Harry truman of course surprised everybody in 1948 by desegregating if armed forces and grew throughout his life. Donald trump has regressed and regressed specifically through this campaign and its now and is now talking about thugs as poll watchers. See, thats whats so fascinating, this type of talk that Donald Trumps engaged in over the past four years had caused him support in white suburbs. A good bit of support in white suburbs which actually as we sort through the numbers many experts who know a lot more about this than me are saying that its actually the bleeding of support in those white suburbs by a lot of former republicans who were offended by his racist rhetoric. Republicans like me who knew they couldnt vote for him. And yet he continues it even after the election. Still ahead on morning joe, the United States hit another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. 4 million cases in the month of november alone. Well have the very latest on the impact to americas hospitals. Also a flipflop in new york city about kids going to school. I know Jonathan Lemire and quite a few others are pleased actually that mayor de blasio changed his mind there. And a lot going on across the country, as it pertains to this pandemic. Shattering one record after another. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. We made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. When a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. Usaa. What youre made of, were made for. Usaa usaa. What youre made of, were made for. Its a thirteenhour flight, tfifteen minutes until we board. Oh yeah, we gotta take off. You downloaded the Td Ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets . Yeah, actually im taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. Excellent. And you have thinkorswim mobile so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. You two are all set. Have a great flight. Thanks. Well see ya. Ah, theyre getting so smart. Choose the app that fits your investing style. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Dshea i live in south jamaica, born and raised. Im a doordasher, im a momma with a special needs child, she is the love of my life. Doordash provides so much flexibility. If something happens with her, where i need to be home, i can just log out and just say okay, my family needs me. I dont have to answer to nobody. I dont want to be nobodys employee. I do what i want, im independent. Independent lady. Thats what i like about it. [whats this . ] oh, are we kicking karly out . We live with at t. It was a lapse in judgment. At t, we called this house meeting because you advertise gigspeed internet, but we cant sign up for that here. Yeah, but im just like warming up to those speeds. Youve lived here two years. The personal attacks arent helping, karly. Dont you have like a hot pilates class to get to or something . [ muffled scream ] stop living with at t. Xfinity can deliver gig to the most homes. What we expect unfortunately as we go for the next couple of weeks into december that we might see a surge superimposed upon that surge that were already in. I want to be straight with the american people. Its going to get worse over the next several weeks. We saw what happened post memorial day. Now we are deeply worried about what could happen post thanksgiving. Boy, kasie hunt, Donald Trumps medical advisers are not pulling their punches at all. They expect a bad situation to get worse and they expect it to get worse in part because of the thanksgiving holidays. No, its true and the president himself not really talking about this at all. Even though the National Coronavirus outbreak is escalating incredibly sharply. This month alone, u. S. Cases have surpassed 4 million. Thats more than double the record 1. 9 million cases set in october and deaths are at the highest levels since april and may and hospitals are facing a shortage of beds and staff to provide adequate care for patients. The hospitalizations set another record. California reports more covid19 patients in state hospitals than at any other point during the pandemic. Joining us now the head of the st. Louis metropolitan task force and in the past month, ssm has had to turn away about 50 patients that it couldnt immediately care for due to the strain on the Hospital System from covid19. Doctor, good morning to you. Lets start there. You are at the point where youre having to turn away patients. Whats it like to have to do that as a doctor . What kind of patients are you sending away and is this going to get worse for you as the surge increases . Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on, kasie. So youre exactly right. Its a very discouraging thing whenever we cant take care of patients who need us. And so youre correct. We have either run out of capacity or we are at capacity on any given day. As i checked our numbers last night we had one intensive care unit bed throughout eight of our hospitals in the st. Louis area. We have to transfer the patients outside of the st. Louis metropolitan area, so i was at one of the hospitals on friday checking in on our staff and we were actively flying a patient from st. Louis to quincy, illinois, because that was the closest intensive care unit bed that we could find within our geographical area, which is shocking when you think about st. Louis as a major metropolitan area. But were unable to find an intensive unit bed. So your questions about what types of patients it could be covid, strokes, heart attack, anything. Once our units get full that means we cant take care of a multitude of medical cases not just covid cases thats what makes it a really difficult time right now. You know, doctor, when this first hit the headlines in early march, everybody was focused on new york city. The numbers were high, the Media Capital of the United States, perhaps the world. Everyone was focused on new york city and people in Middle America saw this as a manhattan centric, a queens centric problem. A brooklyn centric problem. And everybody was warning dr. Fauci was warning, dr. Birx, they were all warning that this was going to be a problem in americas heartland soon enough and everybody needed to be prepared. Looks like that time is already upon us and it seems to be getting worse. How dire do you expect this situation to be as we move toward the Christmas Holidays . Yeah. Thats a great question, joe. And youre absolutely right. In st. Louis we did have a spring surge but our elected officials here actually were very aggressive in tamping down the cases by doing shelter at home orders, things like that. But then as the summer months came on and the cases evolved, everybody was sort of taken into the false sense of security that the pandemic was going to go away. We knew that was not going to be in true. But in answer to your question, we do significant modeling and we expect the cases and the hospitalizations to continue to increase throughout the remainder of the year. I think the only question, how high are they going to go . How high are the cases going to go, how high are the number of people in the hospitals. And unfortunately how high is the death toll . We have started to bring in more trailers to accommodate the people that have passed away in some of our hospitals. I dont say that for a fear mongerer. Thats just a reality. Once you start having this degree of hospitalizations and people in intensive care youre going to see more people die. You look at the trend lines. Jonathan lemire, look at the number of cases every day. Its staggering. We were all so on guard back in march. For good reason. It was something new. We dont know how dangerous it was going to be. There of course was some conspiracy theorists who were denying reality, who are still denying reality. But by and large, most americans were responsible. But you look at these numbers that are skyrocketing up now, the situation is actually far more dire now than it was back in march, back in april, when most americans were the most on guard. Theres no doubt about it. My family, im sure your family, every family out there is tired, is exhausted by this pandemic and theyre ready to move on. Unfortunately, 267,000 americans are dead and we keep breaking records every day for confirmed cases. Over 13 million confirmed cases and we seem to be breaking new records every week. And these are staggering and heart breaking numbers, joe. There was no question. Covid fatigue has set in across this country and its hard to blame people. We have been living with this for the better part of a year. Americans are tired, they want their lives to resume and certainly everyone sees the Vaccine Development as great news. That it does appear like it is, you know, potentially the first doses, the few weeks away and for most americans, you know, its a matter of months. But it still is a matter of months, doctor. And i wanted to ask you, you know, certainly though there is some light at the end of the tunnel we have a long, dark winter ahead of us as Vice President elect biden has said. You talked about the icu capacity and the lack of hospital beds. Can you update us on terms of the ppe and so on, how are you doing in terms of the staffing, and do you have any enough nurses and doctors to treat the patients and what sort of numbers are you seeing in they themselves getting sick . Yeah. Thats a really great question. So early on in the pandemic, i think everybody recognized that ppe and testing supplies were the ones that everybody was competing for. But now we have were doing okay with that equipment, with ventilators and with personal protective equipment. Really what were competing on now is staff. So as you can imagine, as this pandemic has worn on first of all, were short staffed to begin with. Theres a nursing shortage, then compound wit the pandemic and then you have some attrition of the workforce. By that i mean nurses are getting sick. Theyre having to go into quarantine, isolation. Some of them are quite frankly burned out and they have just left the workforce. So now what you have is really a National Competition for Skilled Nursing staff and for respiratory therapists that run ventilators. So now were paying the exorbitant amounts for contract nursing. You know, two and three times more than we would normally pay. And youre competing with everybody for a very limited staff. So what we tell people is space isnt really the issue. We have some space. We have some beds. We just dont have the staff to treat patients right now. And were competing with everybody not just in the midwest, but really across the country for this very Skilled Staff and ill just put in one more plug here. The staff is getting tired. They are completely burned out. We have limited visitors into the hospital. So these nurses take over a role of being the patients family as well as their caregiver. And emotionally this is taking a tremendous toll on them. And as we have talked with our nurses, you know, you think about how were going to see this almost like a posttraumatic distress order is going to be affecting our nursing staff throughout this pandemic and afterwards. And thats something that a regular guest has told us, gillian galin, from Mclean Hospital in boston, has warned us for some time that the stress and then the posttraumatic stress, that so many medical providers are going to be dealing with is going to be something that were going to be dealing with for decades. Hey, thank you so much for being with us. Dr. Garza, head of the st. Louis metropolitan task force. I greatly appreciate it. Lets move from st. Louis to new york city. After shutting down all Public Schools in new york city, mayor bill de blasio announced yesterday that hes going to reopen the citys Elementary Schools. Students in prek and grades one through five to return next week if they already opted into inperson learning for the school year. Students in middle and high schools will continue virtual learning. Mayor de blasio said that he signalled the overhaul was how the based on how the city manages the system during the pandemic and hes going to abandon a 3 test positivity that had been adopted for Closing School systems. He also stated that hed give the parents the option of sending them to school five days a week, which would affect the hybrid learning system. This abrupt shift in policy comes amid widespread criticism that city officials were prioritizing Economic Activity such as Indoor Dining over the wellbeing of new york citys children. Governor andrew cuomo said he supports the mayors efforts to reopen the schools. So reverend al, the one thing that we have learned, at least where i am and i think a lot of people have been learning it across the country is the numbers. You have had people in the fall going back trying Elementary Schools, restarting in person. Middle schools, high schools. The numbers for Elementary School have just been so much lower than everybody else that this move actually makes a lot of sense, doesnt it . It does because the numbers speak or the themselves. I think mayor de blasio said from the beginning theyd be guided by the science. Governor cuomo has said that. Even on some areas they disagreed they have been agreeable on this. I think this makes sense because the Elementary Students clearly by all data that we have seen have been the least impacted or the least infected by this. And that i believe a lot of parents that are concerned must also be concerned about the health of those that are older and those around the holidays. So i think this is a make sense kind of move by the mayor and he took a lot of flak, but i think he weighed it on the numbers. Safety of students and safety of adults are what is paramount here. Were not out of the woods. If you ride around manhattan, they have the Christmas Lights up and