7,000 about an hour ago. in allegheny, based on what we have seen, allegheny was more efficient at counting their ballots than philadelphia. so you have 7,000 now in the works in allegheny. they have been in the works for an hour. >> all right. and so when can they count all 35,000, steve? >> at the end of today, the rest of them. there has been a whole issue with a mailing error involving ballots in allegheny county and the court stepped in and this is why they couldn't count any of the ballots yesterday. that's why there was an administrative day in allegheny county. actually, the deadline for most of the ballots is late today, that they can start processing them. but there's a group here of 7,000 they can get going on. so they have gotten going on them. and again, they are a more efficient counter it seems than philadelphia. >> all right, steve, thank you so much. we'll be watching you all day today. willie of course, it's been great going through this historic morning and we also

have -- i want to thank gene, mike and claire. we wanted to get gene and claire's final thoughts, but we're up on the 10:00 hour. we only had four hours, i wish we had about 12 more. see you tomorrow morning. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle in for hallie jackson who will join us in a moment from the white house. it is friday, november 6th. welcome to special election coverage here on msnbc. huge changes as we come on the air this morning. former vp joe biden surging ahead in two critical states. he now appears to be on the verge of clinching the presidency. take a look at the state of pennsylvania. still too close to call.

but joe biden is leading by nearly 7,000 votes. that is a dramatic change from where we were yesterday when the former vp was down by more than 100,000 votes. also this morning, biden has taken the lead in georgia. jumping ahead of president trump by about 1,000 votes down there. big picture, joe biden is now ahead in four of the final six states. georgia, arizona, nevada and pennsylvania. president trump is ahead in north carolina and alaska but his path to 270 continues to shrink. our nbc news team is here staying on top of all of the twists and turns of this all-important story. steve kornacki, the most important man of the hour at the big board. hallie jackson who is usually anchoring this hour, she has her chief white house correspondent hat on at white house and ali vitali with team biden. i want to first to mara in pittsburgh where the vote count

in allegheny county is somewhat complicated. give us an update. >> reporter: 20,000 votesish to come out of philadelphia and here in allegheny county they started the process of their final 35,000 ballots that they have to go through. remember, overnight wednesday they finished the largest portion of their mail-in ballots. these are the ones that had some issues. take a look behind me. what we'll look at is there are some of the return board folks who were only able to legally start doing this this morning at 9:00 a.m. they're going through about 6,000 ballots that had issues, ones that might have been returned without secrecy envelopes. ones that were ripped or mangled, couldn't go through the scanning machines you see them recreating those ballots that will then be scanned and processed. now for the rest of those 29,000 that are remaining these were ballots that were up incorrectly sent out by the printing company

that allegheny county had been contracting with. the republicans weren't happy with the mailing error and they mandated that the 29,000 could not be processed and counted until after 5:00 p.m. tonight. this process going on behind me will take about three hours this morning and we'll see how that time line on reporting looks for those 2,000 to 6,000 ballots but that biggest chunk, 29,000 of the last ballots will not come until way later tonight most likely. as the margins keep shrinking, as the ballots come in and joe biden has taken the lead here in pennsylvania, we're looking to see if the mail ballots continue to skew democratic as we have seen over the last three days. >> thanks, mara. now let's turn to the one person who has won this election, his name is steve kornacki. i don't know if you thought you'd take a break after "morning joe," but you're sorely mistaken. you're not leaving that board

until this is over. >> i don't want to leave until it's over, don't worry about that. we got some more votes in the last few minutes here in pennsylvania. it did increase joe biden's lead statewide slightly. now it's at 6,737. what just came in, we got a chunk of votes here in bucks county outside philadelphia. we got about 3,000 new votes that were reported there and joe biden won just over 2,000 of them, so that continues this trend that we really are seeing across the state. no matter what the county, biden is winning the mail vote that's being counted here. so he gets two-thirds out of bucks county it pads the lead. it now -- let me get that back up. it's at 6,700 votes and change. this is the statewide advantage. what are we looking for the rest of today in terms of results? well, philadelphia which had that big batch and that put joe biden into the lead statewide,

