for vaccinations to begin next week. becoming the first country to approve the vaccine put out from pfizer. while the u.s. sets recommendations on who should get the vaccine first when the time comes here. meanwhile in washington, the word of the day in pardons. feds looking into a potential bribe for pardon scheme. what the newly unsealed and heavily redacted court documents reveal. at the same time our sources telling us president trump is privately talking about the possibility of preemptively pardoning his own family. we'll take you inside those conversations with a reporter who first broke that story. it all comes as we're learning more about the president's own future. our new reporting on another possible run for the white house on the same day his attorney general shuts down these baseless climbs of widespread voter fraud in the election. >> it's been an amazing four

years. we tried to do another four years. otherwise i'll see you again. a lot to get to this morning. we want to start with the broking news out of the united kingdom. we have the serving health policy adviser from the obama administration is w.h.o. is an msnbc medical contributor. richard, can you walk us through the timeline of getting the vaccine out to people, the logistics and who in the uk is going to get it first? >> reporter: so we finally now have a plan. there is a schedule, and there is a list of who will get the vaccines. and more or less when. we know more about who. the exact time schedule is a little more flexible. so it will start early next week with the country receiving the initial 800,000 doses. the uk has secured 40 million doses. it's enough for 20 million

people. but the first 800,000 are expected to arrive and to start going out next week. the first priority, the first group that will get them are emergency rooms and care homes. because in case of care homes, people inside of them are vulnerable and the people who work there, and for hospitals, particularly front line hospita hospitals, it's because it's easy to distribute them because they already have the cold storage facilities right on their facilities. after that, it goes by age. so anyone who is over 80, then anyone over 75. then anyone who is 70 or below. and it descends all the way down to 50. if you are 16 to 64 and have underlight health conditions -- underlying health conditions you qualify. it is a sliding scale starting

with the care homes and hospitals, and then moving down descending from age 80 down all the way to 50, and according to health officials in this country, by doing it this way, they are covering 90 to 99% of all people at risk of dying from covid-19. so it is a rollout plan, and it is a rollout plan that is starting now. now -- or earlier next week, but earlier today, i spoke with the inventor of this vaccine, because the pfizer vaccine was developed in conjunction with a european company, and i asked him what he thought. what it means to him as he's been working with his wife to develop this cutting edge genetic research that has made this vaccine possible. you and your wife and your lab have been working on this relentlessly. what does this mean to you personally? >> this innovation, to be able

to have many, many people to return to a normal life and ensure reduction of hospitalizations, reduction of the deceased, and it feels amazing. >> reporter: so a lot has been said how the pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at ultra cold temperatures, but the scientist, the inventor you heard from was keen to point out that it doesn't go into people's body at frozen or ultra cold temperatures. that would be painful, maybe dangerous. it goes into your body at room temperature, and it can survive in a fridge in normal kind of cooled temperatures for up to five days. so the chain you asked about the distribution chain. it has to be stored for a long time and moved at ultra cold temperatures and then can stay in a fridge for up to five days. then it goes to room temperature and goes into your arm, and it's

a two-dose course. each dose 21 days apart, and it begins in the order we described next week. >> we certainly have a lot of logistics in front of us. a big chal. i'm thrilled we're having this conversation now instead of the one we've been having for the last months of this pandemic. doctor, let me go to you on this. obviously here in the u.s. we're still waiting on the fda to authorize emergency use for this pfizer vaccine. what's different about our process than the way that the uk handled it that we're still waiting for it, and how quickly do you think we're going to start to see this happening here on our shores? >> yeah. kasie, everyone is ready for it, but we are waiting for the processes next week, december 10th, the fda's advisory committee will be live streaming and widely attended. they will review the data packet

from pfizer. we expect an emergency use authorization if the data hold up. i think we're going to trail the uk by about two weeks, and then yesterday there was a formal vote by a cdc advisory committee that formalized the vote for our first vaccine to be given to at risk health care workers and to long-term care nursing home residents and workers. it mirrors very closely the uk, but remember, our scale is obviously much larger. we have a larger population of health care workers, and then what is different from what you heard from richard's reporting is that we still have to have that next set of priority groups voted upon and formally approved, and these are all recommendations. i want to stress something. i don't want people to think that any of this means these are fully approved vaccines. so there are still trials going on, and we still have to think about what this means for populations that have not been studied like children and

