Summary
President Trump missing in action in spite the current hacking of U.S. infrastructure by Russia and the pandemic crisis with the reduced vaccine shipments in all U.S. States. He is still pushing fraud theories on the election that he lost to Biden. The growing threat of Russia and how the Biden administration will handle and defend the United States against it. The FDA has authorized the Moderna coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, opening the door for nearly six million doses to be shipped out at the beginning of next week.
Transcript
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: Mehdi, this is a nice surprise to see you here. You and I have worked together before. You're (INAUDIBLE) on my show. You and I have a lot in common. Because this is different, because I have never introduced you as the host of "The Last Word," I thought I'd do something different. And I posted -- I didn't tweet --
MEHDI HASAN, MSNBC HOST: OK.
VELSHI: -- you and I both tweet a lot -- I posted it on Parler.
HASAN: Yes.
VELSHI: Now, I've been on Parler for over a month. I have -- I had exactly zero followers on Parler, zero.
HASAN: Why?
VELSHI: And I tweeted this --
HASAN: OK.
VELSHI: -- and I'm now I'm up to 62. You've made magic for me on Parler.
HASAN: Because you tweeted about you and I doing a handover on MSNBC. Two brown dudes.
VELSHI: That's right, yes. I thought it might alarm some people on Parler. It is my honor my friend to see you here and I know you have a lot to talk about tonight. So, have at it. It doesn't look like you've got to talk about the government running out of money for two more days. So, you know.
HASAN: No. It's great to be here, Ali, and thanks for the intro. And I'm glad you covered the relief package, but it's crazy that we still have no deal on a COVID relief package in the richest country in the world. So, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty frustrated about that. Thank you so much for the introduction. Have a great weekend, Ali.
VELSHI: Thank you my friend.
HASAN (on camera): Tonight, where is Donald Trump? Where is Donald Trump? At the end of 2020, our nation is facing multiple catastrophic crisis and Donald Trump is AWOL. The Russian government is suspected of being behind one of the largest cyber-attacks on U.S. infrastructure ever. Where is Donald Trump?
More than 313,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus including 11,000 people in the last week alone. Where is Donald Trump? Today, Mike Pence got a COVID vaccine on live television. It could have been a true educational moment for those who fear the vaccine, but it wasn't, because the president didn't show.
Where is Donald Trump? Millions of unemployed Americans are on the brink of economic ruin, and there's still no guarantee of a deal on a relief package. Where is Donald Trump? This is far worse than his usual laziness. His absence is unacceptable and unforgivable. He's missing in action when our nation is suffering.
In the more than 50 tweets Trump sent this week, he said nothing about the hack or the relief package or the surge in COVID deaths. So, where is Donald Trump?
Well, he's focused on the one thing he cares about, the one thing he's obsessed with more than anything else, staying in power by undermining democracy. Pandemic? What pandemic? The "Washington Post" reports that states have been notified that their next shipment of Pfizer vaccines has been reduced.
According to Pfizer, there are millions more doses sitting in our warehouse, but as of now we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses. Coronavirus cases are spiking. We have something to help stop reduce the spread, and the president and his lackeys are sitting on their hands?
Trump has gutted the CDC and weakened the NIH so much that when a national vaccine distribution plan is now the difference between life or death, those hobbled agencies simply cannot rise to the occasion. And Trump won't help. He damaged those institutions in order to shore up his own power, but he now refuses to use that power for the common good.
Because for Trump, it's always power for power's sake. And he's monomaniacal about it. He needs power. He wants to keep power. It doesn't matter what he does with it. That's what's behind his nonstop twitter tirades, lying about election fraud. He doesn't want to let go.
And his allies, his enablers, are all too willing to try and help him stay in power because it also helps them. That's a real quid pro quo. Trump pardons Michael Flynn and Michael Flynn then goes on crank news shows and calls for Trump to use the military to overturn the election result.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, that is not unprecedented. I mean, there's people out there talking about martial law like it's nothing that we've ever done. We've done -- martial law has been instituted 64 -- 64 times.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HASAN (on camera): If Trump loses his power, Flynn loses his, too, and vice versa, which is one of the president's clear motives for wanting to issue more pardons to loyal stooges. "Axios" reports Trump wants to go on a pardon spree and help the likes of convicted criminal and his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
But what's worse of all is that not only does Trump not want to deal with the pandemic or the hacking or the economic catastrophe. He won't get out of the way and let the president-elect and his team deal with it either. It's the worst of both worlds.
Trump and Co. keep interfering with the Biden transition process. Here's the latest example. "Axios" reports the Pentagon pushed back critical meetings by two weeks because of the holiday season. Trump officials tried to claim it was a joint decision.
