this mess of a year. on behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. tonight onin," trump leaves the golf course to sign covid relief, but not before causing even more pain for millions for no reason. >> send me a suitable bill or the next administration will have to deliver a covid relief package, and maybe that administration will be me. >> tonight the damage donald trump is doing every day he's still the president. the human suffering from his tantrums and michael bangladees on this historic leader. and suing to keep mike pence in the white house. is there any doubt about the maga takeover of the republican party? and as another vaccine heads for approval, herd immunity

creeping upwards. >> i'd say between 70, 85% of the population. if we get that, we would develop a umbrella of immunity. >> "all in" starts now. good evening from washington, d.c. i'm in for chris hayes. we still have 23 more days of donald trump as president. 23 more days where he will continue to do great damage to this nation. and that damage will extend well into the future. just today, president-elect joe biden said that trump and his political appointees at the department of defense and elsewhere are even now refusing to share crucial information with the incoming biden administration. >> right now we just aren't getting all the information that we need for the ongoing -- from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. it's nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.

>> trump has spent the past four years flooding the zone with outrage after outrage, from praising neo-nazis to separating children from their parents to causing tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of american deaths with his botched response to the pandemic. to name just a few of his lowest points. but what he did this weekend is up there with the worst of the worst. in a stark illustration of his cruel indifference to the suffering of millions of americans, the president spent the past few days golfing in florida amid a temper tantrum driven by the refusal of some republicans to aide his efforts to overturn the election and basically end american democracy. the tantrum resulted in a heartless and pointless delay that earned him nothing, but had disastrous consequence for millions of americans. the president refusing to sign a covid relief bill, negotiated by his own administration, with

congress until it was simply too little too late. to be clear, trump was trying to score some cheap political points by insisting on $2,000 direct payments to americans instead of the $600 agreed in the bill. it was a number that many democrats had long pushed for, but which his own administration and his own party had opposed. so trump refused to sign the bill as soon as it passed in congress. and then basically just golf and had tweeted the weekend away. and there was no grand plan here. cnn reported that aides had prepared for the president to sign the bill as early as christmas eve. in fact, the smaller of mar-a-lago's two ball rooms was prepped for a 7:00 p.m. ceremony, with a desk prepared and pens at the ready. but trump then just decided not to go through with it. instead, the man we were told was the blue collar billionaire, the champion of working people, waited to sign the bill until late last night. and as a result, millions of

americans are expected to lose an entire week of jobless benefits because benefits cannot be paid for a week that began before the bill was signed. trump outrageously cruelly pointlessly did not sign the bill until the start of the week on sunday. now, some states are working to prevent that lapse in payments, but many americans are expected to still lose out on money they desperately need right now. rent doesn't wait a week. car payments don't wait. feeding your kids does not wait. trump could have signed the bill on saturday and still gotten a few days of self-serving publicity out of delaying without hurting anyone. but he didn't. he didn't care. he was, as ever, indifferent to the suffering of millions of americans. while he partied and golfed at his florida vacation home. marie antoinette has nothing on this guy. on thursday, house democrats attempted to pass, by unanimous

consent, what trump called for, $2,000 checks for most americans. republicans blocked that effort, so democrats tried again today, using a procedural move that requires two-thirds support. that effort narrowly passed, and now the bill heads to the senate. to mitch mcconnell. for an update on where things stand in-n-onow, i'm joined by jeffries of new york, the chair of the house democratic caucus. welcome to the show. you got the two-thirds majority, you got the 2k checks passed in the house. it has no real chance in the republican-led senate, does it? >> if you take republicans at their word, and for the last four years, mitch mcconnell and senate republicans have effectively behaved as wholly owned subsidiaries of donald trump and the trump administration, that's why they passed the gop tax scam where

