And now let's turn to our Lisa
Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor.

Hello to both of you.

And, Lisa, I'm going to
start with you with this,
Lindsey Graham, senator
from South Carolina,

admitting that he did reach out
to officials in states where the
Trump campaign is challenging

the result. This is highly
unusual, as we know.

What can you tell us about it?

LISA DESJARDINS: It's
also significant, because
he is the chairman of
the Judiciary Committee,

which oversees law enforcement,
not elections, but law
enforcement in this country.

Chairman Graham has spent the
last day explaining to reporters
what he believes he said.

And here's a quote, how
he explains this. Let's
look at that. He said:

"I wanted to find out
how you verify mail-in
ballots signatures.

And that was the extent of
the conversation" with the
secretary of state of Georgia.

Senator Graham is saying,
essentially, he is not
sure that the technology in

Georgia was up to snuff for
figuring out those ballots
and that -- and whether

the signatures were actually
accurate for mail-in votes.

But the secretary of
state said that, as part
of that conversation,
Senator Graham implied

that large numbers of ballots
should be thrown out in counties
that the technology did not meet

whatever Senator Graham's
standard was. So, there
are some questions about
what he said in general.

And in I think that, when
we talk about senators
and how they look at this,

a lot of senators have been
state officials. One of them,

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse
of Rhode Island, put it this
way over this whole thing.

He said: "If he was
trying to get information,

then that's fine. But
if he was trying to
influence ballot-counting,
that's problematic."

And it's hard to tell,
honestly -- this is a

he said/he said -- exactly what
Senator Graham was trying to do.

One other note, Judy, this idea
of whether Republican senators
are accepting the election

results, they seem to be
tiptoeing toward acceptance.
Senator Marco Rubio today said

the preliminary results seem
to indicate a Biden win.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas

has talked about the
president-elect and said
he doesn't think anything
can change that outcome.

And, notably, you mentioned
that Senator Harris, vice
president-elect Harris,

was on the Senate floor today.
She received congratulations,

I have confirmed, from
Republican Senators Lankford,
Rounds, and Tim Scott.

And Senator Lindsey Graham gave
her a fist-bump. He apparently

told reporters that he said, "If
it works out, congratulations."

JUDY WOODRUFF: Really
interesting, since these are
senators who, by and large,

are saying they support
the president's challenges.

But, Yamiche, that brings
me to you. What is the
latest on the president
and his allies continuing

to challenge the
election results?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well,
despite a string of failed
legal challenges, the
president is continuing to

fight on, continuing
to not acknowledge that
he is the projected
loser in this election.

Now, the president is
doing a number of things,
including leaning in

on allies, on senators and
elected officials, and having
his allies, it seems as though,

implying that they should be
reaching out to state officials
to try to see whether or not

there can be things being
done to sway those states in
the president's direction.

The president's also keeping
up his rhetoric. He's talking
about the fact that the election

was stolen from him. And he's
doing that in fund-raising
e-mails, through text messages.

Critics say that that is going
through a lot of money that's
going to end up in a slush

fund that's going to at
times really help him lead
an expensive lifestyle.

The president, of course,
is saying that that's part
of his legal defense fund.

Then, on the legal front, the
president is continuing to have
lawsuit after lawsuit. Today,

they filed a new one in Nevada.
We also saw the president
go to court in Pennsylvania,

Rudy Giuliani, his personal
attorney, expanding his
role there, while lawyers

are starting to quit, saying
that they cannot defend the
president's legal challenges.

Today, the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court ruled
against the Trump campaign,

saying that their
legal challenge against
Republican observers,

saying that they didn't
have the proper access,
that that was not founded.

And then, when you look at the
other strategy here, there's
a shifting rhetoric happening.

Before, people close to
the president were saying,
if we can get recounts,

if we can get it together,
we can rustle back
some of these states.

Now people that are close to
the president, they tell me,

well, maybe what we're
doing is just auditing
the system, seeing what

could have gone wrong, what
the flaws were, because the
president might be losing.

And one other thing, they were
saying over and over again,
allies to the president,

they wanted recounts in each
and every state. We're now being
told at the "NewsHour" that the

president is not going
to be demanding a recount
in Wisconsin. That would
have cost $8 million.

So what you see there is the
Trump campaign continuing to
say, we can win this, we can

have these legal challenges,
but when it comes to
actually putting money
toward that, putting

money toward their defense and
the recount, they're not doing
that. So, we should always be

watching that space and,
of course, the space with
these local officials
feeling pressured.

We have been making some
calls on that. Hopefully,

we can get some more reporting
on what's going on there.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And the
president continuing to say
the election is being stolen

in most of his statements.

Yamiche Alcindor, Lisa
Desjardins, thank you both.