there are still a number of votes to come out of philadelphia. we still got somewhere in the neighborhood of 23,000 votes -- 23,000 to come from philadelphia. it will probably be a couple hours before we get more of those. that's been the interval with their vote count but the other big place to keep an eye on is allegheny county that's where pittsburgh is. they have got a total here of 35,000 outstanding ballots. now, it's a very complicated issue, the courts got involved here. a lot of those 35,000 ballots they cannot begin processing and counting until later today, but there is a group of those ballots, about 7,000 of them, that they can touch before the rest of them and that they have begun we are told processing and getting ready to count out and report out. and the processing procedure in allegheny county we have found has been much quicker and much

more efficient generally than what we have been seeing in philadelphia. meaning it seems possible, it seems plausible we may get a readout in the near future on the 7,000 or so ballots that for about an hour now they have been counting. again, i am actually just going to ask my producer a question here because i see we've got a little more vote for biden. can you tell me where that came from? i can't -- my microphone isn't on. are you there, adam? all right. so we've got a little bit more, i'm trying to figure out which county it came from, but joe biden has increased his statewide lead here to 6,817. there are the 7,000 votes in allegheny county. they are working on them now. we may get a readout from there. the trend here, stephanie, has been unmistakable. it it's been consistent across the state. joe biden is generally leading

the mail-in votes by a wide margin and winning 75% of them. so you can expect based on that trend that whatever coming out of allegheny would further pad that lead. the further trajectory was joe biden getting closer and closer to trump. he has now caught trump in the statewide count and now the trajectory is biden is beginning to build a lead here. but we have been saying it will take unforeseen to change that trend and we still have not seen any surprises in this. everything has proceeded along the lines of the trend here of biden winning the mail vote overwhelmingly. so we expect there are pockets of the state in the next few hours and this afternoon that are going to be reporting out the rest of their mail vote. all indications are that mail vote to some degree is going to favor biden. he will continue to pad his lead. we could get a big batch from philadelphia at some point. we could get the 7,000 or so from allegheny county some time

in the near future. the rest of those, those folks in allegheny county can start opening and processing later today so you might have to take a while on the rest of the ballots, but there are plenty still outstanding here that could very much plausibly raise that biden lead to a significant degree, stephanie. >> steve, over the last 24 hours a lot of people have written in with the same question. when is it not too close to call? when does the decision desk say, all right, here's when we go? >> yeah, the situation we're in, there's now a little bit less i would say than 100 -- let's call it 125,000 votes are basically left to be counted. 125,000 mail-in ballots remain uncounted. that's -- all the math i'm going through here by county those are the mail-in ballots. they have a big stack of provisional ballots on top of that. so it's not just those.

i think the decision desk, you know, there was such an enormous lead that trump had jumped out to with that election day vote, the folks who went to the polls, voted on election day. that was counted first. that put trump in such a gigantic lead on paper and the decision desk wants to see if the trend continues. so far, the trend of biden cleaning up in the mail-in vote has proceeded uninterrupted. you haven't found any exceptions to it. you haven't found any counties that you look at the results, oh, wait a minute. looks like donald trump can make some gains of his own with this but they wanted to see that a little bit longer here to make sure that trend continues and that biden does indeed build a bit of a pad here and there aren't any further surprises. >> as had been predicted that red mirage, what started election night is looking like a big positive for the president has faded as the votes have come in. i want to turn to hallie jackson

who is normally in this seat at this hour. but she is at the white house and, hallie, you enough reporting. what are you hearing from the trump team? >> reporter: so a lot of things, mostly the defiant posture. from our team covering president trump at the white house. essentially, this idea that this concession -- if it were to get to that point is not going to come. we heard from kayleigh mcenany this morning that says any talk of the president conceding is purely hypothetical at this point and i can tell you that sources are hitting that defiant tone. there's no discussion right now of a potential concession. now, that said, our team is reporting, my colleague here said that the campaign staffers are feeling deflated in virginia. they are sort of seeing -- at least the veteran staffers according to another member of our team, shannon pettypiece, there's not a path to 270 if joe

biden takes pennsylvania. they understand that. there's a clicking refresh to see what the latest vote count total is and i assume watching steve kornacki and others who are working on the maps. i will tell you there's a question too of who is going to be giving the reality check to the president. i had one person close to the white house say to me, apparently no one is willing to tell king lear the truth, in their words that's a question to watch forward. and there's some frustration about how there's no clear field general, kind of what james baker did for bush back in 2000. as one ally told peter alexander all the best names are never trumpers on that front. the legal strategy is a real question mark moving forward. the donald trump campaign has been dealt several blows because on the courts and in the courts is to claim fraud despite providing no evidence and despite there are no reports of widespread fraud. no systemic issues with the