83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1%. if donald trump could convince them to waste $2 trillion on behalf of the wealthy, the well off, and the well connected, perhaps on his way out the door he can convince mitch mcconnell to do the right thing by the american people and pass the cash act. >> we can only hope and pray. senator bernie sanders is saying today he plans to filibuster the senate's override of trump's veto on the defense bill to try and force mitch mcconnell and senate republicans to hold a vote on the $2,000 direct checks in the senate. he wants to drag this out till new year's day to hurt the gop, to put pressure on them. is that something you support, something more senate democrats should do to put pressure on mcconnell, especially ahead of the georgia runoffs on january the 5th? >> i have great respect for senator bernie sanders. he is a authentic champion of working families and working class americans. but i leave it to the senate to

decide procedurally what is the correct approach to put the pressure on mitch mcconnell. but we want to make it clear that we passed the covid relief bill that was really just a down payment on what needs to happen moving forward when we build back better and fight for the people under joe biden's presidency. if we can get the cash act over the finish line, that's another meaningful step in the right direction because everyday americans are living hour to hour in some cases, day to day, week to week, and that $2,000 direct payment will be a lifeline to so many americans, millions, who have been struggling in the context of this deadly pandemic. >> so, i'm glad you called it a down payment. it's a recognition, of course, that we need so much more money. trump finally signed the covid relief bill last night, shamefully late. but that bill itself is a shamefully small amount of money given how many americans are suffering right now as you mentioned. was it a defeat for democrats?

nancy pelosi opened with $3.4 trillion in the h.e.r.o.e.s. act in may, came down to $2.2 trillion in october. said she wouldn't budge from that, suddenly dropped to $900 billion this month with these measly checks in them. >> no, it wasn't a defeat. you have to recognize that we are dealing with a president who has been missing in action and who throughout the duration of this pandemic has often engaged in depraved indifference to human life to all the suffering and death the american people have been experiencing. mitch mcconnell indicated all along they would go no higher than $500 billion. we were able to get them to just short of a trillion, again, just a down payment. but it has to be a recognition at the end of the day that we're dealing with an obstinate senate republican majority lead by the king of obstruction, mitch mcconnell, and the president who

on his best days is on the golf course, and on his worst days is actively working against helping working families, middle class folks and those who aspire to be part of the middle class. >> indeed. >> so it's a step in the right direction, much more needs to be done under joe biden's leadership. >> it is a step in the right direction. and any fair minded observer would agree mitch mcconnell here is the blame and the block, i agree with you. given he was the senate leader in october when nancy pelosi said, i'm not going to budge from $2.3 trillion, it depth go quite to plan. lost some seats in the house many say you shouldn't have. do you understand why your fellow democrat alexandria ocasio-cortez said there is time for change at the top? nancy pelosi has had a good lead in the house.

some say it's time for a new face. >> i look forward to placing nancy pelosi into nomination. she's been an historic one, she's led us through trials and tribulations and our values and priorities have come out on top given the circumstances we find ourselves in. we defeated donald trump, but we still are going to have to deal with trumpism moving forward. the best way for us to do that is unified working together in the house democratic majority that will be sworn in this january. >> you don't think the loss of seats in the house affects anything in the house? >> no, i expect that while we will certainly be leaner, we are going to be unified. i think people on the hard left, people in the center have all said that this is going to have to bring us closer together. it's going to have to facilitate more collaboration. at the end of the day, as

democrats, what brings us together is fighting for everyday americans, for working families, for middle class folks, for young people, the seniors, the poor, the afflicted. we can find the highest common denominator together. we still have to dee atfeat trumpism. we are going to be unified behind joe biden, kamala harris. i've been exiled from the white house four years. i look forward to having a friendly voice for everyday americans back at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. >> we'll have to left it there. congressman hakeem jeffries, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you very much. >> so what happens to the american economy now that this relief bill has timely been signed by the president? i want to bring in former secretary of labor under bill clinton and top economist robert reisch, the uh thor of the book, "the system, we rigged it, how to fix it."

$900 billion is not enough to get americans out of the ditch, businesses going bust, long lines at food banks. we needed a relief bill in the trillions, didn't we? >> we certainly do need a relief bill similar to what nancy pelosi and the democrats originally proposed. you left out one particular element, and that is covid. now, that is the big, big elephant in the room because we don't know how long it is going to go on. we hope that by june or maybe by july, enough americans are inoculated, vaccinated so that the economy can actually move onward. but between now and then, we've got five or six months, and you've got millions, tens of billions of americans who don't know how they're going to make it between now and then. so that's where the real survival issue comes in. how do we make sure as a nation, as a society, that all of these people, tens of mlgz of people have enough money to get through to when the economy starts up

