term. warnock will be georgia's first black senator with black voters playing a key role in his victory. a point he alluded to when he spoke a short time ago. >> so i come before you tonight as a man who knows that the improbable journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in america could only happen here. we were told that we couldn't win this election. but tonight we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible. >> nbc news has not called the other senate race between democrat jon ossoff and republican incumbent david perdue. here's where we stand right now. 98% of the vote is in and ossoff is leading perdue 50.1 to 49.9. but we still are expecting upward of 40,000 votes to come in. his campaign has essentially declared victory, but the perdue campaign says it believes it won and in what is becoming common among republicans who do not win elections these days, they will use every legal recourse to ensure that all legally-cast ballots are counted. once again, continuing that trumpian theme of fraud and illegal ballots. if the current trend holds and ossoff defeats perdue, democrats will take control of the united states senate for the first time since 2015. a significant boost for president-elect joe biden as he gets set to take office two weeks from today. with me now, kimberly atkins, senior opinion writer for the boston globe. jonathan alter, long continue time political journalist and msnbc analyst, jameill smith, senior writer for rolling stone. good morning/evening to all of you. kimberly, let me start with you. one way or another history has been made tonight whether jon ossoff wins his race. raphael warnock becomes the first black senator from georgia. the 11th black senator of all, and he's made history. >> he has, and it's a really remarkable end to a political election season where we've been through everything from a pandemic to protests for racial justice to have this milestone that was reached in this race in what was once a solidly red state, and an effort that was led with leaders like stacey abrams and latasha brown to motivate and mobilize black voters in a way that we really have not seen in georgia. i mean, this is a place in the south like many other states where there are a lot of suppressive voting lawes that were put in place to, to make -- to dilute the black vote. even the runoff itself is a vestige of that. so this victory means a great deal. it is historic for a lot of reasons and we'll have to wait to see what the other race is. that could really have a huge impact here in washington. >> jonathan, there is something else playing out, started playing out tonight in washington. there were clashes between, i don't know who they were, and police. they might have been proud boys. they might have been maga people. donald trump has called for an actual rally tomorrow. so while this thing is going on in it congress, which we all thought was pro forma where they count the ballots, they count the electoral votes and the vice-president signs it, donald trump might be out there, but certainly a whole lot of people will be out there challenging this. >> well, ali, it's a coup attempt. it's not going to work, but we need to call it what it is. and we need to make sure that the stakes involved are clear to the american people and that the members of congress who are trying to overturn an election and disenfranchise millions and millions of people, which is what they're going to try to do tomorrow, that they are called out as enemies of democracy, which is what they are. now, the good news is a lot of republicans have been noting this in recent days, so this is not actually a partisan issue. it's between those who believe in our democracy and those who don't. and you know, i'm been using kind of a prop tonight on television. scissors. why scissors? what is the republican argument that you're going to hear tomorrow? that they should clip off the top of the ballot, not include all of the votes that went for joe biden in those disputed states. disenfranchise all those, but the bottom of the ballot where they were elected, that's legal. it is exceeded only by the danger of it because it really is almost a constitutional crisis. we will get past it, but we cannot forget it, and they must be held accountable in the years ahead. the seditionists who are trying to destroy our democracy. >> and actually, jameill, when you look at the places where the most fervent challenges are taking place, in wisconsin -- it was president all of wisconsin. milwaukee dade county, wayne county which is detroit. it wasn't all of pennsylvania, it was philadelphia and pittsburgh. it wasn't all of georgia. it was part of georgia. and if you look at all the places where the votes were challenged, there is something that they all have in common. >> yeah, ali, they got this in common. >> that's right. >> that's what they got. and honestly, you know, it's blatant. it's overt and it should be recognized. in fact, i think to jonathan's point, we should recognize the fact that even the republicans who are so-called against the move that's going to take place tomorrow, they're going to -- people like thomas massey and six others who released a statement earlier this week, they are trying to defend the electoral college. they're trying to defend the only mechanism that actually delivers republicans into the white house nowadays. the only way they can actually win national elections. rather than making an argument for their policies and their platform to the american people, they are resorting to voter suppression to these shenanigans in congress, and, you know, who knows what they have in store next. but the point is trump -- you know, you see in perdue's actions tonight and statement. trump has established a boilerplate for republicans who lose elections. they are going to protest, they're going to cry foul. and honestly, being a sore loser as earlier this week, sells for the republican party and their electorate. >> yeah, the