Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 202

Plans to join them. One White House Coronavirus Task Force Member today explained what u. S. Officials know so far. The variant thats being discussed was first identified in september. So its not something that just arose in the last week. There is no evidence of nor reason to believe it is not anymore lethal or anymore dangerous than the normal coronavirus. Theres also no evidence to suggest nor reason to believe that it would evade our vaccines that we have right now. Possible, though, if the updates come in we might ban travel from the United Kingdom . I think everything needs to be on the table. The news about this new strain comes as the number of cases in our country now tops 18 million and our death toll now stands at over 320,000 souls. It also coincides with day one of the rollout of the Moderna Vaccine, which received, youll recall, that emergency approval last week. Meanwhile president elect joe biden rolled up his sleeves for the first dose of his first shot. He got the pfizer shot, offered praise for the vaccine effort. I think that the administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground with operation warp speed. And all this unfolding as donald trump appears to be opening up a new front in his fight to hang onto power and not leave the white house. This evening his chief of staff, mark meadows, posted this. Quote, several members of Congress Just finished a meeting in the oval office with President Trump preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud. Stay tuned. This is the chief of staff to the president. There have been reports that trump allies in the house are planning to challenge the Electoral College certification of bidens victory during a session on january 6. That was all but confirmed tonight by republican congressman jody hice of georgia who was at the meeting and also confirmed pence was there. Quote, big meeting today with donald trump, the president s legal team, freedom cottess, other members of congress. I will lead an objection to georgias electors on january 6. The courts refuse to hear the president s legal case. Were going to make sure the people can. Earlier trump again made false claims about a massive election victory when he called into a conference for Young Conservatives in florida. We won this election in a landslide. They drops hundreds of thousands of ballots for each state. Its all documented. The problem is we need a party thats going to fight and we have some great congressman going to do it. But we won this in a landslide. They know it. And we need backing from like the Justice Department and other people have to finally step up. Tonight the Washington Post reports, quote, President Trump has turned to a ragtag group of conspiracy theorists, media hungry lawyers and other political misfits in a desperate attempt to hold onto power after his election loss. Members of the group assembled in the oval office on friday for a marathon meeting that lasted for more than four hours and included discussion of tactics ranging from imposing martial law in swing states to seizing Voting Machines through the executive through executive fiat. The meeting exploded into shouting matches and outside advisers and white house aides clashed over the lack of Cohesive Strategy and disagreed about the constitutionality of some of the proposed solutions. The white House Counsel Pat Cipollone and white house chief of staff mark meadows repeatedly and aggressively pushed back on the ideas being proposed. Mr. Cipollone told mr. Trump there was no Constitutional Authority for what was being discussed. One of the lawyers at that friday meeting in the oval was Sidney Powell whos promoted the false claim that venezuelan communists somehow programmed u. S. Voting machines to flip votes for biden. The times also reports trump entertained the idea of naming her as special counsel to investigate election fraud. Today attorney general bill barr with two days left on the job threw coldwater on that suggestion as well as the idea of the feds seizing Voting Machines. Does the president have the Legal Authority to order the seizure of Voting Machines around the country . I see no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government. Do you believe theres enough evidence to warrant a special counsel to investigate that perhaps Sidney Powell or perhaps someone else . Well, if i thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, i would name one. But i havent and im not going to. Barr also said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to investigate the hunter biden matter. For his part trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is now and this is important distancing himself and his client from Sidney Powell. Let me say definitively Sidney Powell is not part of our legal team. She hasnt been for five week. Shes not a special counsel for the president. She does not speak for the president nor does she speak for the administration. She speaks for herself. Rudy giuliani reached in a dark room today by news max. Giuliani may soon be facing a ramped up federal investigation. Nbc news reporting prosecutors in Southern District of new york have spoken to the Justice Department about making a legal request for giulianis emails. Its been reported the feds were reviewing giulianis bank records as part of an investigation into his dealings in ukraine. Also tonight a late breaking report from the new york times. Suspected Russian Hackers who penetrated the United States Government Agencies broke into the email system used by the treasury