again? and we're nowhere close. and the relief bill that was passed is nowhere close. >> yeah, indeed. even upping the checks from $600 to $2,000, we were told today would cost an extra half a trillion dollars or thereabouts. republicans ridiculously say we can't afford that amount of extra money. they said it in the house today. what do you say to them? >> well, first of all, i want to point out to them -- i would point out to them if i had the opportunity, that it was not that long ago they found the money for an almost $2 trillion tax cut for the rich and for big corporations, and they never -- they never blinked. they didn't say, well, we can't afford it, or we have a deficit or debt problem we've got to address. no. when republicans come to the question of whether a tax cut for the rich or for big corporations can be afforded, there is never a problem. when they come to a question of whether unemployment insurance for the people who are really in

need in this country, or any kind of other -- $2,000 per person -- $2,000 per person is not going to nearly make it over the next six months. you try to pay the rent and also put food on the table and do everything else you need with $2,000. well, you just can't -- most people can't do it. >> yeah, and yet you have these tone deaf republicans on the house floor today. there's been this debate elsewhere, especially online among liberals and leftists, whether the original stimulus, the c.a.r.e.s. act, was a big enough stimulus to begin with. some people are saying other western countries did better, spent more. some say no, we spent more than others did. is it the real problem, robert, that stimulus money in the u.s. compared to canada or germany doesn't go very far because we have health care costs that they don't? we don't have the kind of social safety nets they have in place? isn't that the real issue? >> exactly. it's comparing apples to

oranges. almost every other advanced country in this world has safety nets that are really thick safety nets. they pay for health care. they pay for unemployment insurance to a much greater extent. they provide paid family leave. they provide all sorts of things we do not provide. we are the har muchest form of we are the harshest form of capitalism in every advancing nation and what we spent on covid and they spent does not make much sense. we have not spent much. they have spent much more. and if you include all of their social safety nets, they are expending huge amounts. they are keeping people employed. or if they're not employed, they're at least keep people on payrolls. they are doing a far better job in alleviating the anxiety and the underlying problems of insecurity that affect the american work force. >> yeah, and i wonder, robert,

is there a silver lining, though, to this ongoing debate over $2,000 checks specifically, that now we have republican buy-in in the form of a republican president, for direct cash transfers from the government to ordinary americans? something republicans have recoiled from for years. now surely democrats can come back under president biden and try again and it will be very odd for republicans to act as if it's some sort of crazy socialist idea when it's being publicly endoorsed by their own president and party leader. >> let's face it. if you get two senators in georgia who are democrats so that the senate flips and kamala harris actually becomes the deciding vote in the senate, everything is different. we're in a very different universe. if mitch mcconnell is still the controlling force in the senate, if mitch mcconnell continues to do what he's been doing since

the beginning of the obama administration -- remember, this is the man who said, it is my number one priority to make obama a one-term president. everything that is done with regard to covid, getting people through this, providing survival benefits, providing a stimulus that gets the economy back on track, anything that's done is probably going to have to be done by executive order or by regulation. >> yeah, but whether joe biden will be willing to use those executive orders, let's wait and see. robert reisch, thank you so much for your time and insights tonight. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> next, the cruelty of president trump holding the coronavirus relief hostage as he golfed in palm beach. historian michael beschloss puts the president's tantrum in perspective after this.

for decades, herbert hoover has been the benchmark for historically terrible president. his own official white house biography explains how in the midst of the dark days of the depression, hoover's view was that caring for hungry and cold americans, quote, must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. leading his opponents in congress to unfairly paint him as a callous and cruel president. whether or not that was really an unfair characterization, hoover's name became synonymous with heartlessness and indifference to the suffering of

ordinary americans. in the wake of donald trump's recent behavior, causing millions of struggling americans to lose their unemployment benefits for a week for no real reason, none whatsoever, does he now top herbert hoover when it comes to callousness and cruelty? and as the covid death toll continues to rise, is he no longer just one of the worst presidents in american history, but the worst? who bet tore ask than michael beschloss, presidential historian for nbc news and msnbc. he joins me now. michael, thanks so much for coming on the show. >> pleasure. >> does president trump make herbert hoover look like mother teresa? >> it does make herbert hoover look like mother teresa because hoover was a very compassionate person. he helped people get food in world war i. and after world war ii. but he did believe at the time of the great depression with millions of americans starving and dying in some cases, he felt it was not the federal government's job to help them.

