ballots still to be counted. georgia's secretary of state told reporters this morning that they have about 25,000 votes left to process statewide. as of 3:00 a.m. this morning, "the new york times" reported joe biden must win around 60% of the remaining votes to pull ahead. and let's look at pennsylvania around this time yesterday, trump led by about 700,000 votes. that lead is down to just over 164,000 votes with 89% of the expected vote in. and a lot of mail-in ballots still being counted. so we will watch that and also results out of nevada today. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is thursday, november 5th.

two days out from election day and still no clear winner. but while you were sleeping, the vote count kept going. new results have been coming in all night long with more expected later this morning. as of right now, former vp joe biden has moved closer to the magic number of 270. he now has 253 electoral votes compared to president trump's 214. on wednesday, biden picked up big wins in wisconsin and michigan leaving six states to go. of those states, nevada, georgia, north carolina, pennsylvania and arizona all considered too close to call. alaska considered too early to call. but there are tons of votes left to be counted in those important states. hundreds of thousands are outstanding in pennsylvania, arizona, nevada and georgia. in other words, there is still a long way to go, baby. i'm going to go first to arizona. a state that nbc just switched to too close to call. but joe biden is leading there

and nbc's gadi schwartz is in scottsdale. we got some new results overnight. where do things stand now? >> good morning, steph. we're expecting more ballots to be counted today. also probably expecting to see more protests at the maricopa county elections center. a crowd of about 300 gathered in front of those steps yelling at election officials chanting, we love trump and count those votes. a lot of them were extremely angry saying they thought the election was being stolen from the president even though there are still possibly days away from that count finally being finished. a lot of frustration coming from what appeared to be that early sizable biden lead here in arizona with those returns that we've seen. so far we understand there are still about 270,000 ballots here in maricopa county alone that still need to be counted. and at last count, it looks like

trump needs to win about 6 out of every 10 of those ballots to overtake biden. so the trump campaign says that they think they can do that. they think when this is all said and done they'll be up about 30,000 votes ahead. meanwhile, the biden campaign says they think they have already flipped this state blue. stephanie? >> help me understand these protests. is there any reason to believe that the votes won't be counted? i saw you on air last night with people demanding that these ballots keep getting counted. that's happening. so what are they protesting? >> there were a bunch of different groups that seemed to converge at the county elections center. and they were saying different things. one of the things that's been picking up steam around arizona in particular in maricopa county is this conspiracy theory that for some reason election officials were giving out sharpie markers so they could invalidate votes. that is not the case at all.

election officials even before this were putting out video saying, yes, you can vote with a sharpie. a black sharpie. the sharpie ink dries faster than normal ink so it's friendlier to their tabulation machines. a lot of people online were clinging to that as some sort of sign that their vote wasn't being counted. the county officials came out and tried to explain that to some people. people weren't wearing masks. they were shouting down some of these county officials. it became this very hostile environment. and then there were other people that were just out there expressing their support of the president and saying that they thought this whole election was a sham. back to you. >> conspiracy theory cling-ones. you know what those county officials are? those are patriots. thank you so much. let's head to pennsylvania where maura barrett is standing by. i know we're expecting new results this morning. what can you tell us? >> good morning, stephanie.

actually just as we came on the air, i just refreshed the election -- the county election website. philadelphia just received another 20,000 ballots and philadelphia is one of these two major democratic strongholds we've been watching here in pennsylvania. allegheny county where i am being the other one. overnight, allegheny county finished counting its nearly 350,000 mail-in ballots. they have about 35,000 that they'll have to go through by hand tomorrow to review. but this is a significant chunk that's done in western p.a. back in philadelphia, they haven't updated us since yesterday afternoon. they were expecting other updates throughout the evening. there's been this stark contrast as i sat inside the warehouse near pittsburgh yesterday watching and listening as every update came through almost every hour. but philadelphia hasn't been communicating with us in that same way. another 20,000 ballots just now this morning which means they've got about another 100,000 left to go. about a little less than 800,000 now left to go across this