enticing people to shop. We cannot get away from the fact that we are still in the danger zone and people that are in office are going to make decisions that will make us uncomfortable, but will make us healthy. Youre right. Were getting into the Christmas Season and you look at the restaurants that are open, the bars that are open. You look at the stores that are open. Im certainly not making an appeal to close any of those things. That depends again on what Public Health officials are saying. But to keep restaurants open and to close schools its sort of like nevada when they were shutting down churches but were keeping casinos open. There needs to be a consistency and when it comes to schools, Jonathan Lemire, i will tell you for middle and for high schoolchildren and for college students, there is as we have said for quite some time, there is the Mental Health component to this. We have looked at the numbers. We have had september and october and into november to see how things have been going this fall. Some schools have been getting it right on all levels and it seems like cities ought to be able to engage and use best practices from across the country and do everything they can to have those schools staying open being their first priority. Then they can worry about bars. Then they can worry about casinos. They need to do that and also for a lot of working parents that you know, jonathan, you know, keeping those schools closed when youre keeping casinos open and youre going to keep restaurants open, not really helping parents on a number of levels, but especially not helping parents getting back to work. You said it, joe. The word is priorities and by telling who you are, in terms of whether its a city, state, or a society. What matters the most it would be hard to argue that the wellbeing of our children, of our students no matter the grade should come first. There was an extraordinary blow back in new york city when schools shut a few weeks ago. Yet, Indoor Dining and bars and even in a limited capacity remained open. And the 3 rate that was used to trigger the shutdown was agreed on in advance. One that extraordinarily is lower than most jurisdictions and all of the evidence suggests a far lower transmission rate among the young kids and there are concerns about teachers and thats real. But what the mayor rolled out yesterday, the new plan which is resoundingly applauded, which is more testing in the schools which of course will go a long way to keeping them safe. And certainly, look, as you know, no one is asking for Indoor Dining to shut. What needs there needs to be help there, relief, federal relief for bars and restaurants but thats a different matter. But in terms of schools i think we need to think about its not just the childrens short term health. But long term health. They had to go into Remote Learning last march. Have had Remote Learning or a hybrid model this fall coming into the winter now. And that is time they simply wont get back. We havent perfected that model yet. These students are suffering and theres real concerns that this is theyre losing ground here. Losing time. They wont be able to recover down the road. This will be longterm impact for all of them. And the studies suggest that going in to classrooms, going into their schools, seeing their friends, socialization is part of it too, even if its a few days a week, even if it cant be all five, certainly new york is shifting course and schooling should be a model for cities across the country. As far as better economic backgrounds, their parents are going to be able to get tutors. Parents are going to be able to get whatever they need to make sure that they dont miss a beat during this time. Its the students who are already behind that fall further behind the more schools are closed down. So lets hope we can strike the right balance, not just in new york city, but keep striking the right balance across the country and again if youre going to keep casinos open, if youre going to keep restaurants and bars open, keep the schools open. Keep the churches open. Its not that not that complicated. Coming up, when he leaves office, can exPresident Trump be trusted with the National Security secrets . Well speak to ken dilanian numb. And then a look at what the post calls 20 days of fantasy and failure. Thats next on morning joe. A live bookkeeper is helping customize quickbooks for me. Okay, youre all set up. Thanks that was my business gi, this ones casual. Get set up right with a live bookkeeper with intuit quickbooks. How did you find greatgrandmas recipe . Were related to them . Were portuguese . I thought we were hungarian . Grandpa, can you tell me the story again . Behind every question is a story waiting to be discovered. [anthat can leave cleaning gaps and wrap hair. Ion so shark replaced them with flexible power fins to directly engage floors and dig deep into carpets. Pick up more on every pass with no hair wrap. Shark vertex with duoclean power fins. Experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. With zero down, zero due at signing, joint pain, swelling, temy psoriasis. Cosentyx works on all of this. Cosentyx can help you look and feel better by treating the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. Dont use if youre allergic to cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. Tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms, if your inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen, or if youve had a vaccine, or plan to. Serious allergic reactions may occur. Watch me get real relief with cosentyx. Its total fraud and how the fbi and department of justice, i dont know, maybe theyre involved but how people are allowed to get away with this stuff is unbelievable. This election was rigged. Shouldnt this be something that the fbi is investigating . Are they . Is the doj investigating . Missing in action. Cant tell you where they are. I asked are they looking at it, everyone says yes, theyre looking at it. You would think if youre in the fbi or department of justice this is this is the biggest thing you could be looking at. Where are they . I have not seen anything. The problem is its hard to get into the Supreme Court. I have got the best Supreme Court advocates, lawyers, that want to argue the case if it gets there. But they said its very hard to get a case up there. We should be heard by the Supreme Court. Something has to be able to get up there, otherwise, what is the Supreme Court . Well, that clip of course from saturday night live, we hope you enjoyed it. Hard to actually parody that. Its so funny. That was donald trump yesterday essentially accusing the fbi and the department of justice of rigging the election and now hes upset with the Supreme Court for refusing to get involved in legal battles that would overturn the results they cant even get past his lawyers his lawyers cant get past the lower courts so how would they get to the Supreme Court . With us now, state attorney general for palm beach, Dave Aronberg and covering National Security and intelligence. Ken dilanian. When he leaves office, can trump be trusted with National Security secrets. Im glad you put in the leg work on it, ken. I know you a lot of work involved here. But, you know, if you just think back to i think it was may, maybe it was may of 2017 when he blurted out classified information to russias foreign minister in the white house and russias ambassador to the United States. You look now and it seems only thing more dangerous than this president in office with classified secrets, but also maybe even more dangerous when he leaves office. And he contains classified information, a wealth of classified information that he can either pass on to other people, sell to other people, trade to other people. It certainly is going to be make things more difficult for the Intel Community, isnt it . It sure is, joe. What my National Security sources say he fits the security risk, hes deeply in debt and you have people like former Bush Administration official Jack Goldsmith openly speculating that donald trump may well sell secrets. Goldsmith told he mes worried that a foreign country will put trump on retainer to get the information in his head. As we know, donald trump is more than 400 million in debt and its held by a foreign bank with ties to russian oligarchs. So theres that question. But even if you put that aside and say, look, donald trump is not going to commit a federal crime and sell the secrets in his head or some he might get. But then theres the record of indiscretions and carelessness with classified information. It wasnt just that horrific episode in 2017 in the oval office. He tweeted what experts said was a classified photo of an iranian satellite launch. Just this year, he told the Journalist Bob Woodward about a secret Nuclear Weapon that he said the russians and the chinese didnt know about. Lets stipulate theres nothing we can do about the information in Donald Trumps head, but what my sources are saying is he should not be afforded the traditional courtesy of classified briefings once he leaves office. People dont realize that former president s get classified briefings, particularly when theyre going to travel aboard. When the current president wants to consult them about an issue and we cant imagine that happening with joe biden and donald trump, but sometimes they get an ipad or a briefing from a security officer. What theyre saying is that should not happen with donald trump. If he does get the briefings, joe biden will have a decision to make. You know, ken, you talked about the indiscretion and he has been extraordinarily indiscreet with americas classified information. When youre president of the United States, you decide what can be classified and declassified instantly. I think thats one of the one of the many post trump era reforms that need to be fixed. But also though it may not be as simple as him going on retainer for another country. This is a guy whos been desperate to get his company in to russia desperate to get his company into china and to build towers across the world. Who knows what could happen and given his background, i think it certainly would be reasonable and rational for intel the Intel Community to be concerned that this guy could trade information through a third party to be able to get Start Building a tower in a country that wants desperately needs information from the United States. That they cant get. And except they could get it from the former president. So what in the world could be done . Well, im not sure what could be done. I mean, if joe biden assigns an fbi Counterintelligence Team to monitor donald trump, imagine that how would that would go over. Who youre describing here, we have never had a former president with these kind of foreign business entanglements. Even leaving aside the massive debts that we know that donald trump is in, just the idea that he has the current or the possible business deals in adversary countries like russia and china and his close relationship with the gulf arabs, with saudi arabia, that raises so many questions. In fact, somebody with that profile would never under normal circumstances be given a security clearance. Now, of course president s arent evaluated for security clearances but evaluated by the voters and when they take office, they take control of the nations secrets, as you said, and they can declassify whatever they want. But former president s, theres really no law that governs a former president being granted access to secrets. It is entirely up to the current president its a courtesy. Theyre not evaluated for the security risks. Its never come up before. But joe biden is going to have a decision to make here if in fact donald trump or the people around him ask for these briefings because donald trump would not qualify under normal circumstances to see top secret information for the reasons that you described. Yeah. Well, donald trump would never have qualified in a thousand years, would never have qualified for any top secret briefings, any to have any access to classified documents if he had not been elected president of the United States. So Dave Aronberg, what were talking about what post trump reforms we need to implement, i just brought up the idea that a president can just blurt out classified information and suddenly it becomes declassified and theres no no penalty that attaches to that. Lets talk about the pardon power. Here trump is pardoning people that were involved in possible conspiracy that he could have been involved in. We have you know, we had all of these Administration Officials at the beginning of the Trump Presidency lying through their teeth. Left and right about their contacts with russia. At the top of the list is a guy who admitted he did it twice in front of the court and apologized. Donald trump said he had to fire him because he lied to the Vice President and lied to the fbi. And yet, at the end of the term after spending three years sort of nodding and winking to flynn that if he didnt cooperate he would get a pardon what does he get . A pardon. Joe, im troubled by it as well. I dont think we have seen any precedent for an american president to give a pardon to someone who can implicate him in the crime and trump knows it looks bad which is why he didnt want to do it himself. He wanted attorney general barr to issue a doj pardon which is just to drop the entire case against flynn entirely and thats what he did. It was so unethical and judge Emmitt Sullivan refused to go along and judge sullivan forced the president s hand, forced his hands to get dirty. Because the president s pardon power is broad and it is in the constitution. Unlike the doj pardon which is totally unethical. But President Trump knows it made him look bad and thats why he did it on the eve of