pregnant women who are also at high risk as we know. >> for sure. i have friends with questions about that since a lot of us have little kids at home. i also want to get the reaction. we just got this co-vid task force report here at nbc news from the white house, and there's a pretty dire warning in it. they say that, quote, the co-vid risk to all americans is at a historic high and we're in a very dangerous place due to the current extremely high co-vid baseline and limited hospital capacity. and one thing that really stood out is that the task force is telling public health officials state and local policies if those policies aren't reflecting the seriousness of the situation. it's essentially telling public health officials to take matters into their own hands. that's pretty dire, and pretty challenging for public health authorities. >> yeah. it's very challenging. first, the resources are not

there to keep coming back to basic fundamentals. there's not enough funding to do everything that the task force is outlining that public health officials need to do. they're already underfunded and staffed and stretched thin in its current capacity. number two, i think what we're reflecting in the report which i got a chance to look at briefly is the fact that we're seeing much immense spread and you're probably hearing about it. i am hearing about it and seeing it in patients. they swear they don't know where they're getting co-vid from. that's what we see, we're starting to not be able to accurately pinpoint where people have gotten their initial infections from, and as a result, they're giving it to people without knowing. i keep coming back to this. we're still limited on testing. running about 2 million tests a day, but as you know, the task force has reinforced this. we are only taking up one out of four. one out of five infections. that means there are four people right now for every one person i

diagnose that don't even realize they have it and could be spreading it. so this is going to have to take economic support and incredible probably health care infrastructure that we just haven't planned for. and i really do think we probably need tillerso invoke my help in field hospitals but probably deploy them in other ways to manage the next four or six weeks. >> thank you both as always for your insights and knowledge. we, of course, though also have other major breaking news around the white house. and there are two developing stories that involve presidential pardons. first, federal investigators are looking into a potential bribery for pardon scheme. the investigation which was revealed in newly unsealed court documents and it's not clear who is involved, because the documents are so heavily

redacted. you can see it there. they don't name the individuals involved or president trump specifically. and they don't say whether anyone in the house had knowledge of the alleged scheme. at the same time, "the new york times" was first to report that president trump talked to his advisers about whether to grant preemptive pardons to his children and closest associates. one person familiar with the matter tells nbc that while the president doesn't believe he or his family have done anything i illegal, he feels embattled with joe biden weeks from taking office. kristen welker is with us in the white house, and also here the reporter who first broke that pardon story, washington correspondent for the nooi noo times and national security adviser, michael schmidt.

we also have investigative correspondent tom winter with us as well. and kristen welker, i want to start with you. i know you've been doing a lot of reporting about the conversations the president has been having. you've learned a lot about his state of mind as he considered this. what have you learned amid this report? >> reporter: according to to sources, the broader backdrop to the conversations with michael schmidt broke yesterday, is that the president does feel embattled and concerned about what might be happen under a biden department of justice that somehow he and his family members, his close associates, will be pursued and targeted. it's important to underscore the fact that president-elect biden has been clear he's not going to direct his attorney general, his justice department to pursue investigations or to not pursue investigations. that's not how he sees the role

and the relationship between a president and the attorney general. but that, again, is the very significant backdrop to this reporting i am told. now, the white house is not commenting, and giuliani for his part is disputing the reports, and the fact that he's had conversations with president trump saying it's 100% a lie. it's also important to point out that look, president trump recently pardoned michael flynn, his first national security adviser, and also that there have been growing calls for him to issue these types of pardons including from his close cal allies like sean hannity. this is not happening in a vacuum. >> it is not. michael schmidt, let's zero in on rudy giuliani in the context of all of this reporting. i want to play what giuliani said in 2013 about a pardon that clinton gave to mark rich, an

associate. it has some parallels to pardons of close associates for people you work with if you're the president. let's watch what giuliani had to say then. >> there's no justification for that pardon, and it was a disgrace. and a scandal that should have been pursued more. it was a midnight pardon. he had to do something big to get that pardon. >> so how does that fit into all of these questions we have in we don't know who the person is that's in this very redacted case. and i'm also interested to know what your reporting says about how serious these conversations have been, particularly around giuliani. >> well, i think at the most fundamental level, the problem here for the president is he has treated pardons whimsically. he's looked at who should

