republican party? and another vaccine heads for approval. why estimates for hitting herd immunity are creeping upwards. >> i say between 75 and 80, 85% of the population. if we get that, we would develop an umbrella of immunity. >> "all in" starts now. good evening from washington, d.c. i'm mehdi hassan in for chris hayes. we still have 23 more days of donald trump as president. 23 more days where he will continue to do great damage to this nation, and that damage will extend well into the future. just today, president-elect joe biden said that trump and his political appointees at the department of defense and elsewhere are even now refusing to share crucial information with the incoming biden administration. >> right now we just aren't getting all the information that we need for the on -- from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. it's nothing short in my view of irresponsibility. >> trump has spent the past four years flooding the zone with outrage after outrage, from praising neo-nazis to separating children from their parents to causing tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of american deaths with his botched response to the pandemic, to name just a few of his lowest points. but what he did this weekend is up there with the worst of the worst. in a stark illustration of his cruel indifference to the suffering of millions of americans, the president spent the past few days golfing in florida amid a temper tantrum driven by the refusal of some republicans to aid his efforts to overturn the election and basically end american democracy. the tantrum resulted in a heartless and pointless delay that earned him nothing but have disastrous consequences for millions of americans. the president refusing to sign a covid relief bill negotiated by his own administration with congress until it was simply too late too late. too be clear, trump was trying to score some cheap political points by insisting on $2,000 direct payments to americans instead of the $600 agreed in the bill. it was a number that many democrats had long pushed for, but which his own administration and his own party had opposed. so trump refused to sign the bill as soon as it passed in congress. and then basically just golfed and tweeted the weekend away, and there was no grand plan here. cnn reported that aides had prepared for president to sign the bill as early as christmas eve. in fact, the smaller of mar-a-lago's two ballrooms was prepped for a 7:00 p.m. ceremony with a desk prepared and pens at the ready. but trump then just decided not to go through with it. instead, the man we were told was the blue collar billionaire, the champion of working people waited to sign the bill until late last night. and as a result, millions of americans are expected to lose an entire week of jobless benefits, because benefits cannot be paid for a week that began before the bill was signed. and trump outrageously, cruelly, pointlessly did not sign the bill until the start of the week on sunday. dealing with a president whoñr has been missing in action and who througúíu$0v duration of this pandemic has oftenp, engaged in depraved and indifference tos7 human life amidst all the pain and suffering and death that the ñ experiencing. and then mitch mcconnell had long that they mcconnell had would goñr no higher than $5 million.ñis7t( so we were short of a trillion, but itñie1 has to(xñ a recognit at the end of the day that we're dealing withjf ans on nat senat republican maoiity led by ther obstruction, mitch mcconnell, and a president whot on his best days is on the golf course, and on his worst days is families, middle class folks and those who aspire to be part of the middle class. >> indeed. >> it's a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done on the joe biden leadership.jf >> it isfá ac step in the right direction. and any fair-minded observer would agree that mitch mcconnell is to blame here and is tñ%ñ req block. i'm completely with you on that, congressman. but given that mitch mcconnell was also the senateq leader in october when nancy pelosiçe sai i'm not going budge from $2.2 trillion, and those negotiations then did kind of çómove, didn'to quite according to plan, given you also lost seats in the house that many say you really shouldn't have, do fellow new york democraticçó congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez and others are saying+ it's time fo top? speaker pelosi has had a good run, 17 years leading your party in the house. faces, maybe even yourself. >> well, i lookr to once again placing the namer pelosi into nomination. she has beent( a historic one a led us through a lot of trials and tribulations and consistently our values and priorities have come out on top, given the circumstaçf(qáháhat w find ourselves fáin. wec defeated mt'7ko9z but we st o deal with ovingr áh &h(% anything in the house? >> while we will certainly be leaner,fá we're going peopleq on the hard left, peopl in the senateñi have all said tt this is going to have to bring g us closer kntogether. it's going tolpfáfá have to face more collaboration. at the end of the day, as democrats, what