problem, kimberly, is that it's fine if it's just being a sore loser, except this is the kind of thing we have become used to seeing in unstable countries, right? the one thing we all do is we sign on to the fact there are elections and there are rules. it is a little unusual in this country the rules are different in every state. but that's the way the cookie crumbles. the concept that we don't accept that was established by donald trump a long time ago, by the way, he's been signalling this for months and months and months, does cause a problem for us because it changes the outcome of a debate about ideas that the people can make choices about. >> it absolutely does. i mean, i laughed for a moment when you talked about states having different rules and being able to do that. that's called federalism. that used to be an ideal of republicans, of conservatives. this is a party that is not about ideals any more. it is about a leader who they latch onto who they believe they need to win. it's just about winning elections. and now it's beyond winning elections fairly. it's about winning elections at any cost, even the cost of democracy. donald trump saying that he is going to fight to keep his place in the white house no matter what, that's what dictators say. you know, i wrote awhile back about how authoritative regimes don't march in all of a sudden like a military parade. they creep in bit by bit and donald trump, since his first campaign when he was already claiming that the election would be fraudulent and a claim he dropped the minute he won, has been beating this drum for years now. as he said, making the -- setting out the playbook for others to follow, we're already seeing that with senator perdue essentially saying he's not going to accept the result, which is a loss for him. >> jonathan alter, tomorrow donald trump has been encouraging people to come to these rallies and so have the proud boys and so have other people. so one starts to become confused as to whose rally this is. but there is some sense that the -- there is some speculation that the goal is to get these folks into a running battle with other people so as to then call in the national guard and maryland accommodated the last time the president wanted the national guard in washington, d.c. because it doesn't have its own national guard and/or to involve the military in the election the way michael flynn has actually called for. he called for martial law. i assume there's nobody in the u.s. military who is going to go along with this. >> you know, i think that's a fair assumption. all living former secretaries of defense signed a letter this week, which everybody in the military saw, urging them to stay out of politics. the military gets involved in elections in banana republics and, you know, we now have banana republicans who want that. i think that the suggestion of colin powell's former chief of staff that general flynn be court martialed, be called back into service, which the military has the ability to do, and court martialed for calling for martial law is a very good idea. these sorts of actions need to be taken in the days ahead. but here's the good news, ali. this it was a big night for american democracy, a really positive night because it was the beginning of the post-trump era. so you can hear the hissing coming out of the trump balloon. he is dead man walking politically and i know we've all been traumatized by him, but he is not going to have very much power as a former president. remember, this was georgia. this was not some kind of like blue state. this was georgia that he went to to try to -- and he utterly failed. so any republican who is too afraid of him, dancing to his tune, you know, is living in the past because the future of american politics, despite how much he tries, is mostly not going to include donald trump and that's something that we started out tonight and is very good news for this country. >> jameill, i want to put up the pictures of the 13 senators we know who are planning to object to the electoral college vote later on today. kelly loeffler is one of them. i guess that declaration didn't help her too much. she just made it last night. ted cruz wanted to be president of the united states. josh hawley wants to be president of the united states. blackburn is probably running to be president of the united states. most of these people, having donald trump on your side saves you from many primaried or saves you from having him say bad things about you on twitter and helps you become president because you'll appeal to his base. does any of that calculus change on a night like this where donald trump going to georgia last night might have hurt as much as if not more than it helped? >> i mean, it should. it should change. frankly the party really should have had the awakening of their autopsy that the romney loss -- they realize they are insulting voters of color with the policies and rhetoric they are offering. instead they hire this guy to run and lead their party. and we're realizing now a brand of politics that's built on fear, thankfully in this country has a limited shelf life. also when you don't have this guy on the ballot, obviously we're seeing what happens. people can try to emulate donald trump, but they can't actually be him. frankly, if people are getting sick of him or if the republican electorate is simply saying, hey, we're ready to move on, these candidates aren't successful, then i think it's something we should pay attention to. also the fact is we're in a page right now where people really need government to work. these two people, loeffler and perdue -- maybe georgia rejected them because of that. >> we definitely need government to work right now. if you didn't think the federal government mattered this last ten months is proof to you that it mattered. if we had leadership that acknowledged where this coronavirus was going when we first heard about it in january, in february rather than lying in march