Smartmatic. Smartmatic. Reporter leaving certain rightwing media in serious legal jeopardy. As biden gets the vaccine, new concerns about a uk super spreader strain. It may be up to 70 more transmissible. At long last, a deal on capitol hill. What we know about whats in the 900 billion of covid relief. Today is a good day, but it is certainly not the end of the story. It cannot be the end of the story. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. While there was a sedition summit in the white house this weekend may sound extreme but thats what appears to have happened. Its kind of weird its not a bigger story. Weve seen the president try, through political pressure and, of course, the courts, to, you know, un over turn the election, undo american democracy and to install himself in the white house for another term against the last people. Now, none of those efforts have worked. In fact, theyve been so cartoonishly flailing that one of trumps most unwavering supporters, attorney lynwood, just filed a suit in which he asserted he was telling the truth under, quote, plenty of perjury. Thats supposed to be penalty of perjury. The work of wood and others is all in pursuit of the only project donald trump seems genuinely committed to at the moment. Instead of attending to the onceinacentury humanitarian crisis killing roughly 3,000 americans a day, or playing an essential role in the covid relief package or engaging in any way as president , trump is holed up, watching tv. We know for a long time thats where he gets his ideas as to what to do next. We dont know if he was watching live when disgraced and pardoned adviser Michael Flynn went on air last tuesday, it certainly appears as if he heard what he was saying. Within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities, place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. Its not unprecedented. People out there are talking about martial law like its something weve never done. Martial law has been instituted 64, 64 times, craig. Yes. Just send the military into the swing states and make everyone revote at the point of a gun. Definitely what the founders had in mind. Now one day after that appearance, that got Michael Flynn, who is going on tv and toying with the idea of trump invoking martial law in order to achieve power and end the american experiment, that guy was meeting in the white house with the president himself to discuss his idea. Okay . This is not him just out there, saying stuff. Hes in the white house, with the president. Also at that meeting as the New York Times first reported, was attorney sydney powell, who has been spreading wild conspiracy theories about rigged Voting Machines. Trump reportedly discussed naming sydney powell as special counsel, like an official, i guess, department of justice counsel, overseeing an investigation into voter fraud. What would that look like . At the meeting the participants reportedly discussed commandeering Voting Machines with powell to inspect the machines. Sydney powell is someone so extreme and whose performance has been so bizarre and error ridden that trumps own legal team publicly disavowed her. She has supported qanon conspiracies, claimed the democrats stole the election, and said those who dont support trumps delusion will go to jail. Brain storming, figuring out what to do next. Now apparently there was some push back in the meeting as well discuss shortly. Think about this. You have the president of the United States considering apparently declaring martial law and announcing new elections and or seizing the nations Voting Machines so that sydney powell can use them to push her lies. And, again, its all so ridiculous, right . But its not idle talk. Axios reported Rudy Giuliani called up Ken Cuccinelli and asked him whether dhs could seize Voting Machines. Maggie haberman reported this afternoon, guess what, guess who is back. Sydney powell is back at the white house again today for the third time in four days. What do you think theyre doing in there, guys . What do you think theyre talking about . What do you think the president is contemplating . What are they drawing up in there . Trump is apparently contemplating here is so extreme and offensive, even some of his most stalwart yes men are having to ever so gently tell the president hes lost his mind. Even attorney general william barr, who completely has debased himself on trumps behalf, barr is saying, no, there is no basis for seizing Voting Machines or appointing a special counsel to investigate nonexistent Election Fraud. Thats where things are. Too much for bill barr to carry water for. And it is true that weve gotten fiveplus years of headlines about how the people around him are concerned, but two people who have covered him for the duration of that time more or less report that things have actually, in the minds of the people around him, reached a whole new level. In a piece about how officials have become increasingly new alarmed about trumps power grab, Senior Administration official saying, quote, people who are nervous arent the weakkneed bureaucrats we loath. These are the people who have endured arguably mayhem in history. Mag maggy haberman sources who have gotten used to trumps emotions are scared. New york times Homeland Security correspondent zolan casino young, who first broke that story about the fried evening meeting at the white house, along with his colleague, magazi maggie haberman. The meeting took place on friday night. Theres three main takeaways out of our reporting on this meeting as well as a separate push on the same week involving some of the same people. The first thing you touched on in your intro, the president considering making sydney powell a sort of white house special counsel, a lawyer from within the white house, who will investigate what she, as well as other people in the trump campaign, have