Complicit in a coup attempt. Im more troubled youre seeing a lot of republican officials go along with it. Why the white house is finally coming clean on americas covid catastrophe but still blocking the biden team from helping. If youre fighting a battle and the calvarys on the way, you dont stop shooting, you keep going into the calvary gets here. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. We have breaking news tonight from the state of georgia, where the republican secretary of state there has announced that the hand recount of the president ial results have concluded and joe biden is, again, confirmed as the winner of the state of georgia. From the press release in georgias recount, 9 highest error rate in any county was. 73 . Most counties found no change in their final tally. The majority of the rest had changers fewer than ten ballots. So joe biden won georgia. That will be certified tomorrow. He won the president ial election. And despite that clear electoral victory, american democracy is under assault. By donald trump and his collaborators in the Republican Party. Let me take a step back for a second. Remember from the beginning, as weve been reporting here on the program for months, that donald trump and his campaign with the rest of the Republican Party, he always knew they were going to lose the popular vote, and always knew a victory was only possible with a narrow win in a number of hotly contested swing states. And he actively laid the groundwork to be able to try to contest and steal those states, even if trump actually lost them by narrow margins. But then what happened is trump lost by a lot. And the results all came in and they still arent completely counted. Its the definitive rebuke. He lost the popular vote by almost 6 million votes, four points percentage wise. Lost the Electoral College by the same margin he won by in 2016, which he repeatedly called a blowout. All of that instead, they just still went along with the plan they had on the shelf. They still filed all of these lawsuits, all but one of which has failed in court. And donald trump and Rudy Giuliani are doing precisely what you would expect, spreading dangerous and conspiracy theories and drifters. All of that was always bound to happen. Mitch mcconnell and josh hawley and marco rubio and ted cruz and tom cotton and the rest of these republican politicians who are no strangers to sank moanous and aggrieved public oratory, theyve all been going on with it, cowardly hiding behind the apparent excuse that skourdous sheb played out and you can always go to court and make your claim and thats always the path of least resistance they want to take. But lets get serious here. Trump is 132 in court. They lost 32 cases in the 16 days since election day and tonight a federal judge ruled against the Trump Campaign saying it would be ridiculous not to certify georgias win one day before the states deadline. The Trump Campaign is admitting over and over in court theyre not actually alleging fraud. Even Rudy Giuliani told the judge, this is not a fraudcation. Their legal strategy has been reduced to the spectacle today at the Republican National committees headquarters in washington, a darkly comedic and humiliating experience for all involved as the president s last legal hope, Rudy Giuliani sweating in front of the National Media with some kind of undetermined dye running down his face while Trump Campaign lawyer Sidney Powell made truly wild statements that mr. Biden was elected with hugo chavezs money, who has been dead for seven years. This is where we are. Now this is not about coup attempts. This is not about a barrage of ballots or signature matches. No, its an attempt to lose loyalty to donald trump, to subvert and frankly overturn the results of a democratic election. They are just attempting straight up to subvert the will of the people and overturn a democratically elected government. We saw the first indications of this when the republicans on the wayne county michigan board of canvassers refused to certify the election before backing down. Then today the republican chair of the fourperson committee, monica palmer, said the president called her himself after the meeting ended. And last night both she and her fellow republican board member William Hartman signed ac affidavits they want to rescind their vote, they want to take it back, after monica talked to the president. Although i dont think that is a real thing. I think that ship has sailed. Trump also i invited the Republican Leadership of the house and senate to meet with him at the white house tomorrow, ien though they have no plangz for long shot maneuvers naming an alternate set of protrump electorates from michigan. Theyre trying to just overturn the election and install the president in power. Now, i dont want to freak people out. This should not be giving you a knot in your stomach about the outcome. It will not work. It is not a game. It is doom to failure for a bunch of reasons we will not get into. But that should not diminish what theyre trying to do, theyre trying to do the thing, theyre trying to overturn the election. Tonight in an exclusive interview with jonathan capehart, exclusively on msnbc, barack obama pointed out jbds will be the next president. Joe biden will be the next president of the United States. Kamala harris will be the next Vice President. I have been troubled like i think everybody american, whether youre republican or democrat or independent should be troubled, when you start having attempts to block, negate, overturn, the peoples vote when theres no actual evidence that there was anything illegal or fraudulent taking place. These are just bald assertions. They have been repeatedly rejected by the courts. And i think the court im less surprised by donald trump doing this. He has shown only a flimsy relationship to the truth. Im more troubled