process. we have to be crystal clear in saying that. yet, that seems to be the sort of underpinning for why the campaign says that this election is not over as we heard a campaign statement not too long ago this morning. i would say public posture defiant. privately, a dawning understanding that this race is slipping out of the trump campaign fingers but they're not conceding that publicly, and instead claiming the irregularities in fraud. i have a battle station set up on the north lawn so forgive me if i'm not looking at you directly, but we're working the phones, the laptops and the emails because there's a lot of reporting from the white house. >> trump and the campaign team are defiant, but what can you elaborate more on what we're hearing from the other leaders of the republican party. last i heard, mitch mcconnell said count the vote. >> reporter: listen to what pat

toomey said, there are people outside of the immediate orbit, republicans specifically, who are urging the president, urging the people around him to allow the vote count to move forward. to let that happen. there have been some concerns from republicans sort of publicly who said about the idea that the trump campaign keeps pushing this idea that is unfounded of fraud. but what you're starting to hear more and more, like senator toomey said this morning, i'm paraphrasing if you've got the goods show the evidence to back it up. at this point, it's not just that the trump campaign hasn't shown the evidence to the news media, but they haven't shown it to the courts. the reason the lawsuits were up through out in michigan and georgia there was no evidence to back up the claims that anybody broke the law, stephanie. >> all right. ali, take us to team biden. last we heard from joe biden it was on twitter. basically sending the message, keep the faith. let's be patient. >> reporter: and publicly that's

still the posture because they have been clear to say that they want all of the votes to be counted. joe biden has spoken since election night but has not said outright he's the next president-elect of the united states. instead, he has taken the tack that as the votes are counted he believes that he will be declared president-elect of the united states. but i will tell you that i'm doing the same juggling act that hallie is doing right now, between multiple cell phones and computer trying to keep up with the text messages i'm getting from the campaign and the words we're hearing are elated, thrilled, confident. i have one in all caps that said feeling good. in fact, in the last 15 minutes or so since we last spoke on msnbc with our friends at "morning joe," i had other staffers just texting me to chime in they were feeling the same way. so we have seen sort of a reserved posture here in wilmington over the course of the last few days, the staffers are confident because of the data and the math and this is an

an outpouring of faith and they wanted to see the votes get counted out of places like pennsylvania and arizona and nevada. we are told that for joe biden he's watching the results along with the rest of us, patiently waiting for the final result to come out. as much as we see the states shifting in terms of who's leading and the margins getting thinner he's not officially won this race yet. the campaign is very aware of that and they also remind that joe biden has been running for president in some form or fashion since 1988. one person close to him reminded one of my colleagues here what's another few hours when you have waited that long for this moment? so clearly they're still exercising the patience there, but it really just does feel like there's a dam that broke of happiness from staffers who maybe had been a little bit more reserved about this, but who are finally seeing in pennsylvania what the campaign has said that they would see all all along,

especially vote by mail votes, those are breaking for biden by more than 75%. and that's why the vote counting is taking so long. this is why we knew it would be a protracted process, especially in places like pennsylvania that have never seen the numbers of mail-in ballots that they have had this time around. that they have to count right now. so that's part of the reason why their expectation game was there. the campaign is now feeling like all of the things that they said that they expected to happen are coming to fruition. but we are told though is if and when he gets to 270 officially, that's the point where we can assume that in the same day we will hear from joe biden officially saying that he has won this race. but we are not there yet. i think right now the biggest change for us on the ground is you're feeling kind of the mood shift here in wilmington. we have been staked out in this parking lot, it feels like days but it feels far longer than that. but what we're seeing is the set-up we have seen here still up and they have been tinkering

