Late justice antonin scalia. Should she be confirmed the high court should have a solid conservative majority for years to come. Fill that seat, oh, were going to do that. That would be a great victory, going into the election with the biggest of all victories. They say the biggest thing you can do is the appointment of judges but especially the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Thats the single biggest thing a president can do. Because it sets the tone for of the country for 40 years, 50 years. So tomorrow i think is going to be a big day. 5 00 tomorrow at the white house. The announcement will come just over a week after ginsburgs death. Trump is pressing the senate to act quickly in hopes of getting her on the court by november 3rd and has been openly speculating that a dispute over the Election Results could end up before the high court. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court, and i think its very important that we have nine justices. Having a 44 situation is not a good situation. We may end up in a dispute for a long time because thats the way they want it. Along with that, trump has escalated his baseless assault on mailin ballots leading to voter fraud, a claim that has no evidence. That could set the stage for a contested election. Trump has also added fuel to the fire by refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he should lose the election to joe biden. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferral of power after the election . Well, were going to have to see what happens. You know that ive been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster. Get rid of the ballots, and well have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. We want to make sure the election is honest, and im not sure that it can be. I dont know that it can be with this whole situation. Unsolicited ballots. Theyre unsolicited, millions being sent to everybody. Now, i dont know, you know, with this ballot situation. Its youre not going to see it. November 3rd, the democrats are playing games. You see that. You see they found ballots in a waste paper basket. They found ballots dumped in a stream. Trump has now seized on a federal investigation into a handful of possibly discarded mailin ballots in pennsylvania to build a fictional narrative of widespread fraud. The New York Times reports, quote, a Justice Department official said on friday that attorney general william p. Barr personally briefed mr. Trump this week on the case. Trumps son eric is now weighing in on his fathers comments about the transfer of power, telling the Las Vegas Review journal that, quote, if tens of thousands of ballots are found in a dumpster or some similar case of fraud, his father would obviously contest the results. I think my fathers just saying listen, if he got blown out of the water, of course hed concede, eric trump said. If he thought there was massive fraud, then hed go and try and address that. Meanwhile, the white house has gone on the attack against fbi director chris wray for not toeing the line on ballots and voter fraud. Here is what wray told a Senate Committee yesterday. We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated National Voter fraud effort in a major election, whether its by mail or otherwise. This morning Donald Trumps chief of staff laced into wray. With all due respect to director wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own fbi, let alone figuring out whether theres any kind of voter fraud. Today joe biden had a lot to say about Donald Trumps attacks on mailin ballots and his refusal to commit to an orderly transition when he spoke with our nbc news colleague Stephanie Ruhle. Twice now President Trump has refused to agree to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. What are you going to do if you win and he just wont leave . This is a typical trump distraction. Its trying to make everybody wonder whether or not the election will be legit and whether or not absentee ballots matter. The whole notion of him talking about this, stephanie, is to take our eye off the ball, not to talk about whats happening to the people dying of covid, not talking about all the unemployment, not talking about him being unwilling to bring the congress together, get off his golf course and out of his sand trap and have a meeting in the white house. Stephanie ruhles full interview with former Vice President joe biden will air as part of the Latitude National business conference. Msnbc will have full coverage tomorrow on weekends with alex witt at 12 00 p. M. Eastern. Amid all of this, the New York Times reports there is mounting concern among some Senior Pentagon officials that trump may try to use the military to put down any unrest that might erupt during a disputed election. Earlier on this network, one retired general offered his thoughts on that possibility. There is a 100 reliability that the armed forces will respect the constitution of the United States and, more importantly, theyre not going to be involved in a disputed election. If trump unilaterally tries to pull a coup at noon on the 20th, hes out. Nobody will follow his instructions anymore, to include the armed forces. Now, as all of this was unfolding, the nation was paying a final tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Today lawmakers held a formal ceremony for ginsburg to honor her life and indelible legacy. She is the first woman and first jewish person to lie in state at the u. S. Capitol. Here for our leadoff discussion on a friday night, two of the best from the New York Times. Peter baker, chief white house correspondent. And katie benner, justice reporter for the times. Also with us is jonathan lemire, White House Reporter for the associated press. Everybody, welcome. Peter, i