thanksgiving. Now that he issued that pardon, flynn can be called in to congress to testify under oath about trump and russia and not receive the fifth amendment protection against selfincrimination because he has no threat of incrimination because he was pardoned. This opens up an entire new can of worms, and if he lies under oath, flynn can be charged with perjury. So dave, he me ask you about of course, the president s power to pardon himself, there have been a lot of theories swirling around washington, d. C. , would the president try to pardon himself . Some trump insiders believe that the court wouldnt uphold that. So theyre wondering whether trump resigns from office a day before and allows pence to pardon him and his entire family. We cant speculate as to that point, but any idea on whether the Supreme Court would allow a president to pardon himself . Joe, i dont think so. This issue has never been decided by the courts but if you look at the constitution it says the president can grant a pardon. Generally when you grant something its to other people, not yourself and the constitution didnt want the president to pardon himself if he couldnt get out of impeachment for doing so. So i think the courts are going to rule against the president for this. I think also it may not even matter because he can try to resign early and let pence pardon him. Or try to pardon himself. But the greatest existential threat to this president is the case in manhattan by my counterpart, cyrus vance jr. , who has been pursuing President Trumps taxes and will get them and once he gets them he can use them to charge the president criminally. You know, he has been doing this investigation for a couple of years now. You dont engage in a multiyear can case for nothing. Those state prosecutions are pardon proof. No one can pardon him from a state prosecution and the job of state attorney or the District Attorney is the best in the world. The president , not your boss. All right. State attorney for palm beach county, Dave Aronberg and ken dilanian, thank you for your important reporting. We do appreciate you being on the show this morning. Lets bring in a few more voices to the conversation. Political reporter for the Washington Post, and msnbc political analyst, robert costa. Hes a moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Also u. S. National editor of the financial times, ed luce. And donny deutsch, advertising legend and branding guru is with us as well. Kasie, quite a story that bob was a part of in the Washington Post. Yeah, bob and his colleagues, you absolutely to have to read it. This tiktok. They interviewed 32 senior Administration Officials, campaign aides, advisers to the president , other key figures in the president s legal fight. The Washington Post taking a look at what happened between the november 3rd election and the day that President Trump green lit joe bidens transition on november 23rd. As the the post puts it those 20 days exemplified the hallmarks of life in his white house, a government paralyzed by his fragile state. And expletive laden feuds between aides and advisers and a pernicious blurring of truth and fantasy. In the days after the election, he ignored the aides and the lawyers and instead trump empowered loyalists who were willing to tell him what he wanted to hear. That he would have won in a landslide had the election not been rigged and stolen. Even after giving the General Services administration the go ahead to initiate bidens transition, trump went on to falsely claim that he won. That the election was a total scam and that his legal challenges would continue full speed ahead. He even spent part of thanksgiving calling advisers to ask if they believed he really had lost the election. Thats according to a person familiar with the calls. Great reporting by philip rucker, ashley parker, josh dossi and amy gardiner. Joe, thanksgiving, this is how the president spent his thanksgiving calling advisers per the post to ask if they believed that in fact he lost to joe biden. Well, and he does know he lost to joe biden. By the way, we assume every article on the front page of the Washington Post is written by bob costa. Not this particular one, but were glad to have him here. But, you know, thats donald trump knows he lost. Hes trying to figure out how to get there publicly. Probably not going to be able to get there publicly to ever admit that he lost. But it certainly, bob costa, if you look at all of the results coming in, from wisconsin, to michigan, to arizona, to georgia, officials that voted for donald trump, carried his water for four years. Even contributed to donald trump, even theyre saying this election was fair. We have counted all the votes. And joe biden won. Its a reality that certainly is i dont know if its crashing down on Donald Trumps head. But its something that hes becoming more and more aware of every day. Its not so much awareness for donald trump at this point, based on my conversations with the president s advisers and friends but about building a new reality. He is looking ahead to 2021 and it should be said to 2024. He wants to one, dominate the Republican Party, through the Republican National committee. Two, he wants to continue a grievance style politics which is where he not only blames the democrats or blames makes baseless claims against voter fraud but blames his own advisers, people he appointed at the fbi and department of justice and say that the system is rigged. This is about protecting his brand, this is about creating a Grievance Campaign that sustains him politically in the future. You know, its interesting, ed luce, from the southern most part of florida to the northern most part of maine, if you were out on any waterway, you saw a flag that said trump 2020 and ill be careful here because the kids are watching, and underneath it says f, fill in the blank your feelings. And how ironic that it is the president s own fragile feelings after he lost. The fragile feelings of millions of his supporters that right now is Holding American democracy in check right now, stopping us from moving forward. Stopping the president elect of moving forward and all of us moving Forward Together as one. Im assuming the f was feel your feelings. I think the president is a snowflake in chief, he always has been. Hes an incredibly hypersensitive, thinskinned person and hes attuned to the most minor of slights. His character is kind of the opposite of the macho masculine image that he likes to project. Its somebody who gets easily offended and hurt and wounded and needs constant salving and flattery and praise. As that Washington Post article brings out so well, he rewards people who do that. I think the danger here isnt just trumps ego. I think hes setting up a stabbed in the back betrayal myth that is going to dog biden from before day one and in his administration. Because hes going to be seen as illegitimate. Trump is stoking up something that isnt going to go away. Even if he goes away, the stole the election myth is going to be very strongly rooted on the right in American Culture and so i think it goes beyond his snowflake hypersensitivity to being a loser. I think it extends to doing what it takes to try to ensure that biden is a loser. You know, donny deutsch, in the culture i grew up, in the southern culture i grew up, i think you may have grown up in the same sort of culture, you know, it wasnt a crime losing. That wasnt the problem. You work like hell, you fight like hell. You do everything you can to win. And when you come up short, you take off your helmet, you shake the hand of the other guy. You tell him he did a good job. And you might even say, hey, ill tell you what, you beat me this time, but ill be back. Congratulations. Thats what we teach our children. I have been coaching football and baseball and yes, it was ugly. Soccer. I only did that one year. But been coaching baseball and all these other sports and thats what i always teach my kids. You know, im coaching. First of all, dont ever talk to the ump. Ill do that. Dont ever look you know, show respect and show respect to your opponents. When you win, fantastic. Dont rub their nose in it. When you lose, shake their hands and tell them good job. What donald trump is doing right now, it goes against what by the way, all the parents that i have known like for blanking 40 years have done the same thing. This goes against everything that we teach our children. This goes against everything. I ought to say, you know, maybe ill get in trouble for saying this, but at least in the culture where im from, its unmanly to sit here and whine and pout the way hes whining and pouting. You get knocked on the ground, bear bryant would say, wipe yourself up, get up on your feet and try it again. This guys not doing it. Hes he is acting disgraceful that wed never allow our children, our girls and boys, in competitive sports to be. And hes just, again, this display is just again the culture im from in the deep south it is just unmanly. Joe, he was a he was a sore winner and hes an impotent loser. Roy cohn was the greatest influence and he taught him, even if you lose, you didnt lose. If you lose in court, you say you won. He does look pathetic. I want to throw it out to the group, it is so assumed that donald trump is going to have a hold on the Republican Party. I want to challenge that for a second. There is something that happens when you lose. And you just gave a great speech about his losing and what a loser he is. And what happens to power after that point. And i want to fast forward with we pass an infrastructure bill for the first time, maybe joe biden and Mitch Mcconnell are working together. If theres any chance of that, they have a small chance of that. The economy continues to go. And people are relaxed. And people are looking back and going, maybe that didnt feel so good. We assumed that donald trump i believe its a moment in time. I believe hes a oneterm president and oneterm president s none of them historically have gone on to have any impact and i want to challenge that assumptions. If there are one or two or three brave republicans and i know thats stretching it, and kasie would agree with that, to put themselves in the ring already, i think people are tired. I think even the 70 million who voted for them, maybe they were afraid of a hard left democratic shift which is not going to happen with joe biden. I think his impotence is showing 27 days after the election. I think 127 days after the election, donald trump may not be the force and the influence that we see him as today. Lemire . Im sorry, i thought Jonathan Lemire was going to talk. I know that we have a 14second delay. But, jonathan, what do you think about all of this . Joe, i will happily step into the breach here. I think that theres Something Interesting here about what donny raises the idea of, if americans are fatigued. The trump and the advisers are already eyeing 24 if note a fullfledged candidacy. He wants to keep his name in the headlines and booked on whatever cable channel he wants and to make some money and potentially if he does want to jump in do so by freezing the field in advance. I do wonder, four years is a long time. Particularly in politics and whether trump will maintain that hold is an open question. And bob, i wanted to go to you. Sort of dovetailing this point. We know the president this coming weekend is going to head to georgia and at least according to my reporting is delivering a split reaction among the republicans as to whether or not they think thats a good idea, whether hell be helpful or not. What are you hearing on that and also, will this moment, will that rally, will those Senate Runoff races will they pose an early test as to his staying power and the hold on the gop Going Forward . It also poses an early test for how the south play moving forward. Those who want donald trump to come to georgia, oh, this is still the georgia of old, its all about rallying white voters in the suburbs of atlanta. Get President Trump to come down there, talking about taxes, take some hits at the media and get the voters out. But the counter, and this is of concern in the georgia gop circles, this is the georgia of stacey abrams, more asianamericans, more black americans and white liberals building a new coalition in the state and by coming down to georgia youre not only stoking middle class older white voters in the atlanta suburbs but stoking that entirely new and energized liberal base in georgia. A base that helped biden win the state. Yeah. Bob, it really underscores the dilemma of the entire Republican Party right now and, you know, donny, i want to go to ed luce on this too. But donny to pick up on what youre saying in terms of republicans that donald trump, whether he runs in 2024 or not, the problem is that someone is if he is going to run, somebody is going to have to beat him. And thats where i trip because i get it, hes now officially lost an election, there may be people who turn on him on that. But right now, the Republican Base is so rabidly pro trump if anyone else wanted to step up and run, they would likely have to criticize President Trump if in fact he was in the arena. So i mean, if youre youre the branding guru here. If youre trying to figure out how to thread that needle, where do you find voters if youre trying to win a president ial primary with donald trump in the feel . Heres my message. Donald trump lost. Donald trump lost. We need to win back. He doesnt have the stuff. He lost last time. Hell lose again. I like donald trump, i like donald trump personally. He is not the future of the Republican Party. The future of the Republican Party looks like this. And you just continue to brand him a loser. You know, we are a country we celebrate winners. Even if you think about the way you