-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com very good good evening to you. jim sciutto in tonight for anderson. a faster moving covid virus meets a slow-moving vaccination effort. in other words, the race to immunize enough people to stop the virus, one we're already behind in could be getting a whole lot tougher. late today in a facebook video chat, dr. anthony fauci and california's governor said the new more easily transmitted covid strain has now been in his state. >> just an hour or so ago we were informed that this new variant, this new strain that we've identified obviously from the united kingdom, other parts of the globe identified in

colorado yesterday has been identified here in the state of colorado, in southern california. >> fauci's reaction, he's not surprised. all the same, it now raises the stakes and adds to what is already a grim and worsening picture. new forecasting tonight from the cdc now projects up to 424,000 covid deaths by the 23rd of next month. that's as many as 83,000 more lives lost over just the next three weeks or so. and it comes after the worst single day on record for reported deaths in this country, 3,725 of our fellow americans in 24 hours, including a 41-year-old incoming u.s. congressman from the state of louisiana, luke letlow, who died of complications from the virus. he leaves behind a wife and two young children. and as the numbers show, there are so many tragedies now like his. and on the other side of this

grim ledger, the vaccine rollout that even the people running the program say has room to improve. >> doctor slough by said that you need to be doing a better job. you would agree with that. >> yes, of course. we need to be doing a better job. but all vaccine programs start somewhat slow. you heard general perna. yes we had two holidays and three snowstorms, but i think it's more of you starting a program and that starts relatively slowly and ramps up quickly. >> keeping honest, the administration is missing its own goals here. and it's not like holidays and snowstorms are surprising this time of year or unforeseeable when the rollout was being planned. the real problem, according to many experts and some former insiders in this administration, can be traced back to the very planning itself. >> it comes down to really just a lack of a national strategy on this vaccine distribution. and this has been the problem from day one on the pandemic

response. >> that's olivia troye, a former top covid adviser to the vice president, who will join us shortly. and that lack of a national strategy, as we've been reporting for some time, means that getting shots into the arms is now up to each state and relies on overburdened, often underfunded state and local agencies. as cnn's ryan young discovered down in florida today, all 67 counties there are handling the rollout differently. multiply that situation by 50. what you get is a country that has now vaccinated about 2.6 million people in the last two weeks. that works out to 49 per 100,000. that's a little better than canada, worse than the uk, 12 times worse than israel, which has now vaccinated some 600 people per 100,000. israel's prime minister says the goal is to inoculate a quarter of that country's population by the end of next month. and he appears to be delivers.

by contrast, president trump is not delivering. after making sthethese kinds of promises day to day on the campaign trail. >> we're on track to deliver 100 million doses of a safe vaccine and a great vaccine, and that's all set. we're all set logistically. our military is going to deliver it. it will be done very quickly. we will get rid of this virus. it'll be very -- you watch. it's going to happen very quickly and we're going to have our country back. >> another promise unmet. that was late october. today, as he did yesterday, he tweeted it's not up to him, it's up to the states. and today as he did yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before that, 313 times now since taking office, the president was doing his golfing at one of his own clubs putting taxpayer dollars into his own

business' coffers while millions of americans die and wait for economic health. more from kaitlan collins with a change in the president's travel plans. he's coming back to washington. >> reporter: yes, he is. this is earlier than expected. the president was supposed to stay in palm beach through the new year, but now we're told he is going to be leaving early and going back to washington tomorrow morning. that's unusual because typically the president loves going to the new year's eve party they have at mar-a-lago. he walks the red carpet, speaks to reporters. he's not even going to attend that party even though guests were told he was going to. we are told by three sources the president is going to be leaving palm beach early tomorrow to go back to washington though it's not clear why. but of course we know the president has been completely focused on what's going to be happening next week in d.c. and that's on capitol hill when they meet to do what is typically mundane, for congress to certify the election. and of course that would mean