brings us together is fighting for everyday qamericans, working families, for middle class folks, forxd seniors, the poor, the sick and the afflicted. and wdkçó can findok the highes common denominator together. we're still going to have tocó[ that we are going to be unified behind the presidency ofc joe biden, vice presidents kamala harris. we're lookingçó forward to that. i've been in exileok from the white house for four years.ufr i lookq forward to having awoyw friendly voice for everyday americans back at 1600 pennsylvania avenue.xdryfáñi >> well, we have to leavee1 the ime. what happens to the americanxd finally been signed by the police department? i wantçó to bringxdc in top ecot rob reich.fá he is the authorw3 of the book get america out of( out of( lonf we needed a relief bill in the n trilles, didn't we?ok >>i] we certainly do need a relf bill. it's very, very similar to what nancy ám&osi and theçó democrat oskginally proposed.o you left out@'3qj3 particular o element,i] and that is covid. now that is the big, big el vanity in t room because we r don't know how long it's going l tolpok go on. we hope byok june or maybe july enough americans are vaccinateds so that the economynb can actuay move onward. but between nowc anduandu then,e got five or six months and you've got millions, tens of know how they're going to make it between now and then.ñq so that's where the real issue comesqin uhow do we make sure tens of millions of people have enough money to get throughñ when the economy starts up again. and we're nowhere close.5xqh(lc bis weow can't affordqód that it was not that long ago r an almost $2jf trillion tax cut for the rich andx for big corporations, and they never -- they neverxdblinked. they didn't say well, we can'tl so a debt problem we've gotlp to when republicans come tot( thei 9of whether a tax cut áju big corpor!rjju can becxd afforded, there is neverlp a problem. when they come to a question of for the people who are really in need in this ñiountry, or anyt kind of other $2,000 per person, $2,000 per person is nott goin nearly make it over the next si you try took pay the rent and ao p-!ñ food on the tableq and do everything else you need with w $2,000. well, you just can't. 0'ost people can't do it. >> yeah.çó well, and yet you have these tone deaf republicanse1 on the houseçó floor today.t(lpxd better spend more, some saying no, we spent moreçóñi than othe did. isn't the real problem, robert, that stimulus money in the u.s. compared to canada or germany ) because weñr have health care costs that they don't. we don't have thexd kind of socl safety nets that they already have in place. isn't that the i]issue? >> exactly. it's comparing apples to pp oranges. almost everyxd 9d19country inñr1 this world has safety nets that are really thick safety nets.i] they pay for health care."n they paya5 for unemplo/u9q insurancefá tofá a much greaterk extent.o they provide açfá paid family leave. they provide all sorts of things the harsh5 ñ form of capitalismjf existingxd among e advanced nation. compare us to what we spentñi or what theyñikospent o covid really doesn't make much d sense. ok have not spent very 3wmuch. they haveçó spent much more. and if you include all of theib expending huge amounts. they arejfi] keeping people employed, or if they're notlp employed, they're at least keeping people on payrolls. they arew3 doing a very better t alleviating the anxiety and the okxdunderlying problems of insecurity that affect the american workforce.fáxdfá >> yeah. and i wonder, robert,lpt(xd isr though, to this debate over $2,000 checks specifically, that nowe1ó have republican buy-in the form of ae1ñr republican president f direct cashxd transfers from th government to ordinary americans, somethingq republicas have recoiled from for qyears. now surely democrats can come odd for republicans to act as if it's some sort of crazy socialist idea when it's been publicly endorsed by their own former president a it's going ton determine -- a lot of this really turns on january 5jfth. let'sxd face it. if you get two senators in tk5ñ that the senatejf flips and kama deciding vote in the senate. everything i}different. we're in a very diff ifer mitch mcconnell is still tl controlling force in the senate, ifñr mitch mcconnell continues m do what he has been doing since the beginning of the obama administration, remember, this is the man who saidq my number one priority isñi to make obama one-term president, well, he is goingw3 obstruct everything. and anything that is done with regardt to covid, getting peop through this,fá providing survil benex)uákñixd pro%a%9 that getsrttt economy backi] on track, anything that isfáfrtját goingxd to have to probably be done by executive order or by regulation.bablt( >> yeah, orjf whether joe biden will be willing to use those executive orders, let's wait and seattle. robert reich, let's thanks soqe% much forñoqe$ &h(% much forñk your time andfá tho incites tonight. we appreciate it >> thank you, mehdi. next, the cruelty of president trump holding the coronaviruk reliefxdhostage ah golfed in palm beach historian michael beschlossrnet the president's tantrum in perspective, after this.