with the lights, doing some mic checks. there's a lot of signs on the ground for when the campaign feels ready to actually make a move and put joe biden out to actually say that this race is over. again, not there yet, but the other thing that the campaign is ready for is they know the trump campaign is coming with these legal challenges. the trump campaign has been open about this. putting out surrogates in key states like nevada and pennsylvania. they're aware that that's something that's going to happen. but they have also met that by saying that they have the lawyers at the ready. bob bauer who is leading the effort for joe biden the claims he's seen out of trump world are meritless so they're confident on that front too. they're basically pushing ahead on two fronts if they get to 270. the front of the transition and playing defense where they're confident with what the trump campaign may try to do here. >> what a journey this has been. it's not over. as you said, he started running in 1988, but for you ali, i'm

thinking of your reporting over the last year. you were with elizabeth warren, with mike bloomberg and in the new hampshire primary last year, do you remember we thought this was over for joe biden. >> reporter: because the numbers told that story, steph. when you see the person who came into this race as the front-runner, the former vice president getting in fifth place, worse than that in new hampshire, and skipping out that night to go to south carolina, now that looks like a really prescient move because that was the state that saved him. having lived through all of that, this is always and primaries are this having covered republicans in 2016 and now democrats in 2020, primaries are emotional roller coasters for campaigns because of how long they are. so much can happen. for joe biden really there is such an arc here not just from 1988 through all of -- through his second presidential run and then being on the ballot with barack obama but now in 2020 the thing that is striking you and i

have talked about this before, the message stayed the same. the only thing that changed were his fortunes when he got into the race, it was the need to unify the country in the face of donald trump. that message has not changed at all. they have tweaked it slightly because of the pandemic and that's why you need leadership in the white house that's better than donald trump. the moment has met joe biden repeatedly along the way. >> just think about it. his primary opponents became his running mate and the most impactful surrogates like bernie sanders and kamala harris. i want to turn to stephanie gosk. what are you hearing from elected -- excuse me, election

officials? >> reporter: well, look, stephanie, the big question is timing. let's look at philadelphia for a second. to get -- a long way to get to the answer of we don't know. but here we go. they started to drop last night votes around 11:00, then around 1:30. then suddenly we had to wait hours until the next vote tally was dropped and that was around 8:00 this morning. that was the vote tally that actually put joe biden into the lead here in pennsylvania. now, there are 120,000 votes mail-in ballots that haven't been counted so we have a long way to go still in a lot of places. right now we're being told for instance in the suburbs around philadelphia which matter, you have about 20,000 votes or so that are still outstanding and two of the counties here. we spoke to an official in bucks county. they just -- they were the county that just recently

dropped another tally of votes. they have another 7,000. they hope to get that done by midday. but then look at allegheny county. allegheny county has a chunk of votes, a chunk of mail-in ballots that they can't start processing because of a bunch of legal wrangling that i will spare the audience from until 5:00 tonight. it is slow, and also i would add not a surprise that we're here. officials in this state even before election day were saying this is where this state was going to be. the governor made a commercial that said to people here in the state and the country, look, it will take a while. we can be at it for days, please be patient and that still holds for sure. steph? >> please be patient, the process is working. people are doing their jobs. stephanie, thank you very much. as we watch the votes in pennsylvania that's the not only state. we are following close contests

in georgia, arizona and nevada. nbc's blayne alexander is in atlanta where she has been watching this election for days. my colleague jacob soboroff and gadi schwartz. joe biden took a razor thin lead over donald trump. talk to us about this lead and the votes that are still being counted. where are they, who are those voters? >> reporter: so let's first talk about that lead, stephanie. the thinnest of razor thin margins. we are talking about fewer than 2,000 votes that put joe biden in the lead over president trump which as we know is quite remarkable. this is a reliably red state or it once was, but for him to edge into the lead overnight and look at where they're coming from. clayton county, a heavily democratic area south of atlanta and those votes being tallied overnight is what pushed joe biden into the lead.

we know across the state there are about 8,000 or so votes that are still outstanding. according to the secretary of state's office, the lion's share of those are in gwinnett county, to the north of here. i got off the phone with the spokesperson for the county and he was walking me through what has become quite frankly a painstaking process of scanning the ballots, running them through the adjudicating process and then getting them to the secretary of state's database. he told me right now there are about 3,200 ballots that already gone through that process and are ready to be uploaded. he said that should happen some time later this morning or early afternoon. so really any hour now. we're expecting to see about 3,200 ballots from gwinnett county. that's notable because this county is where joe biden is leading. it went blue back in 2016 for hillary clinton. we also know that a number of these, most of these, all of