But the Biden team rejected that telling reporters, there was no mutually agreed upon holiday break. There have been pockets of recalcitrance and the DOD is one of them. Trump wants power. He won't share power. He won't give up power. But he won't use it to do anything useful or necessary.
Never has a man fought harder to hold onto a job he has no interest in doing. He won't protect us from foreign countries trying to hack our critical infrastructure. He won't help us get much needed protection from a deadly virus, and he won't let the people who actually want to help take over.
There's your answer. Where is Donald Trump? He's in the White House torching the place, making sure that if he can't have the power of the presidency, no one else can either.
Leading off our discussion tonight, are Anand Giridharadas an MSNBC political analyst and publisher of the The.Ink Newsletter and Renee Graham, an opinion columnist and associate editor for "The Boston Globe." Thank you both for joining me on the show this Friday evening.
Anand, let me start with you. "The Atlantic" has a new report out tonight following up on some of the people who worked for President Trump over the past four years to ask them a simple question, was it worth it? And this is what former chief of staff General John Kelly said.
"The vast majority of people who worked in the White House were decent people who were doing the best they could to serve the nation. They've unfortunately paid quite a price for that in reputation and future employment. They don't deserve that. They deserve better than that because they kept the train from careening off the tracks."
Anand, how is it possible to say everything is not already off the tracks when 300,000 Americans are dead and the president is trying to overturn the election result?
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I always think it's advisable to stay away from train metaphors when talking about autocrats, whether they're on the track of off the track or on time or not on time. Look, the reality is Donald Trump is not that different from other autocrats, which is that it's about him.
It's -- auto means self. It's -- this is all for him. And the thing that actually does distinguish him from some of history's autocrats is intelligence, efficiency, competency, organizational skills, and I'm speaking about the other autocrats, not him. I think in the long run, it's hard to feel this emotionally now.
In the long run, there will be some small feeling that we lucked out in getting the particular flavor of autocrat who is not good at autocracy. But I have to also say, Mehdi, and you have been one of the leading lights covering this meta story, that Trump's assault on democracy is sort of like that final kick in Mortal Kombat, like the finish him kick.
And we need to talk more about the fact. Ask why democracy was down on its knees, raggedy, cut up, scuffed, beaten and bruised before he got there. This is just the final kick. And when you see a government that's not just unable to deliver relief tonight, but for 40 years has failed time and again to make people's lives better through policy.
When you see a government that has proposed milque-toast solutions to the challenges of market driven globalization and the other displacements in people's lives, when you see a government that, frankly, on both sides the blame originating with Republicans, dominated by Republicans, but with some amount of Democratic complicity going along with the fundamental and neo-liberal thesis that markets solves most of our problems.
And you saw President Obama recently expressing some regret about going along with that Reaganist consensus himself while in office. So there is a lot of blame to go around and the president is trying to deliver that final finish him blow.
HASAN (on camera0: Indeed. So, the final finish him blow is kind of ongoing. It feels like we're watching in slow motion. Renee, Republican senator-elect Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is falsely claiming that, you know, this is a fraudulent election. He says he's going to challenge the Electoral College vote. Have a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
SENATOR-ELECT TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): Well, you see what's coming. You've been reading about it in the House. We're going to have to, we're going to have to do it in the Senate.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HASAN (on camera): I believe, Renee, American democracy cannot survive as we know it if a majority of congressional Republicans, people like Tuberville, continue to refuse to acknowledge the result of a free and fair election, refuse to recognize the Biden presidency. Am I wrong?
RENEE GRAHAM, COLUMNIST AND ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE BOSTON GLOBE: You know, I think democracy is facing its greatest challenge, and it's facing it from within, you know. I think this country knows very well what to do with bad actors from other countries. It doesn't have any sense of what to do with Donald Trump because they've never had to deal with a president, of all people, doing this to democracy.
At this point, he has two goals; to spread lies meant to sabotage the incoming Biden administration and to break the back of democracy. You know, I've said this for months, there is no bottom here. There are high standards, there are low standards. Donald Trump has no standards at all.
And that puts this nation at an enormous peril, you know, but this is what it means to have a president who is immune to human suffering, who sees compassion or empathy as weakness and only views his presidency in terms of what he can grift out of it.
He's doing nothing as this nation is under attack again by Russia and Russia is having its way with national security. Meanwhile, this country is becoming a graveyard for the COVID dead.