certifying joe biden's win. but the president and his republican allies are now planning a disruption to that. and of course all of these antics we've been talking about are going to amount to thee yachtics. they aren't going to change the outcome of the election. the vice president doesn't have any kind of deciding role when it comes to that and what his role is going to be next week. but, jim, it does come as we're seeing concerns about the vaccine rollout and what's going on and why the numbers are nowhere near what administration officials said they were going to be. and they spent months planning this rollout. so, that's why it's raising so many questions. it wasn't like it was unexpected about when the vaccine was likely to come. and so that's the question here. we have heard from the president, of course, he is deflecting. he is blaming states as he often did with ppp and testing early on in the pandemic. he's taking a similar route here. you're not hearing from his own officials who did hold a briefing today to talk to reporters about what's going on and why there have been lags in this. instead they said they're going to work to address it. they said they are not where

they want to be right now. and they are focused on changing that and hope this is not something that will persist like the problem throughout the pandemic. that's not the tactic you are seeing the president taking and is putting all the blame back on the states. >> hope is not a plan. you would expect hope. any president would be focused on this right now. instead of disputing the election he lost. is there any sense of urgency among his inner circle though about their legacy, if not the president's here, with an immunization process that is not going well? >> i think it depends on who you ask. if you ask more of the political stafferers they're often really defensive when it comes to things like this. they were the same about testing and ventilators and ppe and they were discussing all that. they said the federal government can't do these things. neither can the departments in states that are not well funded.

they never are. but they are now. and they're in charge of testing and contact tracing and vaccine distribution. that's a lot of pressure on them. if you speak to the officials who were involved with operation warp speed, they do want to be where they promised they would be. it wasn't just one official saying offhanded they would have x amount of vaccines by the end of december. it was a slew of officials saying we will have this. we feel confident about this. and they know that this does undercut them and their credibility. i think they are working on it and it's only going to be something at the beginning. that, of course, remains to be seen. >> we'll see. those promises have been widdled down repeatedly. kaitlan collins with the president, thank you very much. joining us now served@clinton administration, also former covid adviser to vice president pence. olivia troye who you just heard from a moment ago. congresswoman shahlai la, you heard 2.6 million americans have been given the vaccine so far. the goal was 100 million by the end of this month, which is

tomorrow. then it was 40 million. then 20. it's 2.6 million now. is this, in your view, exposing deep problems in the rollout plan? >> it is. there's no question about it. thank you for having me on. there's no plan here. there's no plan for the last mile. they planned for the distribution, getting the vaccines out to the states, but they did not plan for how they were going to get enough vaccines into the arms of people in this country. and these numbers are much too small. even joe biden has said he's going to do 100 million in 100 days. he needs to do 200 million in 100 days. if he just does 100 million in 100 days, it'll take a year and a half to get the kind of herd immunity we need. we need to ramp up. by the way, the rest of the world knows how to do this. particularly the developing

world. i was once in india where within a weekend they got millions of people vaccinated because they coordinated every part of the health care system. we can't do this just by sending vaccines to hospitals. every part of our country has to be organized to get these vaccines into the arms of our citizens. >> yeah, look at the uk. they just approved the astrazeneca vaccine today and their health secretary says they're going to have the country done or 40 million of their country done by the end of march. olivia, as we mentioned earlier, you were a covid adviser to vice president pence. you wrote today on twitter in response to the president blaming states, we're quoting here, once again let's shift the blaum to the states on the covid distribution, just like you did with testing and ppe. billions of money was spent on operation warp speed. what is the point if americans are still suffering. it's your incompetence and

vindictiveness. i wonder, during your time in the administration, did some folks see this coming, this idea of laying it all on the states simply not working? >> absolutely. there is just no way that you would have worked in this environment knowing all of the obstacles that were being overcome along the way. and like we saw this with testing, that was a disaster. we saw this with ppe which was a disaster, especially at the beginning until fema steps in in an organized manner to bring order to the chaos. that's why fema exists. they have a whole network. they know how to do disaster response. and we couldn't have done it without them. they have the networks in the states. but we have these conversations in the task force about health departments at states. i remember specifically dr. fauci and dr. birx and even dr. hahn who have worked in hospitals, who are experts in this, who understand the hospital system, who have raised concerns along the way about the need to help and partner with

