Days ago, but at least it happened now. Heres what biden told nbc news nightly newss anchor lester holt in an exclusive interview earlier today. Its a slow start, but its starting, and theres two months left to go, so im feeling good about the ability to be able to get up to speed, and i fully expected, based on what weve heard so far, well get full cooperation with each of the agencies in question. Today biden formally unveiled key picks for his top positions. Many of them served in the obama administration. There is a sigh of relief i think a lot of people are breathing now. This does even to be over. After weeks of waging war of the election. Trying to do whatever he could to hang on to power, including embarking on a litigation strategy that conservative legal writer walter olson described as going down a hotel corridor, trying each door to see if any had been left unlocked. It seems like were finally moving on. That said, trump is still falsely claiming the election was stolen, as we will for the rest of his life. Republicans filed last minute lawsuits. To block the certification in wisconsin and minnesota. But it does seem to finally be over. Today the muchwatched state of pennsylvania officially certified bidens win, so did nevada, and so did minnesota. That last minute lawsuit didnt do the job. And with all that has been happening, youre seeing some people start to say, look, the system works, the guardrails held, our democracy is fine. This is a significant development, and i think it also kind of disproves a lot of things that people who have engaged in fever dreams about the president , you know, holding on to power well after this election. Our republic is very strong. Its guardrails are very solid. I think one thing to take away from this, judy, is the fact that the guardrails of our system actually worked. The good news here is that the institutions in american democracy have held up, the courts and all of the rest, and joe biden will be president in this trumpian effort to overturn democracy is not going to succeed. Thats a really big deal. So some of that is absolutely true. I mean, one takeaway here is that by and large judges particularly, no matter which president appointed them, really did have zero tolerance for these completely fanciful completely ridiculous, baseless accusations from the trump team, which properly got laughed out of court, and in that way the system did hold. But take a step back to remember why we are where we are, right . For months leading up to the election, the entire trump reelection strategy was predicated on the premise that he would lose the popular vote. They knew that. Any victory would be a narrow one in a few key swing states ala 2016. They began putting in place a plan to declare a victory even if they lost in a key state or two. This was the groundwork laid with the constant casting of aspersions on the mailin ballots with the preelection lawsuits to particularly ones that arrived after election day in hopes the campaign could then go back into court after election day and try to get those votes thrown out. If it was close. That might be decisive. And the Supreme Court kind of saying maybe come back, right . That was the plan. I mean, republican legislators even refused to let key states, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, count their mailin votes early so that trump could declare victory on Election Night, as he did, and the only problem with the plan, the biggest thing that stopped it, it wasnt really so much the institutions, its just that trump lost the election by too much to really pull it all off. And right now with 98 of the vote counted, bidens ahead in the popular vote by more than 6 million votes. That is likely to continue to go up. Still got a lot of votes in new york. Donald trump has the biggest popular vote loss since 2008. Even bigger than mitt romneys. The man that trump is so fond of calling a loser. And, remember, biden won 306 electoral votes, giving him a good amount of breathing room beyond the necessary 270. In other words, it never came down to just a single state, and yet even with those margins, weve seen the president convince a huge percentage of americans that vote fraud was endemic. We watch as he pressured, sometimes successfully, these random republicans to abdicate their responsibility to follow along. He wasnt that successful in the grand scheme of things. The majority of republicans who did do the right thing, thank goodness. But i dont know, imaginary the republican secretary of state in georgia had been a complete hack or successfully bullied instead of a responsible civil servant. Or if the single republican who voted to certify the results in michigan, a state biden won overwhelmingly, the guy on the state canvassing board who departed with his republican colleague voting to certify, if he had been a hack. Or if a trumpappointed judge in, say, pennsylvania got along with the scheme, too, we could be in a very different place right now. Thats just a handful of people who could have altered the trajectory. It didnt happen. But thats a flashing red warning sign. So here are two of my big takeaways. One, the Electoral College is a real problem. I mean, the margins are almost always going to be small in these contested states, certainly smaller than the national marge, and that makes them vulnerable to attack. Even if you take away all the high jinks, its still a ticking time bomb. Imagine the democratic legitimacy crisis wed been in if trump flipped 60,000 votes in the right states and about to be inaugurated having lost by 4 points and over 6 million votes. Backtoback elections. For the first time in american history. Not good. The other takeaway from this election is that the tolerance that the Institutional Republican Party has for authoritarian and flatly antidemocratic politics just overturned the election, the tolerance is luckily lower than the worstcase fears, but its way higher than anyone should be comfortable with. To discuss the state of our democracy, as we enter the biden transition, im joined now