ñi and its awesome. it's an all-in-one so it's ready to go when i am. the cleaning solution actually breaks down dirt and grime. and the pad absorbs it deep inside. so, it prevents streaks and haze better than my old mop. plus, it's safe to use on all my floors, even wood. glad i got that off my chest and the day off my floor. try wet jet with a moneyback guarantee ((boy)r) hhelping kids.s. (dad) helping families. (women) helping pets. (vo) these are the lives subaru retailers have impacted in our communities, through our support of over fourteen hundred hometown charities. in fact, subaru and our retailers will have proudly donated over two hundred million dollars to national and hometown charities through the subaru share the love event. (vo) get 0% for 63 months and subaru will donate 250 dollars to charity. it's moving day. and are doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. has been the benchmark for afe historically terrible president. his own official white house biography describesç($ow in the midstt(!ez the dark days of t depression, hoover's viewcwas that caring for hungry and cold americans, fát(uote, must be primarilyñia local andxdvolun leading his(a opponents in congress to unfairly paint him as a callous and cruel president. whether or not that was really an unfair characterization, hoover's name became synonymous with heartlessness and3w indifference to the suffering of ordinary americans. t!%ujtdbehavior, causing mp's millions of struggling americans to lose their unemployment benefits for a weekt( for no re reason, nonei] whatsoever, doese nowñiçó top herbert hoover when comes tot(jf callousness and cruelty? and as the covid death toll continues to rise, is he no longer just one of the presidents in american history, but the worst?u history, but the worst?u who better to ask than michael beschloss, presidential historiançó for nbc news and nd msnbc. he joins me now.fá michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. >> pleasure.çó p >> does president trump make õ"over look like mother xdteres? >> it doese1 make herbert hoove look like mother xde1teresa. compassionate person. he helped people get48&oodçót( world war i and after world war ii, but he did believe at the b time of the great depression witht( millions ofxd americans l starving and dying infá someñi o henbfelt it wast( notxd the fed government'sfá job to help them. that was somethingi]c+rpá xdfdr@ feel. and what it leads to, mehdi, you always want someone asq presidet who has compassion andq empathy. a ñilincoln, for instance, who early in the civil war there were so many unionó[ soldiers being killed that they said we want it?i] lincoln saidxd build it near my summer housea/a because i want see the graves being dug. i want to see the weepingc widows. it'sñi goingingc to be very pai for brçy but i want to always se theçót( results of the terrible decisions i'm making. that's what a real leader does. that's what a real president >> yeah, as opposed to ther confronted with the covid death toll said it is what it is.c michael, many presidents have sadly caused harm to the american xdlppeople, or been indifferent to the suffering of ordinary americans. but can youñi point to another president who has done the kind of thing trump $ñ this weekend,c delaying financial aid tot( unemployed americansq for no other reason than he was having other reason than he was having a tantrum an there was no ideological or policy reason for doing what he did yesterday.ogicçóe1 >> trump is thee1 kind oï/u' never, ever seen before in the presidency, and i hope we never, ever see again. and what i mean by that is someone who -- most of us, mehdi, when you get to thexd ag of 6, yj begin to care for other people and see the world through their eyexojf especial when they'reñi suffering. you particularlyiq want that ina president of the united states. dwight eisenhower was the supreme commander onw3çd-day. the decisions he madexd meant te 6e'th of a lot of young americans and others, and he knew it. for the rest of his life, eisenhower was a tough guy. vt whenever he spoke in pu i]men, mostly men, some women onxd d-day, hefá would cr chief over his face. johnson knew what it was like for black people to be beaten u in the streets of the citi%jof thisl country, and it mad%ñá h want utdo something about it. when you go÷&ssv a president s no empathy, who has no compassion, you see a spectacle like what we've seen this week study the biographies of these men as you have, and of course they've all been men, do you come across them open ply taly g about their legacies and wondering ho >> yes, they do. but they do it in terms of what can i do to make this country better so that 50 years from now people will say this is something that this president id did that was distinctive and maybe he did it against his own selfish political self-inçzsl)t. hard to think of a case where donald trump has ever done that, and also, harry truman once saio he couldn't imagine a president who does not read history, because the only way a president he said can get any benefit from