al jazeera. this is al-jazeera. over there well let's see that you serve with me how he's seen coming to you live from a global headquarters right here in doha coming up. i use one of. 11 . 780. recordings of a phone call reveal u.s. president donald trump pressured officials in georgia to find enough votes to overturn his election defeat in that state. you know what they did and you're not

reporting it that you know that's criminal that's. you know you can't let that happen. well as adults i reach over trump's attempts to discredit the election his allies a long shot attempt to stop congress from certifying joe biden's victory. also ahead certain records upon the records of new coronavirus infections from sprint's prime minister to warn of even tougher measures to come. well what was already shaping up to be a fiery week in washington has been further inflamed spy recording of u.s. president donald trump in clips focus by media outlets trump can be heard pressuring georgia secretary of state to find enough votes to overturn his election

defeat there george of course is one of the battleground states that flips in favor of president elect joe biden trump refuses to concedes that he has lost repeating unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud well alan fischer begins our coverage from atlanta georgia. from a president who insists without evidence the election was stolen from him pressure on a tough election official to find votes to help them overturn a result the audio of the hour long call from the oval office to george's secretary of state was 1st obtained by the washington post and captures. donald trump even warning of big legal consequences if you didn't do something i use one of what i. $11780.00 lovers which is one more that we have because we want to say it's a move that may create legal problems for the president he's pressuring an elected

official to change the result of an election already certified by the state president trump claimed again without evidence he'd won georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes he didn't the state went for biden and he released other conspiracy theories all dismissed by brad raffensperger well mr president determines that you have is the data you have is wrong donald trump refused to accept the loss the 2020 presidential election congress meets on wednesday to confirm the result although a number of republican senators plan to object he summoned election officials from various states to the white house and field in almost every legal effort to contest results one longtime washington observer says even for donald trump this call is remarkable it's an outrage is the president of the united states putting pressure on a public official to lie to cheat possibly to steal votes so that he can win the state of georgia. well let's go live there to see alan fischer he joins us from the state

of georgia allen an explosive records they are one hour until minutes of that have been released what kind of impact is this likely to have in the days to come. i think people will say when you thought you couldn't be surprised by donald trump he's monies to do it again in his final few days in office. the fact that earlier today he tweeted out that he'd spoken to the secretary of state of georgia and he talked to the allegations of widespread fraud in the conspiracy theories that donald trump has been peddling over the last couple of weeks but the secretary of state just didn't get it and the secretary of state responded by saying the truth will soon come out it would seem to suggest that's where this audio has been made available and certainly it is perhaps the most explosive oval office recordings we've heard since nixon in the 1970 s.

those who like donald trump will continue to see that what he did was all about trying to prove that there had been a conspiracy against him as i say he's repeated several unfounded conspiracy theories that the election was stolen there will be more concerned that he perhaps walked the line of legality there when speaking to the secretary of state remember this is the president of the united states speaking to an elected official asking him to alter the result of an election that has already been satisfied by the state and by the governor and so there are legal questions that he may well have to answer in the coming days because of what he asked the secretary of state to do there's there's definitely an issue there but there may also be a backlash from some republicans who are concerned the message that this sends just take for example paul ryan former speaker of the house he retired from the house

and from politics simply because he didn't go on with donald trump he has tweeted just in the last hour or so that this is undemocratic what donald trump has done and it may well put pressure on the 11 republican senators who are going to contest the election you can really see a loop. there. being a fraud and people stealing the election when the president is essentially sending that message out here himself indeed lost the battle unfold in the coming few days as a result of this explosive tape but let's not forget allen this is all happening 2 days ahead of a crucial ronnell fault in georgia where you are right now do you think this is likely to have any kind of impact on this election which kid determine the balance of power in the united states senate. well i think it comes to this those who support donald trump will continue to support donald trump those who want to see him removed from office and his power is just for the

democrats in the senate election and that is a given what this me do is impact on tarnow what we have is a record turnout in early voting 3000000 votes already been cast here in georgia that's already a record before the biggest senate vote was going to 2100000 saw already well ahead of projections there we're talking perhaps getting to the presidential level here 5000000 votes cast back in november but with donald trump is saying that the elections are rigged against this the secretary of state isn't doing anything to try and change that that me make some voters go it's hard to believe but it may make some voters go well what's the point of voting if the results already been decided that there's no point of his going there and donald trump is a due to arrive in this state in about 24 hours time you hold a rally a ghetto the vote rally we expect him to speak for more than a know it is donald trump does it these events we expect that there will be the list of grievances that is in events that he's had since the election when he talks