and april about how it's just going to go away and we've got it under control and completely ignoring it these last couple of months, things would be very different today. we wouldn't be talking about the number of people infected and dead that we have. thank you to the three of you. stick around, please. jameill smith, jonathan alter and kimberly atkins are sticking around. i want to check some facts, though. at 1:00 a.m. washington time, president trump tweeted the false claim, quote, if vice-president mike pence comes through for us, we will win the presidency. in fact, mike pence in his role as president of the senate is scheduled to preside over congress's certification under the details of the 12th amendment. but he can't intervene in the process. with me now is one of my favorite reporters i've come to depend upon in the last few years, nbc news political reporter jane tim we all thought fact checking was part of our job, jane. we didn't all realize it was going to be all of our job all of the time. but it has been all of your job all of the time. talk to me about this. donald trump has had versions of this over the last couple of days. he said it in a rally last night in georgia. we're counting on mike pence. i really like mike pence but if he doesn't do the right thing i'm not going to like him. he's leaning on pence, he had lunch with pence yesterday and now he's tweeting about pence being able to do something that pence is not allowed to do. >> absolutely. congress wrote a law 134 years ago saying exactly what pence can and cannot do as president of the senate, as the vice-president, overseeing certification process. it specifically says he's really there to open the envelopes and hand them to somebody else so that they get read. his job is just to open the envelopes. he cannot do more. and previously we did see back in the 1800s a senate president try and intervene in a process, not overturn the results of an election, but intervene and be involved in it and that got shot down. congress really wants this power to lie with them and they've made it very clear in the law that they can. i talked to election experts today, is there any way they can do this? and they said, not really without a coup. what you could do is say you didn't read as far as the 12th amendment. you didn't read everything that will govern what happens tomorrow. no one ever intended the vice-president to be king maker and it's just not going to happen. >> so, who is in charge of that? the one thing i've learned with fact checkers over the last four years, you can check the fact, but donald trump makes his own rules. who -- the person who is going to get up tomorrow and say, mike pence isn't in the room, he needs to be in the room, or mike pence, you have to actually just do this. do we know where this goes? who is in charge? >> i mean, at the end of the day the law is in charge. i mean, mike pence does not want to be -- go down in history as the guy who started a coup for donald trump that he knows will fail. you know, it's just -- it's not going to go anywhere. i think mike pence knows it and we think trump knows it as well. i think this is a last-ditch effort because you saw donald trump going to court after court with failing efforts. it was one in the d.c. court by allies this week. judge said, wrong court, no standing. he wouldn't even read the constitution. we are grasping at straws this week. >> jane, good to see you as always. thank you for your tremendous work. if anybody doesn't follow jane tim on twitter it's jane street, and she'll keep you straight about exactly what's supposed to be happening. thank you, jane. good to see you. history made in georgia. we're going to go back to the big board and talk to one of the top political reporters in the state about what his sources are saying at this hour. these folks, 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worsen with aimovig. common side effects include injection site reactions and constipation. it doesn't matter what each day brings. so long as you can say... ... i am here. aim... ...to be there more. talk to your doctor about aimovig. okay. we've got some new vote coming in. let me tell you what has happened. this is the warnock loeffler race. we projected the reverend rafael warnock is winning this race. you can see the difference 49,000 votes over kelly loeffler. this is a special senate seat. there are two years remaining. warnock will be up for reelection. he left because of ill health. kelly loeffler is by far the wealthiest united states senator. it brings her net wealth down of a very rich chamber. this one isn't settled yet. 98% in, somewhere up to 40,000 votes outstanding. jon ossoff is leading 50.1 to 49.9. but the difference has increased. 12,806. we're waiting for dekalb county just outside of atlanta. one of those highly populated urban areas around atlanta. we're still waiting. most of the vote we're looking for in georgia that isn't in yet tend to be from urban areas or right around them. they tend to be skewing democratic. so this lead is expected to increase over the course of the next little while. joining us now is greg bluestein, a political reporter for the atlanta journal constitution. greg, what a night it's been. i've seen the cover, tomorrow morning's cover for the atlanta journal constitution which does imply we haven't quite got decisions yet. what do you know my viewers don't right now? >> yeah, i haven't seen that cover yet. i need to see that. what i know is, look, republicans privately acknowledge that there's no real path to victory for either of these senate incumbents. the race has obviously been called for raphael warnock, but david perdue is in dire straits as well because most of the outstanding votes come from democratic strong holds, left leaning counties. there are outstanding ballots in dekalb county, the most important democratic county in georgia. chatham county on the coast in savannah is another democratic leaning county. republicans