receive them, and how they should be given. he sort of relied on people that have direct access to him, and he's given them to celebrities and to allies. and to folks that lobby him directly for pardons like kim kardashian, and in the course of this, that has created doubt about the pardon process. what's really going on here? why is the president using his pardon power? as we've seen reports about the president talking to giuliani or the president considering giving pardons to his children, it just raises broader questions of what's going on here. at a larger level he has dangled pardons to close allies under scrutiny in the muller investigation and michael flynn and paul manafort. pardons were dangled for roger stone. now all three of those people never fully cooperated with investigators, and two of the

three have received either a commutation or a pardon. so because of the way the president has approached pardons, we now have all these questions. and look, the president sees rudy giuliani as one of his most loyal allies. giuliani has undertaken the most brazen efforts the president has taken in office, whether it was to do the whole ukraine matter where they tried to dig up dirt on hunter biden or whether it is in the past few weeks the efforts to undermine the 2020 election. and the president has shown loyalty to people that are willing to go that extra length for him. >> well, and going outside of that formal process is in some ways what opens up the possibility or perhaps the thought that perhaps this president tom winter would be open to accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon if you

don't have to follow the normal doj process, then, of course, perhaps this door is kicked open. i know you've been reporting on what we have been able to figure out based on this heavily redacted document. what do you know about what's in there, and what questions are we still trying to answer? >> that's exactly right. and there's a lot of clues that might be in here and a lot of things that are not in here. you showed the documents, approximately nine pages of this redacted including the key background section that gets us to the heart of this investigation. we know that this has been going on since the bare minimum since late august of this year. we know that this case involves two potential schemes. it stemmed out of another investigation. we don't know anything about that. at this point according to the court documents. it involved a search of two offices and several terabytes of data already recovered. there's two schemes here that the judge referred to. one is that for people to without disclosing themselves as

lobbyists, lobby senior white house officials according to them for a potential pardon. the second scheme would be for a large political donation. again, to be made and then for a pardon to be issued after that. the justice department a senior official saying this case, no government official was or is currently a target or a subject of the investigation, so that's something that an official has told us so far. but a lot of key questions here that you alluded to. all the names he dakotaed. this was part of an ongoing legal process between the chief judge who oversees the grand jury in her discussions, it indicates to me this investigation is ongoing that involves individuals who have previously not been charged. otherwise the names would have been made public. they would not have been redacted. i think there's some more questions and speculation that this involves perhaps a former case or previously disclosed case, i should say, those are all things that we're still kind

of digging into and looking into. i'm sure along with mike and others. that's something we're going to need to find out. the president himself tweeted and called this fake news which the story does not involve the news industry at all. it's publicly available court document that anybody can find for themselves. so i'm not sure what this has to do with the news industry, but bottom line, a lot of questions here and more reporting to do to figure out what happened here. it is important to note that the president and no white house officials have been specifically named in this at this point. kasie? >> love that point, tom. this is not something that the news is choosing to write about. it's something the court is looking into. kristen welker, michael smith, tom winter, thank you for your great reporting this morning. the attorney general, bill barr, also making other headlines this morning. what he's contradicting the president on. and the decision that he's making about the russia investigation.

we're going to go live to the justice department for an update on that. plus with a soon-to-be smaller majority in the house, are democrats going to have to settle for a smaller co-vid relief package? up next, abigail spanberger is here live. nberger is here live. interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. my kids, they know i'm a scientist. but it's hard to explain to them what i do every day. ♪ right now, i'm working on purification technologies that help advance vaccine and therapy research for covid-19. one day, they'll realize i wasn't just trying to help them go out and play again. i was trying to make it safer for the whole world to get back outside too.

i was trying to make it safer for the whole world

honey honey? new nyquil severe honey is maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honey-licious taste. nyquil honey. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever best sleep with a cold medicine.

welcome back. one of president trump's key allies giving him a big setback around his unfounded claims that the election was stolen from

him. attorney general bill barr is directly contradicting his boss in an interview with the ap saying quote, to date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. julia is outside the doj. julia, how big of a blow is this for the president? i mean, they haven't been able to get any serious traction in courts as they have tried to claim that the election was rigged or that there was fraud, and now it's been confirmed by the nation's top law enforcement officer. >> reporter: yeah. it's a blow. especially for people who are supporters of the president who have followed this justice department, and know how loyal this attorney general has been to the president. this isn't like a republican coming out who hasn't been in lock stop with the president talking about the election. but i will already say the justice department is qualifying some of what barr told the ap yesterday. they are saying that in no way