state. all of this comes as the trump campaign has filed some lawsuits looking for more transparency in the process. the secretary of state says that none of these trump lawsuits are going to impact the vote count. they're not anticipate anything halt to the count here in pennsylvania. and she does expect that most -- a majority of the votes here in p.a. will come in today. so we'll just continue watching and waiting and updating you as we get more. >> could be a big day in p.a. maura, thank you. let's head to georgia where things got tighter overnight. priscilla thompson is in atlanta. president trump's lead is now down to just 18,000 votes. how many are left to count? >> well, tens of thousands still remaining to be counted here as we start the day in georgia, stephanie. we heard the secretary of state earlier saying 25,000, but we are now seeing reports that it may be a bit higher than that. and the secretary of state's

office has not been able to confirm an exact number with us this morning. but we do know that as of late last night, we were under 100,000 ballots here. we're in fulton county, the most populous county in the state. and folks have been working at the state farm arena for more than 24 hours now counting those ballots. they are now down to under 3,600 ballots to be counted here in fulton county. and that is the work happening across the state today with multiple counties working to get all of their absentee ballots counted so we can get a better sense of where this race stands. we do know that the secretary of state will brief at around 10:30 this morning. we'll be monitoring that carefully for any updates there. stephanie? >> and what is the exact timeline or the most recent timeline when they think they'll have this thing done-done. >> so it looks like fulton county, they're doing about 2,000 to 3,000 ballots per hour.

we're expecting to have an answer from them some point this morning. the secretary of state has also said that around midday today if not earlier, we should have a better sense of where the state overall is. but as we saw yesterday, we had a timeline and it began to shift and get a little longer. so it's a wait and see game here, stephanie. >> a wait and see game. priscilla, thank you. we still don't know the final results of this race. the trump campaign is trying to stop the votes in several states. you heard it a few minutes ago. they want to continue the votes in arizona, stop the votes in other states. that doesn't seem to make very much sense. i'm hoping my next guest can help me. last night the president's team filed a lawsuit in georgia on top of the suits already filed in michigan and pennsylvania for also calling for a recount in wisconsin. nbc is calling biden the apparent winner in that state meaning it is close enough that a recount could make a difference. i want to bring in nate. an expert on election law and a

professor at stanford law school. that means he knows a lot of nerdy stuff that we don't. nate, what do you make of the president's lawsuits? >> well, they are sort of an attempt to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, but that's not uncommon in election litigation. and i think that right now we don't know what will be the hanging chad of the 2020 election. you may remember in 2000 that was the issue that was at issue in the florida litigation. so right now there's sort of a scattershot approach in these legal filings, but those arguments will crystallize in the coming days. the most important thing depends on the margin. whether this is within the margin of litigation or whether vice president biden's marge sin beyond that. >> nate, i'm way too young to remember the dangling chads. realistically speaking. could these lawsuits change the complexion of the races?

>> well, we don't know. we are still in the prelitigation phase. so generally speaking you don't have candidates who come in to stop the actual counting of votes. you wait until the votes are counted and then make arguments about why there are infirmities in the count. right now there are so many states at issue. it's very difficult to see how through litigation you can reverse the totals in sufficient number of them. let's wait and see what happens in arizona, in georgia. see what the final count is in pennsylvania, and then we can see whether litigation has any promise to it. >> talk to us about the wisconsin recount. how would that work? >> under wisconsin law, the margin of victory is such that president trump can ask for a recount. what he will see is once the certified totals are available that then they will recount the ballots at the county level or local jurisdiction level.

and wisconsin has one of the most localized systems of election administration and you will have tabulators who are overseen by the board of can variouses at each of these vehicleses, recounting the ballots, looking at every absentee ballot to see whether they match up in the totals each one of the counties had. >> nate, thank you for joining us. you'll have a busy few months, no doubt. we've got a lot to cover today. coming up next, we've been talking about it already. the votes are still being counted in a number of states. i want to talk specifically about pennsylvania. the lieutenant governor will be here on why it's taking so long. plus, the markets are up even without a clear winner for president. why investors are watching for a blue wave and a divided government. before we take a break, we cannot forget. we are still in a pandemic. for the first time, the united states topped 100,000 new