that youre seeing a lot of republican officials go along with it, not because they actually believe it, but because they feel intimidated by it. And the degree to which youve seen some news outlets that cater to the right and the conservative viewpoint somehow try to prop up these bogus claims. Again, that full hourlong interview coming up at 10 00 p. M. After the triumphant return of Rachel Maddow, which im looking forward to. But president obama is right, republican officials are on board with the plan. And if they are not, they have to speak up to let us know they are not. Trump and giuliani are spouting horribly toxic conspiracy theories. They running around, pouring gasoline and lighting a bunch of matches and all of those excuses about letting the process play out are gone now. So republican politicians, josh hawley, marco rubio, ted cruz, are you okay with this . Are you okay with holding an American Election and overturning and ignoring the results . Yahoo Political Correspondent jon ward, great reporter, tweeted, i have emailed specspersons for all republican senators about trumps Pressure Campaign in michigan, and have not heard back from any yet. This is classic. Weve seen this 100 times during the trump years. Its the classic republican, i didnt see the tweet, but for the end of the american experiment. A lot of people, myself included, said imagine if it were closer . Imagine what happens the next time around . The fact of the matter is that 40 to 45 of the country, maybe 30, 35 of the country is getting information from sources telling them the election was stolen and fraudulent and some of them are going to do things about it. Republican National Committee actually tweeted out this clip from their official handle today, a Sidney Powell at the press conference earlier today. American patriots are fed up with the krep from the corruption from the local level to the highest levels of our government and were going to take this country back. Were not going to be intimidated. Were not going to back dounk. That was during her perform aerns talking about hugo chavez and communist money and donald trump won in a landed slide and theyre going to prove it. This is the rnc, the official head of a major party tweeting this out. And weve seen over and over since the election what it looks like when people take this seriously. The as secretary of state of has gotten death threats. Republican secretary of state has gotten death threats. New Court Filings claim the National Terrorists who plotted to kidnap michigan governor gresham whitmer had another plan, plan b that involved a takeover. Michigan Capital Building by 200 combatants to stage televised officials and that was plan c, burning down the white house and leaving no survivors. Thats the danger when the president poisons peoples minds with lies and conspiracies. Im sure Governor Whitmer knows about these firsthand and she joins me now. Thank you for being here. Lets start on your reaction to the new Court Filings about the except of the plot that was being put together against you. I think it just tells you that words matter and the words of our leaders matter. The incredible vitriol thats being waged against dr. Fauci or a governor thats just trying to simply save peoples lives, its undermining our democracy and these latest attempts around this election are just an extension of that. It is dangerous. We really do need people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle who care more about our democracy than our parties to stand up and say this is unsuccessful. We had a fair election. We need to respect the will of the people and certify these results and we need to get the Biden Administration to get started on this transition so they can get their arms around covid. So this Current Administration has never been able to do. Let me ask you about Michigan State law here. Youve got the speaker of the michigan house, a republican, and the state Senate President , a republican as well, invited to the white house. Its very clear what the president wants them to do is to just say to the michiganders who voted for biden about 143,000vote margin, too bad, tough, were taking that away and giving it to donald trump. Aside from how offensive that is, theres no provision in your state law that allows them to do that, is there . No, and im glad you opened the show by telling people this isnt going to happen. The vote margin actually in michigan is now actually 157,000 votes. That is 14 times the vote margin that trump won michigan in 2016, 14 times. The state board of canvassers are coming on tuesday. They have one legal duty, and that is to certify this election so we can send our electors in. They will be joe biden electors and he will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on january 20th. There was reporting tonight that one of the people on that state board, which again like the wayne county canvassing board, is a bipartisan board split evenly, is saying that hes leaning towards not certifying. How big of an issue is it if you get republican officials at these various levels essentially buying into these completely insane conspiracy theories . I think its really dangerous, to be honest, the fact that our two highestranking republicans on the leg ur are going to the white house. Theyre being summoned there by a president who lost the state and who i wasnt invited to the meeting. I have not been briefed on what theyre going to cover, but were all assuming he will try to implore them the way he did these county canvassers to do whatever he can to not certify the will of the people of michigan. I think its incredibly dangerous theyre even entertaining the conversation. Because we all know what the law is in michigan. This is an embarrassment to the state and its an effort to disenfranchise the most populous county in our state, which by the way is the