was barr saying that the investigation was concluded, that they were throwing up their hands, there was no fraud, but that they to date have not seen evidence of fraud that would change the outcome of the election and they would pursue any allegations based on evidence n but so far they don't have that evidence, and we've seen strong blowback from the white house, specifically from the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani, saying with all due respect to the attorney general, and then basically saying the justice department has not done its job to fully investigate this fraud. and i have to point out, kasie, the states run the elections. when something would rise to the level of fraud the justice department could get involved, this attorney general went further to pave the way to get the justice department more involved in investigating voter fraud before the election. so far he's saying he hasn't seen any evidence that would rise to that level to change the outcome of the election. so it's a big blow to the

president. and this argument that there was some sort of widespread serious against him being elected. >> all right. julia, thank you very much for your reporting as always. we really appreciate it. on capitol hill treasury secretary steve mnuchin and jerome powell testifying today. we enter a new round of coronavirus relief proepose ms and negotiations. the details of a new plan is under wraps. it's likely smaller than the last $2.2 trillion plan. as nbc news reports, mcconnell is circulating a draft proposal for a roughly $500 billion package. it's worth noting that proposal doesn't include state or local funding or new federal unemployment benefits. and those are some of the big sticking points for democrats.

then there is a compromise from a bipartisan group which includes both, although at lower amounts than what democratic leadership has been pushing for. this package also includes some of the liability protections that republicans are demanding. joining me now is democratic congresswoman abigail spanberger. she helped develop the bipartisan proposal for co-vid relief. thank you for being here. i think at this point, clearly americans are having such a hard time right now. so far congress has failed to deliver the house passed the heros act in may. that was months ago. we're heading into the holiday season. so many people are about to lose these benefits. did the house speaker overplay her hand going into the election? she seemed to think holding out for something big would pay off because she expected to win seats, but then you didn't.

>> the reality of where we are right now is that we have gone months upon month without a co-vid relief package, and the results on the ground is that people continue to struggle. just over thanksgiving i was volunteering at a large regional event called the giving heart, an annual thanksgiving event where we serve meals and join in community with people who need additional support on thanksgiving. and normally it's an event that is uplifting in the fact that it brings community members together and provides aid to those who need it. this year the desperation that is felt so clearly because of this ongoing health crisis and the economic crisis provided a desperate air to the event overall. and so for the past few weeks, a bipartisan group of house members and senators have been joining together, because we realize that we cannot go

frankly another day without a relief package. and so we have been working for weeks to work through the desires of both sides and both houses to come out with a plan that dlielivers real help to people through extended help to people including $300 in support to those unemployed including the extension of the gig worker pandemic, unemployment program. providing relief through housing assistance and food assistance. in addition to supporting our small businesses through extension of the ppp program. this is a compromise relief package that is meant to ensure that on the day after christmas when unemployment benefits stop that there is a next step because we have done our jobs and listened to the millions of americans who are asking us to help them, and we have actually delivered what it is that they deserve. >> i think it's clear, of course, from watching you and

your colleagues that you all have underscored the need, absolutely, but leadership here remains pretty deadlocked. i want to show you and all our viewers what we just heard a couple minutes ago from the treasury secretary mnuchin as he walked into his appearance on capitol hill. let's watch an then we'll talk about it. >> mcconnell proposal he put forward yesterday. we look forward to make progress on that. i'm not going to publicly comment on it, but i did speak to her briefly, and there's also a -- the other bipartisan proposal. >> so he says the president will sign the mcconnell proposal. let's set aside your bipartisan agreement for a second. we do have to grapple with what mcconnell is going to do since he controls the senate. if that package passes the senate, it's smaller than what

democrats wanted. do you think pelosi should put it on the house floor anyway and you should vote on it even if it's not quite where you want it to be? >> i think that in a time of great energy, no one is going to get their perfect pack canagpac. the $908 billion does not have everything i would personally want if i was writing a bill from start to finish that everyone would agree with. but the challenge and the problem that i see with the mcconnell bill is there is no help to people. we have millions of americans who continue to be out of work, who continue to need that support. and we will continue to fight to ensure that whatever negotiated package, however imperfect it may be from a democratic standpoint or from a republican standpoint, has the support to america's working families and has the ability to extend relief to ensure that people are not losing their homes, creating a larger economic crisis, or going hungry, particularly at this