look at donald trump now, you used to react, where you you know you were very tense and angry and nervous. Now if youre at home and youre watching donald trump, its and i can of like look at this jerk, look at this loser. The word loser is with him now. And if im a republican, i am running on the future. And we always look at today. Im talking about a year from now. Im talking about after donald trump is done, eight or ten more moronic things in the media, maybe a failed media venture, but picture him a year from now, when hes tried a few more business ventures. He will be looking like a dusted loser at that point. I think theres an opportunity and i think a year from now, post thanksgiving, 2021, well be looking at donald trump in a very, very different way. I really believe that. Well, ed luce, i mean, lets just look at the reality thats in front of us now. If youre a republican, and youre looking across the landscape, the political battlefield, you say, okay, lets do the postmortem on the 2020 election. You look at republicans that ran across the country, you look at the republicans that ran for house seats. They did extraordinarily well. They so outperformed all expectations for them. Nobody i think theres Something Like 24 of 24 races that were, you know, called tossups. Republicans won all 24 of those races and all of my years in politics covering politics, i have never seen that happen. In the senate, you had one senator after another, one republican after another, outperforming all expectations. I dont think there is a poll that showed Susan Collins behind. Or ahead. And yet, Susan Collins won the state of maine by nine points. The same state that donald trump lost by nine points. So yes, i understand there are some never say die trumpers. That may always support this guy and some people who still support sarah palin. But if you look at the political reality out there, republicans across america did great. All republicans across america did really, really well. Except for donald trump and he by over 3 he gave biden had over 300 electoral votes. Biden got more votes than any other president ial candidate in u. S. History and hes going to win by a massive margin of six, seven million votes. What republican looking at that would say, gee, yeah, we want to give that guy another chance. Thats a good question, but i think in some respects biden has sort of the sorry, trump is sort of the mirror image of obama because obama won the top of the ticket, but his party just kept losing state houses across the country. Well, trump has presided over an expansion of an already very strong republican grip on state houses across america and theyre now going to have a gerrymandering opportunity for the next decade. But i think trumpians would argue thats because of trump, that this is a hyperpartisan, hyper polarized environment that trump kind of personifies. Pull people out of the down the ballot ticket and what resulted in a victory for the democrats earlier this month. I would agree though with the question, who is it going who is going to defeat trump, if indeed he does the preposterous thing of announcing his 2024 campaign on the day that biden is inaugurated. Im not sure he will, but i wouldnt put it past him. If he does that preposterous thing who is going to knock him off the perch and with what argument . I suspect anybody who within the Republican Party who tried to do that now would be committing suicide, political suicide, whether its nikki haley or marco rubio or somebody from one of the governors. He does have a grip on this party which we shouldnt underestimate. I agree entirely is we get more and more bored of him us on the panel, more and more bored of him and his whining but were not seeing or hearing the same person as his base. So they remain very, very fired up. Reverend al, let me get your take on this, this divide between the president and his party. He obviously lost the election, but republicans did make more gains than we expected. If youre the democratic party, how do you look at that . What do you need to spend the next couple of years to try to fix those problems that are below the top of the ticket . The democrats have to work on building their infrastructure on the ground around the country. Because when you look at where donald trump lost maine, Susan Collins won, lets not forget in georgia joe biden won, but the republicans got more votes in the senate races than the democrats. So there are people that have already made the decision in the Republican Party to go with other republicans than donald trump. What the democrats must do is make sure they build the underbelly of the party so that theyre not losing congressional seats like we did this year while theyre winning at the top. You cant have a top down party. I think if i were running for the senate or if i were advising someone to run in the runoff in georgia id want trump to come because it would remind my base why i came out to vote in record numbers and it would remind those that were turned off by the top of the ticket and voted for the Senate Candidates anyway, why they were turned off. The best thing that could happen to ossoff and warnock is for donald trump to come two or three times and remind everybody why we want this kind of political lunacy out of the white house and by extension out of the senate. Hey, bob costa, before you go, tell us, what are you working on this week . The key here right now is the biden transition. Lets not forget despite everything President Trump is doing to basically claim the election is rigged and a fraud, biden is installing the allfemale Communications Team, moving his nominees across the board. So far, it looks like most Senate Republicans look like hell get who he wants but there will be some fights. Look at neera tandem, shes a favorite of liberals. She knows many moderates too and republicans, but republicans will try to pick on maybe one or two of the nominees to have a firefight in january, february of 2021. All right, bob costa, donny deutsch, thank you. Moderna says it will ask the u. S. And the european regulators to allow emergency use of the covid19 vaccine as a new Study Results confirm that shots offer strong protection. Were going to have that new reporting coming up. Plus, el paso is one of the many cities across the country overwhelmed by covid19. Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of texas will join us next. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. How about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. Experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. Its shiori. What . Shi or i adam, emily and then. Suh um. Its shiori. Shori. Thank you, thats great. Shiori in japanese there you go. Yeah. in japanese wow, it looks beautiful in japanese really . i really like it. We need to remember were at war with the virus, not with one another. Not with each other. This is the moment where we need to steel our spines, redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to the fight. Lets remember, were all in this together. Theres real hope, tangible hope. So hang on. Dont let yourself surrender to the fatigue which i understand it is real fatigue. I know we can and we will beat this virus. Americas not going to lose this war. Well get our lives back. Thats president elect biden in an address just before the thanksgiving holiday and theres reason to hope. Theres news this morning on the race for the coronavirus vaccine, moderna has announced that it plans to file today for emergency use authorization from the fda. The company says that new Data Confirms the vaccine is more than 94 effective in preventing covid19 and is safe. Modernas says the effectiveness was the same across age, race and gender and that means americans can get the two cases within a few weeks. With us the Brown University school of Public Health, dr. Jha. Thank you so much for being with us. Im going to ask you and i have a personal reason, im going to tell people, i have a personal reason for asking this question. Because i have a couple of family members that would be very high on the list because of underlying conditions to get these vaccines and i say, hey, help is right around the corner and it seems that not only my family members but everybody i talk to are saying, hey, whoa, wait a second. Im not going to rush into anything. I dont know if these are going to be safe. Talk about how much of a problem thats going to be convincing americans that these coronavirus vaccines are going to be safe and how we get that message across to them. Yeah. So good morning, joe. Thanks for having me on. So about 58, 60 of americans are ready to get the vaccine, thats the good news. The bad news is that 40 of people are feeling susceptible. I think i understand the skepticism. We developed it very quickly, and they want to know if its safe. First of all, the science has been really extraordinary. Its been done with full integrity, no corners are cut. We have gone much, much faster than we normally do. Obviously because were in a crisis. And so everything i have seen makes me feel very comfortable and i will be delighted to get vaccinated when its any turn to do so. I think we need to communicate openly and honestly about what we do and dont know. Dont oversell it, but be very clear that the science so far has been terrific and no corners have been cut. So a couple of months ago, it hearing from people inside the administration, the Trump Administration and outside of the administration that hey, maybe, wed get this thing in october but there will be a 50 effective rate. That the rate would be like most flu shots. And then suddenly a few weeks ago we start hearing about 90 , 94 , 95 effectiveness. Explain how how a vaccine could be that effective. Yeah, so we do have vaccines that are that effective. The measles vaccine is 98 effective. I thought 50, 60 was effective, but again, this has been done very well and sometimes you get a little bit lucky. Like we have the target of the vaccine, the spike protein of the virus turns out to be a really good target and we didnt know it would be as effective as it is. So i take that as 2020 has not been a year where we have gotten lucky on a lot of things. This is one where the vaccine has turned out better than i was expecting and its great news. Thats great news. Lets talk about the news right in front of us. Dr. Fauci yesterday, dr. Birx, other people in the administration warning that were going to have what joe biden said i think a long, cold, cruel winter. Whatever the terminology was. How much worse do you expect it to get between now and the Christmas Holidays . Yeah. I think things are going to get meaningful worse. We have 90 odd thousand people in the hospital right new and that continue to climb. Well see 2,000 deaths a day. At the worst days of the pandemic in april, about 2,400, 2,500 people died in a single day. I never thought wed hit that number again and at this point im worried that we probably will. So what people need to do understand is that the next six weeks are probably the hardest of the pandemic. If we can really brace ourselves, hunker down a bit, avoid gatherings, wear a mask we can get through the next six weeks and then 2021 will be much bright we are these terrific vaccines coming down the pike. But people need to hold on for them and theyre going to take a little while to get out there. All right. Dr. Jha, thank you. We appreciate it. Please come back. You know, kasie, the state of texas is one of the harder hit states. And el paso, really undergoing some tough times right now. Its one of the hardest hit cities, joe. And earlier this month, inmates from the el paso jail were enlisted and paid to help move hundreds of bodies into mobile morgues due to the lack of el paso city workers available to deal with the overwhelming number of deaths. According to the Washington Post, the National Guard is now in charge of that task. Its a grim one. Funeral homes have turned storage closets in to freezers to hold the dead while a crematorium literally broke down from overuse. Just yesterday, for the First Time Since mid october the city reported zero virus related deaths for the day. Joining us now is the democratic congresswoman whose district includes el paso, congresswoman, thankfully, theres vaccine news on the horizon that we were just talking about here with the doctor. But what are you hearing from hospitals in particular in your region about whether they have beds available for people who come in not just with covid or covid19 cases, but also heart attacks, strokes, all of the other things that afflict people day in and day in out. Are the hospitals prepared to help people who show up at their doors . Well, good morning, kasie. Its good to see you. Sorry its under these circumstances and to talk about this very painful subject. And youre right, el paso has lived through ongoing trauma. Our community has been through an awful lot. And i do want to recognize our Health Care Workers and those folks on the front lines who havent seen the trauma end since the august 3rd shooting and it just keeps continuing and they keep living through really some very difficult profoundly painful moments. The hospitals are still struggling. We are in regular contact and i am in regular contact with the hospital ceos but im also in contact with nurses and with front line workers. They are stressed. They are terrified. They are exhausted. Some of them are getting sick. Some of them are having to deal with deaths in their own families. This while we are you know, we got some good news and it feels like were living through a little bit of a respite. We have to continue to look at those hospital numbers because those are the ones that are those are the numbers that are really worrisome. In addition to that, there is so