want to start with you. We have been asking for years now what line republicans would draw when it comes to the president s rhetoric, when it comes to his normbreaking, when it comes to his actions while hes in the white house. Hes actively trying to undercut the confidence in novembers in the election in november. What are they going to do from your reporting and your conversations if he refuses to concede . Is it reasonable to expect them to stand in the way . Well, you heard a number of Republican Leaders this week, including liz cheney of the house, including Mitch Mcconnell in the senate, basically say, look, theres going to be an orderly transfer of power if theres an election defeat for President Trump. We will fulfill that oath and not to worry about it. I think on some level they do want to push back on the president. Its the same thing that happened earlier this year when he said maybe we ought to delay the election, and you heard a number of republicans say, no, wait a second. Thats not even in the cards. I think theres some of them who say, look, hes trying to stir the pot. He likes to say things that get people stirred up, that get a lot of us talking on television, and they dont take him very seriously at that. But they do take the notion of undercutting the election seriously. I think what you see not just this week but through months and months of the president accusing, you know, making unfounded assertions of, you know, a rigged election, you see a president undermining the system that he, himself, presides over, to undermine the very faith in democracy that we rely on in order to conduct our elections. People basically have to believe the elections are fair and going to be conducted in an efficient way in order to have faith in the system, and hes telling them they cant believe that, they shouldnt believe that, that in fact the system is corrupt and rigged against him without any evidence. How far are they willing to go if the president starts litigating over what he calls fraud when theres very little evidence of any sort of fraud, no evidence of any sort of fraud that would ever change the results of an election . Well, i think theyre going to count on the courts to basically make that decision. I dont imagine that the senate is going to somehow litigate it in some way themselves or the house. But, look, if it doesnt get resolved by middecember when the safe harbor deadline thats in statutory law calls for these disputes to be resolved in each state, the issue could eventually get to the house of representatives. Remember if theres not an Electoral College majority for a president , then it falls to the house of representatives. Now, you may think, okay, thats good for the democrats because they have a majority in the house. In fact, thats not the case because each state gets one vote. As a delegation, each of the 50 states gets one vote. Right now the republicans, even though theyre a minority in the overall number, have a majority of the delegation, so that would be a very fascinating and obviously unprecedented in modern times situation that would throw this election into even further, you know, tumult and confusion. Katie, on the alignment between donald trump and attorney general william barr, him letting the president know that there was an investigation into what is actually just nine ballots in pennsylvania, how unusual is that . And what more can you tell us about how the two are working together . Sure. You know, i think everybody has agreed that its incredibly unusual in large part because the presence of the Justice Department, the statements from the Justice Department make it seem like this is a really big investigation and that these nine ballots are a real big deal. Keep in mind it was seven ballots for trump and the other two they now believe were for biden. Its interesting what weve seen with bill barr. Hes basically taken the traditional separation between the Justice Department and the white house that weve seen basically since watergate, and he has worked to collapse that. He has believed that that was unnecessary for a long time. He has believed that Justice Department independence has eroded the power of the presidency overall. So hes really working hard to not only bring the Justice Department almost back into the white house, but hes also working very, very hard to make sure that donald trump is reelected, and the ballot issue is just one of many ways in which hes doing that. I guess what does that mean for Christopher Wray . We heard the chief of staff today on cbs throw wray under the bus, saying that he cant find emails. Is the expectation that anybody who is hired in a political position, potentially even a career position at the doj, the fbi, anywhere within that agency, should be politically aligned with the president and willing to do the president s political bidding . I mean thats absolutely the message. There is a real loyalty test that goes on for every single trump cabinet official, and it seems like director wray has failed his loyalty test. Weve reported several times over, over the last year, that director wray is in trouble that, you know, donald trump has wanted to fire him at times, that a combination of attorney general barr and other officials have stepped in and said no. Now its just too close to the election. But clearly weve seen that chris wray no longer wants to withhold information from the American Public that he feels is vital for us to know, including the fact that elections in general, even with mailin ballots, are safe and secure. And so we are going to see probably, if he continues to do this, more attacks on chris wray, yet another extraordinary sort of turn of events to see a president openly castigate his own fbi director in