these states and to have their backs in it. it's unfair to drop off a load of vaccine and say, over to you, and it's, you know, we're going to wash our hands of it because that way we can blame the states and not take responsibility at the white house. >> congresswoman, this is extremely disappointing. there was so much hope. i was among the crew hoping that now we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here. i wonder -- there will be a new president in 21 days. he does take this seriously, president-elect biden. but how quickly can he and his administration fill the holes here? i mean, we spoke on the air the other day, for instance, about all the weight being put, for instance, on private pharmacies like cvs chains in terms of giving this out here. i mean, how quickly can the biden administration stand up what's needed to get these vaccines into people's arms? >> pretty quickly. and by the way, anyone that thinks there's a light at the end of the tunnel on this covid

raging disease is going in the wrong direction because we're just at the beginning of this. the biden administration will bring a sense of urgency. they can organize the country with that sense of urgency. and we can't be dependent just on our existing health care infrastructure. we're going to need additional sites for the distribution of this vaccine. and it's going to be more than just the pharmacies. it's going to be every clinic and probably independent sites set up so that we can get this vaccine into the arms of americans as quickly as possible. but it will take major organization. >> yeah. >> we have not been good at vaccine distribution in this country. only 45% of our people get the flu vaccine now. so, this is new for us. but other countries have done it. listen, i would call in unicef.

they've done large-scale vaccinations in countries, much larger than we've ever done. i'd call the world health organization. the developing world has a lot more experience than we do in the distribution of vaccines very quickly and very accurately. but the biden administration will bring the sense of urgency and a lot of skilled public health people with international experience. >> olivia, is that where we are? america in the year 2020, going into '21, 2021, one of the richest countries in the world? i've seen unicef at work in the poorest countries in the world delivering basic health care. does the u.s. today need that kind of help to get millions of americans vaccinated? >> well, unfortunately when you have had years of a leadership team in office that doesn't actually care about what it's doing right for the american people and in this previous year

during the major pandemic we are in a terrible situation right now. and it's going to take a long time for all of this to kind of pass and for us to get structures in place and bring order to this. and, you know, we're in a really divided situation right now as a country on this pandemic. you have people still not wearing masks, people -- and you have leadership -- you have republican leadership, especially, out there not wearing masks and setting terrible examples on a daily basis. and when you're encountering messaging like that on top of a raging virus that's really just raging across our country, i think we're in a very bad situation right now. >> well, lord, let's hope we can turn it around finally. congresswoman cha layla, olivia troye, thanks to both of you and thank for your service to this country. next what two public health professionals have to say about not only this new covid strain and what it means for all of us but also the vaccine rollout.

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the news late today that a faster spreading covid-19 variant has now been identified in a second state in this country, california, brought a familiar chill. and earlier today health officials in the first state to see this variant, colorado, said they believe they traced a second case of it to an assisted

living facility northeast of colorado springs. and as with the first, is a national guard member, part of a team deployed to ease a staffing shortage there. researchers in the uk where the variant was first discovered estimated it could be up to 70% more effective at spreading. plenty to talk about with cnn medical analyst dr. lena wen, also scientific director at colorado's department of public health and environment. if i could begin with you since colorado of course one of the first states to identify the presence of this variant, it's now in california, dr. fauci and others have said for days now it's here in this country. and clearly what we're seeing, are we not, that it's spreading within the community. these are not people who necessarily brought it themselves from outside the country. >> absolutely that's correct. the cases we have identified here in colorado, one confirmed and one probable, both have no history of travel during the incubation period, indicating

that it is likely caused by community spread. there's likely more of it out there that we haven't found yet. >> okay. do you have a sense based on how previous variants spread, if you see a couple of cases like this, do you have a sense of how far it's out there at this point? >> it's likely circulating around inside of our communities right now, given that we've seen it now show up in a second state. it's likely we've seen travel associated spread, as well as spread within the community. >> lord, okay, dr. wen, let me ask you this and i want to get this right because i don't want to mislead people, underestimate or overestimate the danger here. but if this variant is more transmissible, as the science seems to show, does that mean that steps we're taking to stop transmission, mask wearing, social distancing to six feet, are less effective? >> so, this is a very good point, jim, and i'm glad you brought it up because we do know so far that this variant appears to be more transmissible. so, it spreads more easily.