departments most senior leaders. Earlier today attorney general barr contradicted trump and made it clear he believes the russians were behind this attack. From the information i have, you know, i agree with secretary pompeos assessment. It certainly appears to be the russians, but im not going to discuss it beyond that. With that, lets bring in our lead off guests on this back to work monday night. Phil rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post, co author of the long time bestseller, a very stable genius. His forthcoming work will be on trumps last year in office assuming it ends. Former u. S. Attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. And dr. Louis hasseltine, a founder of the universitys cancer and hiv aids Research Department who now serves as chair and president of the Access Health International Think tank. Good evening and welcome to you all. Phil rucker, one of my favorite books over the last couple of decades by Walter Isaacson and evan thomas is the wiseman. Its about the informal advisers to the president , east coast establishment types who guided the country in the postwar era. Assuming a new title should be produced, circle of sycophants around the president currently, what is as your reporting tells you the state of play tonight on this fight which the election result shows he lost . Well, brian, what you have right now is a president feeling under siege and wanting to reverse the outcome of this election. He has exhausted every legal avenue and failed there. He has exhausted political avenues and failed there. He now is looking for solutions and, you know, many of the senior officials left in this government have not been able to provide him solutions because they dont exist. Theyre not constitutional to do what he wants to do. And so thats why you see Sidney Powell, this outside attorney who had such kind of crazy conspiracy theories a month ago that she was fired from the trump campaign, shes now back in the orbit visiting with the president , meeting with him multiple times these last few days to try to encourage the president to believe that theres some way he can overturn this election. Perhaps with some effort by his allies in congress on january 6th when the Electoral College results are certified on capitol hill, thats what that meeting that you mentioned with those Republican House members was all about today. But, look, this is a president looking for people who are going to tell him what he wants to hear, which is that he won in a landslide and the Election Results are going to be overturned and hes not going to have to vacate the white house on january 20th. We all know thats not true, but the president is still as of this hour a few days before christmas unwilling to accept that reality. Hey, counselor, i am assuming you dismiss talk of martial law as while dangerous, unserious. Im assuming you view the talk of the seizure of Voting Machines the same way. Im also assuming you consider it serious the story broken tonight on the Rachel Maddow show that Rudy Giuliani indeed looks like hes facing an accelerated federal investigation. So all pretty good assumptions for somebody who hasnt been to law school. I think that youre dead on the money here, brian. What were seeing in the white house is really deeply concerning. And it is worth noticing whats going on and calling it out for the serious effort it is by this white house to infringe upon our constitutional republic. The reality is the guardrails that we spent so much time talking about early on in the Trump Administration that didnt seem to exist then have now been reinvigorated. And its the traditional institutions of our democracy, the military, some folks in the Justice Department who now seem committed to making sure this president leaves office on schedule. And of course you know weve talked a lot about the fact that doj walks away from engaging in investigative tactics that could influence the outcome of investigations. Theres supposed to be a very sharp hold on that activity around an election, so its not surprising that we would see a little bit of talk about an investigation involving Rudy Giuliani. We know that thats been in progress at least since october of 2019 when two of his business colleagues were indicted for conduct that involved foreign contributions, illegal foreign contributions being made in connection with u. S. Elections. It looks like that investigation is live again. And Rudy Giuliani should be concerned. We see reporting hes talking with the president about a pardon, which indicates he really is concerned. Dr. Hasalteen, over to your bailiwick. Were very fortunate to have you back on our broadcast tonight. The question is how concerned should the folks watching tonight be when they hear this talk of a newly emerged strain coming out of south eastern United Kingdom . I think the word would be alert rather than concerned. We dont know whether the vaccines are going to protect against it. It probably will. But it means on top of the fuel this is adding fuel to a fire. This virus is already more easily transmitted than it was when it originated. This is the second step up, and its not the only place in the world the virus is more transmissible has occurred. Theres recently a new report out of south africa that a related but different strain has many of the same properties as this one. And i think we know where theyre coming from. Were creating them by treating people who have long lingering infections mostly immuno suppressed people with convalesce want serum. That actually creates a stew where the virus has a lot more