HASAN: Yes, it is. Unfortunately, the deaths keep piling up and we hear nothing from him, as I mentioned a moment ago. Anand, you talk about democracy and you gave us a big picture in your opening answer, and Renee is talking as well about what it means to be a democracy.
What do you say to those people who say to you and me and to others and to Renee, that you guys, you exaggerate it with all hyperbole. The country survived, Trump is on his way out. He couldn't even get the Supreme Court on board. There was no fascism. The guardrails worked. Stop the exaggerations. What do you say to them?
GIRIDHARADAS: I've said it before and I'll say it again. We got this rare thing that you don't normally get as a living person, which is an advanced copy of our autopsy. So, in a way, both sides are right. We have gotten a very clear indication of what killed us as a democracy, but we didn't actually die.
And that's a very lucky situation to be in when you got that advanced copy of your autopsy because what you get is some agency to actually not die in the way that your death is foretold. Most people don't get that chance, as you know. And so the question now, and it's important, I think, not to depress your viewers.
This is, as Renee said so eloquently, this is a very perilous moment for democracy. However, when paired with COVID, when paired with the climate crisis, when paired with the racial uprisings of this summer, this is also, if you're one of those people who read history books in school and thought, I want to live in a really exciting time when you can remake the world.
Well, this is that time, Charlie. This is that time. You're living in that time now. This is the kind of moment in which everything changes because everything is bankrupted. And so, at "The.Ink" we've actually been trying to interview folks who are thinking about how we got in this mess, but also how we reimagined democracy out of it.
Masha Gessen, Sarah Kendzior, Michael Sandell, Sherrilyn Ifill, Isabel Wilkerson, there is a lot of folks who are thinking us out of this situation. And it's important everybody roll up their sleeves and fix democracy. It's going to be fun.
HASAN: Renee, one last question to you. In terms of rolling up sleeves, as Anand put it, Joe Biden's team, how much rolling up of sleeves do they have to do? How much damage can they undo when they come into office, not just the last four years, but just this transition period?
GRAHAM: You know, it's this funny thing. You know, presidents love to sit and talk about what they're going to do in their first 100 days. He's going to need 500 days to achieve what he's trying to do in 100 days. There is so much -- Donald Trump's idea is to break everything on his way out the door, and that's what the Biden administration has got to deal with.
Because they're neither getting the help they need now. They're getting sabotaged. They're being stonewalled. This has been happening from the beginning, as you know, as soon as Joe Biden was declared the winner of this election.
So, he has to not only look at all of these problems that are facing him with COVID and climate and racial unrest, all of that. He has to do something now about all these problems that Donald Trump is making worse by his neglect. And this is where I hate the term benign neglect. Neglect is destructive. It's willful. It's caustic. It is never benign.
HASAN: Indeed. Never benign, and that is what we're facing. You know what, I wonder, has a president ever inherited a country in more crises than Joe Biden is inheriting on January 20, 2021? Thank you both, Anand and Renee, for your insights. We appreciate you on a Friday evening. Have a great weekend.
Coming up, as the size of the hack on U.S. agencies and infrastructure grows and the silence from the Trump administration continues, one question now looms on. How will the incoming Biden administration tackle Vladimir Putin's Russia? Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Obama joins us next to try and answer that. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HASAN (on camera): Hackers have infiltrated the United States government and private companies in what could be the largest cyber-attack in the nation's history. It's an attack so widespread that according to the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, who just got a briefing on the hack, experts still don't have a sense of the breadth of the intrusion.
Of course, as we said, Donald Trump remains silent. So the task of confronting Russia, the country suspected by U.S. intelligence officials to be behind the attack will fall to the Biden administration. We often forget that while Democrats have hammered Trump for being soft on Russia, Biden's old boss wasn't exactly hawkish when it came to Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the 1980s or now, calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the cold war has been over for 20 years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HASAN: At the time, Mitt Romney called Russia our number one geopolitical foe, but President Obama was taking a different approach, like with this famously controversial moment in 2012 when he was caught on a hot mic with outgoing Russian President Dimitri Medvedev discussing the defense missile system.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OBAMA: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
HASAN (on camera): A lot has changed since then. U.S.-Russia relations are almost unrecognizable. That has a lot to do with Trump's constant kowtowing to Vladimir Putin. But if Trump leaves office in 33 days, is the Biden administration going to change course and get much tougher on Russia.
Joining us now is Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama. He is an MSNBC political analyst. Ben, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Your old boss, President Obama, wanted a reset with Russia. He mocked Mitt Romney for trying to start a cold war with Putin. These days, Joe Biden calls Russia an opponent and "the biggest threat to America right now." So I'm wondering, Ben, was Obama wrong then or is Biden wrong now?