time of unthinkable and horrible continued desperation. >> it's a tough holiday season this year for so many people. before i let you go, we're seeing the president, of course, continue his claims that the election was rigged. making demands of election officials in georgia and elsewhere. my question for you, you are in a swing district in georgia. you narrowly hung onto your seat this time. you've been impassioned with your colleagues about it. i'm wondering how much the pushing that the elections can't be trust second down breaking through with your constituents. how much are you hearing about it on the ground in your district when you're there, and building on that, how dangerous do you think the president's messaging is based on what you're hearing? >> i'm hearing about it on the ground. i was at an event in my district recently where a gentleman came

up to me earnestly concerned about the security of our elections. earnestly concerned about the potential that they are not fair and free. earnestly concerned because of what he has heard the highest ranking american official continue to say no matter how debunked or disputed it is. and so i think it's incredibly dangerous that the president of the united states to his electoral benefit or to appease his ego or whatever his motivation is willing to degrade the trust that the american people have in the very foundation of our democracy which is our fair and free election. what he's saying is breaking through, and it is concerning people in an earnest, authentic, and i would mention, not hyper partisan way. it is -- what i'm hearing on the ground are people who have listened to him and listened to his defenders continue this

narrative, and they're worried about it. and it isn't just that they want to see him continue as president. it's that he has them convinced there is some truth to this absolute myth that he continues to perpetuate. and it is damaging to our electoral system, and it is damaging to our democracy. and it is my hope that every republican colleague and every republican who has a voice as an elected official from the state to federal level steps forward and ensures that they are making clear that our elections are free and fair and that the results that have been certified by secretaries of the commonwealth and states and governors across the country are, in fact, true. and that we should all as americans have faith in them. >> it underscores how much what our leaders say matters. congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us today. we really appreciate your time. coming up next here, as we get closer to the availability

of a co-vid vaccine in the u.s., more than a fifth of the population will need to wait longer for an immunization. when will a vaccine be available for children? we're going to ask our vaccine expert coming up next.

♪ ♪ i got it all from you ♪ i'm always pushing through ♪ i know we'll make it to the finish line ♪ ♪ i know you're waiting on the other side ♪ ♪ i'm like you on-demand glucose monitoring. because they're always on. another life-changing technology from abbott. so you don't wait for life. you live it.

welcome back. tomorrow marks one week since the thanksgiving holiday. and in tennessee officials are ramping up coronavirus testing in anticipation of a post holiday surge in cases.

available icu beds are starting to run dangerously low as hospitals near capacity. with the state one of four taking part in pfizer's vaccine pilot program, doctors are urging people to get comfortable with taking a vaccine sooner rather than later. let's bring in nbc's mora barrett from one of the testing sites. let's talk a little bit about how this increasing testing in this time of difficult statistics fits in with the tennessee plan for trying to distribute this vaccine from pfizer after it's approved. >> reporter: right, kasie. basically doctors saying that we're seeing this light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to vaccines. in the meantime, testing is super important. and that's why the state has expanded hours bookending the holiday weekend. dozens of cars lined up behind

me to get tested. i want to put this in perspective. on the monday after thanksgiving across the state about 15,000 people came in for tests. on average, a daily test rate is about 7700. they nearly doubled that because people are really interested in getting out and tested. i spoke to an emergency physician and asked why it's important to have this accessibility to testing. take a listen. >> i think that's really of upmost importance, especially if you're doing contact tracing or capturing people when they first have symptoms before they've had a chance to be around a lot more people and expose more people. >> reporter: the doctor runs a testing site at his private clinic. he's expanded his capacity multiple times hitting full volume. he says the virus doesn't take a break so testing can't either. as for vaccines, doctors urging

people to get comfortable taking that vaccine, because basically we haven't seen a flattening of the curve by what we've been doing so far in the nine months of the pandemic. the vaccine is our best bet in order to get back to not wearing masks or taking vacations. but they assure people that this vaccine is safe. kasie? >> going to be one of our major challenges here in the coming months. maura barrett, thank you. joining me now is the direction of the research center at cincinnati children's hospital. dr. frank, thank you for being with us. what i want to talk to you about since you're an expert at this, and i'm speaking a little bit as a person as much as a reporter, because i have a young son. i have several friends who are expecting children. and i think that the questions across not just us but for americans everywhere are what is going to be safe in those