feel like they might have provisional ballots, military overseas ballots, but it does not seem like there is near enough for them to overcome the democratic advantage right now. >> talk to me about the role that donald trump played in this whole thing. he was in the state last night. hours before a rally with kelly loeffler, kelly loeffler decided to join this renegade bunch of senators who are going to object to the electoral counting process tomorrow. didn't seem to help either of them. >> look, ali, even before the election day, republicans were ceding the ground. if we lose, you know why. it's president trump. and that's because president trump spent more time attacking fellow republicans in georgia like governor brian kemp, secretary of state raffensperger than he did the incumbents than he did attacking ossoff and warnock. you saw that in the rally monday night where he spent most of the time expressing his own grievances over his falsehoods over the election defeat and very little time talking about the two incumbents. >> let's talk a little about -- perdue has put out a statement that his team seems to believe he's won the election. we are calling it too close to call right now with ossoff in the lead. but he's immediately talking about legally-cast votes and legal challenges. when you throw it around enough, people begin to believe that there are problems with the voting. to your knowledge, what is the problem with voting in georgia? is there a problem with voting in georgia? >> no. republican elected republican officials who oversee the georgia's electoral system have said repeatedly there's no evidence of widespread fraud. there's no evidence of systemic irregularities. and after three separate tallies of georgia's 5 million ballots, it confirmed joe biden's narrow victory over donald trump here and an audit, selected audit of more than 15,000 signatures on ballot, absentee ballot envelopes in suburban county found no evidence of fraud either. really, it continues to be misinformation. i'm not sure what senator perdue's campaign is going to allege if anything at all. i do know they want to wait until friday where there is a deadline for provisional ballots for curing absentee ballot issues and overseas military ballots which i get, but still that doesn't change the dynamic. and if, you know, if he still faces a deficit to jon ossoff that he can't overcome, i think ossoff's campaign is going to move on and declare victory. >> this is not a long-standing issue in georgia politics. since 2005 they've had no-excuse absentee ballots. nobody seemed to mind at that point. it didn't seem to be a problem. this new business of we're going to challenge everything, it's not common. you point out that it was a republican legislature and republicans who oversee the balloting in georgia. >> exactly. not only do republicans sponsor the absentee ballot system, but also the new voting system that has come under fire, too, by at least president trump and some of his allies in georgia, the new touch-screen voting system, the two-part voting system georgia implemented over the past year. and it continues to be a big debate -- i mean, this legislative session starting in just a week is going to be defined by a debate over voting rights. at the same time, these legal battles, i'm sure there will be litigation filed. the worry in georgia was that what we saw november, which was weeks and weeks of dubious lawsuits and all sorts of misinformation, false claims was just a prelude to what could happen in georgia if the elections for the senate runoffs were close at all and what we're seeing right now they're pretty close. >> i want to bring up that headline that i was just talking about. we've got the front page now of the atlanta journal constitution. it says georgia keeps the nation on edge -- again. senate hanging in balance, race is too close to call. i love these headline writers. it's true. your state is keeping us on edge. political reporter for the atlanta journal constitution. again, thank you for your time tonight. please let us know as soon as you get more reporting. we'll bring it to our viewers. the future of the republican office when trump leaves office. and hours before congress meets to certify the election results. stay with us. stay with us robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees so you can start investing today, wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my a1c. because my body can still make its own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it, lowering my blood sugar from the first dose. once-weekly trulicity responds when my body needs it, 24/7. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include indigestion, fatigue, belly pain, decreased appetite, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting which can lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. i have it within me to lower my a1c. ask your doctor about trulicity. while georgia makes history by electing its first black u.s. senator, the nation's capital is preparing for huge and potentially violent protests as congress meets to certify president-elect joe biden's victory this afternoon. hundreds of president trump supporters gathered in washington yesterday for a stop the steal rally. but the main event is going to take place in a few hours when the president himself speaks to the thousands of supporters whom he urged to come to washington to protest his loss to joe biden. police in the d.c. national guard are on alert because of fears that the demonstration is aimed to try to overturn biden's victory could turn violent. authorities in the nation's capital say at least six people were arrested yesterday. back with me, kimberly atkins of the boston globe, political journalist jonathan alter and jameill smith of rolling stone. welcome back to all of you. i don't know, jameill. you make anything of what's going to go on in washington tomorrow? as i say, i think donald trump might be trying to incite