again without foundation without proof that the election was stolen from him and then try to encourage people to go out and vote for the 2 republican senators so if there is going to be an impact it may well be to repress the republican vote is certainly won't repress the democratic vote and the democrats are still very hopeful of winning the 2 seats here in georgia and if they do it becomes significant of course because if they win then there will be 50 republican senators and 50 democratic senators or people who vote with the democrats so the senate will then be tied on a lot of things and the casting vote lies with the vice president who from the 20th of january will become a hardass and that means that joe biden with control of both houses fecht of control of both houses of congress will be able to move his. legislative agenda forward and so if this is going to have any impact it could be that it will backfire on donald trump but it's certainly something that historians will pour

over for years to come it is indeed alan fischer there 'd a current us live from atlanta georgia allan thank you very much indeed there is all over reaction coming in this hour vice president elects come one harris described what could be heard in the recordings as an act of desperation and they are about their recorded conversation. was yes certainly the boys in desperation. most certainly then. and it was. all the abuse of power by the president and the united states. well let's get more now from gabriel elizondo he joins us live from washington d.c. i gave that was the vice president elect speaking there but there has been what's

of reaction coming out after that call recording was released and then just talk us through the main thrust of the reactions we've seen so far. in one word shock i think that's what you're seeing a lot of people that are commenting about this here in washington just a little over an hour ago we heard from hank johnson he's a congressman from the state of georgia and he tweeted that trump needs to step down now but he also said that on monday that he would be pursuing a resolution in congress that would censure donald trump that's essentially a slap on the wrist but it's the way for congress to voice their displeasure formally over the actions or words of a colleague in this case it would be donald trump there's no legal ramifications to this but it just shows you how seriously this is being taken by so many people here in washington while hank johnson isn't very well known internationally or even here

in the u.s. there are other lawmakers democrats here that have been coming out and speaking out about this as well there are much more pro high profile bernie sanders tweeting out that donald trump there are no more votes for you to find on january 20th you will no longer be president and representative adam schiff from the state of california tweeting out his reaction saying trump's come contempt for democracy is laid bare once again this time on tape another another abuse of power by a corrupt man who would be desperate if we were to allow him to be we will not just sort of summarizes here the reaction that you're getting from so many people lawmakers here in washington again a lot of shock over these comments by donald trump stay with us gabe just lights it reads part of an open life all 10 living former u.s. defense secretaries republicans and democrats they're warning against the use of

the military in election disputes and they say our elections have a cards recants old it's being can. dux it's appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts the time for questioning the results has passed efforts to involve the us armed forces in resolving election disputes who take us into dangerous unlawful and on constitutional territory. game. is a staggering open letter that has been published in the washington post why did these 10 former defense secretaries feel the need to pen a letter like this outlining that the u.s. army shouldn't be playing a role in the aftermath of this election. probably

because they're all worried worried about the trajectory of the next few weeks until we get to january 20th and seeing that this real normally a very smooth transition of power the democratic trend traditions here in the united states are risk and this is a remarkable letter for multiple reasons to primarily number one these are all 10 living defense secretaries of the united states military all signing on to this and they are from different political persuasions yes people like republicans such as donald rumsfeld and dick cheney that have signed this letter and you also have former defense ministers that are of the democratic persuasion are democrats leon panetta robert gates william cohen to name a few and you also have military men one being james mattis who has donald trump's 1st secretary of defense so this is remarkable and it really shows you how

worried that they are and how they feel that this needed to be said but the very fact that they even need to publish this letter or feel the need to publish this letter just shows you where the u.s. is at right now in this very delicate delicate stage also read you one other brief quote from this letter it's and this is a direct reaction to the biden campaign or the vice president president elect biden excuse me his advisors saying that the transition has not gone well in a sense of many trump officials have not been cooperating and in this letter the tenet living defense secretary say acting defense secretary christopher miller and his support minutes are bound by oath law and precedent to facilitate the intreat into office of the incoming administration and to do so wholeheartedly so again all of these defense ministers former defense ministers of the. united states all

coming out and saying the time is up the election has been held a winner has been declared and imploring. the current acting secretary defense to make sure that everything in his power is handed over to incoming president joe biden in just 18 days ok gabriel ellis island so live from washington d.c. thank you very much in deeds. statements has just been released by the chair of the u.s. highest judiciary committee chair enough blair he said trump is either unwell or he thinks he can use his office to pressure state officials saying that either way he remains profoundly unfit for office and threatening these officials with vague criminal consequences and then encouraging them to find additional votes and hire investigators he wants to find the answers the president may have also subjected himself to see additional criminal liability. but let's bring you some