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welcome back. i'm stephanie ruhle but i don't matter. you know who does this week? steve kornacki. take us through these states we're still waiting on. >> waiting games in let's start, pennsylvania. and we just got -- we've gotten, i'm seeing here a couple of vote updates in the last few minutes. donald trump's lead continues to dwindle in pennsylvania. 142,000 is donald trump's lead

over joe biden statewide in pennsylvania with ballots still being counted. what happened in the last ten minutes is we got an update from philadelphia. biggest city in the state. joe biden's overwhelmingly winning the vote there. now trump's vote -- his lead over biden is down about 20,000 statewide in the last ten minutes. still more votes to come from philadelphia and some other pockets around the state. you can expect biden is going to continue to erode that trump lead because the ballots coming in not only often from philadelphia and democratic areas, they're mail ballots. absentee ballots. these are the things being counted last in a lot of counties. we know in pennsylvania in particular, democrats were overwhelmingly likely to use mail-in voting. republicans were overwhelmingly likely to go vote in person on election day. the in-person was counted on election night. it's the mail they're now counting. biden is catching up. does he catch all the way up and win the state? we should be getting more updates throughout the day.

maybe some clarity in pennsylvania. should also be getting more updates in georgia. here biden also trying to play catch-up. about 18,500 votes behind trump statewide. we think there are about 50,000, maybe a little bit more, 50,000 or so votes left to be counted. you can see biden would therefore need to win the lion's share. that's the challenge for biden. the ballots fulton county, savannah, some democratic areas, absentee ballots. so the potential exists for biden to be able to do it but that's a very iffy proposition for him. waiting game in georgia. one more for you, stephanie. arizona. we got more votes in overnight. here the roles are reversed. it's trump who is trying to play catch up late. biden's lead statewide in arizona is dwindling. it's now down to 68,000. it was nearly 100,000 last night. we've been getting vote updates in particular from this county, maricopa county where phoenix

is. this is the big one in arizona. it's like 60%, 65% of the population. and the ballots being counted here, still a couple hundred thousand left. so far they are favoring president trump. he's winning about 60% of them. if he can keep that up in maricopa county and then the other counties around the state where there's also some vote left, it's possible he could overtake biden and carry pennsylvania. so the big picture there when you're looking at these states come in. donald trump if he's going to get to 270 and get re-elected, he has to come from behind and pull it out in arizona. he has to win in georgia, has to hang on there. has to win in pennsylvania. has to hang in there. each one of those looking like a must for the president right now. >> steve, thank you. steve kornacki. our man. our champion. living on diet coke and adrenaline this week. steve mentioned pennsylvania to you. look at your screen. right now you are looking at ballots that are being counted

in philadelphia. chris jansing is across the state in harrisburg, p.a. chris, harrisburg could be your new home away from home. what's the newest update there. >> it's not fair to have me follow superstar steve kornacki who has developed a following of millions but i'll give it my best shot. let me pick up on what he just said. to put it in perspective, yesterday at this time, donald trump was leading in this state by about 600,000 votes. now it's being reported it's down to 142,000. those results that are coming in again from philly and from allegheny county which is pittsburgh are critical for the biden camp. here's why. i was talking to bob casey, senior senator here. he said he's getting reports out of pockets of philly. those votes are going 90-10 to joe biden. he talked to the allegheny county executive who told him 80-20 in his county. you can see how important it is as those votes start to come in.