but it still spreads through the same route. it hasn't fundamentally changed. it's still an airborne virus spread through respiratory routes, through droplets also. the same mitigation measures, mask wearing, avoiding indoor gatherings, keeping physical distancing, that will still help -- those are still the tools that we have to prevent the spread of this particular variant. the issue though is that we have to get it under control faster because if it spreads more easily, we are going to get more cases of it, which means that our hospitalizations will also increase, will also get more deaths. >> simple question on mask wearing. i know it's early dr. wen, but is it likely that for instance, n95 masks, which we should note are harder to get, are safer than cloth masks? in general we already know that, but is that an early step that people should be thinking about, or is it too early to say? >> well, again nothing about

this particular variant seems to be different from the other variants of coronavirus in that it's still the same steps. so, the n95 mask is absolutely going to protect you more than the three ply surgical masks. the three ply surgical mask will protect you more than the cloth mask. but you should still find the mask you're able to wear consistently and well. the n95 is not particularly comfortable. >> i've been through it. understood. a couple of health experts we've spoken to in recent days has been one problem is we has a country have not been genetic sequencing as we've been testing so you can spot variants early. we're kind of learning about this late, right, because the uk found it. in colorado do you have the capability now to get a handle on this by doing that kind of thing when you test? >> right. so, it is true that the uk is a bit ahead of the united states in terms of its more widespread

approach to genome sequencing. but the cdc and many states have worked really hard to ramp up their sequencing they are doing and we have done that in colorado. when we first heard about this mutation and this variant of concern in the uk, we got together as a staff and really lo looked at what is our protocols here, and how can we be on the lookout for it. and we started surveilling the samples as they came in and looked at what they look like during the routine diagnostic pcr test or drop out of the s spike sequence to have a way to characterize a fingerprint for what might be a sample that needed to be sequenced. and that's how we were able to find ours. we started looking for it right away based on the communication we had heard from across the country. we are doing active surveillance sequencing already in colorado so we had those pipelines and pathways set up already. and we are work being the cdc

for national surveillance as well. >> understood. that's good medical detective work. dr. wen, big picture for a moment now if i could get your view on the vaccine rollout and the slow start to this, right, and the slow but gradual trimming down of this administration's promises from 100 million doses by tomorrow to 40 to 20. now we're at 2.6. how concerning is that to you and how quickly can the incoming administration turn that around? >> it's extremely concerning. i think it's a combination of several things. it's overpromising in the first place. it's also not having a national strategy but instead throwing up our hands and basically saying it's now the federal government has done their job. it's just with the production and initial distribution to the states. but after that the administration, it's all up to the states. we're not going to give you guidance or support or funding. it's your problem. and so i think ramping up from now is going to be very challenging because the infrastructure actually needed to be built months ago.

but that said, all is not lost. this needs to be an all of government response. we also need to enlist the private sector. we need to enlist community health clinics, churches, really everyone. it needs to be part of this vaccination drive, especially now that we know about these variant strains that are also in the u.s. if this is more transmissible and is more widespread also it's going to take us even more people who are vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity. >> yeah. >> so, we have to ramp up really rapidly and urgency needs to be our top priority here. >> well, lord, folks need good news. people need help. we've got to get the rate of infection down but also the death rate down. thanks so much for the work you're doing. >> thank you. coming up next we're going to ask senator tim kaine about the president's early return to washington and his attempt to get lawmakers to help him, listen to this, still going, overturn the election. so many of them actually won. 1 in 2 kids is under hydrated.

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as kaitlan collins reported at the top of the hour, the president is heading back early from mar-a-lago to washington, spoiling for a fight in congress over the election he cannot just admit that he lost. his latest hope, some kind of insurrection in the house and senate when they meet next week for the ceremony certification of electoral college votes. joining us now, one of the senators who will be present there, tim kaine, democrat of virginia. senator, thanks so much for taking the time tonight. >> absolutely, jim. good to be with you. >> cnn's understanding the

president is returning with a focus on january 6th. you now know one of your republican colleagues josh hawley will join republican house members in seeking to challenge these results on january 6th. what's your reaction? >> well, jim, i'm very, very sad that a president is trying to overthrow the popular vote. and yes, he's got some wannabes who will go along with him. but just like we're going to veto the defense bill, the only president to veto a defense bill in 60 years, we're going to overthrow his will to overthrow the will of the people. i think it's going to be democrat and republican votes telling him to take a hike and you can't undermine democracy. >> senator mcconnell explicitly did not want this to happen. he did not want a republican senator to take on this role because he's concerned about