these actually are absentee, mail-in ballots. this is something that democrats have been pushing heavily, encouraging people to vote by mail. a number of questions we're hoping to get answered. one, the latest on the timing. what things are looking like around the state and the other piece, the 8,900 ballots that could be military or overseas and understanding exactly how many of them have come in and how long they'll take to count. steph? >> thank you. let's turn to gadi schwartz in phoenix, arizona, where the race got tighter overnight. what's the latest? >> reporter: yeah, stephanie, so right now we're at the maricopa county election center and they released about 700,000 of the ballots and the ballots showed that president trump is starting to close in on joe biden. we saw yesterday the lead that joe biden had went from about 69,000 to about 40,000, 45,000. so it's starting to slim down a little bit.

we're still expecting quite a few ballots to be counted here today in about an hour or so. we should get another batch of 60,000 ballots. this is kind of a weird sign of the times. this is the election center. this is where we have seen people gather and then you've got trump flags for sale in the parking lot. obviously, the election is over. the polls have closed so we're not sure what the electioneering laws are here and their expecting another demonstration today. >> jacob soboroff, we know a lion's share of the uncounted ballots are in clark county. the whole ball of wax t only industry there is leisure and gaming. that industry has been decimated for the time being because of the pandemic.

people are not working where you are. >> reporter: the short answer is democrats, by a 2-1 registration margin. one of the largest voting blocs, strongest political forces here is the culinary workers union, the folks that work in the hotels here. 60,000 of them that's not guarantee they're voting for joe biden, but over 100,000 votes yet to come in, it is look willing good for biden. although, look, i don't think anybody can say that for sure. that's why we wait to call this race. ultimately we'll get an update around 9:00 or 10:00 local time here. we will get a dump of 51,000 votes and that should change the numbers we have right now. you know, the trump campaign was here yesterday. you might have seen the video of ric grenell, challenging this. they presented almost no

evidence, and what they presented is very thin in terms of being evidence. they filed a criminal referral to the department of justice. i want to be very clear with everybody. they sent a letter to the doj, they filed a lawsuit. but all the lawsuits filed by the trump campaign at this point have been thrown out here in nevada. and we'll have to wait and see what happens with the next one. >> i know you have to go, but give it to one more time. when you spoke to richard grenell yesterday and he was making the claims explain to us did he back them up in any way? >> reporter: well, first of all, when i talked to him he didn't say anything. he simply said ask the folks in the building and they were the ones as i said to him making the claims of fraudulent ballots and

number two, there aren't any election observers allowed inside but that's not true. the claims that they have now put forward in the lawsuit i'm sure will be adjudicated but i can't say it clearer than what they said was so thinly sourced, was so without evidence they don't even think it's worth repeating again. >> not worth repeating. jacob soboroff with his own eyeballs said there were absolutely election observers. any claims that there aren't is simply false. we'll keep reporting the truth. i'm glad you're there. we have a lot to cover this hour, including georgia. election officials about to hold a news conference on the election work -- on this election as the workers there are continuing to count the state's votes. if you want to know what a patriot is, it's these people working on counting the votes. all eyes are on the state of

pennsylvania. the votes are being counted in the city of philadelphia and we'll get you the numbers the moment we get them. steve kornacki he's not going anywhere. steve kornacki he's no anywhere wow! a new buick? for me? to james, from james. that's just what i wanted. is this a new buick? i secret santa-ed myself. i shouldn't have. but i have been very good this year. wow! wow! wow! this year, turn black friday into buick friday all month long. now during buick friday, pay no interest for 84 months on most 20-20 buick suv models.

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final count, we can begin to look toward our next steps. with a margin that small, there will be a recount in georgia. interest in our election obviously goes far beyond georgia's borders. the final tally in georgia at this point has huge implications for the entire country. the stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides. we will not let those debates distract us from our work. we'll get it right. and we'll defend the integrity of our elections.