deemed, have described as widespread voter fraud. Its important to point out here again, chris, that that is something thats been tossed out in the courts already. And to this point, those are baseless claims. That was the first takeaway, to make her a sort of lawyer from working within the white house that would investigate this. And you saw a pushback on that. Well get back to that. The second takeaway is the fact that her client as well, Michael Flynn, the former National Security adviser that was recently pardoned by the president , was also present at that meeting as well. As you touched on, Michael Flynn also recently went on to news max and indicated that the president should use the military, invoke martial law to, quote, unquote, rerun the election. And we do know, based off our reporting that the president did ask about that in the meeting as well. And then the third is also a separate push. Now, Rudy Giuliani, as well, earlier in the week, separately, also placed a call to Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary at the department of Homeland Security, the second highest ranked person at the department and put in a request to have dhs assert control of Voting Machines for the purpose of trying to find some sort of evidence of some of this voter fraud. Now, its important to say here there was pushback. You touched on that. In terms of sydney powell and appointing her this counsel to investigate fraud, you saw pushback from almost everybody else in the room. I mean, really specifically, white House Counsel as well as mark meadows, chief of staff. And when it came to Rudy Giulianis second push, you saw as well Ken Cuccinelli denying that request and saying dhs just does not have the Legal Authority to do that. So, here is my ive read your reporting and some others reporting on this meeting. The basic dynamic, as far as i can tell basically, is that you have these people working on the president s behalf in the courts and trying to overturn the election, right . Sydney powell and Rudy Giuliani. My understanding is what it seemed like this meeting was, them coming into the white house and saying we dont have the support of the state, the american government, which is run by the president , isnt helping us in this. Basically, how do we use the government to help us pursue this agenda . And a bunch of people, meadow owes, essentially barr now today basically he wasnt at the meeting, but really not wanting that line to be crossed, as i understand. Is that a fair characterization of the dynamic . Sydney powell calling people in that room that refused to use the resources of the federal government for the efforts of the campaign to overturn the results of the election, she was calling them quitters, quote, unquote, quitters at that point. Yes, you hit on it. You do have people that are within the federal government, including the attorney general, who just today at a press conference, an unrelated press conference, said that he had no intention in appointing a special counsel to investigate socalled widespread fraud or hunter biden, which had been another wish of those individuals. Yeah. So, there is a guy who is a former ceo of overstock. Com, patrick burn, who claims he was in the room at this meeting as well. I dont know if thats been confirmed by other independent reporting, but i think the tenor we know he has become a very big maga die hard. The tenor of what hes saying is partly what youre getting from sydney powell, is my involvement was i was in the room when it happened. Raised voices included my own. President trump is being terribly served by his advisers. They want him to lose or are lying to him. Hes surrounded by vindacious mediocrit mediocrities. The mark meadows or bill barrs of the world are undercutting him and he needs to be more firstful. Not just that it seems but the reporting shows that this push by sydney powell and some of what was said in that meeting caused concern for even those who have been the most staunch supporters of the president. That being said, while mark meadows did push back in that meeting, we did have another meeting today. Sydney powell has continued to go to the white house. As you noted, my colleague, maggie haberman, reported that today. A group of republican congressmen went to the white house today, and mark meadows tweeted that out and touted that as well. Even those who pushed back days ago, there are still individuals within the federal government that are going to continue to advocate for this push, that there was widespread fraud in the election. Zolan kannoyoungs, thank you so much for sharing that with us tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. Now for some perspective on what exactly is happening, i want to turn to retired u. S. Army lawrence wilkerson. At one point, colonel, this is a similar story to others weve heard where the president has a crazy idea and people are trying to walk away from him. In this case, though, its hard to get your head around how wildly danger sbous offensive it is. What is your reaction to what youve heard about this meeting and what the president is attempting to consider . My first reaction, of course, is dont take counsel of your fears. Weve just gone through one of the most incredible election sequences in our nations history, certainly since world war ii. More people voted by more methodology, in a pandemic environment, et cetera, et cetera. I have to commend all those people who worked so hard to deliver a free and fair election. At the same time i say that, i have to say my fears are somewhat significant with a former Lieutenant General in the United States army saying what flynn said with regard to martial law, going to the battleground states and essentially reconducting the elections. Were i secretary of defense, i would call him back to active duty, in the perogative of the secretary of defense