20 million americans by the end of december. December ends tomorrow. And yesterday the cdc reported that 11. 4 million doses have been sent to states and only 2. 1 Million People have received the vaccines first dose. We certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of december. You heard talking about 40 million doses for 20 Million People. I mean, even if you undercount, 2 million as an under count, how much under count could it be. We are below where he want to be. All right. Good morning, and welcome to morning joe, it is wednesday, december 30th. Im kasie hunt, alongside White House Reporter for the Associated Press, Jonathan Lemire. We are once again in for joe, mika and willie as we wrap up this hard year. With us we have republican strategist and Senior Adviser to the Lincoln Project, susan del percio, and host of msnbcs policy nation and the president of the National Action network, reverend al sharpton. John, it is pretty incredible to watch all of those comments from white house officials over the last couple of months making these promises, saying they are going to get this out the door, only to be where we are here with just one more day, 1 1 2 more days left in 2020. The Trump Administration has to be on the defensive about this, and they have been under attack from the biden transition even. First lets grab the good news piece of that sentence, we are in the pen ultimate day of 2020. This terrible year almost over, but youre right, this is a president , as we have been documenting morning after morning, who has largely checked out. Who has abandoned his day job and responsibilities, particularly when it comes to battling this pandemic that is surging throughout the country and has claimed more than 100,000 lives just since election day, but one thing that was supposed to be a signature achievement was the development and rollout and distribution of this vaccine. You saw the clips there, the promises were bold. They were strong and at least to this point, they havent been met, and were going to get into this much more in a moment. Theres been extraordinarily strong push back from the white house, trying to be defensive about this from the president himself, from the press secretary, from the Administration Officials, trying to suggest that this vaccine rollout is happening as planned even though we know that not as Many Americans are receiving this as nearly as they hoped, but of course the other drama that were following right now, and i know youre watching so very closely is capitol hill, and we saw some pretty dramatic stuff on the floor yesterday. Can you walk us through the machinations and the plotting, perhaps, that Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has been doing . As dramatic as the senate floor can ever be. John, we have been talking about this all week, and the way that President Trump has suddenly decided that hes going to push these 2,000 checks, and we should remind everyone, if this is what the president wanted, he could have had it, he just would have needed to say so during any of the months that these negotiations were going on, but now hes insisting, okay, i want a vote on this, and its left Mitch Mcconnell in a position of trying to defend the two senators that are running for reelection in georgia. They both have said they want 2,000 checks, but its clear so many other republicans are opposed to it, so hes come up with this strategy, and hes basically laying it back at the feet of the president. Hes saying while President Trump tied these three issues together when he actually gave in, signed that covid relief bill, and those issues are related to tech liability or liability for tech companies, i should say, as well as an Election Fraud commission. And basically, what happens, you package all of those things together, and then you cannot get the support for the 2,000 checks, even though there is incredibly broad support for it in congress. The house passed it by a 2 3 vote, and that really underscores, as we head into the new year, how difficult it is. And i keep thinking about the people who just are watching what is happening and theyre saying, my life is so hard because of this pandemic and you, congress, cant get it together. But this is often how they deal with things like this, and this is how mcdonnell has been doing it, john. Sort of regular business, and im sure we know the partnership between Mitch Mcconnell and President Trump is remade in many ways, the federal judiciary. There are a lot of conservative goals accomplished. One has to wonder in private moments if the Senate Majority leader also counting down the day to january 20th. At least his job will have more clarity. Were going to revisit that shortly. First, back to the matter of the vaccinations and the struggles this administration has had getting to the americans who need them, and theyre receiving a lot of criticism, including from president elect joe biden. He spoke yesterday, again, urging americans to wear a mask, and calling on President Trump to set that example in nhis finl days in office and called trump out for his handling of the Vaccine Distribution. The Trump Administrations plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind. This will take more time than anyone would like, and more time than the promises from the Trump Administration have suggested. This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we have ever faced as a nation, but were going to get it done. Likely in response to bidens comments, trump took to twitter to blame the states for the Vaccine Distribution lag and threw out a random swine flu tweet. Reflecting a lag in reporting from local