more of that records in specifically where president trump questions the dominion voting systems that were used during those elections now do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in palm counting because that's one of the rumors and also that your minions took out regimes that no minion is really moving fast to get rid of their. machinery do you know anything about. is absolutely right in germany no the 1000000 is not moved in the scenery out of the county where. they move you have they have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts not if you were right i'm sure. we'll see if clinton's as the host of a on just a or

a show the bottom line and editor at large of the hill he joins us by skype from washington d.c. steve for just heard another segment of coal there are a lot of conspiracy theories being fought is about there about these dominion voting systems but could not just that example mean through the entire minutes of this call it seems to be heavily weighted on conspiracy theories how troubling is this. well it's very troubling him but we know that president trump has spent much of his phone time his outreach time and the time down in more log on golf courses with largely sycophantic people people who feed him what he wants to hear and have continued this fantasy that he can still legitimately win the election by overturning vote and so it's hard to describe the bubble

that the president is in but we've known for a long time that he has self selected news inputs that flatter him and tell him what to hear and he surrounded himself with those kinds of people so i mentioned earlier 100 minutes but it's actually 60 minutes it's one hour of this kind of conversation is very compelling drive a president trump towards the secretary of state of georgia driven by conspiracy theories driven by this notion you know that somehow dominion has altered its machines or that votes have been run through several times or destroyed and this is what has been fed to him by people around him he's he's really put himself into a buffer zone and i and i have to say that when it worse it it can have dangerous repetitions of what's the matter though this is doing to american democracy steve because he's going to be at a rally repeating all of this say his supporters. it's

undermining it's dividing the nation badly it's he's feeding a fire amongst many millions of people who did support him and he did have that support but nonetheless the tradition of american democracy is once you go through a an election once that election is certified by the state remember the states each elect electors they certify who they vote for that happened on december 14th but was supposed to happen on january 6th is largely ceremonial and so they're blowing up a ceremonial a bat to try to. undermine the the sense of legitimacy of joe biden and his and comma harris's victory so it's a terrible moment for democracy a very very dark moment and i think it will have on going up or cautioned not only between democrats and republicans but within the republican party itself in which

there is a contingent that is disgusted deeply disgusted by what some of these senators and the president have done so far and as i mentioned earlier on al jazeera you know i'm waiting to see if any of those 12 senators pull back now because once everyone has heard this audio of president trump so forcefully muscling a republican secretary of state in the state of georgia to overturn an election at some point those republican legislators both in the house of representatives and particularly the united states senate are going to have to be held to account by the public on why they support that why should anyone trust them in a future election so there's a for agility and a toxic culture right now around the nation but particularly in washington d.c. and particularly as you touched on there steve and the republican party say because

this is likely to splits. the republican party is that now because trump space will be very much behind him. and a lot of republican politicians want to be where chumps base is but it is there anyone this hour that you know and the republicans a part party defending president trump after the call has been released. i don't know of anyone defending him thus far i have not seen comments from senator john holley who opened up this pandora's box of a january 6th challenge i have not seen senator ted cruz or senator marsha blackburn and james lankford and any of the others comment i know that ted cruz was trying to avoid answering questions yesterday about this i don't think they've necessarily gone away and certainly i think every one of them if i were a political advisor to them i would be telling them you know carve out

a different course now because they're on dangerous ground because the president has undermined their ability to point to what they were saying were suspicious circumstances in other states even though no courts and the attorney general of the united states working for donald trump did not find any voting or reg irregularities at scale that could be good certainly after seeing an attorney general barr walked away from this and said there's nothing there and so for senators to do this when now the only tangible evidence that we see of voting manipulation and election manipulation is from the president of the united states himself that's got to create a problem for them ok steve clemons there bringing as analysis live from washington d.c. at thank you steve thank you well in that 000 record saying trump appears citrus in georgia secretary of state broad raffensperger with vague criminal consequences

if he refuses to comply with the president's requests. you know what they did and you're not reporting it that's as you know that's a criminal that's a criminal offense and you know you can't let that happen. well bruce fein is a constitutional lawyer and former us associate deputy attorney general and joins says also from washington d.c. creates have you with us on the news hour you're a constitutional lawyer i'm not so it's no immediately clear to me that where the law is just spell it out what did you hear on that call that points to any american laws being broken. well there are at least 2. 1 his threat to criminally prosecute mr raffensperger if he did not hold true to the vote that is exercise his official powers in particular way is