and courtmartial him. At a minimum, i would cite him for incitement for insurrection. This is not something a military officer should do. You serve until youre roughly 85 years old. Its half pay, not necessarily retired pay. You can be called back at any time. I got my letter from secretary rumfeld when i was chief of staff to secretary powell. I was called back to active duty. I didnt have to do it, but thats the power of the military over this general, and he needs to be rebuked. He needs to be reprimanded and done so officially. That would be the best way to do it. These other people like bannon, powell and so forth, theyre sycophants, seeking whatever they can gain from the magical aura of this man before it dissipates, and it frightens me as to the things they could do if the 25th amendment or Something Like it is not implemented and we dont remove him from office. Theres a lot of time left. When we work on this as a transition integrity project we saw trump do some pretty desperate things. One of the things that we saw him do that im not waiting eagerly to see if he fulfills it, he did everything he could possibly do to ruin bidens first year in office, everything from not allowing him to get cabinet officers confirmed because he had such a control that weve seen demonstrated over the senate of the United States, to not allowing good transitions to take place. I understand from inside sources that those transitions are, for the most part, taking place, but theyre taking place in some instances begrudgingly. Thats not the way transitions should occur. Yeah, your point about general flynn, just to circle back to that for a moment. I find the generals trajectory here really just unnerving. This is someone who was celebrated, had a fairly sterling record. People thought he was an incredible intelligence officer, and he was the head of Defense Intelligence agency before he was essentially fired. And to watch someone who served and had this reputation and is known by a lot of people that work with him go on the trajectory he has where essentially he was an unpaid Foreign Agent of a foreign government, turkish government, and now talking about martial law, its a very unnerving trajectory. It is. In my view, hes a disgrace to his uniform. Hes one of those examples, and i knew several of them when i was in the military, some 30 years plus. Hes one of those examples of a prn who gets squirreled away in a special community. In this case, special ops and also intelligence, and he grows up to flag rank and no one really applies any adult supervision. And i include in that general mcchrystal in afghanistan when he worked for general mcchrystal. I blame general mcchrystal for putting him in the position hes in right now to a certain extent. These people come along and get to the position where they really have some authority. In this case, much beyond the three stars, National Security adviser almost, and they then show their true colors. And i think thats what flynn is doing. Otherwise ive got to pronounce him a psychotic or worse. You seem unnerved but also somewhat confident about the situation were in, which i think tracks of where i am. Again, there is a dwindling amount of power the president has. Theres a kind of whiff of desperation. Hes going to sort of more and more bizarre, crankish kind of voices. And yet, you know, the authority of the government still rests in the mans hands for 30 days. And weve been anticipating breakglass moments. I dont think weve quite gotten one yet. Are you confident basically, based on the reporting and also on what you know about the institutions, and particularly department of defense that he will not be allowed to do anything like he is contemplating . There will be nothing with the military, in my very strong view. The military will not do anything untoward, no matter what orders come from him. And, indeed, if the orders were truly untoward, the 25th amendment might be implemented. I dont see how people could stop from doing that. What worries me, chris, right now, is the opportunistic advantage thats out there right now for a very hard press by covid19 north korea, for example, kim jongun, for a very pressured china with regard to what taipei is doing and taiwan in general, and in the situation with iran where we have them just waiting. These are the kinds of things that trump could leave as a blow to the country and it would wind up being a significant blow to the country and the new administration. Colonel lawrence wilkerson, always great to get your insight and experience shared with us. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Still to come, a rare walkback from rightwing Media Outlets about one of their favorite Election Fraud conspiracy theories. 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So, ever since the election, theres been all kinds of outlandish, untrue claims being put forth on various rightwing Media Outlets, trying to bolster the president s claim that somehow the election was stolen from him. One of the conspiracy theories involves a Voting TechnologyCompany Called smartmatic, founded in by venezuelanborn owners in boca raton. Those facts didnt stop this kind of nonsense from making air. The key points to understand is that this smartmatic system has a backdoor that allows it to be yeah. Allows votes to be mirrored and monitored. Smartmatic is the Multinational Corporation that makes vote counting machines as well as software is reportedly is tied to the late venezuelan dictator hugo chavezs machine. We have to look at dominion and smartmatic issues as almost a crisis. We have evidence that is suggestive and some that is indisputable, affidavits that have been signed as it relates to the technology and its vulnerability, all sorts of enormously troubling international ties. None of that seems to have any base in fact whatsoever. The New York Times