something here. he has an eager bunch of people who come in from all over the country to do this kind of stuff, but what effect it has in the end, i'm not sure. >> well, really we're looking at the new lost cause. i mean, when you think back to the lost cause confederacy, that stemmed out of the compromise of 1877, you know, and, you know, white folks feel like they're losing power. they feel like they're being short changed when black people see some standing 12 years after slavery. frankly, you know, they say that history doesn't echo, but it rhymes. so i think what we need to be considering here is not merely the possibility of violence tomorrow, but also violence ongoing. >> um-hmm. >> and how is the government and how are we as a society going to prepare for that? >> kimberly, can joe biden do anything about that? is there a way -- he sort of has this bring down the temperature feel about him, which annoys a lot of progressives. but can he do something here? can he bring some of this temperature down that donald trump raised so at least people can be in conversation about what it is they're complaining about? >> i mean, president-elect biden can certainly speak like a leader and speak and try to unify a country. that is one of the jobs that we task our leaders with in being that figure head and speaking in a unifying way when the country is going through something difficult. but that's not an easy solution to what we're seeing. i mean, i think jameill is absolutely right in what we're seeing. and donald trump has gined ned this element from his base where they're not simply going to walk away on january 20th and we won't hear from them again. this is going to be an ongoing part of our society for a while. and we have to think about it in a lot of ways, not just in people not believing in democracy and thinking that an election was stolen, but also the fbi has told us that right-wing extremism is the biggest domestic threat to our country. so the biden administration is going to have to be focused on that as well and any other violence that might come out of this. but joe biden can't do this alone. we need all of our leaders speaking solidly in a unified voice, democrats and republicans, saying that the election system is safe, it is fair, people's votes do count, and democracy is strong in order to try to even begin to tamp down this element. >> jonathan alter, if the lead that jon ossoff has at the moment stands and mathematically it may because the votes we think that are outstanding are from democratic strong holds. if the senate becomes 50/50, democrats essentially have control of it because the vice-president is the deciding vote in the senate. in that instance, does joe biden -- does he benefit from his relationship -- but again, upsets a lot of progressives -- with mitch mcconnell? mitch mcconnell's power drops dramatically and mitch mcconnell and joe biden do actually have a long-standing relationship. do we see something that looks like functional government over the next two years at least? >> i think we will because, you know, once you have a majority, your appointees go through. you don't have these big confirmation fights. you also can get a lot done through this obscure process called reconciliation, so a tremendous amount of legislation will go through and joe biden will have a very eventful and impactful first 100 days. we will get infrastructure. we will get significant covid relief. we will get political reform. i think a number of these voter suppression tactics will be banned by federal law. if they have to suspend the filibuster for the purpose of democracy promotion, the democrats will do that. they won't be able to get rid of filibuster altogether, but this is a big change. this is a big moment in american history, ali. you know, biden would have been ham strung if georgia had gone a different way. mcconnell would have shown him no mercy despite their long relationship. but now mcconnell is basically stripped of most of his power -- you know, politics in this way is a little bit like sports. it's a game of inches. and the democrats will now at least for the next two years, they will be in the driver's seat. will they get everything they want? well, no. will the progressives be disappointed? yes, because the filibuster still will prevent a number of things from going through. but it will be a much, much more historic period and people will see forward progress because of what happened in georgia tonight. and just one quick word about jon ossoff. you know, history was made with rafael warnock. also with jon ossoff. the first jewish senator from georgia, he will be the youngest senator by almost ten years and, you know, he ran an almost flawless campaign. so this is a real leader for the future and going to be hearing a lot about jon ossoff in the years ahead. >> not everybody would have known he was jewish if perdue hadn't sort of gone at him with a few anti-semitic ads that caused him to actually come out and discuss it. an interesting way to get about figuring something out about someone. jameill, one of the things that would have kept the democratic party, which has its own issues united, was facing a united republican senate. what happens now if it becomes 50/50? we're not there yet. we don't know what will happen with ossoff and perdue. he's leading right now, but it's not called. so it could be a 50/50 senate in which case democrats have control. does that cause the democratic party a couple more problems because it's got to actually now decide on its priorities because it's going to pass bills? >> i think they should have expected this, to be frank. you see what -- as kim mentioned, what stacey abrams and latasha brown and other activists have been doing in georgia and how they have taken this approach that we are going to turnout the people who are already on our side as opposed to trying to get obama trump voters. they should have expected this and should have been planning for this, and