by nbc news election law analyst, albert foley, law professor at the Ohio State University who just authored a piece for the Washington Post titled this unnerving election does not bode well for the next one and with me to discuss our democracy, janai nelson. Weve had you on a bunch to talk about this throughout. I would call you bullish on american institutions, bullish on the rule of law. That you couldnt just waltz into courtrooms with nonsense and get an election thrown out. And that part of i think your faith has been essentially repaid here. Whats your assessment . Well, i think theres a good news and a bad news part of the story, just like you said at the outset. I mean, the good news is this attempt to steal the election did not work, so the system held essentially and is in tact. On the other hand, it came way too close for comfort. This election was not close, as you pointed out, and, therefore, it should not have been within the proverbial margin of litigation. Bush versus gore was something you could reasonably fight over because it was one state and it was unclear the result. This was very clear from the outset. Once it was called by the networks, as you said. And yet they still litigated and still fought. And then that fight went on for too long. So it does give me pause, any rate, about the norms of fair play and how we go forward and repair electoral competition because weve got to have a robust electoral competition going forward. Yeah, this david phoenix is a Political Science professor, janai, at uc irvine. Our guardrails that the system works. If im driving by the time i get to my destination, my car lost two wheels, the engine is smoking, every emergency light is on i dont think the car is working, i think, wow, i got to fix this asap. Is that where youre at . Yeah, chris, ive got to say the past four years and the past four months have been some of the most difficult teachable moments this country has seen regarding our democracy, and the question is are we ready and willing and humble enough to learn or do we want to breeze right past this as we do so many of the ails that plague our democracy . Its not just that the car is without wheels and smoking, weve actually crashed, you know . The highway crash barriers need to be replaced. Weve run into some significant obstacles in our democracy that have revealed fissures if not craters in the foundation of our democracy, and ned rightly points out that the norms of our democracy have been ignored, theyve been stress tested, and some of them have really fallen away, and i we cant rely on norms that can be disregarded when it is in someones political interest to do so. So this has really called us to look very keenly and critically at the structures in our democracy and to think about how best to reform them so that we never, ever live through this again. You know, ned, one of the hoist one of the sort of weaknesses, right, as its being stress tested, youre seeing the places in the system. And one of the things that really struck me and that i has left me a little shaken isnt the courts, which i think did a pretty good job of playing their role of saying, look, you have to present evidence. You have to make arguments. You cant just come in here with nonsense. Its its the kind of hinting at what you might best call massive resistance that we got to in a few of these obscure bipartisan boards where you have essentially these administrative bodies that are constituted as bipartisan that just rubber stamp the results, like in pennsylvania. To see those functionaries say, no were not doing it. Not predicated on any evidence, were just not going to do it. Those are the alarm bells that are sort of really worrying to me. What do you think . Yeah, those of us who have studied election law have always been worried that the institutions of our Election Administration can be affected by partisanship. You know, other countries try to have robust nonpartisan Election Administration. We dont do that as much as we should. Now, i do think some officials, like the one you mentioned in michigan, really stood up to partisan pressure yeah. And should be applauded for that. But we need to look at our rules and our institutions as well as our norms to get all three components working as best as possible. And janai there is this obviously inescapable racial subtext to this entire thing not subtext, text. Its the big, bad black cities and their corrupt nefarious votes and machines, and if we got rid of wayne county we won the election. Nothing good happens in philly. And time and time again. And this creation of this mythology which youve seen, you know, independent of the courts, this mythology was there before trump among Republican Voters that, like, there is a bunch of suspicious nonwhite people in these cities who get together to rig elections which has now been supercharged by the president. Thats right. I mean, it began with the myth of voter fraud, which has fueled so many of our draconian voting laws in the country that really suppress voters and make it so much more difficult for people to cast a ballot, and black people and other people of color in particular, but what this election did in particular, it really ripped off the bandaid on the wound of racism that has just been festering for so long and it allowed it to be exploited by an administration that was intent on maligning black voters at every turn, including leading up to the election, suggesting that mailin voting would somehow be tainted, even though he and so many others in his administration took advantage of that way of casting a ballot. And continued to suggest that these predominately black cities somehow were ineffective in counting their votes or somehow those votes were cast fraudulently. And to cast doubt on the election and use black people as the vehicle for that doubt is one of the most destructive ways to handle defeat in an election. Yeah. And it is something that we need to name and call out quite critically, which is what we at the Naacp Legal Defense Fund have done. We even brought a lawsuit and are continuing to press our claims of discrimination against michigan voters. Edward foley and janai nelson, thank you both for joining me tonight. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, chris. Tonight, president elect bidens cabinet starts taking shape as we get the first real look at the Incoming Administration. And signs that climate will be a central priority. Thats next. Heart failure causes nearly two hospitalizations every minute. Understanding how to talk to your doctor about Treatment Options is key. Today, we are redefining how we do things. We find new ways of speaking, so youre never out of touch. Its seeing someones face that comforts us, no matter where. When those around us know us, they can show us just how much they care. The first steps of checking in, the smallest moments can end up being everything. Theres resources that can inform us, and that spark can make a difference. When we use it to improve things, then that change can last within us. When we understand whats possible, we wont settle for less. The best thing we can be is striving to be at our best. Managing Heart Failure starts now with understanding. Call today or go online to understandheartfailure. Com for a free Heart Failure handbook. In calls from World Leaders that ive had, about 18 of them or 20 so far, im not sure the exact number, in the week since weve won the election, ive been struck by how much theyre looking forward to the United States reasserting its historic role as a global leader, both in the pacific as well as the atlantic. All across the world. The team meets this moment, this team behind me. They embody my core beliefs that america is strongest when it works with its allies. Pretty striking scene today in wilmington, delaware. President elect joe biden introduced some of his choices for Top National Security and Foreign Policy cabinet positions. Notable for bidens selection of experienced welltested professionals, and for the message they chose to send, like his pick for the ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas greenfield. And on this day, im thinking about the american people. My fellow career diplomats and Public Servants around the world. I want to say to you america is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back. There is a sort of theme to the event, the idea that all of us bring different cultures to the table or all in this together, no matter where we come from. Tony blinken is joe bidens pick for secretary of state. Today he relayed his familys story of escape from nazi persecution. My late stepfather, he was one of 900 children in his school in poland, but the only one to survive the holocaust after four years in concentration camps. At the end of the war, he made a break from a death march into the woods in bavaria. From his hiding place, he heard a deep, rumbling sound, it was a tank. But instead the iron cross, he saw painted on its side a fivepointed white star. He ran to the tank. A hatch opened. An africanamerican gi looked down at him. He got down on his knees and said the only three words he knew in english that his mother taught him before the war, god bless america. Another notable feature of the biden rollout today was the focus on climate change, with former secretary of state john kerry leading the way. Mr. President elect, youve put forward a bold, transformative climate plan, but youve also underscored that no country alone can solve this challenge. Youre right to rejoin paris on day one, and youre right to recognize that paris alone is not enough. At the global meeting in glasgow one year from now, all nations must raise ambition together or we will all fail together. And failure is not an option. Senator ed markey, democrat of massachusetts, who along with congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez introduced the Green New Deal. You are in the great state of massachusetts, the commonwealth of massachusetts, that john kerry vacated to take on the role of secretary of state. Hes now back in this position. What does it signal to you that hes among the first people that the president elect is touting that the centrality of climate in terms of the domestic and International Agenda . Well, it says very powerfully that the Climate Crisis is now in the situation room. And by naming john kerry our former secretary of state. He was at the table negotiating the paris climate accord. There is a recognition by the Biden Administration that this is the national security, economic, environmental and moral issue of our time. Thats what the Green New Deal was all about. Thats what young people rose up to say to the country, that they wanted action. Thats what this decision really says, that joe biden wants justice and that at the same time he wants to ensure that we can create millions of jobs. We can save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation and by putting john kerry at the table. He is sending that signal to the rest of the world. You know, kerrys appointment is interesting to me because if we were in a universe in which there were 60 Democratic Senators and huge house majorities, you might be talking about legislation like the Green New Deal or something modelled on it. Thats not the universe were in. Democratic senators might take those two runoffs in georgia, giving a 50 50 split. Even that is going to be a difficult senate to get legislative priorities through. How are you and how are democrats thinking creatively about what can be done here on the climate front, short of some big, you know, big majorities in both houses . Well, joe biden has proposed a 2 trillion Green Infrastructure bill. Ultimately were only going to come out of this deep recession if we can create millions of new jobs. Well, thats what joe biden has proposed. And even as hes proposed 2 trillion, hes said that 40 of it should go to front line communities, minority communities to rectify the injustice that has been reaped by the environment on those kinds of communities historically. So from my perspective, one, we can work on an infrastructure bill