in some states, there are complaints about monitors not being allowed to watch the count. in georgia, this process is and will remain open and transparent to monitors. if any member of the public raises legitimate concerns we'll investigate those. we are committed to doing anything and everything to maintaining trust in our election's process for every georgian regardless of partisan preference. thank you very much. >> mr. secretary, any questions? >> hi, guys. we're going to go over the details again of where we stand on the vote counts, there have been some changes overnight and even changes from the time we walked to the front door of the office and to the front of the cameras today. good to see everybody this morning as we close in on the final tally. so the secretary just announced

a particular set of numbers that went down, so our new total that we are away of right now is 4,169 and they are in the handful of counties like -- and in cherokee there are 150 ballots they have -- they did not upload. so they're uploading those today. there are 75 now in cobb. there's 444 in floyd. there's approximately 3,500 in gwinnett as we went through the reconciliation process versus what they had left to newly scan. i think that's it. couple of things. lawrence county, 1,069 votes we had yesterday we're basing those on the absentee ballot differences and when they looked and did their reconciliation process on it they discovered they had accidentally uploaded them into the election day totals. the vote won't change, but the

vote type will change. i want to remind everybody we have ballot curing processes through today for absentee ballots, verification process for provisional process and we can get the military ballots if they were postmarked on tuesday, election day. there are still an unknowable amount of ballots that will be available to be counted at some point. they are in the hands of the elections officials now other than maybe the military and i can assure you there are teams of -- republicans and democrats, finding the people with the absentee ballots to cure. and they're going through that process in county and county. in ones and twos and just a preemptive question, are we seeing any widespread fraud? we are not seeing any widespread irregularities and we are investigating any credible accusation with any real evidence behind it. but let me tell you one thing. when you have a narrow margin,

little small things can make a difference. so everything is going to be have to be investigated to protect the integrity of the vote. if you have a wide margin it doesn't matter so much, but narrow margin it does. we are looking at less than a large high school. so we understand that in the state, the county officials are aware of that. so it's an important thing to protect the integrity of the election from all sides. i'll take any questions. >> with the certainty of the recount, are we going to know who won the presidency in georgia by the end of november? >> with the time line we have laid out, essentially, let's go through the time line -- >> let's go back to steve kornacki at the big board. steve, educate us. there's only 1,000 votes separating former vp biden and president trump. is there a number that automatically triggers a recount or is that something that has to be requested?

>> yes. well, the answer is yes -- well, it's no to the first, yes to the second. no to the automatic trigger but there's a threshold it had to be under for the candidate to request one. it's 0.5, half of 1% and clearly wherever this shakes without the votes remaining, as you heard there's 4,100 votes remaining to be counted. how ever this shakes out it's going to land inside -- well inside of half a point. well, inside of 0.5. would the losing candidate file for the recount, they'd be entitled to if they wanted to. if biden hangs on to the lead in the ballots remaining and a is certified as the winner, at that point trump would have two days to file for a recount. likewise, if trump were certified as the winner, biden would have two days. but i'll give you this scenario where biden finishes in the lead at certification because "a"

he's leading now and the votes that are outstanding suggest it's likely he'll remain in the lead once they're tallied and we have that situation that we have already seen in wisconsin and in wisconsin all of the ballots have been counted. biden finished ahead by 20,000 but that was within half a point and wisconsin has the same rules as georgia. within half a point, the losing candidate can file for a recount. there's a possibility if they wanted to do that in wisconsin, certainly it seems likely they would want to do that in georgia if they land in the same position. >> all right. steve, thank you. joining us -- steve, don't go anywhere. joining us now a democrat who is headed to the u.s. congress after winning the seat last held by the late congressman john lewis. she also chairs the democratic

party of georgia. i first want to get your reaction. what do you think john lewis would be saying today? how would he feel if he was looking at his state of georgia? a black woman taking his seat. his long-time friend and colleague joe biden in the lead. >> yeah, stephanie, congressman lewis would be happy and i could see him dancing a happy dance. making sure that we are saving our democracy right here in georgia in the district that he so well represented for 34 years. i am honored to be in this position to carry on his legacy and to get this work done on his behalf. >> he may be doing a happy dance from heaven. how soon do you think we'll have a final result? >> so gwinnett county, still has, i was jotting it down during the secretary of state's press conference, but 3,500 ballots is a large amount of ballots to count by hand. the observers are there, they're doing the work. we still have the ballots that are set to come in, overseas and