BEN RHODES, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Mehdi, a lot has changed since 2012 is the first point here, right? I think that Vladimir Putin you recall returned to the Russian presidency in 2012. And in the first term of the Obama administration, we had a reset. We got a lot done with Dimitri Medvedev.
We had a new arms control agreement negotiated. After Putin came into office the second time around, you saw an increasingly belligerent Russia in this, you know, met its ultimate test, then Ukraine after they annexed Crimea.
At that point in 2014, Barack Obama had pivoted to beginning to impose sectoral sanctions on the Russian economy. So that shift was made in 2014. Joe Biden was a part of that administration, was part of that effort to build sanctions.
And it was in response to Vladimir Putin who, frankly, was the one who went on offense against the United States and I it's been clear for the last eight years that yes, they are a geopolitical foe and the United States needs to meet that with a stronger response than a complete silence that has been met with the cyber-attacks with Trump.
HASAN: So in terms of going on the offense, do you believe it was Russia that carried out these cyber-attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure? And if it is Russia, what would you be advising Joe Biden to do in response?
RHODES: Well, there's no question this has all the hallmarks of Russia. There is frankly not that many actors in the world that could carry out an attack this sophisticated. We're really talking about Russia or China. And by all reports, this feels like Russia in the most widespread penetration of our cyber defenses ever.
And you have an administration that has stood down. You know, Trump has fired the person literally in charge with our cyber defenses because he's not going along with the charade around the election. You have to evaluate what are your options and response.
In the Obama years, we imposed sanctions to try to, you know, in some way effect Putin's behavior. That clearly didn't worked well enough. Mehdi, we have to recognize, we have to look at new tools here. And you're in the cyber domain, you have to consider, are there offensive cyber-attacks or operations that could be launched in the United States?
But also, how do you begin to get it what Putin's vulnerabilities are. And I would suggest that his massive corruption, the corrupt finance and illicit financial flows that are the lifeblood of his brand of authoritarianism. It funds not only his politics at home, but his support for fellow autocrats around the world.
The Biden team should be taking a hard look at how can you expose that corruption. How can you stop that corruption? How can you put the stoplight on Putin and what he's doing? So, yes, its things like sanctions and what are you doing with offensive cyber operations.
But let's join the battle of ideas about what kind of leader Vladimir Putin is and let's shine a light on the corruption in which he depends.
HASAN: Yes. And there's also the conflict in Ukraine, of course, which broke out on your watch. On the one hand, Donald Trump has been ludicrously soft on Russia, deferential even to Vladimir Putin. But on the other hand, he often points out that I've provided lethal arms to Ukraine to use against Russia. Obama didn't. He's right about that, isn't he?
RHODES: No, that's not the answer (ph) there, Mehdi. Like, you know, sending in some anti-tank weapons into Ukraine when Russia is right next door and capable of pouring in as many arms as they want across the massive land border that they have with Ukraine.
Clearly that's not changing Russia's calculus either. You know, the debates in Washington --
HASAN: Agree.
RHODES: -- focus on a pretty narrow set of tools. Are we arming the Ukrainians enough? What kind of additional sanctions might we impose? Those things are important. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be exploring all those avenues, but we have to step back and look at the fact that these types of approaches haven't worked.
And what you really need to do is you got to get on the same page with our allies in Europe who are right on the front lines of dealing with Russian disinformation and Russian cyber-attacks just like us, but we're not working with them under Trump.
And think about what are the -- what's the full array of tools do we have here? Exposing Putin's corruption. Yes, supporting Ukraine. Yes, continuing to pursue sanctions, and putting forward a united front so that the United States is working with our allies in Europe to stand up against all these tools defensively protecting our cyber defenses, pushing back on disinformation, and then going on offense with Putin a little bit, again, shining a light on what he's up to.
HASAN: You mentioned, you know, the narrow array of tools that people in D.C. often push and you're right about that. In fact, when you were in government, I remember you famously, and in my view rightly, criticized the kind of permanent hawkish D.C. foreign policy establishment and you called them the blob.
And yet Biden seems to have hired all his foreign policy and defense people from the blob. So I wonder, what do you make of his appointments so far? Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, General Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, Jake Sullivan as national security adviser?
RHODES: Well, look, I focused that term on the kind of interventionist mindset in the Middle East, the idea that every problem is something that leads to a military response or that we have to check with our Saudi Arabian partners before we make any decision about what we're going to do in the Middle East.
I think that this team, people like Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken have learned a lot from the last decade. And I think part of what they understand, Mehdi, is that when you look at Putin, he is part of a bigger trend in the world of authoritarians, of corrupt authoritarians, of corrupt nationalist authoritarians, who are undermining our democracy in this country.