circumstances. we know that the trials have been playing out in healthy adults. we've gotten great news about it being safe for elderly people to take. but let's start with kids, especially young children. how are doctors going to figure out if this vaccine is safe for them, and what's the timeline for that in your view? >> so right now we're actually doing testing in adolescence as far as 12 years of age. we pause to look at the initial safety for 12 to 15 years old. it looked good. we started it with the goal to enroll 600 children 16 to 17 years age and 2 2000 between 12 and 18. then we look at an age deescalation, potentially going down as young as infants. >> so what's the difference for an infant or a young -- let's call it a toddler? what's the difference between a

toddler and an adolescent. the research shows there is some -- there are many similarities between adolescents over the age of 12 and adults but can be be different for little kids. what are you looking for and how are the trials different? >> actually, most of the vaccines we use, even in young infants are the same dose for adults. for a flu, the dose to a six-month old is the same as an adult. so we'll be looking to see as if we need to decrease the dose, but it may be that we won't. the one thing as far as in children under two, there's some diseases where we need to use a special vaccine because we're trying to get them to make an antibody against their sugars. in these, it's an antibody against a protein and our bodies can make antibodies against proteins at a few weeks of age. we may not need to modify the vaccines as all, but we're testing that.

>> that's incredibly encouraging to hear. let's talk for a second about pregnant women. there's a couple concerns. there's the safety of the mother. we need to know if it's safe for them, considering the way their body is affected by pregnancy and if it's safe for a baby not yet born. there are some vaccines we don't give to pregnant mothers for that reason. so what kind of concerns do you have about pregnant women? >> so for pregnant women, the vaccine, we would stay away from live virus vaccines. but right now a woman is recommended to get a flu vaccine with every pregnancy, every year. there's a good track record of using vaccines in pregnant women. while the risk of co-vid doesn't seem to be extremely higher in some pregnant women, some data suggests it is a bit higher. we think it's important to study pregnant women and look at vaccinating in that group.

as you mentioned, one of the things we looked at is not only the women but the babies. but because this is not a live virus or a live bacteria kind of a vaccine, the risks to the fetus shouldn't be that great, but we want to test. >> all right. well, again, great and positive encouraging news. it is a nice change of pace, i think, for all of us after covering this pandemic for so many months and, of course, people having such a terrible time with this disease. dr. robert frank, thank you to you and your team doing this important research. >> thank you. coming up next, enough is enough. an emotional georgia election official slams the president and the gop for failing to speak out about threats against election officials in the wake of the 2020 race. up next, mike braun is going to join me live with his reaction. tion [ engine rumbling ]

♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. than rheumatoid arthritis.

when considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz... a pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis when methotrexate has not helped enough. xeljanz can help relieve joint pain and swelling, stiffness, and helps stop further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections, like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. don't let another morning go by without asking your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. xeljanz.

...i was just fighting an uphill battle in my career. so when i heard about the applied digital skills courses, i'm thinking i can become more marketable. you don't need to be a computer expert to be great at this. these are skills lots of people can learn. i feel hopeful about the future now. ♪ try optum perks. it's a new way to save up to 80%. and everyone can do it. it's from optum, a health care company that's trusted by millions of people. you don't have to sign up for anything. just go to optumperks.com. and get a coupon to use at your pharmacy. that's it. i opted in. i opted in. you can, too. opt in and save big today.

i think we all know after the first of the year there's likely to be a discussion about additional package or some size next year depending upon what the new administration wants to pursue. >> did you catch that? mitch mcconnell making some news on two fronts there. he discussed his new coronavirus relief proposal. he also talked about a bigger relief bill in the new year with a, quote, new administration, end quote. it's the closest he has come to acknowledging that joe biden is the president-elect. joining my is senator mike braun. senator, good morning to you. it's great to see you. i'm going to start with what mitch mcconnell said. is joe biden the president-elect of the united states? >> you know, i think mitch

described the process very accurately. kevin cramer was on with chuck todd a week or so ago, and i think there is a process that we all acknowledge. vote vote certifications which have occurred most recently in some of the swing states and you've got december 14th when the electoral college meets. >> is that the bar for you? should i come ask you again on december 14th? >> the bar for me is to let the process play itself out. the reason i say that, i've spent so much time on these georgia races, trying to weigh in to get support from indiana for them and just heard in the last week to ten days, when i try to talk about that, most of the people i'm talking to are still wanting -- talking about the election itself. if there's any chance that next year, regardless of the outcome, that we unify and get together, i think this has got to play