much financial devastation in addition to the devastation caused by the coronavirus. We have a quarter of el pasoens who do not have health insurance. We live in a state that refused to expand the Affordable Care act so thats part of why our families are so vulnerable. I am seeing more and more of our families turn to gofundme accounts to pay for funerals, to pay for the medical bills that are financially devastating them. And then on top of that, families that are out of work. Its just trauma that continues to compound itself. Yeah. Reverend al, i know you have a question for the congresswoman, but i wanted to ask you first about the challenges, especially for communities of color. People of color are obviously hit disproportionately by this disease, more so than white communities. That was true in the spring and its true right now. What impact is that having on communities of color . Its having a devastating impact. Were seeing that blacks and browns are dying at a higher rate. They are found positive at a higher rate. And we have the most economic despair in terms of the fallout from the people that are not getting assistance. The people that are having to work as the first responders. As well as the essential workers. We are disproportionately there and theres no hope of Financial Aid in sight because the senate will not pick up what the house has already passed in terms of the h. E. R. O. E. S. Act to give some kind of Financial Support to people and to small businesses. And i want to ask the congresswoman in light of all of that, as you deal with el paso and you deal with your district, how much stress does it add to an already terrifying situation that families are dealing with health disparities, people that are impacted by this virus directly, some having family members die and dont know where their next paycheck may be, their last or whether they will get assistance in terms of what the h. E. R. O. E. S. Act would have provided and is laying dormant on Mitch Mcconnells desk. Youre exactly right. One of the things that i think will take us a long time to measure in addition to the aftereffects of covid19, even on survivors, the impact over the long term to our economy, i think one of the things that youre alluding to and thats worrisome for me as well is the Mental Health impact on everyone. People who lost businesses that they poured their heart and soul into. Health care workers say they dont want to going do their jobs again. Families who have lost more than one loved one and who are worried about staying in their homes. In addition to the fear and the terror of the Actual Health care catastrophe, theres the economic catastrophe, the Mental Health catastrophe. We will have a lot of rebuilding to do. I mean, believe me, dont get me wrong. I am so heartened by the thought and the idea that a vaccine is around the corner some time early 2021 and i think that vaccine, frankly, reverend sharpton, should go go to the black and brown communities that have been hardest hit. We have to elevate the vulnerable. Those communities that have been on the front lines and that have been decimated by this disease they need to be prioritized. But the longlasting effects are going to be profound. And its going to be up to president elect biden and congress to ensure that we provide the resources necessary for our local economies, national economy. For our hospitals, for our small businesses, for our families, to be able to bounce back in the years that follows the coronavirus devastation. All right. Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, we love having you on. Thank you so much for being here this morning. And getting us up to date with the great challenges that you and your constituents face. Now, earlier this hour we were talking about whether donald trump would emerge from this 2020 election as a Republican Partys front runner in 2024. Joining us with cohost of nprs morning edition, steve insky, trump looms large large now, but maybe not forever and he writes in part, some day the clamor of trumps tenure will fade leaving behind a few essential facts. The first of which is his single term. Few president s who served four terms or less find an enduring place in the popular imagination. One term is not long enough to influence a country so large and dynamic. And a president s failure to win a second term can be a sign that he didnt. Oneterm president s who escape obscurity often did something beyond the presidency. Like john adams. One of the nations founders or jimmy carter whose much admired post presidency has lasted ten times as long as his term. We cant be sure what history will make of mr. Trump, but to judge by Information Available today he has a relatively narrow role in the american story. As a reaction to a gamechanging president , barack obama. President trump may be a minor player in the larger story of a democracy grappling with demands for a more equal society and an era marked by whether obama, the first black president and the tenure has a fitting book end. On january 20th, he will be replaced by mr. Obamas Vice President. Steve, thank you so much for being with us. It was a remarkable article. And really, you made the argument that some of us were making earlier today and also one that i have been saying for quite some time. While theyre working in the white house, while theyre serving in the white house, they fall into this false sense of security that theyre going to be there forever and the second that door closes mika has quite a few stories of what happens on january 20th at 12 01 p. M. When you suddenly get the phones ripped out of the wall and the secret Service Drives away. Things change very quickly. Thats absolutely true and they change more as the years go on. Some president s as you know, joe, become more popular after they leave office than they were in office. But the perspective that i try to bring to this was my study of other president s from 100 or pr0 years ago, and asking which president s sustain a place in the popular imagination. And it tends to be the twoterm president s. It tends to be a limited number of president s who made big changes, who may have driven huge controversies in their time, but managed to win reelection, spend a second term, and leave a legacy that other later president s fight over. And while Donald Trumps career is not over, hasnt left office yet, he has almost two months left, talks of running, we are told, in 2024, we dont know what his future holds, at the moment the way he looks in history is as a reaction, a response to president obama, the twoterm president who preceded him. And President Trumps own record suggests that because he spent so much of his time going after the fights, refighting the battles of obamas years over the Affordable Care act, over the iran nuclear deal, over the paris climate accord, over environmental regulations, over transgender protections in the military, and thats just a partial list, that was a huge driving force in trump running for office, in the policy positions that he took, and in what he tried to do. Youre right. I do think, i agree with you, history is going to look at him as a reaction to Barack Obamas presidency. He was obsessed with barack obama. He was constantly measuring himself by what barack obama did. Lets look at 21term president s who actually were remembered. They were remembered because they moved forward and did things that others didnt. George h. W. Bush, the way he brought the cold war to an end gracefully, the way he guaranteed germanys unification, the way he did it with grace and dignity, that obviously holds him in good stead. And jimmy carter, who the camp david accords, also the normalization of relations with china. Those will mark them as successful president s at least on the Foreign Policy stage, but, steve, you look at what donald trump has done, there are few scattered agreements in the middle east, which may or may not fall apart. Other than that, it has been, for the most part, a government by gesture. Well, you have to ask what will last and what will last in a way that truly influences the country. You just mentioned two president s who, in our lifetimes, were unpopular at the moment, they lost reelection and have become more popular and more respected sense and it some extent, especially in george h. W. Bushs case, their terms have been reevaluated. Yet those two oneterm president s are overshadowed by a twoterm president , Ronald Reagan, who defeated one of them and the other was the successor of Ronald Reagan and each are part of in a way the story of the conservative to movement that Ronald Reagan managed to lead and influenced and shaped for many years, and in the same way trump, like any president , is part of a larger story, and perhaps he is not going to be as much of a leading character in future history books as we might think today, although i will add that some of the titanic battles of this term will certainly be useful perhaps to writers of future history textbooks. The battle over his effort to ban muslims from entering the United States and the monthlong court fight as that was narrowed down you could easily madgege in a history textbook followed by some suggested discussion questions. No doubt about it. Jonathan lemire is with us and he has a question for you. Steve, you talked about the president s rumored run in 2024. No decision has been made yet. A forceful takeover of the Republican Party here. We dont know if that will last, if he will hold them in his sway once he leaves office. Talk to us about, if you will, some of the historical precedents of a president who serves one term but doesnt leave the political arena, who tries to run again. Grover cleveland is the only one to to win a second term nonconsecutively. But talk us through how steep of a climb this would be for donald trump were he to run again. What other president s have tried but failed to stay relevant and potentially even to mount another candidacy for the white house . Well, there are a few president s who managed to stay relevant in the longer term. I think of a oneterm president , John Quincy Adams, defeated by Andrew Jackson in 1828. A few years later he ran for a seat for massachusetts in the house of representatives and became known in later years as an antislavery advocate, someone who wanted slavery to be discussed and debated on the floor of the house of representatives, which in those years, the 1830s, 1840s, was something that a lot of lawmakers resisted. You can argue that John Quincy Adams reputation rests more on his postpresidency than on his actual presidency, which was only one term, an was very weak in many ways. He was very frustrated by the political situation even though he was essentially an honorable guy, didnt seem to understand the changing politics of the time. He had a successful postpresidency. Ulysses s. Grant had two terms, went away as custom then required, even though there wasnt a constitutional amendment at that time that would limit him to two, and four years later came back and there was a lot of excitement about ulysses s. Grant running again. In the end it didnt work and his health would not have allowed it, he died not long later. But there have been occasions in the distant past where president s have found a which to be on the political stage. Of course, the great example of our era is jimmy carter, who has been politically active for 40 years and has had something to say for 40 years and its not impossible to see President Trump still active ten years from now and still with something to say whether he runs in 2024 or not. Of course, he is guaranteed himself some part of the political discussion for a while simply because there is that speculation about 2024. Obviously, one of the reasons why he is talking about 2024. Steve, thank you so much for being with us. Nprs Steve Inskeep, great to have you here. Steves book, imperfect union, how jesse and john fremont mapped the west, invented celebrity and helped cause the civil war comes out in paperback in january. Steve, we hope you come back to talk about that in january. Still ahead, when it comes to his attempts to overturn the election, donald trump isnt just losing kortcourt cases. He is also losing recount after recount, and spending a lot of money to do it. Meanwhile, president elect joe biden continues to build his administration with an unprecedented Communications Team and a first for the white house budget office. Those developments for you when morning joe returns. Introducing voltaren arthritis pain gel. The first full prescription strength nonsteroidal antiinflammatory gel. Available over the counter. Voltaren is powerful arthritis pain relief in a gel. Voltaren. The joy of movement. [anthat can leave cleaning gaps and wrap hair. So shark replaced them with flexible power fins to directly engage floors and dig deep into carpets. Pick up more on every pass with no hair wrap. Shark vertex with duoclean power fins. The teams been working around the clock. Wire, weve had to rethink our whole approach. Were going to give togetherness. Logistically, its been a nightmare. Im not sure its going to work. Itll work. I didnt know you were listening. For god made all of us, not some of us, in his image. All of us, not just some of us, are his children. Let us keep this thanksgiving day sacred. Let us thank god for the bounty and goodness of our nation. We are thankful for the love of our families. We are thankful for the goodness and generosity of our fellow citizens. We are thankful for the freedoms of our country. Dear america, we rise or fall together as one nation and one people. Thats something to be grateful for. Today and every day. Dont talk to me that way. Youre just a lightweight. Dont talk to me that way. I am the president of the United States. Dont ever talk to