Through Russian cyber-attacks, of course, through Russian disinformation campaigns. And just through these kind of crude brand of politics that Putin represents. And that demands a kind of response where, yes, we use tough tools. We continue to impose sanctions. We continue to explore what kind of cyber measures we might take in response to this.
But it also depends a competition where we can show that democracy is better than this kind of corrupt autocracy that Putin is selling. And the people who are suffering because of Putin's policies are the Russian people and all the people in the countries where Russia has gone on offense.
And I think there is a real opportunity for that team around Joe Biden, I think, who's absorbed these lessons of the four Trump years and the last decade, to put together a comprehensive approach that stands up to Russia, that strengthens our defenses, and that lays out that United States needs to be the country that fights corruption around the world, fights autocracy around the world, and that we're confident in doing that shoulder to shoulder with allies who share our values.
HASAN: Yes. And to do that, of course, we first have to fix our own democracy at home. Ben Rhodes, thank you so much for taking a time out of your Friday night. Hope you have a great weekend. Appreciate you coming on.
After the break, the FDA has just approved a second coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, but will the Trump administration shambolic efforts undermine distribution of that life-saving treatment? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HASAN: Breaking tonight, the FDA has authorized the Moderna coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, opening the door for nearly six million doses to be shipped out at the beginning of next week.
But that good news comes as confusion grows about the distribution of the already approved Pfizer vaccine. States across the country say they were informed by the Trump administration that their next shipments of the Pfizer vaccine were being unexpectedly cut by upwards of 40 percent.
"The New York Times" reports that Trump officials said that they had only -- that they had allocated only two million doses for next week's shipment, less than the 2.9 million that were delivered this week.
The unexpected cutbacks are causing chaos in states' distribution plans. According to "The Washington Post", "Some were intending to use the second shipment to begin vaccinating residents of long-term care facilities. But they now face a dilemma about whether to go ahead with those plans or finish inoculating health-care providers, officials said."
But Pfizer said the problem is the Trump administration hasn't told them where to send the vaccines, millions of life-saving doses.
So where is the Trump administration? This comes on the heels of a report from NBC News yesterday that advisers to President-Elect Joe Biden warned that Donald Trump's team was too optimistic about their timeline to widely distribute vaccines to the general public.
Surprise, surprise.
Those doses are critically important as the U.S. continues to set records for new cases, deaths and hospitalizations.
To build trust in the vaccine, President-Elect Joe Biden and his wife will get vaccinated on Monday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got vaccinated today as did Vice President Mike Pence in a televised event this morning. Donald Trump was notably absent.
Joining me now is Dr. Lipi Roy, medical director of COVID isolation and quarantine sites for housing works in New York. She's an MSNBC medical contributor. Dr. Roy, thanks for coming on the show.
We now have Pfizer and Moderna, both of the vaccines approved. Which one would you take?
DR. LIPI ROY, MSNBC MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well Mehdi, it's great to see you. And let me just say as a biology major and a former biomedical researcher, this is thrilling news, a tremendous scientific achievement that we have not one, not two, but actually over the coming weeks, we're going to have several vaccine candidates against this novel coronavirus.
And to answer your question, I would be more than happy and lucky to get either vaccine. Both the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine are showing data of efficacy of over 90 or about 95 percent. That is almost unheard of, Mehdi.
The only other vaccines that are really sure are like for measles and chicken pox. Even the seasonal flu vaccine which I do get, by the way, every winter season is only about 40 to 50 percent.
So my message to the public is when your time comes up, please get either of the vaccines. They're both very effective.
HASAN: Yes. The scientists behind them have done amazing and rapid work. And yet, we're having these problems. Washington's Governor Jay Inslee tweeted quote, "CDC has informed us that Washington's vaccine allocation will be cut by 40 percent next week and that all states are seeing similar cuts.
This is disruptive and frustrating. We need accurate, predictable numbers to plan and ensure on-the-ground success.
No explanation was given."
Dr. Roy, why would the Trump administration sit on these vaccines when they're now available and authorized to ship and distribute?
DR. ROY: So Mehdi, those headlines are deeply unnerving. And I'm sad to say that's not the first time I've heard and read about unnerving story lines, headlines and realities really from the start of this pandemic.
These are vaccines that have been shown to prevent transmission of COVID-19. And at a moment when over 312,000 men, women, and some children have lost their lives.
And just to be clear, that translates to families. Each one of those lives equals a family that just finished dinner with an empty chair at the table. That chair did not need to be empty, Mehdi.