republicans having to vote to reject the president's claim in the end. i wonder -- you speak to your republican colleagues up on the hill. are you concerned that some of them will feel the pressure here and go along with hawley instead and trump? >> the president is pressuring them. that's to be sure. but, jim, what you have to recognize is that this has been very, very carefully thought out. every state had to not only hold an election but then analyze the results, canvass, recount, certify the results. there have been dozens of court cases where the president's team have tried to overturn the results. they've all come to not. even attorney general barr said this election was clean and it can't be overturned. they'll make an effort. they'll put the pressure on. but i have confidence that my colleagues will stand up against a president trying to overthrow

the will of the american voter. >> as many trump appointed judges did, gop election officials. in many states we've seen that. i want to move on to the question of additional stimulus, the question of $2,000 payments. leader mcconnell said the bill to increase stimulus checks to the stargt of $2,000 has no realistic path to quickly pass the senate. i mean this after he attached other issues including a commission to look at voter fraud, which as you know has been on a widespread scale. is that effort now effectively dead? >> jim, there is a realistic path that would get $2,000 in the hands of americans who make less than $75,000 a year and their children. and that is if senator mcconnell would call up the house bill on the senate floor, we have reason to believe that it would get enough democratic and republican votes to go right to the president's desk. when senator mcconnell says there's no realistic path, i'm going to translate for you.

i will not put that bill up for a vote. he wants to, you know, layer it on with all kinds of other extraneous asks so that it will fall. but if he put up that bill that was passed in the house with bipartisan support, a bill that president trump supports, if he were to put it up for a vote in the senate tomorrow, it would pass. he's going to do everything he can to keep from doing that. the $2,000 checks aren't going to the american public because of the senate majority leader, not because of the desires of either the president or congress. >> and he's been public from the beginning opposing that additional stimulus. we at cnn have new reporting out just moments ago, myself along with my colleagues, ryan browne, barbara starr, and that is that there is deep disagreement at senior levels of this administration, including in the pentagon, over the potential of an imminent attack by iran on u.s. forces in the gulf, specifically in iraq. there have been efforts, as you

know, flying b-52 bombers in a show of force and deterrence. however i'm told by a senior defense official that there is no corroborating intelligence to indicate that an attack is actually imminent here. i wonder what your level of concern is about escalation to some sort of military confrontation with iran in the waning days of the trump administration? >> jim, i'm very worried about it. president trump has had us to the brink of war with iran twice during his administration. after he unilaterally cancelled the diplomatic deal with iran that the u.s. and our allies worked hard to achieve in 2015, when president trump backed out of this, he put us on a dangerous path of escalation, the u.s. against iran and vice versa. he's had us to the brink of war twice. and i'm very worried that he'll do the same in his last few weeks in office. we shouldn't be going to a new

war in the middle east and we especially shouldn't be doing it with a lame duck president who was rejected by the american public. we should never be in a war without a vote of congress, and i worry that this president may try to rush us into one on his way out the door. we'll do everything we can in congress to insist on the constitutional framework that says america doesn't go to war unless congress votes. >> and to your credit, i should tell viewers you should be consistent in your effort to get congress to restate congress's right to declare war. we appreciate you coming on tonight. we wish you the best for the holidays. >> in that principle i held it under democratic and republican presidents. it shouldn't be a war without a vote. >> folks should know that at home. consistency rare these days in washington. thanks very much and happy knew year to you. >> thanks jim. take care. more next on what senator hawley and the president think they are up to. and what if anything are the

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we're speaking tonight about republican law makers pledging to fight certification of joe biden's election victory next week. that and the political pandora's box it seems to have opened inside the gop. perspective from former senior political commentator, current kmem tod commentator rick santorum. senator santorum i want to start with you. you have personal experience with this. 16 years ago when the joint congress was about to certify george w. bush over-john kerry, barbara boxer made a challenge

to the results in ohio, to be clear, john kerry had already conceded that race the day after. there weren't dozens of court battles, et cetera, going on. i just wonder when you look at -- by the way, you, at the time, scheduled a role call vote to get people on the record about this. i just wonder do you consider this challenge as baseless as that challenge in 2004? >> if you just listen to what josh hawley is saying, he basically is saying the same thing in my opinion that barbara boxer said, which is i can't certify this election knowing of the irregularities that i believe happened in ohio. that's what she said 16 years ago. and hawley is saying the same thing, there were irregularities in pennsylvania, which there were, and irregularities in other states and he's not going to stand by without bringing that up and having that voice on the floor of the house and having it voted on. barbara boxer knew she wasn't going to win that. i think josh hawley knows he's