the president that way. All right. Im going to go with another question. Go ahead. That warms your heart. It really does. Good morning, and welcome to morning joe. It is monday. November 30th. We have White House Reporter for the associated press, probably the man who provoked our president into that really clarifying, i must say, thanksgiving message from the white house, Jonathan Lemire. We also have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of way too early, kasie hunt. And also host of Msnbcs Politicsnation and president of the National Action network reverend al sharpton. Mika is taking the day off. A little under the weather. So you would, too, if you had to eat my food that i fried four times over thanksgiving weekend. It didnt go well. I thought i would try frying the turkey in front of i dont know what was in there, but it was bad. So, Jonathan Lemire, quite a thanksgiving address by the president of the United States who most definitely didnt seem to be in the holiday spirit. The president hit those swooping overarching notes to bring a nation together, a time to give thanks with the message of, im president , and youre not. We had an angry donald trump here this past weekend. That was jeff mason of reuters, who is one of the classiest members of the White House Press corps who provoked him with some straightforward questions this weekend. These were the first questions the president has fielded from reporters since election day, since he lost that race to joe biden. And he was not giving thanks, but rather it was a weekend of airing grievances there in the white house, thanksgiving night. That was supposed to be an event meant towards thanking Service Members who were overseas for their service and, instead, it became about him and floating yet again more baseless conspiracy theories about the election which are notes that he hit all weekend long in a series of interviews, broke on his silence here as his Team Continues to mount futile legal challenges, and he refuses to accept the fact that joe biden is president elect, even though his team finally is quietly going along with the transition. Yeah, boy, tell you what. A thanksgiving message meant to thank the troops but ended up being about the former reality tv host. I never saw that coming. Kasie, we have some news from biden world. What is it . We do, joe. So president elect joe biden continued to fill out his cabinet over the weekend by hiring an allfemale Communications Team and adding more diversity to his top economic team. Seasoned democratic spokeswoman jen psaki as White House Press conference and Kate Bedingfield will serve in her position in the same capacity, but for the white house. Former obama Senior International Economic Advisor wally adamo will serve as deputy secretary under janet yellen. Labor economist cecelia rouse and neera tanden the office of senate and budget. It was met with criticism from republican senator john cornyns team. His spoke man tweeted that tandon stands zero chance of being confirmed. Joe, mcconnells a longtime mcconnell aide josh holmes tweeted this was a sacrifice to the confirmation gods in neera tanden. So im interested to know what the thinking is among the biden team on that particular pick, and then one other quick note. Jen psaki said there are six mopgs of you moms of young kids on that team. I think thats pretty cool. Its historic and it is a cabinet that is shaping up to look like america. Tell me, what is the problem with neera . I hope that they are not going to even start to talk about deficits or debt since john cornyn and Mitch Mcconnell and every senator in the United States senate was part of the most massive expansion of our federal deficits and our federal debt and they actually passed the biggest most bloated budgets in the history of this constitutional arepublic the pat four years. Even prepandemic, they were breaking every record for radical, i would call it leftwing spending levels. So have they said anything about having a problem with somebody that didnt spend that much money running the o and b . Joe, as you know, we have already seen some republicans come back to that gospel of deficit spending. I imagine its going to be a part of the conversation about tanden. Obviously, we have to figure out who is going to control the senate. Maybe thats the answer in terms of whether she gets to head up o and b. There could be concerns on the left as well about her. But certainly youre point is well taken about their concern. The other news that we have this morning, joe, is about joe bidens health. The president elect is going to be in a walking boot for the next couple of weeks. Joe biden suffered a hairline fracture in his mid foot while playing with his rescue dog major on saturday. His personal physician confirmed the diagnosis which was initially believed to be a twisted ankle. He was season leaving the Doctors Office last night with a bit of a limp. President trump tweeted something nice, get well soon. I guess well let you, joe, be the judge as to whether that was sincere or not. I am sure it was. But remember now, i want to get back to neera and o and b. Any republican over the next four years that complains about spending, that complains about deficits, that complains about debt, that complains about bloated budgets p i am going to put their face and how much of an increase in Americas National debt they were responsible for with their votes, i am going to put their face up and all the bloated budgets that they voted for because it is gross. By the way, just being a republican, not excuse enough. I voted against budgets. I voted against appropriation bills. We ran Newt Gingrich out of town because we thought he spent too much money. Just because you have a voting card and your party is in power doesnt mean that you have to be a coward. And these people werent spending. These republicans werent spending like drunken sailors. They spending like drunken socialists. And when i mean the biggest spenders ever, they spent more money than barack obama. They spent more money than lbj. They spent more money than fdr. They spent more money and drove the deficit up higher than its ever been. They drove the National Debt up higher than its ever been. As a to proportion of the gdp, the National Debt is higher because of donald trump than its ever been since actually world war ii. The only other time it was that high. So, please, if they are going to be preaching fiscal responsibility, four years too late. In many ways neera could teach them about budget deficits because she has been involved in the kind of politics that did not bloat the deficit as they did. She should bring what they have spent and allowed and voted for in the last three years, up to the hearing, and we will see who are the ones that caused the most deficits here. I think the selection by president elect biden of neera and the rest are great. I mean, to look at the Communications Team, all women. Women like ashley he hedny. When you look at the Symone Sanders and careen jeanpierre with Vice President elect Kamala Harris who thought that she wanted to have the right team mentored by we are seeing the kind of promises made, are beginning to be kept. And i think that when joe biden stood there that night and said he was going to have our backs in the African American community, when i look at this list of communications for both the president elect and the Vice President elect, when i look at neera, when i look at the team he is going to announce to treasury, i am beginning to feel like he may be serious about that. We are going to hold him accountable, but its looking good so far in the initial appointment. But the attacks on neera i think all i could say is come on with it. She is the o11 that can keach you to deal with deficits. Pet pays millions of dollars to lose wisconsin again ahead. The late os on the recount there and the trump teams dismal showing in a pennsylvania courtroom. His lawyers were basically thrown out on their ears. You are watching morning joe. Well be right back. You are wat. Well be right back. [narrator] with the ninja foodi power pitcher, you can crush ice, make smoothies, and do even more. Chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. The ninja foodi power pitcher. Rethink what a blender can do. Our own hopes and dreams. Well pass many milestones. Moments that define you. And drive you. To achieve even more. So, celebrate every one. Because success isnt just about where you want to get to. Its also about how you get there the all new 2021 cadillac escalade. Never stop arriving. So, kasie, the president lost a couple Million Dollars in wisconsin and ends up that he spent 3 million or so dollars trying to get some more votes out of wisconsin, ended up losing votes there. Of course, more very tough decisions from federal courts, from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Everywhere you look, everything is going just like we thought it was going to go after election night. You had scott walker, of all people, saying, hey, you can call for these recounts, but its not going to make a difference. And the republicans havent completely jumped on the crazy train with their tinfoil caps, tinfoil hats, have all mainly started to say, you know, this elections over and we got a lot more evidence of that over the past weekend. Yeah, President Trump finally talking about how he will conceding that he will move out of the white house and this is across the country, as the results, joe bidens win becoming more and more clear as though it already wasnt. Arizonas secretary of States Office will certify the results of the 2020 election today, and that will officially award arizonas 11 electoral votes to joe biden. The final tally shows he received about 10,500 more votes than President Trump there. State law allows the president to challenge the results within five days, but federal law says any legal challenges have to be resolved by december 8th. And to what joe was just talking about in wisconsin, after paying 3 million for a recount there, President Trump fell short yet again with president elect biden maintaining his lit of 20,600 votes in that state. Trump picked up votes in dane county, biden gained 132 votes in milwaukee county. He added 87 more votes to his winning margin. Wisconsins Election Commission is expected to certify the results later today, but the Trump Campaign vows to push ahead with its legal challenge there. Over the weekend the president tweeted in part, the wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, its about finding people who have voted illegally. And in pennsylvania, two election lawsuits went down to defeat over the weekend for the president and his republican allies. They were both unanimous decisions. Man, this judge, the 3rd Circuit Court of appeals on friday rejected the president agencis on the grounds that republicans were disadvantaged by democratic leaning counties allowing voters to correct errors on mailin ballots. This scathing opinion, and this judge was appointed by donald trump, it reads in part, quote, charges of unfairness are serious but calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. He adds, the campaigns claims have no merit and it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters. And on top of that, in harrisburg on saturday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit that was led by republican congressman mike kelly which argued a law violated the state constitution and tried to invalidate millions of mailin votes. The court criticized them and said they lacked due diligence. Joe, i dont know if i want to know how much money per added joe biden vote the Trump Campaign spent in wisconsin. And that pennsylvania judge laid it out right there in terms of the kind of standing that these lawsuits have. Well, he really did. As you pointed out, he is trump appointee. My question is when are the judges, especially the federal judges, when are the federal judges going to start spanking the sanctioning the attorneys coming into court with no basis in law or fact. I know if we did that in northwest florida and went it a federal judge in northwest florida, while i was practicing, we would be sanctioned in a second. They would probably kick us out of the courtroom on the spot. Coming up, President Trump teased a White House Run for decades, and apparently old habits are hard to break. We are going to talk about his ideas for 2024 next on morning joe. Joe. [narrator] with the ninja foodi power pitcher, you can crush ice, make smoothies, and do even more. Chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. The ninja foodi power pitcher. Rethink what a blender can do. Pizza. Tacos. Pizza what about subway . Its a good call and everyone loves it. We raised our kids on it. So it stopped the bickering . mocking tone mom, jjs copying me grow up. Mom knock it off try the new subway buffalo chicken or bbq chicken. See yourself. Welcome back to the mirror. And know youre not alone because this. Come on jessie one more. Is the reflection of an Unstoppable Community in the mirror. Beautiful. But support the leg when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. But now i practice a different philosophy. Quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. And now im back on top. With koala kai. Hey more mercy. Save over 30 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. The easy way to a happier business. [whats this . ] oh, are we kicking karly out . We live with at t. It was a lapse in judgment. At t, we called this house meeting because you advertise gigspeed internet, but we cant sign up for that here. Yeah, but im just like warming up to those speeds. Youve lived here two years. The personal attacks arent helping, karly. Dont you have like a hot pilates class to get to or