the middle of an election where we need National Security more than ever. Its extraordinary that all of these fbi officials are not finding what the president wants them to find, and yet theyre still demanding they go out and find it. Jonathan lemire, from your reporting, how far is the president and the campaign willing to go to keep him in office . Katie, at this point they havent hit their limit yet, and i know certainly the democrats are concerned that there is much more to do. I mean lets be clear here. Take a 30,000foot look. The president has sowed distrust in the system for months now, suggesting repeatedly at rally after rally, night after night, saying that the only way he could lose this election were if it to be rigged. Hes gone after democratic governors by name, suggesting not just that they might be trying to prevent him from holding rallies during the time of a pandemic, but that they would be overseeing a rigged mailin voting system. And we know certainly that more americans than ever before are going to turn to mailin balloting this time around because of concerns of the virus and not wanting to perhaps go to the physical ballot box on election day. What has happened the last few days as just outlined with the department of justice shows that blurring between seemingly the efforts to reelect the president and the governance of the country. And i think that there is this fear that there would be more. Weve heard the chatter about the military. Would they be involved somehow . Certainly theres a lot of fear and alarm on the democratic side that the department of justice will be, you know, perhaps used as a Political Tool here down the stretch to bring perhaps indictments or charges against key democrats. Certainly the president himself has mused aloud about hunter biden and whether he should be charged with some sort of crime. And to be clear, theres no evidence that hes done anything wrong. And i think that we also, of course, there are concerns that the government is going to just simply make it very hard to vote. We know about the cutbacks to the Postal Service but also the idea of poll monitors and enforcement, for there was at least an idea the president considered of having though he doesnt have the power to do so, he mused aloud about sending federal Law Enforcement to polling places to enforce so theres a lot of alarm about what levers of government they might try to use here to try and keep the president in office. Peter, on the Supreme Court, we have some polling we can put up on the screen about where americans stand on who should pick the next Supreme Court justice even though there is an open right now. Most people say the winner of the election. If that is joe biden, then joe biden. If that is donald trump, then donald trump. When it comes to the choice of Amy Coney Barrett, what is the president hoping to get out of her, and what can he confidently rely on her decisionmaking . Well, Amy Coney Barrett has been a favorite of conservatives now for a few years. Shes particularly popular among antiabortion conservatives who feel she is a likeminded jurist who would reopen perhaps roe v. Wade. She has, at least on one case, i think, indicated that she thought the states ought to have great latitude to restriction abortions. And i think that, you know, her religious background at notre dame encourages a lot of religious conservatives that she sees things a lot like they do. The president i think is hoping to energize those voters, voters who might have otherwise felt disenchanted because of the handling of the coronavirus or some other issues, might have been turned off by his behavior in office or the way he conducts himself, but will see this court fight as really critical and turn out the vote anyway. Remember, one of the reasons why he thinks why the president thinks he won in 2016 is because that open scalia seat that he then got to fill with neil gorsuch. He showed conservatives that he would fulfill his vow, that he would in fact put somebody on that court that they would approve of. This is what hes trying to do now with Amy Coney Barrett, who we think is going to be announced tomorrow afternoon at 5 00. I wonder, though, jonathan lemire, is there any concern that it could backfire . Because the singleissue voters are already in Donald Trumps camp. They were already going to vote for him. Is there concern that it could backfire and end up motivating more democrats to vote and leave not just donald trump out of office but the Senate Majority . Certainly right now the choice just even after Justice Ginsburg died, the idea of a vacant seat and that the president was going to be able to fill it once enough republican senators gave their blessing has energized both sides of the political divide. Certainly as peter just outlined, there is a hope the white house believes this is going to fire up the president s base, conservatives, some republicans that had drifted away from him, those that were independents who might be socially conservative, who took a chance on him in 2016, may have disapproved of a lot of what hed done since, to sort of turn their back on him but may be willing to come back because of this pick. But no doubt its firing up democrats as well. Just look at the fundraising numbers. Act blue, the democratic fundraising operation, has posted record totals over the last week since Justice Ginsburg died. We have seen there is certainly a lot of polling that, you know, americans believe that a right to a safe, legal abortion should be the law of the land. And then if theres a perception that roe v. Wade is on the ballot here and could be indeed jeopardized and eliminated, there is a belief that that could fire up women, not just democrats but women across the political spectrum, par