frankly, they should act like they have a mandate because frankly they do. 80 million people voted for joe biden. you have two democratic senators in georgia. at what point do you act like you belong there? at what point do you act like you are in charge instead of trying to negotiate with people who have promoted nothing but hatred and lies about you? the country needs leadership, competence and governance, and there is frankly only one party that seems interested in doing that. >> kimberly, the progressive wing of the democratic party has asserted itself quite strongly in recent weeks. they made it very clear that they gathered around joe biden, not the first choice of progressives. they gathered around him unlike 2016 where progressives sat on their hands. they would like a little pay back for it. >> the democrats i talked to don't word it in terms of payback, but word it in a way that, look, voters who elected joe biden had these issues that drove them to the polls. this is what they went and voted in the middle of the pandemic in order to ensure -- they wanted relief from this pandemic. they want a restoration of voting rights. they want climate change to be addressed. they certainly want criminal justice reform to be addressed. and so they are looking for action on that in meaningful ways, something beyond just forming commissions and coming up with recommendations. so i think that is where we're really seeing a lot of the energy when it comes to progressives. you know, joe biden is somebody who has, over his career, moved at a slower pace, in a very deliberate slower way. but at this moment in time with all of the issues that voters -- that america is facing and what sent voters to the poll, there's really an urgency there that i think joe biden is going to be reminded about by the folks within his own party moving forward. >> thank you to the three of you for joining me this morning. it is an historic and exciting night. kimberly atkins, jonathan alter, jameill smith. i appreciate your time so early in the night or late in the night, early in the morning. i don't even know what it is right now, but thanks for joining me tonight this morning today. since donald trump lost the election he has called for georgia's republican governor to resign. he's told georgia's republican secretary of state that he was breaking the law simply for refusing to actually break the law and find thousands of votes for donald trump. the growing republican divide is going to be on full display today when congress certifies joe biden's victory. the associated press reports nearly 167-year-old party is divided over the typically mundane congressional certification of president-elect joe biden's electoral college victory. the process is opening a schism between those wanting to honor democratic norms and those who want to stay in lockstep with president trump out of hopes of avoiding his wrath and inheriting his supporters. joining me now is reid galen, former political strategist for president george w. bush and senator john mccain. reid, good to see you. thank you for joining us. there's a lot of calculus going on with these 13 senators and senators to be who have decided to object to the certification of the vote, a. they've got to realize it's not going to work. b, they are doing it to stay in donald trump's good books. we don't know how good those books are. and c, some of them want to be president. >> yeah, and i think that the vin diagram of those things really comes together with most of these 13 folks. and i think what you're going to see tomorrow or today, whatever time it is as you said, ali, is that these folks have decided that it's more important to preserve their own ambition and their own optionality than it is staying with the constitution. i think we as the lincoln project are going to make sure every american know where these folks stood when the time came. you're right, look, the thing we should understand about donald trump is he's going to lose tomorrow again. he's going to leave office on january 20th. and that might be it for his presidency, but, you know, he and his family and the ongoing criminal concern that it is, own most of the republican national committee lock, stock and barrel. most of the state parties, most of the apparatus, he may not be much of a planner but he has people around him that are. some of these folks, their political concerns may be legitimate, but that does not at all excuse the fact that these people are doing something that they know is fundamentally wrong. >> there have always been schisms in major political parties. the we had the tea party, the freedom caucus. we talked about schisms in the democratic party. there's nothing wrong with these schisms. >> sure. >> somewhere along the line the republic cann republican party baecame detachd from conservatism. there are ideological discussions about approaches to society. that's not what they're seeing amongst these 13 who are representative of a much larger group of republicans. >> sure, and remember that it's not just the 13 members of the united states senate. it's more than -- >> right, 140 -- >> house conference. so, yeah, it does makeup a majority of, you know, republicans in washington anyway at this point. and they probably represent more than half of republican primary electorates around the country. so what i think you're seeing is these folks are now part of the authoritarian wing of the republican party versus the establishment wing that has been in retreat probably since obviously donald trump came on the scene and is very much in peril now. so we should not be under any illusion that a lot of the senators and a lot of house members are doing this because they're positive that they're going to get a primary challenge next year. as you heard, trump say the other night, he's going to take on brian kemp, the governor of georgia. he's probably going to take on john thune, the senator from south dakota. it's not that his wrath isn't real. they