itself out. i think president trump and the white house is fully aware they've got deadlines they've got to meet. but the people i talk to back in indiana where president trump won by nearly the same margin in 2020 as he did in 2016, they're still concerned about the election itself. unless it's played out, you're going to have half the country disgruntled. i think if you dismiss that, you're looking at it unrealistically in terms of how we get past it and go forward in the new congress. >> but the reality here, sir, is that the president is pushing -- and no one has disputed his rights to go to the courts, and he has done that. so far those cases, one after the other have been dismissed. in some cases he's been almost laughed out of court. in georgia, this is having real implications for officials who,

by the way, are members of your party who have seen these votes, who have been involved in counting them and saying it's all aboveboard. i want to play for you what a georgia official had to say about what's happening to him, his family, to other election workers and just how bad this has gotten. let's watch. >> i'm going to do my best to keep it together, because it's all gone too far! all of it! death threats, physical threats, intimidati intimidation. it's too much. this 20-year-old contractor for a voting system company just trying to do his job, his family getting harassed. someone is going to get hurt.

someone is going to get shot. someone is going to get killed, and it's not right. >> senator braun? >> i think the white house had a quick denouncement of the comments that initiated that. i think it was riveting, what he was saying. that's when things have gotten too heightened. you can see how that played out there in georgia. there's a big difference between taking that and generalizing it, starting with systemic fraud versus nothing happening at all. i think obviously when you have a situation like this election where you had an outlier like -- >> i don't think anyone is saying that there is absolutely no instance of anything that should be investigated. we're seeing plenty of instances where the campaign is trying to say, okay, here is an example in this place. here is an example in that place. we're letting that all play out in the courts.

the problem is the president of the united states is out there saying people can't trust the results of this election. that's why these people are coming to you in indiana saying i don't know if this is true or not. >> i think you're attributing that, kasie, to the president. i think you need to look more closely to what people, with their own common sense, look at it in a place like indiana. regardless of what the president says, i think there's that feeling that, if you don't let it play out completely, you'll have people unsatisfied. >> there isn't any evidence. where are they getting -- >> whatever evidence is out there. if you try to make the case that when you dump that many mail-in ballots and you do things so differently from the way elections normally occur. >> what mail-in ballots?

dump all these mail-in ballots. >> when it comes to making sure that absentee ballot applications match up with the actual number sent out. when you do signature verifications -- look at the commission that was put in place by james baker and jimmy carter just 15 years ago on federal election integrity. 80 recommendations came out. if you're saying that none of that applies here, i think you're just trying to dismiss the process. it's going to have -- in two weeks we're going to know. the president has had his chance. >> in two weeks you'll be willing to call president-elect biden the president? >> the process will dictate there. even the white house has said they'll accept the results. >> do you think it's important, when this process is done, for the president, if he has lost this election, to concede? is that an important thing for

our country and for our democracy? >> i think that how we go forward after an election -- his back in '16 that was disputed from almost the time he was inaugurated, through the mueller report, through impeachment, a lot of that has a residual effect. i think how you orchestrate the country coming together is going to be tricky. it's that hot and polarized currently. i've been here just under two years, came here to weigh in on issues actually, high cost of health care, other stuff. that is what we spent maybe six months after i got here doing before it quickly got into impeachment and then covid, an outlier which has thrown a monkey wrench into the whole situation. and i think you've got to -- >> it's a once-in-a-lifetime event. >> it's a once-in-a-lifetime

event. we need to get through it. thank goodness we have a vaccine coming. you can attribute that to the entrepreneuri entrepreneurial zeal. >> we're at the end of our hour. we're very much out of time. thank you for coming on and sharing your views. i really hope you'll come back on december 14th so we can have this conversation again. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me on. i will. thank you all for watching -- thank you for watching this hour of "msnbc live." up next, we have much more news with my colleague craig melvin. [ whispering ]

what's this? oh, are we kicking karly out? we live with at&t. it was a lapse in judgment. at&t, we called this house meeting because you advertise gig-speed internet, but we can't sign up for that here. yeah, but i'm just like warming up to those speeds. you've lived here two years. the personal attacks aren't helping, karly. don't you have like a hot pilates class to get to or something? [ muffled scream ] stop living with at&t. xfinity can deliver gig to the most homes.