that was something that f.d.r. did feel. and what it leads to is that you always want someone as president who has compassion and empathy. lincoln, for instance, who early in the civil war, there were so many union soldiers being killed that they said, we need to build a new cemetery. where do you want it? and lincoln said, build it near my summer house because i want to see the graves being dug. i want to see the weeping which had owe widows. it's going to be painful for me, but i want to see the results of the terrible decisions i'm making. that's what a real leader does, that's what a real president does. >> as opposed to the current president with the death toll, it is what it is. many presidents have sadly caused harm to the american people albeit indifferent to the suffering of ordinary americans. can you point to another president who has done the kind of thing trump did this weekend, delaying financial aid to

unemployed americans for no other reason than that he was having a tantrum and busy golfing? there was no ideological or policy reason for doing what he did yesterday. >> no, donald trump is the kind of person that we have never, ever seen before in the presidency, and i hope we never, ever see again. and what i mean by that is someone who, you know, most of us when you get to the age of 6, you begin to care for other people and see the world through their eyes, especially when they're suffering. you particularly want that in a president of the united states. dwight eisenhower was the supreme commander on d-day. the decisions he made meant the deaths of a lot of young americans and others, and he knew it. for the rest of his life eisenhower was a tough guy. but whenever he spoke in public about the men, mostly men, some women on d-day, he would cry in public and have to put a handkerchief over his face. linden johnson, when he was

president, johnson knew what it was like for black people to be beaten up in the streets of the cities of this country, and it made him want to do something about it. when you've got a president who has no empathy, who has no compassion, you see a spectacle like what we've seen this week. >> and i wonder, when you study the biographies of these men as you have, and, of course, they've alma been men, do you come across them openly talking about their legacies and wondering how history will judge them? >> yes, they do. but they do it in terms of, you know, what can i do to make this country better so that 50 years from now people will say, this is something that this president did that was distinctive and maybe he did it against his own selfish political self-interest. hard to think of a case where donald trump has ever done that. and also harry truman once said he couldn't imagine a president

who does not read history because the only way a president, he said, can get any benefit from all of the successes and failures of earlier presidents and earlier citizens is to know where they succeeded and failed in history. he said that every reader will not be a leader, but every leader must be a reader. if truman came back and saw a president as completely ignorant and indifferent to history as donald trump, i think he would have been shocked. >> michael, aren't you being unfair to donald trump? he says he studied history and he's the best president since lincoln. >> okay. well, i'm the king of romania, med. >> i have to ask you before i let you go. i asked you before, i'm going to ask you again. when do we get among donald trump leaves office to saying he's the worst? >> a historian has to account for the possibility that 50 years later, a president would look better in some ways than he

did to his own generation. that having been said, donald trump is not going to change the record. he was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of americans who did not need to die. millions of others who suffered from covid who did not need to suffer. an economic calamity, $600 versus $2,000 while the president sits in palm beach, the vice-president sits in vale, this is knnero's fiddling while rome burns. >> indeed, america is burning in so many ways today. michael, we'll have to leave it there. thank you for your time. i always learn so much from you. thank you. >> thank you. same with me. >> appreciate it, michael. still to come, as marco rubio gets hammered for his covid

hypocrisy, why we should be paying attention to the shifting numbers regarding herd immunity. that's next. ity. that's next.

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marco rubio is doing that thing again where he annoys everybody by trying to play both sides of an issue. on covid, the republican senator played down the virus for months, including speaking maskless at a campaign event last month in georgia for kelly leffler. he nevertheless managed to skip to the head of the vaccination line more than a week ago. how nice. yesterday rubio tweeted that dr. anthony fauci lied to the american public about masks and distorted the vaccination levels needed to achieve herd immunity. hold on. maybe as much as i hate to say it, does rubio have a point? not that fauci has lied, but the country's top infectious disease expert has on more than one occasion shifted his statements on the coronavirus and how to handle it.

"the new york times" vorted tre this last week. dr. fauci has been slowly but deliberately moving the goal post on when herd immunity is possible, from 60 to of 70% of americans to 70, 85% even. dr. fauci said weeks ago he hesitated to publicly raise his estimate because many americans seemed his tant about vaccines which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity. those kinds of changes in messaging are not particularly helpful in fighting the pandemic. even though you could argue they might be necessary, as we expand our knowledge about a new and vicious virus that has now killed one out of every thousand americans. olivia troy is a former member of the white house coronavirus task force. she worked with dr. fauci, she's also a former adviser to vice-president mike pence. she joins me now. olivia, dr. fauci has become a living legend, a national treasure. he celebrated his 80th birthday