they are coming faster than they thought they were. we heard from the secretary of state last night on msnbc. she thinks the vote count could be largely done, that there could be results tonight. bob casey affirmed that. he said, look, i think by the end of the day it's possible to have results in the mid-90s. that would be enough potentially to call the race. he's calling it by 100,000 votes for biden. we'll see. nevertheless, clearly the trend is going in that direction. one more thing, and i know you're not old enough to have known about the hanging chads in 2000, but i did spend 36 days in tallahassee. i was talking to an election lawyer about the way they are sort of throwing all of this at the wall from the trump campa n campaign. he made a really good point which is politics sometimes likes chaos. judges don't. we'll see whether or not any of these work because so far, judges have pretty much 100% been rejecting what the trump

campaign has been throwing at them legally. steph? >> you know who else loves chaos? lawyers. you know who our show loves? chris jansing, the queen. i want to dig deeper into pennsylvania. pennsylvania lieutenant governor john fetterman. do you know -- we've been getting updates as of last night. as of this morning, at this point, how many votes are outstanding there? >> i mean several hundred thousand of them. and it's generally accepted that it's going to be enough that would probably deliver our commonwealth to the vice president at this point. based on previous modeling of how those ballots have been performing with respect to whether it's for the vice president or the president. >> well, no one is going to want to make a final call based on modeling or assumptions. do you have a timeline about when we'll actually get the real numbers? >> well, i'm certainly not going

to get out in front of our secretary of state. and if she said some time this evening, i -- let's put it this way. i've seen no reason not to think that's true. allegheny county, i believe is done. montgomery county is done. those are the second and third largest counties, perspectively. luzerne is ahead of schedule. philadelphia -- you watched philadelphia there on the screen. they're crushing through it. and there might be pockets here and there like in some of the counties that didn't start canvassing until yesterday at 8:00 in the morning. so, yeah, things are drawing to a close. that's for sure in terms of canvassing here in pennsylvania. >> if any problems you've seen so far? irregularities? >> yeah, you have the trump campaign showing up on a corner in philadelphia like some sad carnival barker making outlandish claims. that's the only problem. otherwise you have the largest

election in pennsylvania history has gone off without a hitch. it's been incredibly smooth. but for the chaos that the president and his campaign are trying to foment, this has been an absolutely, largely flawless execution of our democratic right here in pennsylvania to a free election. and it is going smoothly. it's going to conclude smoothly. we are going to count all the ballots, as is the law, and they can send a thousand lawyers to pennsylvania. it's not going to change math. and right now, math is math. >> so even though there's a number of lawsuits, you don't believe any of them could impact the result? >> i don't because all these votes are being counted. all these votes -- i want to be clear. all these votes were received on or before 8:00 m.m. on election day. there's no way that you could even touch them in a legal manner at this point regardless. and we believe just those numbers of outstanding ballots,

again, assuming they perform the way the others have, and we have no reason not to believe that, are going to be favorable to the vice president's chance to carry pennsylvania. >> lieutenant governor, thank you for joining us. i want to remind our audience. this takes time. we have more mail-in ballots than we've ever seen before. at least in the last 100 years. everything that is happening is legal, it's safe, and as american people and as voters, we would want that. coming up next -- we're going to go to another state out west still counting votes, nevada. former vice president biden up by 8,000 votes there. we'll find out what votes are left and where. tired of clean clothes that just don't smell clean? what if your clothes could stay fresh for weeks? now they can! this towel has already been used and it still smells fresh. pour a cap of downy unstopables into your washing machine before each load and enjoy fresher smelling laundry for up to 12-weeks.

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now let's head to nevada where vp biden is up by less than 8,000 votes. my colleague jacob soboroff is in vegas right now for us. jacob, talk to us about what votes are still left uncounted and where are they? because that would certainly help us understand who they may be voting for. >> a couple of things, steph. where they are is here in clark county, nevada. it's fair to say the six electoral votes that will come out of this state will come out of this building where they are counting, actually not right at this very moment. the workers have not come back yet and restarted the process,

but they will be counting throughout the day here. with the margin so small, under 8,000 votes at this point, the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of votes will be determinative of who walks out of here with the electoral votes. number one, they're mail-in voters. they had universal mail-in voting for the first time. all of those ballots coming back through the post, and if they were postmarked by the 3rd, they could be counted up until the 10th. and so they are also, number one, most likely group of voters in this city and in this state, the culinary workers. 60,000 of them. they are an incredible political force in this city, las vegas, nevada. their union battled with donald trump. i reported on this during the 2016 election. they lean very heavily toward the democrats but there's no guarantee that joe biden will come out ahead ultimately when it's all said and done. there's a 2 to 1 registration advantage for democrats here. you may see the race remain