not going to win that objection. he, like boxer, felt it was important to bring this up and have this moment -- >> but i'm asking you. >> -- where it was brought into focus. >> by the way, let me quote the republican senator from the state of pennsylvania where hawley from another state is saying pennsylvania didn't follow its own laws. he, senator pat toomey said the following, with today's decision this is going back to a court decision a couple of weeks ago by judge matthew brandt a long term conservative, president trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in pennsylvania. that's the republican senator from the great state of pennsylvania, right? >> i'm not arguing. >> so, i'm just curious if you call that a travesty in 2004, why does this one have legs to stand on? >> i don't think -- i don't think either of them do. i think that they're both trying to accomplish the same thing, which is simply draw attention

to irregularities that stephanie thompson in ohio and barbara boxer believed in ohio back then. obviously the ohio delegation, including mike dewine who is now governor, strongly spoke out against that. i think you're going to see similar comments on the floor of the senate when this issue comes up. they're designed to accomplish the same thing, which is to make a point but not to overturn anything ultimately. >> amanda, do you agree? >> no. here's the thing. is josh hawley really taking political strategic advice from barbara boxer? i'd be surprised if conservatives endorsed that. at the time barbara boxer did that, all the republicans painted her into a corner and depicted her as a conspiracist loon, pointing out she was the single vote in the senate against certification. and that's what republicans should be doing now. the thing that's different is that josh hawley is playing directly to the conspiracist

loon crowd that is egged on by the president. i don't buy for a second that this is some principled stance and he wants to investigate voter irregularities because the people egging him on, the people he's linking arms with, are talking about cancelling votes and sedition and giving donald trump a second term. and i would expect that josh hawley, with all his fancy school degrees realized that. he knows what he's doing. and he's acting like this is his only chance to register his concerns about the election and facebook. he has no other choice but to stand up and do this. that is a bunch of bologna because he knows exactly what he's doing. this is a scam to play to the trump crowd that thinks the election was rigged. it wasn't. the department of justice hasn't found anything. the supreme court wouldn't hear the cases.

and republican states certified these results. josh hawley doesn't have anything special in his back pocket or any secret knowledge that those three major entities do not. >> amanda, the -- we should note, josh hawley possibly has his own sights set on 2024 as a presidential candidate. mitch mcconnell did not want this to happen because he did not want republican senators to have to vote no against the president on this. do you see, amanda -- how do republican senators react on january 6th? do some of them feel the pressure from this president to do what hawley's doing? >> yeah, and i think that the people that don't want to follow the cracking caucus completely down the rabbit hole will hide behind this voter irregularity stuff. we tried this, right, after donald trump was run. he had a whole voter commission to investigate the fraud. it was disbanded.

they didn't find anything. then the famed republican lawyer said this is the lock necessary amongst administer that nobody can find. there's this idea that goes unquestioned that somehow people didn't follow the laws on the books. there was states that expanded access to mail voting because of the pandemic. if people wanted to do something about that, all those republican state legislatures should have changed the law before the election. they could have done that. they sat on their hands because they also wanted those mail-in votes. so, for everybody to try to change the rules after the fact, it's a big giant sham and i can't describe it as anything else. >> we'll be watching next week, amanda carpenter, senator santorum, thanks so much for your time and very happy new year to you and your families. >> thanks. change of pace ahead. music legend willie nelson talks with anderson about his close relationship with jimmy carter in advance of a great documentary, "jimmy carter: rock

and roll president." that's next. ♪ sanctuary music (kids laughing) (dog barking) ♪ sanctuary music it's the final days of the wish list sales event sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. mom's love that land o' frost premium sliced meats have no by-products.