all the successes and failures of earlier presidents and earlier citizens is to know where they succeeded and failed in history. he said that every reader will not be a leader, but every leader must be a reader. if truman came back and saw a president as completely ignorant and indifferent to history as er donald trump, i think he would have been shocked.tory >> michael, aren't you being unfair to donald trump? he says he studied history and s he's the best president since lincoln? >> okay, well, i'm the king of romania, mehdi. >> i got ask you before i let you go, i've asked you this before, but i'll ask you again. when do we go beyond saying donald trump is among the worst in history and within days of his leaving office, he is basically the worst? >> well, a historian always has to account for the possibilitiet that 50 years later a president would look better in some ways than he did to his own generation. that having been said, donald trump is not goingen to change e record. he was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of americans who did not need to die. millions of others who suffer from covid who did not need to suffer. an economic calamity that is afflicting people tonight in a way that is not going to be alleviated by $600 or $2,000 while the president sits in palm beach and the vice president sits in vail on a ski slope andk the secretary of the treasury is in cabo san lucas in mexico. this is merely fiddling while rome burns. >> indeed. america is burning in so many ways today. at that. thank you so much for the member pleasure of your time. so much from you. >> thank you. the same with me. >> appreciate it, michael. still to come, as marco rubio gets hammered for his covid hypocrisy, why we should all be nevertheless paying attention to the shifting numbers regarding herd immunity. that's next.ifting [phone rings] "hello, how can i" sore throat pain? try new vicks vapocool drops in honey lemon chill for a fast-acting rush of relief like you've never tasted in... ♪ honey lemon ahh woo vicks vapocool drops now in honey lemon chill marco rubio is doing that thing again where he annoys everybody by trying to play both sides of an issue. on covid, the republican senator played down the virus for months, including speaking maskless at a campaign event last month in georgia for kelly loeffler. but he nevertheless managed to skip to the head of the vaccination line more than a week ago. how nice. yesterday rubio tweeted that dr. anthony fauci lied to the american public about masks and distorted the vaccination levels needed to achieve herd immunity. but hold on. maybe as much as i hate to say it, does rubio have a point? dr. fauci is live, but the country's top infectious disease expert has on more than one occasion shifted his statements on the coronavirus and how to handle it. "the new york times" reported this very thing last week noting, quote, dr. anthony fauci has been slowly but deliberately moving the goalposts on when herd immunity is possible from lower estimates of 60 to 70% of americans vaccinated to more recently 75, 80, 85% even. quote, dr. fauci said that weeks ago he had hesitated the public raise estimate because many americans seemed hesitant about vaccines which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity. now those kind of changes in messaging i think are not particularly helpful in fighting the pandemic, even though you could argue they might be necessary as we expand our knowledge about a new and vicious virus that has now killed one out of every thousand americans. olivia troye is a former member of the white house coronavirus task force. she worked with dr. fauci. she is also a former adviser to vice president mike pence. she joins me now. dr. fauci has become a living legend, a national treasure. he celebrated his 80th% last week on christmas eve. the mayor of d.c. declaring it anthony fauci day. i know you're a fan. i spot his picture on your wall over your right shoulder. but he is not perfect, is he? whether it's?yw saying masks weren't necessary at the start of the crisis to now shifting the goalposts on herd immunity levels. >> correct. here is the thing, mehdi. the thing about science is it's all about gathering data and facts in a situation that's evol evolving, right. what we know about this virus has continuously evolved from day one, starting in january when we don't even have access on the ground to test the virus. figure all that situation out early on. so what you have here is it is going to continue to evolve. this information, the data will continue to evolve along the way. and so i think, you know, mark rubio's tweet, what he doesn't put into context is that dr. fauci was talking about vaccinations. and in order to reach a certain level of immunity against the virus, you're going to have a significant part of the population vaccinated before you can reach a certain level of herd immunity. actually his modeling is based on the measles virus, which is known to be the most contagious virus out there. and so that's what it is;,z bas on. and early on with the masks, there was a thing to date on the task force