Thinks. Well talk to congressman cedrick rich b monday of louisiana and republican senator kevin cramer. A covid explosion. More sick than i have ever seen in my life. They just drop so fast. Daily case records being set. Were in an utter emergency here. A quarter million americans now dead. The Trump Administration refusing to confer with the biden team. Were in a very serious situation. We can do something about it. Vaccine help is on the way. We had enough vaccine doses between these two vaccines of about 20 million during the month of december. This morning youll hear my conversation with dr. Fauci and ill talk to the head of operation warp speed. Join iing me for inside and analysis are hallie jackson, eddie glaude jr. And anna palmer and john podhoretz. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. Is from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. In the days immediately following joe bidens victory, it was easy to dismisPresident Trumps reality of denial as working his base, or just a tantrum or some sort of strategy for his post presidency. But now his antics are looking less like a fit of peek, than an assault on our democracy. In recent days we have seen President Trump allies pressure legislators to overturn the election. Trump lawyers spin basically conspiracy theories about voting machines, dead dictators in venz way la and a National Conspiracy to rig the election that somehow members of both parties participated in. President trump fired the Cyber Security head, and he tweeted falsehoods about nonexistent photo fraud including the call to state legislators to overturn the election results. At the same time, the president is denying bidens Transition Team access to information that would allow the new president s deal with the covid crisis on day one. Simply put, that decision could be costing lives in a country where a quarter million have already been lost. Trumps efforts to turn a defeat into a fraudulent victory appear headed for failure, but he may succeed in undermining confidence in u. S. Elections and in kneecapping the Incoming Administration and perhaps thats the motive. But ask yourself. Is this the 1950s or 1850s . The 1950s when we overcame our crisis and pulled fogt as a country or the 1850s when the nation broke apart. Im confident he knows he hasnt won. Its just outrageous what hes doing. President elect joe biden stepping up criticism of President Trumps effort to overturn the election results. Big pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which i won by the way. Youll find that out. Trumps attempts to make his legal efforts appear anything more than a pr campaign aimed at delegitimizing bidens presidency and building his post presidency brand are failing inspe. On friday the secretary of state certify another bidens win after a recount. Numbers dont lie. As secretary of state, i believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. Though the president summoned michigan lawmakers to the white house on friday, after the meeting they sads in a statement that that they would follow the normal process in certifying the vote results. While the president and his allies are ripping at the fabric of the democracy in any way they can, the fabric is not tearing. Its holding firm. Also this week trump fired Homeland Security official chris krebs, who challenged his false claims of voter fraud. Theres like a loyalty purge going on in the last month in the white house. I disagree vehemently with his firing. Of the 36 election lawsuits the Trump Campaign and republicans have filed, 24 have been denied, dismissed, settled or withdrawn and none has found a single instance of actual fraud. Most of the republicans i have spoken to including some of the governors think this is debilitating. Its not it sends a horrible message about who we are as a country. The Republican Party response has been to largely accept and encourage the president s attempts to overturn the election results. Just three republican senators have publicly criticized the president. Senator mitt romney, its difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic act by a sitting american president. Senator ben sass wrote, the president s lawyers have repeatedly refused to actually allege grand fraud because there are legal consequences for lying to judges. And Susan Collins condemn ed th attempt to pressure state officials. But overwhelmingly, the nations Top Republicans have been silent or encouraged the president s unparalleled effort to steal an election he lost by more than 6 million votes and an electoral margin equal to his 2016 win. Stacey abrams challenged the results. She was a hero. When donald trump is going to court, hes a dictator. Im tired of this crap. Were going to fight back in georgia. Were going to fight back eve everywhere. Its an assault on our democracy. Its outrageous. Its bad for donald trump. Its bad for the Republican Party. Its bad for the country. And our standing in the world. Join iing me is the incoming director of the White House Office of Public Engagement is congressman Cedrick Richmond of louisiana. Welcome back to meet the press. Tomorrow is certification day in pennsylvania. We got the lawsuit thrown out last night, which basically was the last legal path that he had in pa pennsylvania. If you follow the president s plan to try to get to 20, it doesnt work without pennsylvania. If tomorrow is not the day, what does the biden Transition Team do, congressman . Looks like we have an audio issue thewith congressman richm. Well get that fixed. So we are now going to swap orders here and hopefully my next guest republican senator kevin cramer is ready. Senator, as you can tee there, a little bit of issue. Hope you can hear me. I can hear you just fine. Let me start with sort of a form of the same issue here. But im going to use senator pat toomey, your colleague from