HASAN: Yes.
DR. ROY: That chair did not need to be empty, Mehdi. That chair could have been --
HASAN: Yes.
DR. ROY: -- could have had a person alive if they got that vaccine. There are people that are vulnerable -- members -- people of color, marginalized communities, homeless people, incarcerated individuals, people at nursing homes that need this vaccine.
And the fact that there are millions sitting in a Pfizer storehouse just waiting for instructions from the federal government, it's just another reflection of the colossal failure of our federal leaders in addressing this pandemic, Mehdi.
HASAN: Absolutely colossal failure. Even though they had scientific advice, they ignored it. They ignored people like Dr. Fauci.
Have a listen to what Dr. Fauci was saying today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: But the sweetness is the light at the end of the tunnel, which I can tell you, as we get into January, February, March and April, that light is going to get brighter and brighter. And the bitterness is going to be replaced by the sweetness. And we all hope, and I think this is doable, that by the time we get to several months into this year, we will have enough people protected that we can start thinking seriously about the return to normality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HASAN: The Trump administration said February would be when the vaccine would be available to the general public. Biden and Co say more like the late summer, early fall. What do you make of Dr. Fauci's timeline?
DR. ROY: Yes. No, I think Dr. Fauci is absolutely right. I mean he's been looking at this and looking at this data for many, many months now.
The reality is, Mehdi, that for the general population, it's going to be about mid-2021 before we can really vaccinate all those millions of people. That's why, for that reason and the reason that we know that this vaccine prevents transmission, but what we don't know is if the person that's vaccinated, does it prevent them from transmitting it to others?
For all of those reasons, Mehdi, it's so important that people continue wearing a mask. This is what's really going to continue this, along with the distancing and of course, the vaccine is going to prevent -- help us contain this pandemic.
So we still need to work on preventive measures, Mehdi. That's what's going to save lives.
HASAN: 100 percent, I'm so glad you said that, you did that PSA, because yes, I'm worried people are going to let their guard down as the vaccinations increase.
Dr. Lipi Roy, thank you so much for your time. Have a great rest of your Friday night.
Coming up, Republicans are back to their old tricks ahead of the Georgia Senate run off that will decide control of the senate. The GOP is helping Trump, stopping Georgians from voting in the counties that helped Biden win that state. More after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HASAN: For weeks Georgia's Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, pushed back against Donald Trump's unfounded claims of voter fraud during the general election, becoming a hero to many of us in the process.
But a new report from the "Atlanta Journal Constitution" finds that Raffensperger actually contributed to the overall disinformation campaign far more than we realized through quote, "imprecise and misleading statements about his office's investigations into allegations of illegal voting and violations of state election law.
The investigations Raffensperger undertook were far fewer and far less significant than he let on. Because of course, there is no real evidence of fraud in Georgia or anywhere else.
But, of course, you can't have voter suppression without fake claims of voter's fraud. Republican election officials in counties that were crucial to Biden's win have now limited their early voting options in the Georgia senate runoff in a clear attempt to suppress turnout at a time when voter interest is at an all-time high.
More than 1.1 millions votes have already been cast in the runoff, slightly fewer than the number of Georgians who had voted at this point in the general election. Imagine how high that number would be without these suppression efforts.
Joining us now is LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter Fund. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
LaTosha, Republicans talk about voter ID laws. Democrats talk about voter suppression. Isn't it all basically just how do we stop black people from voting?
LATOSHA BROWN, COFOUNDER, VOTERS MATTER FUND: Absolutely. There is a history in this country of those that have wanted to disenfranchise the votes. The whole purpose of the voting rights movement and Voting Rights Act is because of the disenfranchisement of African-American voters and minority voters.
And so what we're seeing is we're seeing Georgia live up to its history around voter suppression. And Raffensperger while he has been under attack from Trump because he didn't quite do what Trump wanted him to do and the (INAUDIBLE), does that mean that he did not engage in what I think is voter suppression? We just recently (INAUDIBLE) and really in negotiating with at his office today to really give them notice around the 198,000 people that were dropped from the voting roll.
So what we're seeing is voter suppression. And so it's interesting that we're hearing from the Republicans about voter fraud, but we're not hearing anything about voter suppression, yet there is a preponderance of evidence that voter suppression exists in the state of Georgia.
HASAN: Well, you're not going to hear about voter suppression from the people doing the suppression, I guess. Your organization was among those who won Georgia for Joe Biden despite the voter suppression efforts.
How do you overcome it again for the Senate runoff? How do you do it all over again?
