president trump is spending his final days in office much

like his presidency, spewing utter nonsense on twitter, focusing entirely on himself, watching cable news, bullying republicans, and trying to win at all costs. he's doing it as hospitals overflow and millions of american die from the coronavirus. he's attacking the foundation of democracy on two fronts. in congress in two days, and over the phone two days ago, which is when the president pressured georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger to find votes. this recording of a 62-minute call was released last night. >> the people of georgia are angry. the people of the country are angry, and there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. so, look all i said to do is this. i just want to find is 11,780

votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. what are we going to do here, folks? i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. raffensperger and his attorney pressed back. today the secretary of state added this -- >> for the last two months we've been fighting a rumor whack-a-mole. it was pretty often early on we debunked every theory out there, but president trump continues to believe them. >> did you consider it a lawful request when the president asked you to find the votes? >> i'm not a lawyer. all i know is we're going to follow the process. truth matters. dianne gallagher, and kaitlan collins is in dalton, georgia, where the president is headlines

a he rally tonight. kaitlan, you're learning just how much the president pursued the secretary of state to make that call happen. >> reporter: yeah, there were a lot of calls attempted to happen before that call actually took place on saturday, the call that lasted more than an hour. now we are learning that there were 18 calls placed from the white house switchboard to brad raffensperger office in the last several weeks. that's 18 times. that mean the president or one of his staffers has attempted to contact the georgia secretary of state. and the secretary of state this morning said that's the first time he had the one-on-one conversation, of course there were attorneys and chief of staff listening in, because he did not want to discuss these things with the president given the fact they're in the middle of this litigation. that would require the attorneys to be on the calling but also, if you listen to this recording,

you can see why they released this call to the reporters, but why he didn't want to get in on him in the first place. it was an hour barrage of the president talking constantly, cutting off their own attorneys when they were asking for certain data, the president making clear the once thing he wants is not more data, more proof, more evidence. he simply wants to change the vote count in the state of georgia. what we are also her is the white house counsel was not on that call. that's notable because you could hear the secretary of state's counsel that is pushing back on the president's clients. i think pat cippiloni not on the call is how senior staff are trying to distance themselves free this effort out of a fear of what could result, what backlash there could be. that's also something working at with mark meadows being on the call and what he said. >> that's a very interesting

absence you point out there, kaitlan. dianne, when you listen to this call, the president was flawout nasty to the georgia secretary of state. he said the people of georgia hate hem for what he did. what ises on being said more? >> reporter: what is interesting is that, according to a person on the call and has direct knowledge of the conversation, raffensperger said that he wanted the conversation recorded, but did not want anyone to release that recording or the transcript unless the president attacked him or misrepresented that conversation in some way. pretty much on cue, the president on sunday morning attacked secretary raffensperger. kaitlan said 18 different times the president attempted to reach out or someone attempted to reach out. he admits he was intentionally avoiding the conversation. take a listen. >> i never believed it was appropriate to speak to the president, but she pushed out,

and had -- they wanted the call. the challenge we have, first of all we're in litigation mode with the president's team against the state of georgia. whenever you say anything, you do have to have your advisers there. they had to have their advisers there with lawyers, and so i just preferred not to that you can to someone when we're in litigation. we let the lawyers handle it, but we took the call. we had a conversation. he did most of the talking, we did most of the listening, but i did want to make my points. the data he has is just plain wrong. >> reporter: yeah, those points he was making pretty much mishor what the on secretary of state's office is doing. the president still not ability to accept the fact that president-elect joe biden won, that election has been validated three different times, that real-time fact check of those essentially conspiracy theories that the president was spewing, it appears they're going to be dish they're setting up a press conference, the secretary of

state's office expected to speak in about an hour here now. what they're looking into is the criminality of this conversation, the most senior elections board member has asked the secretary of state's office to look into whether or not that phone call with the president and the secretary of state amounted to some form of election fraud violation here in the state of georgia. the district attorney in fulton county issued a statement. i just want to read one thing from her today. she said sonce the investigatio is complete, this matter will be based on the facts and law. i will enforce the law without fear or favor. >> we'll see what comes of that. dianne, thank you so much, and kaitlan, we appreciate your report as well. matthew sullivan is special counsel for election integrity at the campaign legal center and has caught a court on disputed

presidential elections. matthew, thank you so much for being with us. happy new year to you. when you listened to this conversation, you said that you saw two crimes possibly being committed under georgia code. the first one you said was intentional interference with the performance of election duties. explain that to us. >> thanks for having me on, brianna. it's great to be here. the first theory of criminal liability that i see is georgia law makes it a crime to intentional interfere with or hinder or delay in an election official's performance of his duties, and it requires secretary raffensperger to tabulate, compute and tabulate as certified by the counties in november. he has already done that. the president on this phone call seems to be pressuring the secretary to change that canvass. that sounds to me like it might be intentionally interfering with secretary raffensperger's