columnist ben smith reports ceo of smartmatic has had just about enough. Last week, his lawyer sent scathing letters to fox news channel, newsmax and oan, demanding they immediately, forcefully clear his companys name. And ben smith joins me now. Ben, its great great column, fascinating look at this. Basically, what is his perspective . This guy start this had Election Software company. No one was talking about at all. And he has watched now for six weeks the name of the company be really dragged through the mud, day after day until he decided to send these letters. What has that experience been like for him . Yeah. He was sitting in london, because their operations latin america, brazil, belgium, and contracts in africa. Hes there in london, watching this stuff pop up on twitter, not worrying too much and Rudy Giuliani goes and says he and dominion, sort of a competitor, but they mostly work in the u. S. And he doesnt, are part of this big conspiracy. And his phone starts ringing off the hook because his clients in africa and europe are worried that local Political Parties are going to say how could you, you know, bring in these criminals who are going to steal an election . When you talk about defamation, one of the issues often is, are there really damages . Are you really inflicting harm on a business . Thats part of what makes this such a dangerous case for these companies. Its so clear that theyre attacking this business at the core of its sales pitch with its clients. Yeah. And you compared it to the pink slime lawsuit, which is 150 million plus in damages. You called it the red slime lawsuit and said there are legal threats, any company even like giant Fox News Corporation would take seriously, a giant new Media Company in the president s image, and thats because, again, you and i take an expansive view of the First Amendment here, right . We think its good that we have strong, sort of we dont have the regime, say, in the uk, but when you are saying untrue things, day after day, hammering a single entity, youre getting pretty close to what the textbook of defamation looks like. Yeah. I mean, its right. If you figure these defamation laws were written for a purpose, thats what lawyers i talk to said. This is pretty much what these laws were written for. I think the thing with defamation is that often these cases are knocked out by judges at various stages and the nightmare is you get to a jury, for these companies. Thats why abc news settled this suit in which it used the term pink slime to describe some beef products, and it was sued under south dakotas ludicrous food defamation laws, and the lawyer who brought that case is the lawyer who smartmatic hired. So i wanted here is the fascinating twist here. All these this strongly worded letter goes out, basically saying youre defaming our company. Its baseless and untrue. You need to make this right. So we have watched this ive never quite seen anything like it. I am someone who has done thousands of hours of television, and occasionally we have made mistakes and we have corrected them, because its important to us to get it right. Ive never seen anything like this. I want to play a little snippet of something that ran on lou dobbs show, attempting to clear the record. Here is an example of what this looks like. Talk a listen. There are lots of opinions about the integrity of the election, the irregularities of mailin voting, of election Voting Machines and voting software. One of the companies is smartmatic. We reached out to one of the leading authorityies on open Source Software for elections, eddie perez, for his insight and views. Eddie is the global director of Tech Development at the open Source Election Technology institute. We asked him for his assessment of smartmatic and recent claims about the company. Have you seen any evidence that smartmatic soft war was used to flip votes anywhere in the u. S. In this election . Ive not seen any evidence that Smartmatic Software was used to delete, change, alter anything relateed to vote tabulation. This segment goes on like this, with this offscreen voice asking these very specifically worded questions for like six or seven minutes. There have now been versions, not quite as bizarre formally as that, but on newsmax, saying theyre running this threeminute script on every newsmax show. This seems to have worked. I guess the question is, what does it mean for smartmatic, whether you can put this back in the bag . I mean, theyre trying to do damage control here. And a lot of this stuff, the law isnt particularly settled. Theres not clear law on what happens if an onair guest goes on to defame somebody and you invat them back and you invite them back again and again. Thats what these allegations are. Thats something for the courts. There is a rule or a that you can express false and defamatory opinions as long as you lay out the facts upon which those opinions are based and people can draw their own conclusions and disagree with the facts. I think theyre trying to hastily jam a bunch of facts out there so they can say we gave everybody all the facts. We just had different opinions. Ive never seen i have to say, ive never seen anything quite like what is being done right now. Oh, yes. Great column, as always, mr. Ben smith. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you, chris. All right. Next, alarming reports out of the uk. The coronavirus is mutating. I dont like the sound of that. Ill talk to Laurie Garret about what that means and just how worried we should be, right after this. Worried we should be, right after this [ ] think you need to buy expensive skincare products to see dramatic results . Try olay skin care. Just one jar of microsculpting cream has the hydrating power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. While new olay retinol24. Provides visibly smoother, brighter skin. For dramatic skincare results, try olay. And now receive 25 off your purchase at olay. Com brand power. Helping you buy better. Open. Remember having that feeling for the first time . The first day you opened. The first day you had a customer, the first day you taught a class, had a client, a patient, a session. Open. Remember the night before you opened . Who could ever sleep . Open. But theres a different question we are being asked now. Are you going to remain open . Even when your doors are closed . Open. Thats how we show who we are. And theres another way to be open, to pull together or push, depending on the door. And we are making it work and we will continue to make it work together. Because open we stand. President elect joe biden got his first dose of the pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine today, live on television. Here in new york, Health Care Workers started getting the second approved vaccine, the one from moderna. And theres a lot of optimism in the air around the vaccine, as we have two now circulating. It was tempered, i have to say, for me, out of news of england where apparently a highly new strain of coronavirus helped to double the rate of infections there in the past couple of weeks. The question now, how worried should we be about this new strain . And also the vaccine is still going to protect us from that, right . Theres perhaps no one i would rather talk to right now to help answer some of those questions, than Laurie Garret and author of the coming plague. Lets start with the mutation that is in the uk. Is it real . And do we know that it is contributing to a much higher rate of transmission . So, chris, i have to give you very bad news. This is the fourth mutation event that is significant, apparently, in the transmission of the virus. The first big mutational event occurred after the virus jumped to italy, some time in february or march. Right. It was that very transmissible strain that made it to new york and the east coast of the United States. The second mutational event occurred this summer when the virus somehow got into mink, in mink farms. This is the animal that makes fur coats, in denmark and elsewhere and mink populations in north america. That strain can spread to people from minks. Its not clear whether it goes from people to minks, but presumably thats how it originally got in the mink population. The third one appeared in october in south africa, and it is a significant change. It seems to make the virus more transmissible, and there are some indications from the south African Ministry of health just today that it may also be more virulent in young adults. Its spreading faster in younger adults and it seems to cause more severe disease in younger adults. And then we have the british one, which was first noticed apparently in september. It has really swept the uk over the last three weeks. It now accounts for about 40 , roughly, of new cases in the uk and seems to be about 71 more transmissible from person to person, compared to the routine strains of covid19 or sars cov2. So, yeah, theres a lot to think about here. Are we looking at something thats more dangerous . If these estimates, rate of reproduction, hold up and its now several different laboratories and Research Organizations confirming what the british originally said, that their strain is reproducing much faster, logscale faster than the routine spread covid strains, if that holds up, then we may or may not be looking at a more virulent strain, but certainly a faster spreading strain. One set of studies seems to indicate once people are infected, their bodies actually start producing far more virus, at least a logscale more virus. So theyre shedding more virus. Theyre more likely to be infectious to people around them. So, this is just a graphic that sort of gives you a sense of how this has happened in the uk. This chart shows how, over time, this strain has become more and more dominant. You see the prevalence of that orange variant growing over time. So then the big question becomes the vaccine, right . So my understanding from the reporting ive done over these last few months, talking to virologists, its fairly stable and that has been useful in sort of designing the vaccine. Weve already started to see mutations. What do we think that portends for the vaccine . Right now, the general statement thats being made by all parties associated with Health Departments and so on is, it looks like the vaccine will be fine and this is going to work out just fine. But we dont actually have data, one way or the other, to answer that question. It is interesting that the uk studies on using the routine nuclaeic acid tests to see if they are infected are missing this virus. If they are tests that target the socalled sprotein, the spike that you see sticking up out of all the little ball the sort of ballshaped virus with these little spikes sticking out. That s protein is the key mutational event that seems to make this more transmissible. That protein is what logs on to a human cell and then opens the door and then the virus goes in to your cell. Well, its also what your antibodies recognize. And it does appear that at least those kind of pcr tests that specifically target that finding that s protein are missing a lot of the english infections, and they are advising the eus broader analysis that looks for more elements of thevy russ. Oh, wow. And thats a little disturbing. Yes. Its not the greatest news. My sense is that the way that this works, this probably is already making its way over here and were going to have to sort of be dealing with this here as well. Laurie garret, as always, thank you so much for sharing that. Appreciate it. Thank you, chris. Still to come, after months of waiting, we finally have a new Coronavirus Relief package. The house is literally voting on it right now, as im speaking to you. Does it go far enough . What is in the bill and what is missing . Just ahead. L and what is missing . Just ahead centrum minis may be small, but they pack a punch. With over 20 essential vitamins and minerals they are the most complete mini multivitamin. So you can focus on punching above your weight. No matter how high you set the bar. Try centrum minis. Were all finding ways to keep moving. But how do we make sure the direction were headed is forward . At fidelity, youll get the planning and advice to prepare you for the future, without sacrificing the things that are important to you today. Well help you plan for healthcare costs, taxes and any other uncertainties along the way. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction youre moving is forward. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident my hygienist cleans with a round head, so does my oralb. My hygienist personalizes my cleaning, so does my oralb. My hygienist uses just the right pressure, and so does my oralb. Oralb combines a dentistinspired brush head with the gentle energy of microvibrations for the wow of a professional clean feel every day. My mouth says wow and so does my oralb. Finally after months and months of negotiations and false starts, there is a new covid relief package being debated on the hill right now. A lot of stuff that didnt make it in the package. Well talk about that in a few minutes. Before we do, the wrangling over this bill has become a standin for washington dysfunction and the idea of congress in a generalized way of being clowns that cant get their acts together. Months ago, almost as soon as the c. A. R. E. S. Act was passed in march that more Fiscal Relief would be needed and republicans were almost immediately shooting that idea down. We have just passed three bills, the largest ever made in american history, 2 trillion. The focus should be implementing those and making sure theyre working. In fact, republicans were predicting the economy was already healed even before a lot of money from that relief package had already made it into americans hands. I think what youll see in may as states are reopening now, may will be a transition month. Youll see a lot of states starting to phase in the reopening based on the safety guidelines that President Trump outlined on april 19th. And i think by june youll see a lot of the country will be back to normal and the hope is that by july the country is really rocking again. Going to be rocking. The idea is, look, we pass this big c. A. R. E. S. Act. Now were reopening. The economy can do it by itself. We dont need anything. Democrats in the house passed a bill in may because they thought that wasnt true and so they passed the socalled heroes act. It was an enormous rescue package, including help for local governments, more safety net spending, range of other provisions, extension of unemployment insurance. Democrats argued then and continued to argue more relief would obviously be necessary because the virus was not going anywhere. Instead a run of betterthanexpected job numbers this summer gave republicans an excuse to say no, the economy is doing great. So any stimulus needs to be pretty small. Spokesperson for Chuck Grassley told politico in july after another rise in payrolls, jobs report underscores why congress should take a thoughtful approach, and before getting a better understanding of economic understanding of the country. White house surprisingly show claimed those job numbers were showing the economy was zooming upwards. We saved millions of lives. Now were opening with a bang. We were talking about a v. This is better than a v. This is a rocketship. Green shoots popping up everywhere. Stocks are soaring. Potus policies are working. Stay with the winners. Trump and pence, and me the best is yet to come. So all this rosie scenario, everything is going to be back to normal. Then the constant concern from republicans about deficits and the horrors of government spending. One irony of all of this, of course, is that republicans passed another package earlier this year and made it big enough, donald trump might have very well have been reelected. After all, there has been a constant Democratic Caucus in congress pushing to go big and republicans were constantly trying to do less. Thats the basic dynamic weve had for months. And that is the dynamic that gave us the package we finally got today. So, whats in it . Is it going to be enough . Thats next. Is it going to be eh thats next. Ecord pace. We were the first to bring 5g nationwide. And now that sprint is a part of tmobile were turning up the speed. Upgrading over a thousand towers a month with ultra capacity 5g. To bring speeds as fast as wifi to cities and towns across america. And were adding more every week. Coverage and speed. Who says you cant have it all . S may your holidays glow bright and all your dreams take flight. Visit your local mercedesbenz dealer today for exceptional lease and financing offers at the mercedesbenz winter event. Its time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. Powerful relief so you can restore and recover. Theraflu hot beats cold. Think you need to buy poexpensive skincare products restore and recover. [ ] to see dramatic results . Try olay skin care. Just one jar of microsculpting cream has the hydrating power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. While new olay retinol24. Provides visibly smoother, brighter skin. For dramatic skincare results, try olay. And now receive 25 off your purchase at olay. Com brand power. Helping you buy better. The house is now voting on a new covid relief bill. Some of the highlights are a 600 relief check for many americans. That includes children as well. Enhanced Unemployment Benefits although not at the same level as in that earlier karz package. Rental assistance. Theres a lot in here but also a lot that didnt make it into