tight. when you look at that number, 7,647. there are way, way too many votes left to be counted for us to say anything about ultimately where this is going to end up. >> jacob, thank you. now we have to turn to the markets. they opened just a moment ago. the dow, which was already up yesterday, 367 points, jumping another 300. i want to go to my friend and cnbc colleague dom chu for the latest. it's been a great week for the markets. it started with investors excited about this idea of a blue wave, a blue wave would mean a robust stimulus package. that idea went out the window when the presidential race got a whole lot tighter. but it's this idea of a divided government. mitch mcconnell maintaining control of the senate that has investors so excited. why? >> so it goes back to more traditional if you can call it that. more traditional thoughts about the government and markets. that gridlock is good. we've talked about that notion in the past with you and others

on msnbc. but the idea that markets want to keep going higher might tell us something about the path of least resistance overall in the markets. that's a much bigger conversation for another time. but the reason you are seeing the very big gains at the start of this week into today has more to do with the types of companies that are getting more investor attention. that has been, and it still remains the biggest technology and communications companies in america. we're talking, of course, about apple, microsoft, amazon, the google parent company alphabet, and facebook as well. now just to give you perspective, those five companies, those five stocks make up nearly a quarter of the entire s&p 500 index. so when they go up in value, they carry a heck of a lot of weight more than others do. but the regulation of these big tech companies is a real issue. it's a bipartisan one. but the notion of a possibly divided government may make these companies look less likely to get extreme amounts of new

regulation. also by the way, many of these companies benefited from the covid pandemic as the world moved towards more virtual work and home entertainment. so, stephanie, i guess it could be a little bit of many of these themes working together to kind of keep things going. >> but for the last four years, the president who has deemed himself mr. market, has said he's the reason the markets are doing so well. he often said on the campaign trail, without me, your 401(k) is gone. we're now seeing a different response from the markets in that if we had a joe biden as president, well, any president, we're closer to a vaccine, but we would get a national covid strategy. he has a lot of foreign policy experience. there would be less volatility and with mitch mcconnell in control, you're not going to see a ton of regulation and potentially not big corporate tax hikes. is that what has people excited? the president always said it was him. >> so it could be -- yes, i'm

sure that there is a portion of it that was president trump and his regulations and his approach toward regulations. but a lot of it has to do with this notion. if we took the pandemic out of it, many of those could carry more weight. many of those have been completely turned on their head given what's happened with the covid pandemic the last six, seven months. the reason it become moes more big deal, the american economy in order to keep getting back to where it was pre-pandemic back in 2019 and for the markets to keep on going upwards you need this idea of more fiscal stimulus, more taxpayer relief, more taxpayer aid to the millions of americans facing hardship still because of the pandemic and its lasting effects. the idea here is none of these deals were going to happen in the weeks before the election because no side wanted to give the other side a political win, so to speak. now the idea is no matter who is in the white house, americans understand they need help.

somebody is going to get a deal done. the only question is how big and how forceful it will be, stephanie. >> dom, always good to see you. thank you. i do want you guys to think for a moment, the markets like a divided government. they love the idea that nothing will happen. they want to keep the status quo. everyday americans who are struggling absolutely don't want that. they don't want gridlock. the policies they vote for, the agendas they are hoping for go nowhere. it's obviously not a good thing for them. but as far as the election process goes, the process is actually working. votes are still being counted. and i want to dig in on the other side of the break to how the campaigns are seeing it this morning. our own ali vitali is outside biden's campaign headquarters and carol lee is covering the trump campaign. carol, take us inside the white house. how confident is president trump and his advisers about their chances? in the last 24 hours, he's