about how we were going message the masks so that there wouldn't be a rush that would prevent medical workers from getting masks. and so that was also part of it. but absolutely messaging is key. and i get your point of conflicting messaging is hurt l hurtful. but marco rubio's tweet that he put out is even more hurtful because he is continuing to contribute to divisiveness on this pandemic. >> yes. and we'll come back to rubio in a moment. i get what you're saying about the science changes. it's a new virus. i totally understand that. but he said in the interview with "the times" that the reason he didn't raise the herd immunity level before was because americans weren't ready to hear it, but now he thinks they are based on the polling, based on how many people are willing to get vaccinated. is that a wise thing to do from perspective? rubio to accuse him to manipulate public hearing? why not be honest from the beginning? >> i see how people will take the message, and it provides an opportunity for counterthey'retives to come into play. i think what dr. fauci's point was he really was trying to encourage people to get vaccinated. we understand that this issue has been somewhat a divisive thing in our country where you have people who are scared to take the vaccine, who are scared of whether it's effective. look, i'm going to be very honest. my mom is 76 years old. she has told me she has concerns about taking the vaccine, and i want more than anything for her to be immune against this virus. so this division on the vaccine and whether to take it is j that. obviously it hits home with me. so i think in terms of the vaccination, we do need to encourage and show that the vaccine is safe. there is a process that was under way, and we have operational speed and some of the statements coming out of the white house from the president and others have politicized it and to a certain extent. >> yeah. i mean, you mentioned your mother is in her 70s. i have to say, what do you make of marco rubio, a healthy 49-year-old who goes around without a mask on at rallies getting a vaccine before 99% of americans. how does that sit with you? >> not very well because, you know, i remember the marco rubio of last march where he was telling people to take the pandemic seriously.r4÷ i remember the rubiopa.ñ of thi summer where he had concerns about opening schools and then suddenly he didn't have concerns about opening schools. so i don't know. when it comes to marco rubio being a recovering republican like myself, i watched rubio along the way always shift with whichever the wind is blowing. so it's really more literally about politics than what's doing what's right for the american people, his constituents and the people of his state who are actually reallyíwp suffering in this pandemic. >> yeah. i mean, he is definitely a wind shifter. but to get vaccinated and then be divisive on the issue of vaccinations is even a new low even for marco rubio. olivia troye, thank you so much for joining me on the show. we'll have to leave it there. still ahead, why is congressman louie gohmert suing vice president pence in the latest bid to steal the election for trump? i'll explain what in the world he is up to, after this. ♪ ♪ ♪ smooth driving pays off. ♪ with allstate, the safer you drive the more you save. ♪ you never been in better hands. allstate. click or call for a quote today. dreya! hey! how are you so good at this? relax. get into it! aw, yeah! i've got it! rated everyone. since you're heading off to dad... i just got a zerowater. but we've always used brita. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. with just nine days to go until the final procedural hurdle in the 2020 election, the formal counting of electoral votes by congress on january 6th, the trump dead-end and the republican party are pulling what we can only hope will be one of their last stunts to try to overturn the outcome. today louie gohmert of texas filed a lawsuit along with several of donald trump's electors from arizona to try to get rid of the rules that govern next week's vote counting. by long, congress meets on january 6th to open sealed certificates from each state and read the results allowed with the president of the senate, vice president mike pence presiding. gohmert's lawsuit claims that pence should be able to ignore the results that give joe biden a majority of the electoral votes and count votes for donald trump instead. it's very unlikely that this long shot suit will go anywhere, but apparently it's what the boss wants, and louie gohmert is still taking marching orders from trump. quote tweet, if a presidential democrat had a election rigged democrats would consider it a act of war and fight to the death. mitch and the republicans do nothing, just want to let it pass. no fight. well, that kind of thing has happened before in the year 2000. democrat al gore famously lost an extremely close election by way of a margin of 537 votes in florida, and a legal battle that ended with the supreme court essentially handing the election to george w. bush, despite accusations of dirty tricks and voter disenfranchisement. al gore was of course still the vice president on january 6th, 2001 when congress formally counted the electoral votes.