absentee ballots by 5:00 today. so we have observers that are still counting and we -- we stand by the rule of counting every vote. so i'm patient, stephanie. i see the numbers trending in our favor and i think we'll be celebrating big down here in atlanta. >> will you be ready for a recount, for legal challenges? president trump's team isn't going to take this lying down. >> we have attorneys ready and they are already at local counties monitoring the process. our election -- our election protection team is top notch. we are doing the work. we have been working with stacey abrams' team to make sure we're looking at every legal opportunity to make sure that the voters' voices are heard and the voters will decide this election. we're ready, stephanie. >> let's talk about possible two

runoffs. i mean, the fact that the senate could actually be in question here, i want to share a little bit of what we heard from jon ossoff actually today. >> where georgians in the millions have said enough. >> enough! [ applause ] >> enough incompetence, deceit, corruption, division. change has come to georgia. change is coming to america. and retirement is come for senator david perdue. >> i mean, are you prepared for how these senate races are going to play out? we'll see potentially hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in to these races. you have got wall street who wants to make sure that republicans are maintaining control of the senate. you will see money like you haven't seen going into the races.

>> we know that georgians across the board want a united states senator ready to work for them and not line their own pockets like perdue and kelly loeffler has done. we already have our planning meetings in place. our teams are on the ground. we're already doing the work. we knew that this was a possibility and so we prepared for this moment. >> well, it is quite a moment. thank you so much. we'll leave it there. up next, brand-new reporting about what the biden and trump camps are saying as the counts from pennsylvania and georgia keep rolling in. don't go anywhere. this is the day. did you know you can go to libertymutual.com to customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪

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we are back. i'm stephanie ruhle. don't waste your time with me in new jersey, let's go to pennsylvania where chris jansing is in harrisburg. you have some new reaction coming in. what can you tell us? >> reporter: what everyone wants to know is when will we know some more with the more than 100,000 mail-in ballots that are out there and the word from philadelphia at least is, quote,

it will take a while. in fact, some officials have gone into the meeting to have a conversation about whether or not they need to hold a press conference to kind of tamp down expectations about when these new numbers will come in. obviously, what we saw overnight gives you an indication of sort of the pace at which things are going. we had heard they were expecting that joe biden would go into the lead some time around 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and it ended up being closer to 9:00. one republican elections commissioner who did a tv interview suggested that actually, it was all slowed yesterday by the fact that there were legal challenges by team trump and that at least two hours were lost there. so we know that there are more legal challenges coming. in fact, you saw what the president said today. he put out a statement about the election and he said that volunteer legal observers were denied meaningful access in pennsylvania. that was already the subject of a court hearing.

there was nothing that was found to legitimize that at all. in fact, when asked by a judge a member of team trump had to admit in fact there had been election observers inside. but what i'm being told by democratic sources here is that they feel confident about the support they're getting from team biden, from the democratic party, that if they need lawyers, lawyers will be moved in. there are plenty of them, we had heard there was 500 just in pennsylvania. very specifically ready to address these issues, none of which they hope will continue to delay what is about 124,000 more ballots that need to be counted here. stephanie? >> thank you. i want to repeat that for our audience. it was a republican election official who said the reason for any delay were legal challenges posed by the trump campaign and there has been no evidence supporting the trump campaign's argument that their poll watchers were not allowed

access. there has been no evidence of that. chris, thank you. i want to go back to ali vitali in wilmington. you have new reporting? >> reporter: yes. we're continuing to work our sources here and the thing we'v days is patience. that's been dispelled with by aides. they're settling into the reality that declaration of victory could be imminent. a source familiar with biden's thinking is that his move is reflective and relaxed this morning. he's making calls, keeping himself apprised of the state of the race and the data coming in. he's also preparing for the opportunity to address the nation. in those remarks, we're likely to hear things we heard from him before, the need to unify the country, not necessarily leading with partisanship, but instead needing to bridge the divides the country has seen of late. i think really what we're seeing from wilmington more than anything, it feels like a breaking of the emotional dam from the staffers i have been

talking to. a lot have been watching the results roll in. they felt good about the data that could be coming their way. at the same time, it feels different to start seeing it play out on tv. i'm told they had a staff call this morning with some of the staffers that work on the campaign, and while the mood of the call has been reserved in the past, today there was a vibe of, we did it. they were urged that now is the time to watch the news coverage, to be proud of the work they've done. really from the biden campaign, we went from a feeling of reserved victory, but now to the feeling of planning out what that might be. i would also add, steph, there's a stunning statement coming out from this campaign as well regarding the potential of donald trump not conceding this election. i want to read you a statement we just got in a few minutes ago from andrew bates, a spokesperson from the beane. as we said on july 19th, the american people will decide this election. the statement says, and the united states government is perfectly capable of escorting