falsely or prematurely claimed wins that just aren't true. >> yeah, steph, look. ut wardly, their public posture is they're confident that their path is narrow but that they can get there. but a lot of things have to break the president's way in order for that to actually happen. and there are people around the president who privately are a lot more pessimistic about their ability to get there. but publicly, they are saying the campaign says when you look at a state like arizona, for instance, they think that is going to break in the president's way. they think it's a mistake for the news organizations that called that race for joe biden. if you look at georgia, north carolina, they feel good there. they want to fight it out. in pennsylvania. and now they are looking at nevada and are ready to potentially file lawsuits, according to our own new reporting there. so they are definitely postured to fight. the president tweeted a little bit ago that, stop the count. that gives you also a sense that their strategy is just a little

irregular. it's kind of all over the place. you have him saying stop the count. we don't know what he's referring to but they'd like that to happen in states where he's up but not in states where he's down. they have already filed in three states. now you have nevada and you have the president's personal lawyer rudy giuliani saying they may file a national lawsuit. we don't know what that means. the president has said maybe this will go to the supreme court. we don't know what that means either. they're trying to see what they can get traction with in terms of lawsuits and their public messaging. meanwhile, steph, it's worth noting, we haven't seen the president. he's tweeting a lot, but we haven't seen him since that early morning speech that he gave yesterday. >> we haven't seen him. 100,000 new covid cases and we haven't seen him. we haven't heard from him. in one state, he wants to stop the count. in other state, he wants to keep counting. ali, how is the biden team compared to that?

>> a lot less mixed messaging, steph. and frankly, they still feel really confident, but the reality is they are also at the mercy of vote watchers and poll counters right now just like all of the rest of us are. so while they realize that they see data and math that they think works in their favor in a lot of these states, they are also not sure if today is going to be the day they see those states they think are trending well for them be called in order to get them to 270. the reality still stands they have always had more paths to victory than donald trump did on that map. it's really just a waiting game. on the map front, they're waiting but there are other things behind the scenes. on the legal front, they are setting up a legal defense fund site. that's normal when you hear things like recount and election -- and court cases starting to be thrown around. a lot of campaigns start fundraising for that. the trump side is doing it as well. and they're also pushing forward on the transition front.

this is something legally they'd already set up. now we're starting to see a website, a landing page, nothing fancy but a sign the biden transition side is up and running. i would also say that there's mixed messaging coming from the trump campaign and it's very contrasted with what the biden campaign has been doing. biden has been much more clear that he thinks he's going to be the winner at the end of all of this. trump declaring victory when that's not the case yet. but the other side of this, too, is the fact that they are both talking about ballots in a different way. the biden campaign saying they think all votes to be counted. trump tweeting just a few minutes ago, stop the counting. the reality is overnight in arizona, vote counting allowed the totals to tighten there for trump. when he says that, he's also talking about his own voters. >> and to mr. president, if you are watching, speak to the kids in this country who are studying this election, who are studying civics. mine are asking me, mom, why would the trump campaign want to

stop the count? love to know your answer. kids in america would, too. ali, carol, thank you so much. coming up next -- we'll take you back to the one and only steve kornacki as votes continue to roll in. i know that is what matters most to you. plus, former homeland security secretary tom ridge joins us on why we need to let this vote counting process play out. makes no sense why we wouldn't. what's the name again? >>it's shiori. what? >>shi - or - i adam, emily and then... s-uh um... >>it's shiori. sh-ori. thank you, that's great. shiori (in japanese) there you go. >>yeah. (in japanese) wow, it looks beautiful! >>(in japanese) really?! i really like it.