$orq and surely, painfully he had to preside over the counting of president of the senate. there were protests from some democrats back then, #imupset at the nature of their party's loss, but al gore of course played by the rules. >> mr. vice president, i rise to object to the fraudulent florida electoral votes. >> is the election in writing and signed by a member of the house and senator? >> the objection is in writing. and i don't care that it is not signed by a member of the senate. >> the chair will advise that the rules do care andú÷ the signature of a senator -- [ applause ] -- the signature of a senator is required. the chair will again put that part of the question, is the objection signed by a senator? >> mr. vice president, there are gross violations of the voting rights act from florida and i object. and it is not sign bade senator. >> the chair thanks0dksw gentlewoman from california. on the point previously stated, the order may not be received. >> al gore, the man who lost the election did what he believed was right for the good of the country that day, shutting down his own democratic colleagues in the process. in a little over a week, it will be the party of trump's turn. and we'll talk about that next. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. idflings odors onto your softle kfsurfaces? 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>> it's a strange situation because you can't tell where the party ends and where donald trump's supporters begin. you have a giant section of republicans who are saying, okay, we maybe need to move on and just deal with the biden presidency. let's certify the results in congress next week and say, okay, biden won because here are the votes, or we could indulge in a fantasy and say that donald trump isn't going to leave the white house, and what we can do is somehow manipulate the rules of congress to do so. and that's where the split lies. >> yeah. and in that split, jennifer, you've been part of that split. you've gone beyond that split. i wonder, did you leave the gop because you believe not only that it's trump's party but that it can no longer be anything other than trump's party? there's no rescuing of it? >> well, that's exactly what we learned when we watched how the republican party leaders behaved post-election. it became clear that they were willing to engage in borderline seditious behavior trying to overturn a legitimate election, the results of a legitimate election in the united states, in order to somehow protect and preserve donald trump. you know, "the new york post" finally kind of coming to grips with reality a little bit might be a good thing, but it's not going to have any impact on these republican lawmakers, would are going to remain tightly under donald trump's thumb for years to come, you know. they live in fear of a trump-supported primary. >> someone -- jennifer, someone keen to speak to you there. i'll let you stop that call. maybe it's someone from the republican party trying to get you back. tina, in the meantime, let me come back to you. will a new york post front page make any difference in maga world? i mean fox news dared to call the election for biden, and trump supporters just switched over to oann and newsmax rather than expect the fox call. >> i think that might have happened with "the new york post" as well. as you've been seeing in the past couple of weeks, any republican entity, even ones that are essentially pro-trump, such as tucker carlson or the majority of fox news hosts, the moment that they break from that narrative of, okay, there isn't evidence saying that the election was stolen, then maga world starts turning on them and going, oh, well, you've been bought out by corporate media. you can start seeing a bit of that with "the new york post" op-ed where you have people looking at this op-ed and saying, okay, you're truly not believers. here is all your corporate ties that we suddenly care about right now. so there will be other newspapers that they'll flock to. there will be other maga-friendly online internet sources they'll start sharing on their social media feeds. but there's really nothing "the new york post" can do to win them back other than retract any sort of story or pretend the story never happened and go straight back to donald trump's quest to overturn the election. >> here's my question to you. if it's donald trump's party, if it's the trump gop, does that mean the 2024 candidate will be a trump, if not donald himself, then either don junior or ivanka? >> that's a difficult question to answer right now. obviously if the presidential candidate is trump, then the president is 100% is -- then the republican party is going to have to fall behind him because there is really no one else that can establish themselves against him. if he doesn't run, however, it's going to be difficult for anyone to take on the party of trump without trump himself saying, i give my blessing. who knows if that's going to happen? but you can see all these other