pennsylvania. Heres what he said last night after the decision to essentially throw out the lawsuits. With todays dispute, fair and unbiassed jurist to President Trump has exhausted all plausible Legal Options to challenge the result of the president ial race in pennsylvania. I congratulate president elect biden and Kamala Harris on their victory. Do you conquer its now over . Chuck, thank you for the opportunity to be with you. I do not. I think its very likely. That said, i dont know why were so easily offended by a president thats carrying out all of his Legal Options in course, not enhancing or encouraging any riots or burnings of buildings or beating up of democrats coming out of the democratic means or events. Its just a simple Legal Process and really theres not been a lot of evidentiary hearings that have evolved the trump case. There have been other hearings, i noticed you used a number that was rather large of cases dismissed. But when you look at actual evidence, there have not been many, if any. Maybe pennsylvania was the first one. I think everybody ought to calm down. I dont think this is an attack on our democracy. We spent four years listening to new shows and liberals trying to discredit the Trump Administration to the point of spying on him by the last administration, 40 million spent on a independent council started with no evidence and ended with no evidence and then the crazy impeachment. So everyone just relax and let it play out in a legal way. Well be just fine. Youve implied theres no damage being done just now in those comments. Oh, there was a lot of damage done in the last four years. I want to ask you, the spectacle of Rudy Giuliani on thursday, using the headquarters of the Republican Party, i mean, at one point one of the lawyers accused a dead dictator of somehow being a part of this. Are you really saying that the president is youre out there saying the president is not encouraging somehow any way of sort of being disorderly about this, how is that not encouraging disruption and disorderly hes accusing the entire system of being corrupt. Is that not undermining the democracy . First of all, what theyre claiming is theres a lot of evidence and theyre presenting that evidence in cases. Now, its up to them to present that evidence, chuck, obviously. We have yet to see a real hearing where evidence is presented and theyre not obligated to present it yesterday or tomorrow, although the sooner the better from my perspective. Im speaking strictly from this attack on democracy, as you call it. These are legal systems. These are processes in our constitution, in our laws and theyre not just appropriate but theyre really an obligation, frankly, to the millions of americans that President Trump is a reflection of. I know a lot of people like to think were the reflection of him. Hes the reflection of millions of people that want to see him fight this to the end. Now there has to be an end, chuck, i agree. There has to be an end. I frankly do think its time well, it was past time to start a transition to cooperate with the transition. I would rather have a president that has more than one day to prepare should joe biden end up winning this. But in the meantime, again, hes just exercising his Legal Options. It i just want to confirm, you believe the head of gsa tomorrow morning at this point ought to say the transition needs to begin, it looks like joe biden will be the apparent winner. Yes, theres more to go through. This is what the head of gsa said. Yes, theres still more to go through but it looks like joe biden is the apparent winner. Lets allow the transition process to begin. Should that be what happens tomorrow morning . Yeah, it should happen tomorrow morning because it didnt happen last monday morning. I think you have to begin that process, give the Incoming Administration all the time you need. I will also say this, i think Vice President biden has been a bit overdramatic as it relates to operation warped speed and distribution of the vaccines and things. None of those things are a secret. The military is in charge of operation warped speed. The military still will be there after the election. But there are a lot of other things. And i informed my staff well over a week ago they had to cooperate with any transition outreach because we want to be prepared. We have a government to run, regardless of who the president is. Does it concern you that so many and im curious what happens when you have your own constituents that say to you, i know this was stolen. I just dont believe it. What is it gonna take to tell those folks, your constituents in north dakota, look, i know you dont like the results but it was fair and square . Thats a great point. Thats where leadership does really have to stp step in and be attentive to them and use your circle of influence. I think what its going to take, chuck, is for all of the legal avenues to be exhausted. At some point we start preparing for another election. Your monologue illustrated a couple of times in our history where there have been challenges. The good news is our republic is very resilient. You do realize that in this century, there have been four closer president ial elections. 