health authorities. The white house released a statement touting the speed of the vaccine developments, and heres the assistant secretary of health, admiral brent g girrard. The federal plan is to provide the guidance, infrastructure, the vaccines, the distribution mechanisms, the needles, alcohol swabs but its at state and local levels to get vaccines at arms, like it always is, every year, its done at the local level. The federal government doesnt invade texas or montana and provide shots to people. We support the state and locals in doing that. Lets bring in Geoff Bennett in beautiful wilmington, delaware, geoff, great to see you. Walk us through yesterday the argument that the president elect is making and specifically the complaints that he is voicing about both the Vaccine Distribution but also the obstacles that his team is facing as they are about to inherit this problem in just three weeks from today. Reporter and jonathan, whats so interesting about this push back from the white house, admiral brett girar explained the crux of the issue. The administration is saying theyre responsible for the distribution of the vaccines but the states are responsible for the vaccinations. As we well know, states are stretched thin. They are cat strapped, now ten months into this pandemic, and what theyre looking for is stronger, federal, intervention. It was the same thing with testing, the administration kept saying for months that more test kits are being rolled out to states. Yet, we knew the tests werent being administered because the states needed more help from the federal government. What we heard from joe biden yesterday was not a plan to get vaccines distributed. It was a plan to get vaccines into the arms of americans. He talked about how he would invoke the defense production act to ramp up the production of vaccines but also the protective gear thats needed to administer it. He called for additional funding from congress so that the states could get the money they need to really stand up, for a vaccination effort, and even talked about creating vaccination sites, federally backed vaccination sites and having mobile units sent out to hard to reach parts of the country. Beyond that, he talked about having a public messaging campaign to boost vaccine acceptance. For two days straight, we saw joe biden call out the administration. Earlier this week it was about the roadblocks that trump appointees at the pentagon were p putting up, and yesterday he was talking about how the Trump Administration has fallen short of the vaccine rollout. Joe biden becomes president in 21 days and he is articulating the challenges the country faces and he will inherent as commander in chief, jonathan and kasie. Reverend al i was struck watching when we came in with the long list of promises from Administration Officials. They have gotten americans hopes up for month, really. Everyone has been desperate for the pandemic to come to an end, and the officials have been out there saying dont worry, its coming, we got this, but theyre setting in some ways expectations for the Biden Administration that are just being set up to fail. Do you think thats part of whats going on here, and what is the challenge for the biden team . Well, the challenge for the biden team is to give a realistic projection on what can be delivered, whether this is a set up or not, it in effect, will be acting as a set up if the biden team does not give realistic expectations, be able to deliver on them, and if we are not successful in challenging the federal government to give the states what they need to operate. One of the arguments on capitol hill and you know this better than anyone, has been aid to the states who are already operating in deficit, and if the federal government under President Trump is saying that its not us, its the states, but then theyre not giving the states the kind of revenue and support that they need, it really falls back on them and they will pass it off to biden and be the first one blaming biden on january 21st, the day after the inauguration, they will make it his problem. We saw an extraordinary amount of defensiveness from the Trump Administration on this yesterday, geoff. Including saying that they have invoked the dpa, which we should remind viewers, was a career war level to boost production for a war effort, in this case, a vaccine effort. Joe biden and his team is saying, no, were the ones that are going to step forward. Can you explain the discrepancy. What is the Trump Administration talking about. How have they used this measure before, and what specifically do we think the biden team is going to do in order to get these, to use that nsh measure to get the vaccines to the americans who need them. So the Trump Administration invoked the defense production act to ramp up the production of ppe. To ramp up the production of nasal swabs and so the president used that 1950s era law, really as it relates more to the testing kits and rollout of a testing strategy, such that it existed. The administration really has not used that for vaccine production in the way that the biden transition is talking about doing as it relates to the vaccination rollout. Theres also an issue with producing the Raw Materials needed to actually produce the vaccines and so that is where the defense production act, biden transition Officials Say, could be particularly useful, jonathan. Nbcs Geoff Bennett, thank you so much. Enjoy the day in delaware. Kasie, this is certainly going to be a monumental challenge for the biden team as they come in. Starting behind the game, and certainly the urgency will only increase as we see numbers of americans dying rise