decided putting the country behind their ambition, that they have all this desire with no conviction is somehow okay. that piece you showed by the a.p. i think is somehow mystifying. the idea there is any choice between donald trump and the future of the country, that somehow any of this is going to go down like donald trump wants it to. he sends out this tweet basically saying mike pence can do this. he can't. trump knows that. his lawyers know that. we have an establishment piece of the party that was too bereft as you mention of principle and has been laid bare by trump. too many of them have stayed too silent for too long and they think that's going to make them okay, serve them well. then you have people like hawley and cotton and cruz and all these other folks who think somehow donald trump is going to go away and just layout the red carpet for him for one of them or another to be the heir apparent to his presidency. he's not going to let them do that. he can't possibly allow it. i think all of these have made yet another devil's bargain with donald trump. i think it's ultimately going to be bad for the country. >> i have 30 seconds left. before that establishment wing who realized it wasn't doing the right thing, do they regenerate as something? is there a phoenix from the ashes here? >> well, they have to figure out what it is they believe in. and they have to figure out whether or not they care about democracy and what it means to be an american first. and i don't know that any of them have figured that out yet. i don't think that any of them have understood how it is that they have to fight these folks. i mean, look, we understood when we decided to are we wewe were e on donald trump, you have to go toe to toe with the biggest bully in the barn yard. from our perspective that's what these other folks are going to do, yet they have not, a, decided that they can do that and b, decided that they will do that. and until and unless they do that, they're going to start losing in droves next year. >> reid galen, good to talk to you this morning. reid galen is with the lincoln project. up next my thoughts on reverend warnock's historic win. it's time for the lowest prices of the season on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. what if i sleep hot? ... or cold? no problem, with temperature balancing you can sleep better together. can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. will it help me keep up with mom? you got this. so you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now during the lowest prices of the season, save up to $1000 on new sleep number 360 smart beds. only for a limited time. to learn more, go to sleepnumber.com. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. our friends sold 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commission fees so you can start investing today, wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. see every yikes...... and even every awwwwwwww... wait, where was i? introducing self protection from xfinity. designed to put you in control. with real-time notifications and a week of uninterrupted recording. all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity. gotta respect his determination. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. to everyone out there struggling today, whether you voted for me or not, know this. i hear you. i see you. and every day i'm in the united states senate, i will fight for you. >> [ inaudible ] 76 years since general william sherman and 60,000 union soldiers captured savannah. sherman's march to the sea devastated both the confederacy and much of georgia. sherman reaching savannah was the beginning of the end of the civil war. now, until sherman's arrival, savannah was a horrible confederate bastian of slavery. five years prior to that the city was the scene of one of the large of the sales of enslaved persons of american history. 436 men, women and children were brought to a savannah vase track two miles from downtown and put in stalls used for horses where they waited for days and in some cases weeks. hotels in town filled with potential slave buyers from across the region. the event became known as the weeping time because the skies poured rain for two days as enslaved families were torn apart to help settle their owner's gambling debts. news of the horrific auction deepened the nation before the civil war. today that race track is long gone. savannah is a very different place. the population now 54% black, and dotting the city are reminders of its hidden history. in savannah there is a marker dedicated to the weeping time auction and in some of the beautiful antibell a.m. homes the former living quarterers of slaves serve as a physical reminder of the divide between the most and the least powerful. right now one of savannah's own reverend raphael warnock is making history by becoming georgia's first african-american senator, and only the black -- 11th black senator in american history. warnock's feat is all the more impressive considering georgia's adoption of runoff elections which were specifically designed to limit the political participation of black people. warnock with the help of people like stacey abrams and latasha james has worked hard to mobilize georgia's black community. racial progress has been slow in that state, but the fact that 156 years ago, a black man in savannah had little agency over his own life, and now a black man from savannah is going to be elected a united states senator is another chapter in that state's remarkable history. i want to thank you so much for watching this morning. [ inaudible ] continues right here on msnbc. msnbc. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees so you can start investing today, wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. ♪ good morning to you, i'm ali vels are on the brink of retaking control. united states senate for the first time in six years which could help president-elect joe biden as he seeks to