republicans who have stepped in and tried in their own senate races or house races and say, i am super-duper pro-trump. i support all these trumpian policies. i'm even going to emulate trump. but if trump decides he doesn't like them at one moment, then trump's base immediately turns against them. you saw that with kelly loeffler. you kind of see that with the georgia senate race right now where these two candidates are trying so hard to hew to trumpian policies, say the right trumpian things, and there's still a giant set of maga supporters who think that they were the beneficiaries of a, quote, unquote, stolen election and some scheme in georgia to steal votes from trump. so at this point, it's all trump's game. can he give these voters up? who knows? >> yeah, and here's what i don't get. when you have this kind of trumpy republican party with a trumpy base, which, you know, says we're going to twitch tv exams if we don't like the news we see, we're going to switch papers if we don't like the front pages we see -- when you have a paper like that and then you have joe biden saying, as he said last week, once trump is gone, i'm going to be able to work with the republican party, and i just feel like isn't that a fantasy? >> it really depends on how prevalent trump will be in politics and whether he has a group of people left in congress whose priority is him above, you know, their own supporters or their own leadership. that's a question that i haven't been able to personally answer because the entire base of maga is all primarily, one, internet-based, and, two, not particularly concentrated in one area or one constituency, like geographical that could be represented by a house representative or a senate member. that is -- like honestly, i can't particularly tell if they'll keep going on this quest. >> it's going to be one of those wait-and-see games although i'm very skeptical myself. jennifer is back, i believe. i believe we can speak to her. i want to bring her back into the discussion before we run out of time. jennifer, you quit the part. steve schmidt and others have quit the party. what's your advice to republicans like mitt romney and others who are staying in and fighting. should they quit too? >> it's completely up to them whether they want to become independents or stay with the party. but it's just imperative that they continue to speak up. you know, you mentioned joe biden talking about wanting to work with republicans when he becomes president. i believe joe biden's commitment is real and true. but as long as people like mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy are declaring, you know, war on the democratic party or on the democratic president, you know, declaring that this is about blocking and obfuscating at every turn, it's going to be very difficult to get cooperation from any of the republicans. and frankly as long as the republican party continues to see themselves as matt gaetz said yesterday as the party of trump, i don't see a world where they're going to be able to work on behalf of the american people in compromise with president biden or any of the other democrats. >> jennifer, we've got 20 seconds left. quick last question. you quit the republican party. you became an independent. do you have plans to join joe biden's democratic party? >> i don't have plans to join the democratic party. i'm going to be an independent. i still hold a lot of my conservative values, and most importantly, i am pro-democracy, which the republican party is not at this time. >> i think that's a good position for all of us to hold, pro-democracy. i mean it's crazy that we have to say that, but we do in 2020. tina nguyen and jennifer horn, we'll have to leave it there. thank you both so much for your insights. that is "all in" for this evening. you can always catch me onmy new show streaming on peacock every week night at 7:00 p.m. eastern. "the rachel maddow show" starts now with my good friend, ali velshi in for rachel. good evening, ali. >> i got a smile on my face when you said that part about how we just all need to be pro-democracy. it should be obvious, but it's actually not, and i think the important thing to point out is whether you're republican or an independent or a libertarian or a liberal or progressive, it doesn't matter. there's a choice to be made right now. you're on the side of democracy, or you're not. fantastic that we have to say it, but it is what it is. >> indeed. 100%. pro-democracy, the bare minimum. the benchmark. >> yeah. have a good evening, my friend. good to see you. and thank you to you at home for joining us this hour. rachel's got the night off. there are just 23 days left in this presidency, 23 days until joe biden and kamala harris are sworn in. and yet after four years, another first. tonight the house of representatives overrode a presidential veto for the first time in the trump era, overriding the president's veto of the annual defense spending bill. that's the bill that pays the salaries of the men and women in the armed forces and funds the nation's national security apparatus. the annual defense bill is typically passed