something . [ muffled scream ] stop living with at t. Xfinity can deliver gig to the most homes. You know, you just kind of get the sense that President Trump is going through the motions, but, you know, its just like, his heart doesnt really seem to be in it. He knows its over. What is he doing . Is he playing for that announcement that he is going to be running again in 2024 . Whats going on inside the white house . Well, i believe the trump legal teams record of success in these legal challenges is Something Like 1 for 37 at this point, which is a batting average, frankly, joe, which would have been good enough to be the red soxs starting base man last year, but thats not going to overturn an election. They have shown in signs of giving up, at least not yet. On wednesday, when joe biden was delivering his president ial message to the, we had the image of Rudy Giuliani and other trump team lawyers in a ballroom, in a Wyndham Hotel outside gettysburg, pennsylvania, holding a mock hearing to discuss alleged voting irregularities there which included the president of the United States speaking on the microphone and making more and more baseless allegations of irregularities. And we have over the weekend more of the same. And his team is signaling the legal challenges will continue. To your question, joe, there is no expectation within the white house, within the president s inner circle that this is going to change, that joe biden wont be sworn in on january 20th. This is about projecting the fight. This is about sewing doubt about the election. Yes, this is about plotting whatever his next move may be. He did, for the first time, publicly say thanksgiving night, yes, he would leave the white house when his term was up if the Electoral College, he said if the Electoral College did, indeed, give this race to joe biden, which he said would be a mistake. But everyone around the president knows, of course, that will happen. So its about what comes next. First of all, this weekend we have the president suggesting that he will go to georgia to campaign for the Senate Runoffs, which is being met with split reaction from republicans, some who fear he will spend a 90minute rally railing against the georgia governor, a republican who he criticized this weekend, or the georgia secretary of state, a republican, who he has criticized relentlessly in recent days and not help necessarily the two gop candidates there as they try to hang on to the majority. At the very least, joe, what im told, even if he doesnt officially announce the 2024 bid in the coming weeks, he is going to suggest that he is looking at it because he wants to keep his viability up. He, of course, upon leaving office is going to want to make some money. There is suggestion he will attach himself to some sort of media venture. It could be newsmax, a up and coming fox news rival. He is not going to leave quietly. Whether he runs or not is unclear. As long as he believes he can string it out and more people are talking about him, that will damage the biden presidency and freeze the gop field if, indeed, trump wants to plunge forward for 24. Coming up, a president with a huge temper and a big ego and were not talking about donald trump. How Dwight Eisenhower learned to control both to be one of the most successful president s of the 20th century. Author evan thomas joins us with a look at the 34th commander in chief and what joe biden can learn from that administration when morning joe returns. Morns we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. When a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. Usaa. What youre made of, were made for. Usaa usaa. What youre made of, were made for. You can crush ice, make nismoothies, and do even more. Chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. The ninja foodi power pitcher. Rethink what a blender can do. No uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. [sighs] [whistling] this is the life. Rated everyone. New projects means you need to hire. Gers. I need indeed. Indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. Claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed. Com home. Giulianis News Conference at the Republican National committee headquarters, what were you thinking . It was upsetting because what i saw was an apparent attempt to undermine confidence in the election. To confuse people, to scare people. Its not me. Its not just that. Its the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop 18hour days for months. They are getting Death Threats for trying to carry out one of our core Democratic Institutions in an election, and to me that was a press conference that i just it didnt make sense. What it was actively doing was undermining democracy, and thats dangerous. Welcome back to morning joe. That was former cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director chris krebs speaking with 60 minutes. As a little refresher, krebs is the man President Trump fired by tweet for telling the truth by calling the 2020 election, quote, the most secure in american history. Krebs is one of just a few republicans on a National Level who has called out Donald Trumps daily lies about the election results. On the state and local level, we have seen a number of republicans step up to hold the line, refusing to give in to pressure to go along with the president s false allegations that there was widespread voter fraud. But that bravery has come at significant personal cost. Its, in my view, a travesty whats happening with all these Death Threats to election officials, to secretaries of state. I want everybody to look at secretary vaughn of pennsylvania, secretary benson in michigan, secretary in nevada, secretary hobbs in arizona. All strong women that are standing up, that are under attack from all sides, and they are defending democracy. They are doing their jobs. Look at secretary rafensberger in georgia. Lifelong republican. He put country before party in his holding a free and Fair Election in that state. There is some real heroes out there. There are some real patriots. So, putting country before party for georgias republican secretary of state meant receiving dozens of Death Threats against him and his family. Threats that have been largely met with silence from republicans in the state who have supported rafensberger in the past. And we saw something similar in michigan when a republican member of the states board of canvassers received death threat after being the deciding vote to certify joe bidens victory in that state it. Ahead of the certification he quoted john adams. We are a government of laws, not of men. Joe. Unbelievable. I mean, unbelievable that these republican officials are getting Death Threats for certifying votes. For basically being the rubber stamp on the official vote counts in what will be remembered, regardless of all of the fear and loathing and the screaming and the yelling and bitching and whining, this will be remembered as the cleanest election in u. S. History because you have had officials, yes, in the Trump Administration over the past four years, even if their own boss didnt want them to, bend over backwards to make sure there wasnt russian interference, to make sure there wasnt foreign interference, to make sure that everybody did their jobs. Tim alberta documents what happened in michigan in a sweeping new politico piece. He is with us along with author and awardwinning political analyst Jeff Greenfield who questions whether these few defenders at the gate are evidence of the system working or if its coming far too close to crumbling. Jeffs new piece for politico is called did american democracy really hold . Maybe not. Also former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state departments alise jordan. You didnt write the article, but i want to go to you. Like me, former republican, we actually have to watch local republican officials being trashed by the president of the United States, and receiving Death Threats for simply upholding the law and by extension of upholding the constitution of the United States of america. Just when you think our former party couldnt go any lower, it does. Well, and, joe, you wonder when is it going to end . Is it ever going to end . If donald trump has lost the election and these republican officials are still so concerned about his feelings, that they are going through all of this theater when everyone with a few brain cells knows that joe biden indeed won the election. And there is no way that its going to be overturned. And so the example in georgia, what has been particularly galling just because you have a republican secretary of state who said i want to do the right thing, and that Atlanta Journalconstitution interview with Brad Rafensberger and his wife talking about the Death Threats, it just is really outrageous. By the way, a lifelong republican. I love this. A lifelong republican, right, who has been a republican and supported republican candidates and voted for republicans, at the same time donald trump was giving nine checks, nine contributions to hillary clinton, charlie rangel, Charles Chuck schumer. You go down the list. Anthony weiner. I mean, so suddenly donald trump is a real republican and these lifelong republicans who were just doing their job arent . Its ridiculous. Its ridiculous in georgia. Its ridiculous whats going on in michigan. Tim, you wrote about that. Tell us what you learned. Well, joe, its interesting because in michigan, it was the widest margin of victory for joe biden of any of these battleground states. But, the states that we spent the past year obsessing over, michigan wasnt close. It was about a threepoint margin, 150,000 votes plus. And whats interesting, when you talk to people on the ground here over the last three weeks, and for my story i interviewed a couple dozen insiders in the campaigns and, you know, Party Officials on the ground, they all sort of felt that because it wasnt particularly close, its almost counterintuitively ironically fanned the flames, made it a more Fertile Ground for some of these conspiracies to take root because the president and his allies sort of, if they were able and willing to push conspiracy theories here and to go down the sort of rabbit holes of, you know, votes being fraudulent and the outcome being rigged and sources at work in detroit and elsewhere actively trying to cheat him out of a win here, if they were willing to do that in a state decided by 154,000 votes, well, then all bets are off in states like georgia and arizona and wisconsin, states with much narrower margins. So thats what happened. And you will also have, have, mcdaniel, the rnc chair, she has a vested interest in making sure that the president knows that Everything Possible that can be done is being done in michigan because she is up for reelection in a couple of months. If she wants to hold on to her job and we know this, guys. We have seen this the last couple of years. To keep your job in the Republican Party requires to dem tate straight unflinching loyalty to the president even when it means denying reality, pedaling, you know, falsehoods. In this case, ronna mcdaniel, somebody who had a good reputation in michigan politics up until recently was willing to throw all of that away just to make the president happy, just to show him she was willing to fight for him and fight for this cause in a state that he lost by 154,000 votes. So, Jeff Greenfield, one of the things that made this show interesting, morning joe i was talking about, me on the left, mika on the right, we would debate issues of the day. We have been on the same side on so many things over the past four years by just being finding Donald Trumps actions abhorrent, breaches of constitutional norms, political norms. The one area where we have differed greatly has been me saying the institutions would hold, me believing that madisonian democracy would hold donald trump in check, and mika being far more skeptical about that, thinking the system was going to break down. You have an interesting argument that sort of meets us somewhere in the middle where you say, yes, the institutions have held, but does that actually is that actually something that we should be celebrating considering how close we came to disaster . The dilemma that i think we face is that this election has shown that trumpists, if you will, the stress points, weak points in the system. The he wicelebration, which is appropriate, of how the state and local republicans did their job does not speak to what might happen next time. If the majority of republicans believe this election was rigged, if you have people like the former speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, spewing the most ridiculous arguments in an effort to, i guess, stay close to the president , i think the worry i have is you might see these state and local officials, for instance, primary in 2022, the michigan legislators, the pennsylvania legislators, the secretary of states, ousted from their jobs like fellow republicans. There were pennsylvania legislators who said lets take over the electoral count. And i think because we have seen how close we came this time, that if there is this drive among what is now the Republican Party, i guess the trump party, to make sure this cant happen again, to make sure that our people are in position to do what wasnt done this time, we have got a problem because i can see in 2022 a number of these republicans being removed from their jobs and replaced by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their candidate in power or to put him in power. And once you have the state legislators asserting that power, i then worry about the courts because there are people, even on the Supreme Court, who believe the state legislative power is almost total. So i think, using a