BROWN: You know, I think there is an interesting way that I think that organized people can always overcome obstacles. So being a member of -- being a black woman in the south that I've always, as a part of my work in the social justice movement has been really understanding the power of organizing.
And what's really interesting is on the first day of early voting which was this Monday, 41 percent of the people who came and voted were black voters. We're less than 32 percent of the population, which means there was an overperformance.
I think the issue is to let people know what has happened, how critical this election is, and I think what the Republicans did not factor in is that there would be a backlash. There would be a response to their voter suppression that, in fact, we will come out in higher numbers, and we're seeing that in our community and this election so far.
HASAN: Yes. and LaTosha, we talk a lot about race and gender when it comes to voters and turnout. Not as much perhaps as we should about age. 76,000 people have registered to vote in Georgia, I believe, since the election. Half of them under the age of 35. How do you make sure, it's a perennial question, how do you make sure young people turn out to vote?
BROWN: I think you have to empower them to through (INAUDIBLE) and organizing. Many of the groups that were working with groups like Woke Vote which there are like a black youths vote.
Young organizers are doing work. We have to make sure that we're investing in those organizations. Young people have a way of organizing young people. They know the nuances and the language, they know the nuances and the organizing.
So what gives me a lot of hope is I am seeing young organizers from our team to the groups that we work with that are literally taking the lead. You know, when you look at the general election, there was an increase of 17 percent of young voters across the nation that literally led to the bump and Biden winning.
But when you look at Georgia, it was a 21 percent increase. So young people literally are coming out, they are leading the way because I think many of them are organizing. A lot of the organizing is, in fact, being led by them.
HASAN: One last question, LaTosha. Do you believe that Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who had a lawsuit dismissed by a federal judge tonight, they wanted certain ballots from newly registered voters to be dismissed. Let me ask you this -- or segregated -- do you think they're going to accept the result. Or they're just going to do what Trump did with the presidential election. If they lose the senate race, do you think they'll accept it?
BROWN: You know, I think this is all political (INAUDIBLE). They knew they didn't have a case. I don't think -- I think it's the most anti-democratic -- look at what they're saying -- to segregate the votes? You know, that sounds very familiar in a state like Georgia. And I think they've shown who they are. And I think that they've shown that neither one of them are literally supportive of democracy.
And so we have got to hold them accountable. And I think that's what we're going to see. That I don't think that they're going to give up. I think there is always -- I think voter suppression has been a long track history in this state, and particularly those who know they're at a disadvantage right now will do anything to actually win.
But I don't think it's going to work because there is a new coalition of organizers that are going to literally come up to the polls in this election fight (ph).
HASAN: Well, let's see what happens. Only a few weeks to go. LaTosha, thanks so much for joining us on the show tonight. We appreciate it.
Coming up, Republican lies are putting people in danger. Local officials around the country are facing threats of violence and death, which are being encouraged by sections of the GOP.
That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HASAN: Words matter. A concept Republicans clearly don't understand. Their constant lies about the election and the pandemic have consequences.
Armed protesters angry about the election gathered outside the home of Michigan's secretary of state threatening her, thanks to Trump's election lies.
Health officials in Idaho were forced to end a Zoom meeting about a mask mandate when protesters gathered outside of their homes, too.
Joyce Warshaw, the Republican mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, resigned after receiving threats because she voiced support for a mask mandate.
These officials were trying to do their jobs. And Republican lies put their lives in danger. It's a national trend that won't stop.
This week a threatening note was found taped to the back door of the Democratic Party office in Duval County, Florida. The note was printed with the photos and names of party officers. It read "We want blood, you lost the election, redress our grievances now or we will."
Security camera footage shows a man in a gas mask and gloves holding the note in a plastic as he emerges from a wooded area behind the office.
Words matter. If Republicans don't stop, the next time won't just be a threat of violence. It will be far, far worse.
Joining us now is Daniel Henry. He's the chair of the Duval County Democratic Party in Florida which received the threatening note this week. Daniel, thanks so much for joining me on the show.
What was your reaction when you saw this note. How did you get this note, and what did you say and do?
DANIEL HENRY, DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN -- DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA: Yes, well, thank you for having me in tonight.
The note really caught me off guard. I was going to our office like I usually do in the afternoon, and it's the first thing I saw when I saw the door. My face with the first message about "we want blood".
So I immediately started panicking. I called the non-emergency 900 sheriff's office (INAUDIBLE) send an agent to do some initial investigations. But it wasn't until a couple days later where we saw the video that you can now see on your screen that it really solidified how serious this was.
HASAN: And as I mentioned in the introduction, you have the mayor in Kansas resigning. You have the officials in Idaho, you have the Michigan secretary of state. This is a nationwide trend.