extraordinary and under federal law the crime of extortion also his incitement to mr raffensperger to find 100000 votes or 10000 are many to shift the outcome because he was a good republican is the crime of incitement he's encouraging someone else to commit a crime namely to falsify the results of an election so their crew criminal violations that i believe are flagrant open dettori is an undisputable in that conversation i also believe that these these efforts here are exactly what alexander hamilton described as impeachable offenses in federalist 65 an abuse of the public trust and here we have a president saying his own character's ation he's relying upon rumors rumors that things are happening not he that he doesn't come forth with

a single fact he doesn't come forth with anything that any court would be admitted as evidence and based on rumors he wants the secretary of state to alter the outcome of the election now i find it quite odd that even the president who's acknowledged making the call has not defended it he just said i made the call so we have 0 defenders of something that's indefensible i also am disturbed however that we don't find immediately after the call that the participants did not go public maybe they handed this audio to the washington post they should have gone to the f.b.i. i'm reminded during watergate where i was in. they know the epicenter from the beginning to the end of the impeachment ordeal of richard nixon john dean a lawyer and we're told that a lawyer clean image was on this call went into the oval office and said mr president there's a cancer on the presidency even john dean implicated knew something was wrong and

ultimately disclosed the evidence in the watergate hearings but why didn't anyone speak out and mediately what was asleep that is a seminal i say that because mark madsen you could also argue was also. inciting this change towards the end of the call he was asking for to set up and you know a lawyer sitting together so it could come to an amicable resolution do you think there are legal implications for the. the chief of staff mark metals and the other people as they have that when. we have what's called the law of conspiracy you know if he'd spoken in advance and he knew that his statements were collaborative with mr trump's to try to overturn illegally credo a false representation of what the electoral votes were he would be culpable for a conspiracy make this other. the russians who robert mueller

indicted in his investigation were charged with the same kind of crime namely interfering with the government function of holding a fair and proper presidential election that was the crime charged under federal law and here we have the president of the united states doing precisely the same thing but that was also quite difficult because with that with them pietschmann it's over that about ukraine coercions also are argue beeping interfering in an election and trying to coerce and even with the pressure from the russians. trump space and a good part of the u.s. don't actually believe that that was a criminal offense do you think this is a similar. this can be spun in a similar way by president trump supporters that he's done nothing wrong he was merely exploring options well maybe his supporters will but you need to remember it

with regard to criminal liability but well president trump in his office his own justice department has taken the position that he's immune from indictment or prosecution he can't be charged so the fact that he wasn't charged criminally doesn't mean he didn't commit a crime it means that the crime can't be prosecuted until he leaves office and so when he leaves office he may well be prosecuted for soliciting something of value in his campaign namely a public investigation of joe biden in exchange for release of millions of tens hundreds of millions dollars of weapons and surely even as we speak he's immune from prosecution for the crimes of extortion incitement that we described as of noon january 20th he will not be immune and he clearly will be vulnerable to prosecution but to say those earlier incidents didn't result in criminal prosecutions doesn't have any significance because the president could be

prosecuted anyway even if the crimes were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. very a fascinating situation very tricky times lie ahead for the president bruce fein thank you so much for talking us through those complicated legal aspects see that explosive call if we should have thank you. well as those revelations were coming to light it's the new us congress was beginning its work democrats kept control of the house of representatives in november election in the balance of power in the senate will be decided by 2 special elections take place in georgia on she's saying let's take you through the numbers at the moments republicans have 50 over the 100 senate seats and democrats have 48 so this is what makes these 2 undecided seats in georgia so important publicans david pretty and

kelly lefler are running against democratic candidates john also of and raphael warnock if the democrats take both seats the senate's will be split $5050.00 and vice presidents come laris would be the deciding vote giving democrats control or republicans only to win one of those seats to hold on to their senate majority she had returned as the shreveport senate will come to order the 117 congress was gaveled in that mood on the 3rd day of january as required by the constitution but it was clear that this was 2021 members of the house was sworn in in batches and was strictly limited in the number of guests they could bring and the terms of preventing this from becoming a super spreader of them mean well in the senate the vice president who's also president of the senate oversaw opening proceedings as he will on wednesday for the certification of the presidential.