sharply, and are expected to surge even more in cases of infections after the christmas holidays. Yeah, those warnings of course that january is likely to be the toughest month that we have seen yet, even as we have this hope of a vaccine, and to that point, a newly elected member of congress has died from complications related to the coronavirus. Lou letlow, a republican from louisiana was set to take office on sunday. The entire louisiana delegation, as well as Speaker Pelosi and minority leader mccarthy offered c condolences. He leaves behind a wife and two young children. He announced he was diagnosed less than two weeks ago on december 18th and just a few days later he was hospitalized and later transferred to another hospital. It is not believed that letlow had any underlying conditions. Our thoughts are with his family today, and were going to get much more on the coronavirus pandemic from dr. Nahid bhadelia in just a few moments. We want to go to politics in georgia where an audit of the states absentee ballots has found no evidence of fraud. More than 15,000 randomly chosen absentee ballot envelopes in cobb county were reviewed for this report. There were ten ballots that were initially flagged as being unsigned or having mismatched signatures, but investigators later confirmed that they were, in fact, legitimately cast by the voters who returned them. And the audit ultimately confirmed a 99 confidence level in the president ial Election Results after two recounts, both by hand and by machine. Still, President Trump continued to rail against georgia republicans, tweeting last night, quote, i love the great state of georgia but the people who run it from the governor to the secretary of state are a complete disaster and dont have a clue or worse. Nobody can be this stupid. Trump then proceeded to touch on some type of conspiracy that raffenspergers brother works for china which somehow connects to what he says is going on in georgia. There is only one small problem with this, Brad Raffensperger does not have a brother, as has been pointed out by many on social media. According to newsweek, trump is likely referring to ron raffensperger, ceo of the Chinese Technology firm huawei. The two men are not, in fact, related. Susan del percio, we are, in the final days of this, seeing conspiracy theories spiraling. Brad raffensperger has been the subject of threats to himself, his family member, all four, a sensible crime of telling the truth about this election. And the president will just not let this go. For President Trump, its never enough, and he will continue to live out these delusional fantasies that somehow hes going to change the Election Results. The results are in. Biden won. Donald trump lost. He lost georgia three times. Once on election day, and two other recounts, but what does concern me is the talk of violence and the talk of getting revenge, and speaking out against people in such a divisive way, especially when we look towards next week when the Electoral College will be certified and donald trump is urging people to come to washington and saying its going to be, you know, a crazy time. And the proud boys, we talked about in your showcase, they are now banned from your hotel where they typically gather. But they cause a lot of violence three weeks ago, including several stabbings, and donald trump encourages this behavior and thats whats truly dangerous. I laugh when i hear about the brother that doesnt exist, and thats just trump being trump, but then he takes it a step to a point where peoples lives are in danger and this is what hes focusing on. We now look at almost approaching 340,000 deaths, and donald trump is focused on losing yet another court battle, and who he can go out and rant and rave about. And just looking at georgia, is this the person you want coming to georgia the day before your election and quote supporting you . I think hes going to cause a lot of problems for republicans in georgia on january 4th. I strongly suspect that hugo chavez knows the location of the georgia secretary of states nonexistent brother. Reverend sharpton, this of course, the president s latest conspiracy theories, his latest attacks on the great state of georgia come less than a week before the Senate Runoff election there. And the president is heading to georgia in a matter of days for a rally, and im sure rhetoric like this makes a lot of republicans rather nervous. Give us your assessment, whats the state of play from what youre hearing on the ground from georgia. One of the democratic candidates, jon ossoff will be a guest on the show in a little bit. Whats your sense of it, the enthusiasm that carried joe biden to capture georgia, the first democrat to take that state in decades, is that going to be able to be recreated here, rev . We have heard, kasie and i have both heard, that operatives on both sides of the race, democrats and republicans alike believe its a close race, but might say a slight advantage to the gop right now. There is a lot of enthusiasm on the ground as i can attest to from talking to people throughout the state. National action network, my group has an office in atlanta. Theres a lot going on on the ground but there is also a lot of pushback by the republicans. There is clearly going to be a close race, and i think that the behavior or misbehavior of donald trump on the night before could be very decisive in a race this close, but i think that ossoff and reverend warknock has put together a great ground game and may be able to pull off the enthusiasm in terms of delivering the vote that biden got, and Stacey Abrams and others are to be given credit for that, but i think its to