very blunt m metaphor here. If you have a german use the spanish civil war as a testing ground for their theories, i think we may be seeing some of the more extreme supporters of someone like donald trump saying weve learned in 2020, we know what to do next time. Elise . You have spent so much time studying the modern Republican Party and the rise of donald trump. I am going to ask you to be a little bit of a psychologist here given that you were able to talk to so many local officials in michigan and look at a real grassroots level. What do you think differentiates those local officials who chose to tow the line for donald trump and then those wanted to abide by the long standing rules and norms of the american system . Gosh, thats a good question. You know, look, what i have noticed, more than anything else over the last few years, is the handful of republicans who are willing to publicly break with the president and publicly break with the party, they tend to be the people most sort of authentically steeped in a world view, in a philosophy that is sort of bound to, like intellectual conservatism. Conservatism once meant something other than standing up for the Confederate Flag at a nascar rally or, you know, marching in a maga parade. Like conservativism was about conserving things, conserving institutions. What you see from being like a mark sanford, for example, what you see from somebody like jeff flake, these are people who much earlier that their careers, long before donald trump came along, these were people who were viewed as sort of quirky, who were viewed as a little bit odd, a little bit different because they didnt just carry around the pocketsized copy of the constitution so they could wave it around at a press conference and impress people. These were people who actually read the constitution the way that some people read the bible, right. Like they were deeply committed to it. And i think that when you look at some of these local officials and specifically a guy like aaron van lang belt on the ground in michigan, this is a 40yearold lawyer highly regarded in the local republican circles and has his entire career in front of him, and a really smart, sharp prominent the sky was the limit for this guy, and he is going to be cast out of the Republican Party for what . For simply following his conscience and doing his job as is demanded by michigan statute. It was clear that he had no choice about you to certify this election the way that michigans election laws are written, and the other republican canvasser on the board refused to do so. He said, listen, guys, this is what the law says. I am a lawyer. There is no gray area here. There is no wiggle room. And, you know, it was interesting. Some of the conversations i had with people who know him pretty well, they compared him to sot t of a rand paul, justin amash, libertarian type republican, somebody who is so deeply committed to a set of principles he wouldnt be easily swayed by trumpism, and sure enough thats what we saw. And so now he faces political blowback for following the law. And again, it wasnt ambiguous. He had only one thing he could do. He followed the law, and now republicans are going to punish him for it. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Today marks 51 days until inauguration day. As we draw closer to the 46th presidency, its a fitting time to focus on if thele leadership. Each morning we are going to sit down with historians who have written on president s with this central question in mind. What can their examples teach joe biden . Today we focus on dwight d. Eisenhower. Three days from now, after half a century, in the service of our country, i shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor. We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars, among great nations, three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, america is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. Lets bring in historian writer and journal exist evan thomas. He is author of one of my favorite ike books, and thats saying a lot. I love reading about ike. And it was ikes bluff, president eisenhowers secret battle to save the world. We have Steve Inskeep on before talking about when a president leaves office, often things change very quickly. I was giving the example of dr. Brzezinski had had a red phone in his house, specially wired. At 12 00 noon on january 20th, 1981, the secret service came in, unceremoniously ripped the phone out. Wall, left a huge hole there. They got in their suvs, that had been outside the brzezinski house for four years, and drove off, and that was it. And it reminded me of a hilarious scene in ikes bluff when ike got home and tried to do something he hadnt done tin 20 years. Tell us about that. He tried to make a phone call. He was so unmodern and so used to being cared for. When he got to his new home in gettysburg, the secret service just drove off and he tried to make a phone call. He there. You can get very disconnected to the real world in the high office. And eisenhower did. But in a greater sense, he never lost his contact with reality. Even though he was used to being a fourstar general. He knew what truth was and what power was. What can harry truman learn from Dwight Eisenhower not harry truman. Ive been talking about harry truman a lot. And i was actually thinking about their transition because i had heard a relative of Harry Trumans talk about what a great job truman did because eisenhower had done such a sorry job, knowing he was dying, not telling truman about anything. Despite the fact the two men loathed each other and that meeting between truman and eisenhower transition meeting was cold but harry truman bent over backwards to make sure that ike was prepared. Well, you know, both those men were so deeply steeped in our system that whatever personal animosity they had, they were going to find a way to get along. And they also had a deep recognition of the problems the United States faced. This is the very beginning of the nuclear age. And for the first time, the president of the United States has the power to end the world. Thats an awesome power and both men understood it. Truman was the first to use a Nuclear Weapon and eisenhower is the guy who was inheriting this world and sudden growth of the hbomb. This is just as ike was being inaugurated we were testing our first hbomb. So they knew the world in which they lived. And that meant that they had to cooperate with each other. Jeff greenfield . When im thinking about eisenhower, the most striking fact i was a young man at the time, teenager, is how much he was a figure of fun. Couldnt finish his sentences. Got tangled up in syntax and then things have been written about this quite well, that a lot of this was deliberate. That devise eisenhower i think at one point he said to his aides when they were worried, dont worry, ill just confuse them. The other thing, of course, is that for people, i guess, which you might call on sort of the left, the rightthinking left, who saw in eisenhower as a kind of befuddled father figure. That line that you played, the warning about the military Industrial Complex is the one thing that eisenhower warned about that probably people on the left side of the spectrum most appreciate and most would say that was a warning that has not been followed in the decades since because john kennedy, his successor, worried about the prestige gap and all. Ticked off a rather large increase in military spending. So i think the thing we learn about is trying to measure a president in the moment. When that president leaves office, its sometimes a very misleading thing. Now when this president leaves office, all bets are off. Ike had a wonderful thing. He had the confidence to be humble. He didnt need to show off. Eisenhower conquered europe. He proved himself many times. And it gave him this kind of confidence that he didnt need to show. He could allow himself he was intentionally sometimes inarticulate. Theres a famous story, oh, ill just confuse them. He didnt need to be cool, to seem cool, because he was cool. Hed been through so much that he knew when to talk and when to shut up. And he knew when to play close to his chest, which every president has to do. Its an unbelievably lonely job and the desire is to be out there and to be seen by everybody. Eisenhower understood the loneliness of command. After all, hed given the order to the allies to go on dday. Very tough call. He had been he held this kind of pressure in himself. It near killed him. His stomach was ripping him up. His heart was ripping him up, but he knew how to control his emotions. He had an enormous temper. He kept it. He had a big ego. He controlled it. He knew how to control himself in a way that projected as humility. And that is a wonderful thing to have in a leader. So, you know, you were talking about what a lonely job being president of the United States is. And you talked about a meeting that john kennedy had with Harry Trumans secretary of state dean atchison. And, boy, really drove that point home. Can you repeat that story for us here . Yeah. It really brought it home to me. Its one reason why i brought the book. This is kennedy now, but kennedys thinking about are we going to go nuclear against the russians in berlin during the berlin crisis of 1961 . And he wants some help and they bring in old dean atchison. And they bring him in because they think that atchison is going to give a dose of stiff blood to eisenhower and make him more hawkish. But, no, no, no. Atchison says to eisenhower, he says, you know, i think about whether youre going to use Nuclear Weapons or not. To kennedy . Im sorry, to kennedy. Atchison says to kennedy. I think about whether youre going to use Nuclear Weapons and then tell no one. Tell no one. The point is you cant be advertising it. This is your decision. You have to if you tell people, you wont have any negotiating power. Your power comes from being a little bit indecipherable about this and not telling anybody. Think about the pressure on one human being on this issue. Am i going to use Nuclear Weapons or not . Eisenhower never told anyone. And that gave him a kind of power because the russians didnt know. Nobody knew if ike was going to use those weapons. That gives them great power but its a lonely, terrible pressure, unique to modern times. It began with eisenhower but its true. Biden is taking office at a time when north korea has nukes and iran is building nukes and the chinese have nukes and there are a lot of nukes out there. And we are its not the cold war, but we are in a new place thats also dangerous. All right. Author and historian, evan thomas. Always great to have you here. Thank you so much. Jeff greenfield, thank you as well. Speaking of past president s, this morning, im going to be talking about my new book saving freedom truman, the cold war and fight for civilization during todays digital salt talks that kicks off around 11 00 a. M. On wednesday, im going to be with the Commonwealth Club at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Find out more information at our site joe. Msnbc. Com. Elise jordan, i am curious, elise, what your thoughts are on what joe biden can learn from eisenhower or what joe biden can learn from some of the people that youve worked with in the white house. Well, as evan pointed out, eisenhower had selfconfidence. He had won world war ii. He didnt need to prove himself. He didnt need to win over the media and court the medias every mood and whim. And joe biden would be well served to also take some of that attitude of working to practice himself what needs to be done versus listening to the and abiding by the outside chorus, really in direct contrast to donald trump listening and taking his cues from fox friends every morning. And so if theres any of ikes selfconfidence and innate self worth and knowledge and belief in planning and preparation that joe biden can heed in the role, that would be, i think, the greatest lesson that he can take from general eisenhower. And kasie hunt, as we begin a new week, what are you going to be looking at this week . Well, just to pick up there, joe, as the president elect builds out his team, one thing weve seen from them and something that harkens back to the time that ike was president is that our Economic Security at home and a thriving middle class has often been the times when we are not just most prosperous here at home but also most secure in our relationships overseas. Thats something that his incoming National Security adviser Jake Sullivan has talked a lot about, spent a lot of time thinking about and i think its going to become clearer as we get these new picks that thats a driving force for the president elect. Im interested to see how that affects our National Security. All right. Kasie hunt, thank you so much for being with us this morning. We really appreciate it. Elise jordan, as always, we appreciate youing being here,. Stay tuned. A lot of breaking news right now and throughout the day. And Chris Jansing picks up our coverage right now. Hello there. Im Chris Jansing in for stephanie ruhle. Its monday, november 30th. We start with that breaking news. A Silver Lining at a time when experts say were entering the most dangerous and possibly the deadliest phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Moderna says it will apply today for emergency authorization from the fda joining pfizer as the only two companies that have reached that stage. The vaccine is said to be 94 effective against covid. 100 effective in fighting the most severe cases. If things go smoothly and they get approval, the company says 20 million doses could be available in the u. S. By new years. Tomorrow the cdc will meet to vote on how those doses will be distributed once they arrive. Well be