♪ ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever. at this hour, we are still waiting for results from pennsylvania, nevada, arizona and georgia. so let's go back to steve kornacki with the numbers. where do we stand at this second? >> let's zoom in on arizona. one of those states we're waiting on. we got numbers overnight. and explain what's happening here. you see joe biden leading statewide by 68,000 over donald

trump. basically what's happening in arizona is the ballots that they are counting now and primarily the outstanding place is maricopa county, but there are others around the state. we think in maricopa county, that there are probably about 250,000 votes left to be counted here. trump is now winning these ballots. the last group of ballots so far. he's getting approximately 60% with them. a little less than 60%. if he keeps doing that with the remaining ballots in maricopa county and can keep doing a similar number around the state, it is possible that he could overtake biden in this count. and that he could get arizona. from an electoral college standpoint if we look at our road to 270 here, again, if you are donald trump this morning, you are at 214. you need to get arizona, right? that would put you at 225. you'd need to get georgia where

he's clinging to the lead but it's slipping every time there's an update. but he needs to get that. then there's north carolina. and what we're waiting on in north carolina is trump leads there right now in the count. in carolina, if the ballots were postmarked by election day, they can come in a few days later, still counted. we don't know how many people did that. that's actually an open question there. but it would have to be an extremely large number for biden to overtake trump in north carolina. trump would also then need north carolina. arizona, georgia, north carolina, and then he'd also trump need to take pennsylvania. again, you see in pennsylvania and in georgia, he is clinging to leads right now. it's especially under threat in pennsylvania for trump. whey could get north carolina and also have to pull out a come-from-behind in arizona. that's really the path that exists here for trump right now. and if he slips up in one of those, if biden could get pennsylvania if biden could get georgia if biden could get arizona, it gets very hard to

see it for trump. >> if, if. this thing isn't over. we'll be back to you for more updates steve. joining us to discuss the states we're still waiting for. former secretary of homeland security and former pennsylvania governor tom ridge. governor, i want to start with the president's recent tweet, stop the count. why would we stop the count? >> well, it's regrettable that the president probably regretted those comments to look at article 2 of the constitution and it says, mr. president, that's exclusively the province of the states. and, frankly, that kind of public denigration of our system is quite a spectacle to the rest of the world. there's no reason to stop the count. and he's inconsistent. i suspect he probably wants the count to continue in a couple of states that seem to be trending in his direction but perhaps stop the count in pennsylvania

and elsewhere. it's just a trend. so i think we're quite a spectacle as the rest of the world looks at the incumbent president telling the election officials in the most fundamental institution of government are voting to stop doing their job. so in spite of what the president says, let's be calm. let's be patient. let's let these guardians of democracy continue to do the good work they've done so far. it's not about stopping the count. it's continue to count every legitimate vote. be patient. be calm and then accept the outcome. >> why is this last 10% to 15% taking so long? >> it's a great question, stephanie, because i think there's a lot of good news. there's a lot of negativity around what the president is saying. but both candidates had unprecedented numbers of voters supporting them. record levels.

that's a good news story because america takes elections seriously. it's a good story that more and more people voted absentee ballot. and within that very simple notion is the fact that post-2020, more people have become acclimated of voting by absentee and all 50 states have to take a look at the process. absentee ballots are normally the first votes in and the last votes counted. that's why there's so much uncertainty and unpredictability yet. november 3rd was the last day votes could be counted in person but the absentee ballots come in first, they are the last to be counted. so i think as we celebrate democracy, unprecedented levels of people going to the polls, let's reflect back on that as good news. but let's do some introspection and say to ourselves, we have to include the absentee ballot process. it's very transparent. we've got cameras in these

communities and counties overseeing. we've never had so much transparency on top of absentee ballot counting. maybe post-2020 we'll look differently at how and when we begin counting them. ballots un election day and they had 2.5 million i think absentee. they have to put them in the machine and start counting it. it's grunt work, basic work, the blocking and tackling of american politics. they're doing a magnificent job. i have confidence in their ability to do it right. let's be calm as they get it done. >> and you are looking right now at live pictures of people doing just that in philadelphia. governor, always great to see you. be patient, we want more transparency and always good for a little introspectiveness. thank you so much. i want to change gears and take you to james carville, co-host of the politics war room podcast