the final version. Here to talk through whats there and whats missing, heather long. Her latest piece is titled 900 billion stimulus is second biggest in u. S. History, but it wont last long enough. And the executive editor at the american prospect where he wrote today that covid relief success depends on vaccination success. Heather, let me start with you about the sort of top line items that did make it in checks and that unemployment bonus, right . So more money on top of what your calculated unemployment would be. One of the most powerful parts of the c. A. R. E. S. Act, i think probably the best provision, was 600 on top of whatever your normal unemployment would be. That ran out. Whats in this new bill . Yeah, thats right. I mean for a lot of americans, this is a christmas miracle that theyre going to get this extra unemployment money. It should start next week, an extra 300 through the middle of march. Theres also extra aid for rental assistance. We know millions of people were going to face eviction, and thats going to help a lot. Extra money for s. N. A. P. , the food stamp program. Also, of course, extra money to help get these vaccines out, to help schools get the protections that they need, and Small Businesses. We know millions of Small Businesses are closed again and are really hurting, and this allows them to get more emergency loans and emergency grants to try to get them through. But the major flaw here is the aid just doesnt last long enough. A lot of it will expire in march and april, and its Wishful Thinking that the vaccines will be widespread enough and the economy will be open enough that all these jobs will come rushing back by the spring. Yeah. Dave, you made a similar point in your coverage of this, that fundamentally the plug is too small for the hole as the fundamental dynamic here, that particularly in terms of the timing of this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean ive seen reporting that the u. S. Has spent maybe twice as much as other industrialized countries on targeted relief. But of course the reason for that is we have a terrible safety net to begin with, and most of the relief in these other countries is automatic whereas we have to backfill it because we dont have enough. Right. Right. So, yeah. I mean the real problem is when does the vaccine reach a Critical Mass of people in the United States . And if it comes after midmarch or early april as heather said, then this relief is going to run out just like it ran out previously and triggered this massive rise in poverty, this massive rise in Food Insecurity and things like that. The two i want to talk about, heather, two things that made it in and two things that didnt, and then get your take on it, dave. The state and local fiscal aid, which was a huge Sticking Point from the beginning, the democrats wanted. Lots of municipalities and states are going to be hurting, is not in the bill. There was targeted relief for restaurants, which have their own specific set of challenges that many people were pushing for. Thats not in the bill. Two things that did get in the bill are targeted provisions for, like, concert venues, which again also have specific challenges. Like theyve just been completely shut down as well as provisions for public transit, which are hemorrhaging money. So theres sort of like four different groups that kind of needed specific money, and two of them got it, and two of them didnt. How did that work out, heather . Yeah. Theres a lot of remorse that the state and local aid wasnt addressed here. We know that 1. 3 million jobs have been lost, and theyre just not coming back. There just hasnt been any improvement in that sector, and its likely to get worse. Youve got cities like los angeles that are laying off police and other cities that are threatening to raise taxes or do more layoffs in the coming months. Theres hope that president biden, when he gets in, may be able to do something to address and plug that hole, but it will be hard if the senate stays in republican hands. Restaurants is a little bit more interesting. They will be eligible for more of these ppp loans, and they do the bill allows for a slightly larger loan to go to restaurants. But as you say, they were really looking for even more relief than having to go through this onerous ppp process again, which will take time. Dave, i think you thought that c. A. R. E. S. Was going to be it, that there was no deal for nancy pelosi to say yes to largely because of mcconnell. Why do you think this deal actually ended up happening . Because the Glass Half Full is 900 billion is better than 0 which looked like a possibility recently. Yeah. The answer is georgia. So Mitch Mcconnell does not have much guile, right . He tells you exactly whats happening, and he told his caucus Kelly Loeffler and david perdue are getting hammered because theres to relief out there. And that was, as they say, it. He needed a relief bill so that the georgia senators can go back and say they delivered for their constituents before january 5th. And think about it. David perdue got 49. 7 of the vote. If he got 0. 3 of the vote more, he would be the 51st republican senator in the next congress, and we might not be having this conversation. Yeah. Its really well said. Heather long, dave dayen, thank you both for that. That is all in on this monday night. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy to have you here with us tonight on what is the longest night of the year. I know its daunting to think of this as the official start of winter since it has been wintry enough for a long while already this year in lots of ways. But the good news is that, you know, whether or not the clouds are in tonight where you live, whether or not you are able to get outside and see the convergence of jupiter and saturn right now, creating what appears to be a gigantic star low in the