2000, 2004, 2012, 2016. Believe it or not, popular vote win here by biden is even larger than barack obama was over mitt romney. At one point does this undermine you heard governor larry hogan. This is not a member of the media. This is a republican. Who thinks this is undermining the look of america to the world. Yes, i know a lot of people would like a nice, tidy, historically traditional sort of election but we dont have a traditional president. He didnt get there in a traditional way. I never seized being amazed at people like you who you surprised when he doesnt behave the way previous president s behaved. But i go back just last year, Hillary Clinton referred to him as an i illegitimate president. We went through four years trying to delegitimize him. Having this process is fine. Who knows, we also never in this history or any other century, had a massive votebymail balloting where there were things like ballot harvesting, ballot curing, things we never heard of taking place. And frankly, much, much lower rejection rate of ballots than just four years ago. So its okay to go through this process. Make sure its being done right. Make sure it never happens again if there are irregularities. We cant ignore hundreds of signed affidavits. Thats way more evidence than Robert Mueller had. So far its not the case because the evidence, they have not presented it in court because they dont have it, it appears. Well see. As you said, if they have the evidence, they should present it. They have yet to present it in a courtroom because you cant lie to a judge. I dont know if thats the reason, chuck. We dont know but they havent done it yet. I appreciate you coming on, many of your colleagues. My best to you and cedric richmond. Thank you very much. Joining us now, congressman cedric richmond. Hes back with us. I hope you can hear some of that interview. I know we had audio issues. On one hand senator cramer said its time for the transition to begin, on the other hand wasnt ready to elect president elect biden biden. Is that hopeful or harmful to the cause right now . Its harmful to the cause. One, it undermines the confidence of american government. This was a fair election. Joe biden won by over 6 million votes in the popular vote. 306 electoral votes, which is exact same number that donald trump had that he called a land slide. Joe biden won with a mandate and land slide. Now its time to transition. Look, the senator just said he didnt see much harm being done. Thats just not true. The one thing thats important about joe biden is he understands the pain of losing loved ones. So when we think about covid19 thats cost us over 250,000 americans and were going to have a vaccine, then we need to be meeting, we have to distribute the vaccine to over 300 million people. And that will save lives. So we want to get in there right now, now talk to former officials but talk to the people that are in there right now doing the job so we can be ready to finish or start distribution of vaccines on day one. And then the last point ill make is one of the reports of the findings of the 9 11 commission was that because the transition was short and failed, it left us more vulnerable for a 9 11type attack. We should be getting the National Security briefings. We should have access to everything in the federal government that were supposed to, and we hope that the gsa administrators going to do that soon. I was just going to say, given all of the things that happened over the last 24 hours, and whats going to happen tomorrow, tomorrow is certification day in pennsylvania. The lawsuit, the one big leaf of a lawsuit tossed out in pennsylvania. If you dont if it doesnt start tomorrow, and it certainly seems like theres plenty of reasons why it should, what is your recourse . What does president elect biden do next . Look, we will explore every avenue. We expect it to start. The certification in pennsylvania is a very big step. Were doing everything we can. Weve named white house chief of staff, 13 white house senior officials. This coming week, we will start to name the cabinet, people in the cabinet, and we expect the fbi and need the fbi to start background checks into other things that go with transition. We will continue to push it with the Trump Administration. But we wont take any avenues off the table. Your friendship with steve scalise, republican from louisiana is known. Both of you talk about it because its so rare to have bipartisan friendships in this town these days. Have you talked to him and reached out to him . If relationships matter, his voice would be a big one if it uttered the phrase president elect biden. What does he say to you . I think he knows that this election is over, and that joe biden will be the 46th president of the united states. Its just amazing to me the grab this president has on the Republican Party and the reluctance that members have to come out and tell him the hard truth. And thats just not with congressman scalise but it starts with the minority leader mccarthy, goes over to the senate with leader mcconnell. This is the future of our democracy on the line. It was a fairandsquare election. Donald trump lost. At this point we have to move on. But this republican has been very reluctant to stand up and tell the emperor that he wears no clothes. Steny hoyer, the number two leader on the democratic side, said i think it boarders on treason. Hes undermining the democracy that you go to the vote and the people decide. Theres no doubt the people decided. Those are strong words. Do you concur with him . Look, its certainly unamerican. But remember, we have to all remember who were dealing with. Were dealing with donald trump, a president that was impeached for withholding foreign aid to ukraine unless they gave him dirt on joe bidens son. Theres one thing i do agree with senator cramer on, theres nothing donald trump will do that would surprise me because hes shown exactly who he is, a person who will break the law, ignore the law, to get what he wants. At some point i just hope that the American People understand that this is about them. This is not about an elected official. This is about saving lives. This is about protecting our country. All of these people who are waking up in an economic and financial instability and ruins because of our failed coronavirus response, we need to be doing something for them right now. Before i let you go, you have a unique perch. Youre the national cochair for joe bidens campaign. Youre a pretty active and highlevel democrat in the house. Answer me this question, joe biden