What do you think is driving it?
HENRY: I think we've been seeing this since November 3rd. President Trump has consistently put out messaging before and after the election that the election was going to be rigged if he didn't win.
A lot of Republican leaders including our governor of this state in Florida, Governor DeSantis, have chosen to kind of parent that same messaging. And we can't be surprised when people get inspired by these types of messages and go out and do crazy things like this.
Unfortunately, we've seen people across the country these last couple of weeks have to deal with violence and with threats and it's come to our doorstep.
HASAN: And it's come to your doorstep and you're a Democrat and, you know, they see you as the enemy in this case, the people who put this note up.
What's so fascinating to me is you now have Republicans getting the same threats. Brian Kemp, the governor in Georgia who refused to go along with Donald Trump's election fraud, he tells the "Atlanta Journal Constitution", quote, "It's gotten ridiculous from death threats to claims of bribes from China to social media posts that my children are getting."
That article goes on to say "Kemp did not blame President Donald Trump for the wrath he's facing from the Republicans even though the president has stoked the fury by blasting Kemp."
I just find it bizarre that it's almost like Frankenstein's monster. The Republican body created this and now don't know what to do when it's turned on them.
HENRY: Yes. Now they're running away from it and it's unfortunate because everyone saw this coming. President Biden or soon to be President Biden has said from the very beginning by (INAUDIBLE) that people couldn't trust that their ballots would be counted, that people would be stuffing ballots to ensure that the election was rigged. All was going to have consequences.
And for us to now be seeing threats attributed to both Democrats and Republicans now is truly a show that we need to come together as a country. We need to respects the norms that we have. We need to be able to have a president that's willing live up to his obligations.
And if we don't, then you'll continue to have people like me, volunteers that are trying to do the best they can to spread the Democratic message and get threats on their doors because someone takes the president's words seriously.
HASAN: What has been the impact on the volunteers in your local party?
HENRY: They're scared. It wasn't my only face that was on that message. It had all of our other party officers as well.
We literally just had our party reorganization about two weeks ago. And I have a lot of new leadership that was ready to kind of hit the ground running. We had a major success here in Duval County this past election season. But we're able to win Duval for the first time in 36 years for the Democratic nominee.
So we're all excited and to have something like this kind of try to attempt to interfere with that is really tasking. But we're all focused on moving forward and we hope that something like this won't continue to happen.
HASAN: Daniel, 20 seconds left. Are you optimistic that Joe Biden can heal the country, can overcome this kind of violence and extremism?
HENRY: I know he can. He is a strong leader that has been speaking from day one about bringing this country together, for being an American president that will be able to kind of put the last dark years behind us. And I know on January 20 that this country will have a momentous opportunity to come together and to lead us to the future.
HASAN: Daniel, thank you so much for your time. Stay safe. Have a great weekend. We appreciate you taking time out.
Before we go we have an update on the KIND Fund. Kids in Need of Desks is a partnership Lawrence created between MSNBC and UNICEF to provide desks to schools in Malawi and scholarships for girls to attend high school in Malawi where public high school is not free.
Here's Lawrence to tell us about a KIND Fund scholarship student you're helping in Malawi.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Thoko Senzani (ph) was sent home from high school in Malawi because her parents could not afford the tuition. Public high schools are not free in Malawi.
Thoko told us how different her life would be now without a KIND Fund scholarship that is helping her finish high school.
THOKO SENZANI, KIND FUND SCHOLAR: My life would have been hard. By now, I would have dropped out of school earlier on. I would have been married by now to support myself and my mother. I would have been a housewife.
O'DONNELL: You can go to lastworddesks.msnbc.com and contribute toward a desk for schools in Malawi that have never had desks or a scholarship for a girl to attend high school in Malawi where the high school graduation rate for girls is half the graduation rate for boys.
You can donate in the name of anyone on your holiday gift list and UNICEF will send them an acknowledgement of your gift. No contribution toward a desk or scholarship is too small.
Thoko Senzani is in her last year of high school now. Next year Thoko Senzani will be the first member of her family to graduate from high school.
SENZANI: The UNICEF scholarship is important to me because it has given education that I could no otherwise afford. They provide me with school fees and notebooks. My life transformed a lot after I was taken on board UNICEF.
O'DONNELL: Your generosity is transforming lives. Thoko Senzani and thousands of other students in Malawi thank you for your continued support of the KIND Fund.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HASAN: That is tonight's LAST WORD.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS" starts now.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: Well, good evening once again. Day 1,429 of the Trump administration.
END
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