trespassers out of the white house. a very defiant tone from the biden campaign as they see victory very much within reach. >> wow. declaration of victory imminent from team biden. that is certainly a change in tone. hallie jackson, let's go back to you at the white house. any change in tone there? >> reporter: not at all, stephanie. in fact, i just got off -- walked up the driveway at the white house after talking with the president's top economic adviser larry kudlow who was out this morning. he is suggesting if there is a peaceful transfer of power, it will be peaceful, although acknowledging it's too soon to stay right now. indicating on cnbc earlier that the president seemed ready to fight. that's something he told me also here in front of the white house, just continuing to confirm, stephanie, our reporting which is the public posture of defiance from the white house. behind the scenes, the reality is sort of a grim determination, right? this idea that senior staffers

understand that the writing seems to be on the wall right now. younger staffers we're told, based on our reporting are ready for the court fights ahead. at this point it just seems like the reality is starting to sink in here. the question is going to be who has those kind of hard discussions with the president, stephanie. >> hallie, does the president have to concede, or is it more just a tradition? >> reporter: i didn't know if you were saying ali or hallie. he doesn't have to concede. if you think back to 2016, the president, even though he won, was still fighting some of the states that didn't go for him which we'll talk more about. there's nothing in the constitution that says the president has to. it is the tradition, it is the norm. he has to leave office. if this race goes in the direction that pennsylvania seems to be going in -- we haven't called anything yet, then there would be a transfer of power. there's been discussion and thought about what a transition

would look like if we get to that point, also, and the idea that it might be tumultuous. just in the last 24 hours, carol lee and courtney kube said defense secretary mark esper has prepared a letter of resignation. he has long been considered to be on the chopping block, if you will, at some point after the election. you're going to see, i think, moves like that potentially from president trump over the next, whatever, two months, if this election ends up not going his way. >> if we're talking norms, hallie jackson, this administration has been breaking norms from the beginning and most likely, it looks like, it will be until the end. i want to head back to gadi schwartz in maricopa county with the latest. what's going on there. >> reporter: stephanie, t minus six minutes now. i believe the maricopa county -- the election center is about to release another batch of votes. what we're told is this batch is going to have about 60,000

votes, the votes they counted overnight. we've seen them releasing batches of about -- a couple more of those to go. it could be until this weekend when we have a definite idea of how maricopa county is going to vote, about 60% of the population of arizona. however, maricopa county goes, the rest of the state will follow. here is the context of those numbers in the last couple days. we saw biden with a sizable lead right after the election. then yesterday, his lead had shrunk to about 60,000 votes. overnight we saw president trump closing the gap, catching up a little bit. he's still about 45,000 votes down. so he needs to return at a clip of about six votes for every ten to overtake joe biden. we just don't know how that's going to go. it's very, very close here.

it's come down to the wire, stephanie. >> coming down to the wire, gadi. thank you. thank you for watching this special hour of our election coverage here on msnbc. i've got to tell you the truth, i don't want to get out of this seat. i'd love to stay for another hour. it's been an honor covering this. i'll hand it over to my colleague craig melvin who will be with you on the other side. ne when helping people find a medicare plan. so, if you're looking for yours, say hello to hellomedicare... a one-stop shop for medicare plans, including a range of "all-in-one" medicare advantage plans from the names you know. learn, compare, even enroll-all in one place. no matter where you are in your search-whether you're just starting out, or already have a good idea of what you want- give us a call. our licensed hellomedicare agents are here to make things easy

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a good friday morning, everyone. craig melvin here. folks, we are not there yet, but we are getting just a smidge closer. votes are being counted as we speak. here is a look at the race to 270 as it stands at this very second. 253-214. right now all about pennsylvania. at this point it is still too close to call here in the keystone state as you can see. joe biden still leading there, but there are still some votes left to count. arizona, 75,000 votes expected to drop any moment now in maricopa county. when that happens, we will take you to arizona. but again, still too close to call there as well. in georgia, meanwhile, we learned in just the last hour th