last week on christmas eve. the mayor of d.c. declaring it anthony fauci day. i know you're a fan. i spot his picture on the wall over your right shoulder. but he's not perfect, is he, whether it's saying masks weren't necessary at the start of the crisis to now shifting the goal posts on herd immunity levels? >> correct. here's the thing. the thing about science is it's all about gathering data and facts in a situation that's evolving. what we know about this virus has continuously evolved from day one, starting in january when we didn't even have access to test the virus. we figured that situation out early on. what you have here is it is going to continue to evolve. this information, the data will continue to evolve along the way. and so i think, you know, mark rubio's tweet, what he doesn't put into contact is the fact that dr. fauci was talking about

vaccinations and, you know, in order to reach a certain level of immunity against this virus, you're going to have to have a significant part of the population vaccinated before you can reach a certain level of herd immunity. so actually his modelling is based on the measles virus which is known to be the most contagious virus out there. so that's what it is based on. early on with the masks, there was a big debate on the task force about how we were going to message the mask so that there wouldn't be a rush that would prevent medical workers from getting masked. so that was also part of the messaging that absolutely messaging is key, and i get your point of conflicting messaging is hurtful, but honestly marco rubio's tweet that he put out is actually even more hurtful because he's continuing to contribute to the divisive on this pandemic. >> yes. and we'll come back to rubio in

a moment. sticking with fauci, i get what you say about the science changes, new data, it's a new virus i totally understand that. but he said in the interview with the times the reason he didn't raise the herd immunity level before was because americans weren't ready to hear it. now he thinks they are based on the polling, based on the people willing to get vaccinated. is that a wise thing to do from a public health messaging perspective? does it allow people like rubio to accuse him of manipulating public opinion? why not be honest with americans from the very beginning? >> well, i can see how people will take the message and it provides an opportunity for counter narratives to come into play. i think what dr. fauci's point was he really was trying to encourage people to get vaccinated. we understand that this issue has been somewhat a divisive thing in our country where you have people who are scared to take the vaccine. who are scared of whether it's

effective, whether it's legitimate. i mean, look, i'm going to be very honest. my mom is 76 years old. she has told mel that she has concerns about taking the vaccine, and i want more than anything for her to be immune against this virus. and so this division on the vaccine and whether to take it is real and i understand that obviously it hits home with me. so i think in terms of the vaccination, we do need to encourage and show that the vaccine is safe. there is a legitimate process that was underway. fortunately we have operation warp speed who worked hard and some of the statements coming out of the white house and the president and others who have politicized it to a certain extent. >> yeah, i mean, you mentioned your mother is in her 70s. i have to say, what do you make of marco rubio, a healthy 49-year-old who goes around without a mask on at rallies, getting a vaccine before 99% of americans, how does that sit with you? >> not very well because, you know, i remember the marco rubio

of last march where he was telling people to take the pandemic seriously. i remember the rubio this summer where he had concerns about opening schools, then suddenly he didn't have concerns about opening schools, you know. so i don't know. when it comes to marco rubio being a recovering republican like myself, i watched rubio on the way always shift whichever way the wind is blowing. so it's literally more about politics than doing what's right for the american people, his constituents of the state who are suffering in this pandemic. >> yeah. i mean, he is definitely a wind shifter. but to get vaccinated and be divisive on the issue of vaccinations is even a new low even for marco rubio. olivia troye, thank you so much for joining me on the show. we'll have to leave it there. still ahead. why is congressman louie gohmert

suing vice-president pence in the latest bid to steal the election for trump? i'll explain what in the world he's up to after this. s.

with just nine days to go until the final procedural hurdle in the 2020 election, the formal counting of electoral votes by congress on january the 6th, the trump dead end is in the republican party are pulling what we can only hope is the last stunt to try to overturn the outcome. today congressman louie gohmert filed a lawsuit against electors from arizona to try to get rid of the rules that govern next week's vote counting. by law, congress meets on january the 6th to open sealed certificates from each state and read the results aloud. with the president of the senate, vice-president mike pence presiding. gohmert's lawsuit claims that pence should be able to ignore the results that give joe biden a majority of the electoral college votes and count votes

