I’m not sure quite what to make of this. Those two Michigan House and Senate leaders who went to visit President Trump at the White House appear to have given Trump an unqualified ‘no’. Indeed, not only do they appear to have given him an unqualified ‘no’ in the joint statement they released after the meeting. But they coupled this with an ask for more COVID relief.

At least three members of the Trump family inner orbit are looking to a future that might not necessarily involve the chief patriarch being president of the United States.

While the family publicly continues to hype Trump’s dangerous and ridiculous election delegitimization crusade, privately a few have their sights set on their own political futures.

Two weeks ago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow announced that she had been exposed to COVID-19 and would be stepping away from the network’s post-election coverage to quarantine. Last night, Maddow revealed that her partner of more than two decades, Susan Mikula, has been battling a severe case of the coronavirus.

“At one point, we really thought there was a possibility that it might kill her,” Maddow said, adding that Mikula is thankfully now on the road to recovery.

It was a powerful and authentic moment, and a reminder of the human toll of the virus. Give it a watch after the jump.

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To soften the blow of defeat Fox's Geraldo proposes naming the vaccine after Trump. "It would be a nice gesture to him and years from now it would become kind of a generic name. Have you got your trump yet, I got my trump, I'm fine. I wished we could honor him in that way." pic.twitter.com/fM8qwFhxF6

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 20, 2020

Through this corrupt era one of the common refrains has been, “that’s why or how we got Trump.” Usually it is whatever it is the person didn’t like before Trump rebranded as the bad thing that got us Trump. But on display today is one of the real reasons ‘we got Trump.’ It’s not the deepest reason but it is a critical, critical part of the equation. It’s also why Donald Trump was able to careen through the leading candidates of the Republican party so easily in 2016.

We’re watching the press conference of the President’s legal team. It’s an all star team of rejects and degenerates from the Fox Cinematic Universe: Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Joe DiGenova. It’s both comical in its slapdash level of nonsense but also deeply corrupt and an attack on the very foundations of the American republic. In the course of this event Giuliani has claimed that most of the votes in Wayne County (Detroit) are invalid and should be discarded. Needless to say, this disenfranchises most of the African-American population in Michigan. As Giuliani succinctly put it, “It changes the results of the election in Michigan if you take out Wayne County.”

We have a new, exclusive story up right now.

TPM’s Tierney Sneed has learned that the Census Bureau identified routine issues in data from the 2020 decennial census, and will need time to fix them. This seemingly small wrinkle could have significant implications for how political power is distributed through apportionment.

In a narrow sense, this is a very New York City-centric issue. But if it comes to fruition, life as we know it in this city will not only collapse further into the unlivable realm than it already has in the wake of COVID-19, but we might see another outbreak spike in the city.

Now’s your chance to sit back and absorb Josh Kovensky’s deeply reported piece on the Falwells and Giancarlo Granda. Caught with only a short break between Zoom calls? Here’s a condensed version of the main takeaways.

We should take a moment this morning to give a big thanks to the Biden campaign team and all the tens of millions of Biden voters. Because under extremely difficult circumstances they made sure it wasn’t close. Biden will win by at least 4 percentage points and likely more like 5. He will win by a 74 vote margin in the electoral college. Under normal, legitimate circumstances a win is a win is a win. Margins are just about bragging and feeling good. But this year it was critical and you can see that from the events of the last 24 hours.