county that is home to the most largest africanamerican part of our population. This has so ramifications, many legal, many ethical. I would advise anyone to tread very carefully because there could be much longerterm problems for anyone who participates in an effort to undermicroscope the election by a candidate who was on that ballot. One of the things that we are seeing is theres a kind of breakdown in america about where people get their information. Theres polling out today from the economists that say 84 say biden didnt legitimately win the election. Whether thats an expression of anger or they really believe it. But i guess you are the governor of a state thats a divided state. You represent tons of conservatives and republicans. To what extent do you feel like youre able to cut through all of that when having conversations about the basic facts of the matter, whether thats covid or like joe biden did win michigan . Well, i think weve got our work cut out for us as a nation in individual states like michigan. We are deeply divided. The last four years only made that divide harder to mend. However, i really think that joe biden as our president will be a big step in the right direction. The first speech he gave after it was clear that he had won in this historic vote was about doing just that. It was about humanity in one another and being a president for every american. I really believe we have a lot of healing to do as a nation and we have to seek to understand one another. That is our challenge and its also every american leader, it should be the core of the work that they do. We are americans before we are partisans. Here in my state, i say we are michiganders first. We have a duty, an oath to one another, and weve got to do everything we can to heal this divide. But its not going to be easy, and its going to take a concerted effort by many. Michigan governor gretchen whitmer, thank you, governor, for making time with us tonight. Thank you. For more on the deafening silence from republican officials, im joined by brendan buck, who served as press secretary for Speaker John Boehner and chief Communications Adviser for speaker paul ryan. I had henry olsen last night, who is sort of a conservative legal thinker and writer. I started being henry, youre not a nevertrumper or lincoln project. You turned on the whole gop. Youre a conservative in good standing. What do you think of this . He said this is nuts. S this is ridiculous. So i want to start with you on that. What do you brendan buck make of the claims being made here . Its one of the greatest things i have ever seen. I alternate between finding this hilarious and being absolutely furious about it because its so damaging to democracy as you discussed. As a republican, im still a republican, i think its incredibly damaging to the party, the party that is being told that elections are rigged and that their vote doesnt matter isnt democrats, its republicans. So the consequences of this are far and wide but theyre actually going to be felt mostly by the party that is leading this. So im frustrated by it. I think its, as you said, doomed to fail. Its quite pathetic the folks theyre trotting out here, its really the bottom of the barrel. So im not worried, but im just really concerned about what it says to voters and when 77 of republicans think the election was rigged, there are real consequences to that. What do you think about the role of Republican Leaders right now . I can understand mine, i obviously dont agree. I think thats pretty clear with the strategy of let him pursue his claims in court, but its not going to stop. We know this about donald trump. It wont stop. He will try to yank electors and then they will do some contestation of the Electoral College once the electors are named and theres a joint session that ratifies the election in january and they will fight on that. The question is what responsibility do republicans leaders stand up and say enough, this is crazy, stop . If i think the point you hit is perhaps one of the reasons why they dont, is because i dont think any of them think they can get him to stop. I have a lot of experience with this my time on the hill. You can tell the president what the right thing to do is but it does not necessarily mean its going to sink in. They all know running out and saying that hes wrong or that the election is over is not going to get him to stop. Its just not. But what it will do, obviously, is turn his ire towards them. You have to remember politicians are going to ask in their own political selfinterests. In the short term, its in the political selfinterest for republicans to stand by the president , something i think people forget, while im sure their office phone lines are getting hammered by people criticizing them for their position, but i promise you theyre also getting hammered by their constituents saying why are you not out defending the president . He said theres enough votes to overturn the election. What are you doing to overturn the election . Thats the pressure they feel. So when they know they cant actually overturn it, they cant make it stop and they know hes actually powerless to overturn the election, the easiest thing to do is just sort of wait him out. I think thats what youre seeing. I totally agree with that as like descriptive analysis. I think youre right, its important to remember theres pressure on both sides. But i mean maybe im just an incorrigible moralist but that normallip does the cut the mustard. John boehner should speak up. The people in Public Office and people not in Public Office should speak up. This really seem hes wrong. That seems more than to me. I dont think theres any question its wrong. Youre seeing more republicans every day. You had fred upton this evening, the former chairman of the committee, speaking up. What republicans need to understand is while it is i