for donald trump instead. it's very unlikely that this long-shot suit will go anywhere, but apparently it's what the boss wants. and louie gohmert is still taking marching orders from trump tweets. quote, if a democratic presidential candidate had an election rigged and stolen with proof of such acts at a level never seen before, the democratic senators would consider it an act of war and fight to the death. mitch and the republicans do nothing, just want to let it pass. no fight. well, that kind of thing has happened before in the year 2000. democrat al gore famously lost an extremely close election by way of a margin of 537 votes in florida. and a legal battle that ended with a supreme court essentially handing the election to george w. bush despite accusations of dirty tricks and voter disenfranchisement. al gore was the vice-president

on january 6, 2001, when congress counted the electoral votes. painfully he had to preside over counting of the senate. there were protests from some democrats back then, upset about the nature of their party's loss, but al gore, of course, played by the rules. >> mr. vice-president, i rise to object to the fraudulent 25 florida electoral votes. >> is the objection in writing and signed by a member of the house and a senator? >> the objection is in writing, and i don't care that it is not signed by a member of the senate. [ applause ] >> the chair will advise that the rules do [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> and the signature of the senator -- [ applause ] the signature of a senator is required. the chair will again put that part of the question.

is the objection signed by a senator? >> mr. vice-president, there are gross violations of the voting rights act from florida -- and i object and it is not signed by a senator. >> the chair thanks the gentle woman from california on the basis previously stated. the point of order may not be received. >> al gore, the man who lost the election, did what he believed was right for the good of the country that day, shutting down his own democratic colleagues in the process. in a little over a week, it will be the par tity of trump's turn. we'll talk about that next. talkt these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office

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rupert murdoch's tabloid newspaper, the new york post, is telling donald trump to move on, to stop, as they put it, cheering for an undemocratic coup for his sake and the country's sake. forgive me if i don't totally buy the post's belated change of heart. the paper like the republican

party has spent so much time egging on donald trump they long ago ceded their authority and even their identity to the man. it's far too late to turn back now. republican congressman matt gaetz made that point explicitly clear when he tweeted, i'm not going back to yesterday's republican party. this is donald trump's party. for more on the future of donald trump's party, the gop, tina nguyen is a white house reporter at politico where she covers maga world. jennifer is it a former chair of the new hampshire party who announced this month she's leaving the party over gop efforts to overturn the election result. tia, let me start with you. is it donald trump's party as matt gaetz says? it sure looks like it from where i'm sitting. >> it's a strange situation because you can't quite tell where the party ends and where donald trump's supporters begin. while you have members who are 100% republicans and pro democrat, you have a giant section of republicans who are saying, okay, we maybe need to

move on and just deal with the biden presidency. let's certify the results in congress next week and say, okay, biden won because here are the votes. or they can indulge in a fantasy and say that donald trump isn't going to leave the white house and what we can do is somehow manipulate the rules of congress to do so. and that's where the split lies. >> yeah. and in that split, jennifer, you've been part of that split -- you've gone beyond that split. >> yes. >> did you leave the gop because you believe not only is it trump's party, but it can no longer be anything other than trump's party, there's no rescuing of it? >> that's exactly what we learned when we watched how the republican party leaders behaved post-election. it became clear they were willing to engage in borderline seditious behavior to overturn a legitimate election in the united states in order to somehow protect and preserve

donald trump. you know, the new york post finally is coming to grips with the reality a little bit. it might be a good thing, but it's not going to impact any of these republican law makers who are going to remain tightly under donald trump's thumb for years to come, you know. they live in fear of a trump-supported primary. >> jennifer, someone keen to speak to you there. i'll let you stop that call. maybe it's someone from the republican party trying to get you back. tina, in the meantime, let me come back to you. will a new york post front page make any difference in maga world? they dared to call the election for biden and trump supporters switched over to oan and newsmax rather than accept the fox call. >> i think that might have happened with the new york post as well. as you've been seeing in the past couple of weeks, any republican entity, even ones that are ostensibly pro trump

such as tucker carlsson or the majority of fox news hosts, the moment they break from that narrative of, okay, there isn't evidence saying that the election was stolen, then maga world starts turning on them. oh, well, you've been bought out by corporate media. you can start seeing a bit of that with the new york postop ed. you have people looking at the op-ed saying, you're truly not believers. here's all your corporate ties that they suddenly care about right now. so there will be other newspapers that they'll flock to. there will be other maga-friendly online internet sources that they'll immediately start sharing under various social media feeds. but at this point, like, there is nothing that the new york post can do to win them back other than retract any sort of story or pretend the story never happened and go straight back to supporting donald trump's quest to overturn the election. >> here's my question to you, tina. if it is donald trump's party,