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as this unsettling and anxiety-filled year comes to an end, finally, a reminder now of

how things used to be. jimmy carter was america's 39th president, and used his passion for music to help him win the 1976 election. a new, cnn film, "jimmy carter rock and roll president," will chronicle that journey. premieres sunday night, 9:00 p.m., eastern time. one of the key figures in it is legendary musician and songwriter, willie nelson. he sat down with anderson, recently, to talk about their mutual love for music and life during covid. >> willie, it's such an honor to talk to you. a real pleasure. first of all, how's quarantine been for you? >> well, it's boring. i'd rather be out playing music. >> i'm not sure, a lot of people realize, you actually have a long history and friendship with former president carter. and you played for him and mrs. carter, at the white house. you played for them in georgia, his hometown, even nobel peace prize ceremony. how did you first come to know

each other? >> well, we run into each other when he was running for president. and maybe, before that. i don't know. because he's been coming out on my shows, for years. him and rosalyn. come out and they always sing the gospel songs with me. so, i'm not sure how long it's been. but it's been quite a while. >> there were a lot of musicians in and out of the carter white house. yourself, included. also, the almond brothers, bob dylan. what was it like, back when you would visit? >> oh, it was great. you know, jim and i would jive together and hang out. and we had a lot of fun. >> there is a kind of infamous story that you wrote about in your autobiography, president carter, later confirmed it. about you smoking pot on the roof of the white house. i know, in your book, you said it was with the servant because you didn't want to get his son in trouble, which i thought was really classy of you. the president later came out, and said it was actually his son, chip carter. there is a ton of questions that pop into my head about this. but how did this end up

happening? >> oh, i don't know. you know, chip and i were buddies, too. and he was showing me around the white house. we went into -- to the basement. and they have a bowling alley down there. and we went into the lincoln bedroom and all that good stuff. and then, we went up on the roof and looked around. and that was pretty cool. >> pretty cool, indeed. i'm kind of curious whether it was stuff that you brought? or whether it was stuff that he brought. but i won't go -- i won't rpry for details. >> i don't remember. >> yeah. it doesn't matter. in the end, it doesn't matter. it's all about sharing. >> yeah, absolutely. absolutely. >> i think, a lot of americans have, you know, have an image of president carter maybe as kind of cardigan-wearing, certainly devout christian, which he was and obviously still is. yet, i mean, it's fascinating how he was hanging out with so many music folks. how important it became to him, in a way, for his political

life. and opening him up to people, maybe, who didn't know about him, before. >> well, i think it just showed you how open minded he is and how, you know, understanding he is. he knew me. he knew chip. you know, he knew we were just kidding running around, having way too much fun. >> well, i heard -- i read a "rolling stone" piece. said quote, all the good things i did as president, all the mistakes i made, you can blame half of that on willie. >> i accept. >> you accept. that's kind of a badge of honor, i would think. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> what are you looking forward to, most, once -- once everything kind of gets back to some semblance of normal? >> well, i miss playing music. i miss the crowds. you know, there was a great energy exchange that happens, you know, whether it's me or anybody on stage. people drive a long way, pay a lot of money, to see somebody, clap their hands, and that is

healthy, i think. they need music, and we need to play it. >> well, willie, it's such an honor to talk to you and i really appreciate your time and i wish you the best. i hope you get back on the road, quickly and soon. we need you out there. >> thank you, anderson. i enjoy your show, very much. >> that's an interview i wanted to do, anderson and willie nelson. here is a reminder of that documentary again. "jimmy carter rock and roll president," premiering here on cnn, sunday night, 9:00 p.m., eastern time. coming up next, a preview of the best way we can imagine of ringing out a year that leaves us all a little rung out. your f. so are we. prudential helps 1 in 7 americans with their financial needs. that's over 25 million people. with over 90 years of investment experience, our thousands of financial professionals can help with secure video chat or on the phone. we make it easy for you with online tools, e-signatures, and no-medical-exam life insurance.

plan for better days. go to prudential.com or talk to an advisor. unfortunately, we are still limiting in-person appointments due to the pandemic and we'll need to move your father's visit to a later date. we're sorry. hola, papa. american cancer society helpline. how can i help you?

well, the coronavirus will not prevent the annual tradition of watching anderson and his buddy, bravo's andy cohen, ringing in the new year here on cnn. let's just put it that way. in fact, best let anderson and andy describe exactly what's in store. >> you have, also, introduced me to alcohol, which is, i'm not sure, a good development. let's take -- >>