chances to emerge to mutate to get around and to change. And its a paradox. Were trying to save people, but our efforts to save them seem to be creating these new viruses with some pretty dangerous possibilities. Not only more transmissible, but there is a possibility and suggestion in south africa that it is more lethal as well especially to young people. Well, phil rucker, if that isnt scary enough we learn undersustained hacking attack by the russians. The president s been mostly silent on that save a tweet that was designed to throw the russians a lifeline. See all previous tweets on the russians. On the virus, phil, its vaccine rollout time. Were also in the middle of a horrendous spike. We have care rationing going on in some hospitals and communities in this country. So the president s silence on both fronts is odd. Why a total lack of engagement on his part . Well, brian, my colleagues and i spent the last few weeks actually trying to answer that question. How did we end up in this dark winter that were in now . And why is the president so completely disengaged from the Public Health crisis facing the country . And the simplest answer we came across is something one of his closest advisers said, which is that the president has given up on covid, that he sort of created a personal timetable for himself how many months he would stay engaged on this crisis, how long he thinks covid would be around, and the virus has outlived that timetable, so the president has turned onto other matters. Hes not really paying much attention at all to covid. We dont hear him talk about it. We dont see him tweet about it. We dont see him appear at those task force meetings. And nonetheless the doctors who are helping to try to guide the federal government response are trying to sound alarms in the white house, and theyre falling in some cases on deaf ears. And thats one of the reasons why the spike has become so bad after thanksgiving and right now in the runup to the christmas and new years holidays. But the president is fixated on promoting and taking credit for that vaccine on operation warp speed without doing what the experts think is necessary to control the spread right now today. To our viewers, by the way, the Washington Post piece that phil referenced that we just showed on the screen is one of those towering pieces of work long enough to make sure youre comfortable before you embark on it. But please seek it out if you havent read it already. Joyce, over to you and your former employer, the u. S. Department of justice. I noted the attorney general had his Farewell Press Conference today. I also noted only dry eyes in the house. He did take a pass on appointing a special counsel in the election matter or in the hunter biden matter. Should that be applauded, or should we be fearful that will get kicked down the road to the new acting a. G. , mr. Rosen, a man with no evident prosecutorial experience . Barrs comments today might have been a little bit more praiseworthy if he had made them when any of these controversies were fresh. But now the issues have been exposed. We know that theres no reason to have appointed a special counsel either for voter fraud or for hunter biden, frankly, because you only appoint a special counsel when youve got an issue that the Justice Department has a conflict of interest on and needs to get out of. And that simply didnt exist here. So bill barr is a little bit of a flatterer who suddenly discovered and acknowledging publicly that the earth is round to be making these comments today. You know, theres always the possibility that the issue we could just be kicking the can down the road and that the acting attorney general could do something, but the clock is ticking out fast on this administration. There would certainly be legal challenges if there was a special counsel appointed at this point in time. And i think we would find his hands were tied both by legal challenges but also by the fact the simple sheer fact theres just not probable cause to take some of the action that the president wants and that theres really no rationale for a special counsel investigation. Dr. Hasseltine, you get the last word. Its been theorized what were living through right now is the thanksgiving surge. Do you fear an equal christmas surge that will hit mid to late january . I think thats clearly in the cards. You could see it in the travel bookings, you could see it in the actual travel today. These people are traveling despite the fact that they are given every evidence that they should not. The infection rate is sky high and its even increasing. People are going to get together, and its a puzzle to many, many people why people are endangering themselves, endangering their families, endangering their loved ones and endangering their communities when they have all the information to know that they should not do that this christmas. There will be other christmases but not for some of those who are taking these risks today. Well go out on a powerful statement from a powerful man in this field. With our thanks to phil rucker, joyce vance and dr. William hasseltine. Thank you so much all of you for starting us off on this back to work monday night. Coming up for us, does it all have to get worse before it gets better . Standing by for us one of the warriors of the Lincoln Project and a leading washington journalist. They have a Damage Assessment for us tonight. And later, on this the meteorological darkest day of the year how much optimism should we have as these two vaccines now make their way across the country and into arms across america . All of i