if it's the trump gop, does that mean the 2024 candidate will be a trump, if not donald himself, then don junior or ivanka? >> that's a difficult question to answer. obviously if the presidential candidate is trump, the president is 100% -- the republican p republican party is going to have to fall behind him because there is no one else who can establish themselves behind him. if he does run, it is going to be difficult for anyone to take on the party of trump without trump himself, saying i give my blessing. who knows if that's going to happen. but you can see all these other republicans who have stepped in and in their own senate races and house races and say i am super-duper pro trump. i support all these trumpian policies. i'm even going to emulate trump. if trump decides he doesn't like them at one moment, trump's base immediately turns against them. you saw it with kelly leffler. you saw it with the senate race

now, where the two candidates are trying so hard to do the right trumpian things, and maga supporters who think they were the beneficiaries of a, quote-unquote, stolen election and some scheme in georgia to steal votes from trump. so at this point it's all trump's game. can he give these voters up? who knows. >> yeah, here's what i don't get. when you have this kind of trumpy republican party with a trumpy base which, you know, says we're going to switch tv channels if we don't like the news we see. we're going to switch papers if we don't like the front pages we see. when you have a party like that, which is basically a cult personality. biden said, once trump is gone i'm going to be able to work with the republican party. i feel like isn't that a fantasy? >> it depends how prevalent

trump will be in politics and whether he has a group of people left in congress who's priority is him above, you know, their own supporters or their own leadership. that's a question that i haven't been able to personally answer because the entire base of maga is all primarily one, internet based, and two, not concentrated in one area or one constituency. like geographical that could be represented by a house or -- house representative or senate member. that is, quite honestly, i can't particularly tell if they'll keep going on this quest. >> it's going to be one of those wait and see games, although i'm very skeptical myself. jennifer is back, i believe. i believe we can speak to her. we might not be able to see her, but i want to bring her in the discussion before we run out of time. you and others have quit the party. what about those like mitt

romney who are staying in the party. should they quit, too? >> it's completely up to them if they want to become independent or stay with the party. it is imperative they continue to speak up. you mentioned joe biden talking about wanting to work with republicans when he becomes president. i believe joe biden's commitment is real and true. but as long as people like mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy are declaring, you know, war on the democratic party or on the democratic president, declaring this is about blocking and obfuscating at every turn, it's going to be very difficult to get cooperation from any of the republicans. and frankly, as long as the republican party continues to see them self as matt gaetz said yesterday, as the party of trump, i don't see a world where they're going to be able to work on behalf of the american people in compromise with biden or any of the other democrats. >> jennifer, we have 20 seconds, quick last question. you became an independent.

do you have plans to join joe biden's democratic party? >> i don't have plans to join the democratic party. i'm going to be an independent. i still hold a lot of my conservative values. and most importantly, i am pro-democracy, which is the republican party is not at this time. >> i think that's a good position for all of us to hold, pro-democracy. it's crazy we have to say that, but we do in 2020. tina nguyen and jennifer, we'll have to leave it there. thank you both for your insights. that is "all in" for this evening. you can catch me on my new show streaming on peacock at 7:00 p.m. eastern. the rachel maddow show starts now with my good friend ali velshi in for rachel. good evening, ali. >> i had a smile on my face when you said we should be pro-democracy. it should be obvious. it's not. the important thing to point out whether you're republican or independent or libertarian or liberal or progressive, it doesn't matter. there is a choice to be made

right now. on the side of democracy or you're not. fantastic that we have to say it, but it is what it is. >> indeed, 100%. pro-democracy, the bare minimum, the benchmark. >> yeah. have a good evening, my friend. good to see you. and thank youfriend. good to see you. and thank you to you at home for joining us this hour. rachel's got the night off. there are just 23 days left in this presidency, 23 days until joe biden and kamala harris are sworn in. and yet, after four years, another first. tonight, the house of representatives overrode a presidential veto for the first time in the trump era, overriding the president's veto of the annual defense spending bill. that's the bill that pays the salaries of the men and women in the armed forces and funds the nation's national security apparatus. the annual defense bill is typically passed with bipartisan support and a vetoproof majority, but trump vetoed the bill last week anyway, in part because it called for renaming military bases named after the