and he understands the electoral map better than anyone in the united states of america. james, you know the trickle-down effect, when one county goes one way, what are you keeping an eye on, as far as where this presidential race could go? we're sitting here waiting for the numbers. >> right. >> read them for us. >> right. pennsylvania is going to be fine. biden's going to win more than 100,000 votes. in georgia right now, i think they have a count in by noon and biden seems to be optimistic. i'll be watching it closely. arizona is done. nevada is done. at the end of the day this is not going to be a particularly close election. bide listen win the popular vote by more than bush in '04, owe a obama in 2012, probably end one 273 electoral votes. bush had 286. the popular vote will keep going

up, going to keep going up. i know it's been nerve-racking for a lot of people but it's not that close. it really isn't. joe biden is going to be the next president of the united states. it's that simple and i think governor ridge makes a good point. the people counting the ballots are heroic, it's not an easy job. >> we haven't officially called any of the states. >> right. i understand. >> arizona, nevada, pennsylvania, georgia, done, done. how do you know that? what are you seeing? >> i probably talked to 50 people a day, every 15 minutes i get what's outstanding in georgia, what county is it from. i can look at arizona, but they have people that follow this. i understand the network has to be extremely cautious. i don't speak for our msnbc, anything like that. but there is information out there that people know. the ap, which i don't know has ever missed a call has already called arizona for the vice

president. they might be different, might be more cautious but i'm not at all worried about pennsylvania. people know where the votes are coming in from, they can estimate to a high degree of reliability what the percentages are going to be. we know where the georgia votes are coming in, a little bit of dispute, might be better for the democrats than some people think, certainly no worse. it's going to be tight but i feel pretty good. other thing is, we don't -- alaska is not done. they have a gazillion absentee ballots to count. alaska is only 50% or something that are in, and all of these, most of these ballots are coming in from rural alaska, heavily democratic. they had a good program to get these ballots in. there's a lot of things going on that our viewers need to know about. i'm not saying we're going to win alaska, but somebody better take a look at who is going out

there. next tuesday they're going to start counting, and they have to make up a lot of ground. whether they make up enough, john. >> i'm sure there's a few less than a gazillion balance lots o ballots out there. >> 130,000. >> you say taking back the senate, why do you say that? >> there's going to be a runoff in georgia. i'm pretty sure purdue will not hit the flesh holthreshold. two senate seats in georgia, and the alaska race is not over. i don't know the probability odds but it is definitely not over. the only way you can win on election is get in the election, and right now, they think they

have a chance to hold purdue under 50%. that's just a fact. we know there's going to be one runoff in georgia in january. there could be two and alaska senate seat is still to be decided. >> if we do have a divided government, what will that mean for the next four years? leader mcconnell's signature was blocking obama for eight years. joe biden seems to think he'll be able to reach across the aisle and work with him. any chance? >> first of all it's not a given it will be four years. the republicans have a map in 2022. maybe it's going to be difficult the first two years but we've had divided government before and the republicans and the senate need things that only the president can give them and the president's going to, you know, need to know what the republicans can give them. that's the way democracy works but it is not a given that the republicans are going to control the senate. it is likely, i admit that but it is not a given and it's certainly not a given that they're going to control the

senate for the next four years. if anybody would look ahead and see what that 2022 senate map looks like, they can see they have a lot of really vulnerable people, states also. so i don't buy it they're going to control the senate. i think it is likely. i wouldn't bet it. go ahead. sorry. apologize. >> james, i wish we had more time. wait, i have to ask you, where does this leave the republican party and trump supporters, his millions of supporters if he loses? >> you know, trump is beaten. 's goi he is going to look different when the inevitable comes, he couldn't win. he got beat. he is going to suffer from a four to five-point loss in the electoral college. go to the david wasserman's spreadsheet, counted in 2016 to early december, and ballots come in and ballots coming in are going to overwhelmingly favor the democrats.

this election is not going to be particularly close. people need to know that. trump is going to get beat. >> all right, james carville saying this election isn't going to be close. he's got champagne behind him ready to pop. james, always good to see you. thank you for bringing your expertise. >> thank you. >> that wraps up this busy hour. i'm stephanie ruehl. hallie jackson will be here on the other side of the break. non-valvular afib can mean a lifetime of blood thinners.

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