canvass. >> the other possible crime you say that the president possibly committed, is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud. >> georgia law also makes it a crime to solicit or request that someone violate the election laws. so it also sounds like the president is asking secretary raffensperger to commit a crime. it's a little less clear that the president committed this crime, i think, because the scope of the legal duties that the second provision applies to is a bit narrower, so i think that's less clear, but the first legal violation i think is much stronger. >> in the case of a state criminal prosecution, you know, that's something something somehow came to fruition here in the next few weeks, that would be something that the president cannot pardon himself from. what if there's a prosecution after he levers office? >> that's correct, the

president's power to pardon is to pardon offenses against the united states. that is federal crimes. these are state crimes, and the president has absolutely no power to pardon himself or anyone else for violations of state law. >> do you think there will be any sort of prosecution or investigation in georgia? >> it's hard to say for two reasons. first, there's so many political and policy questions that go into whether the prosecutor chooses to bring a prosecution, and second, and the more complicated aspect of this potential case, is what the president actually believes. in this phone call he repeated numerous debunked conspiracy theories that there's definitive proof that are false, but we don't know if he actually believes them. if they knows they're false, the criminal case is stronger, but if he's really bought into them and believes these conspiracy theories, it's a lot harder to

say that he intentionally was trying to get secretary raffensperger to violate his legal duties. so ultimately it depends on how prosecutors interpret the president's incoherent and sometimes inconsistent statements on that phone call. >> matthew, thank you so much for clearing some of this up. we os appreciate it. matthews seligman. michael, happy new year to you. i wonder if you think the president honestly believes all of this stuff he's saying, or was that just a phone call about throwing anything against the wall, even if it's unverifiable even if he can convince election officials to change results in a state he lost. >> brianna, happy new year to you as well. i think matthew nailed it. it goes to the requisite criminal intent. if the president believes what he's saying, if he believes he's

been the victim of widespread fraud, then i think it's a very difficult case to prosecutor. it's a rorschach test, as a matter of fact it's a survey question on my website where i'm asking people, do you think he believes it. the vast majority thinking he does not believe it and is seeking to manipulate the result. but if he buys into all those thoughts that are sharing and that you are unsubsubstantiated and debunked, it makes it a hard case to prosecutor. >> but the president saying i need 11,000 votes, give me a break. he seems in that regard to know we wants one more than joe biden had. >> true. you would think, to his benefit he would have said there's been an error here that needs to be corrected, and that's why the number is 11,780. so that mitigates against it, but you know, it reminds me frankly of the ukraine telephone

call for which he ended up being impeached. it was a very similar circumstance, in that people wanted to read a seemingly straightforward telephone conversation and transcript different ways, depending largely on their political view of the world. >> conservative -- michael, explain that. why do you think it's two different ways just based on someone's impression or their view of the world? >> i do. i look at the way this very story is covered today and discussed, and to go into conservative media is to hear, well, the president is agrieves, he's angry about it, and this is what i've heard throughout the court of the day today, so of course he's taking up his argument with the top election official in the state of georgia, and that's brad raffensperger. >> and then on the other side, people who believe the facts of

the case about how the votes tally up in georgia see this very differently. >> well, the other side is to say he couldn't possibly believe any of this, because 60 or so legal challenges have all failed. there's a disconnect between the type of thinking that he exhibited in that phone call and what has actually been litigated on his behalf. not even rudy giuliani in the pennsylvania federal litigation would say there was fraud that had occurred in the common wealth. that which gets said in social media mirrors that what we heard in the phone call yesterday. frankly that's not what they have alleged in different litigation. i'm so curious, michael to get your point of view of what you think is happening in the senate. you have a number of republicans who are going to contest the electoral vote count on wednesday. then you have some who are breaking with their republican colleagues. tom cotton, one of the trump's

staunchest supporters, is opposing this pla pln. tweet called it the surrender caucus. what do you think about this divide over this call about whether or not to contest. >> i hate to be so cynical, but i think each is acting with an eye toward 2024, and that josh hawley, by being the first in the senate to say i'm going to buy into this, i'm going to play along on wednesday and contest the election was seeking to lay claim to that trump constituency, i get leaving cotton nowhere to go but be the opponent. the president himself is a player, and so too is vice president pence. they're all very forward-looking. what i am most interested in seeing, brianna, what the president says tonight. here you have the entire power

of the united states senate hanging in the balance, control of the senate hanging in the balance, and the president through his repeated contesting of the election results is deny ing norse pursue and leave her, and that argument is to say we, your georgia united states senators are the bulwark that stands before all democratic control of the house, the senate and the white house as long as this fiction is, they could just make that case. democrats control everything, but of course he can't say that because of everything else udescribing.

as you said he's stealing the argument from himself. >> michael, thanks for being on. the next real crisis, one american dying of covid every 33 seconds. the failure to get life-saving vaccine into people's harms, they're considering giving half doses the moderna to people under 55. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, ...little things... ...can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla.

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350,000 deaths. those are verified figures, but president trump tweeted over the weekend he believes those numbers are exaggerated let's discuss this with the doctor. how do you feel at this point, more than nine months into this pandemic with the death toll, when you hear the president making a claim like that. >> first, happy new year, great to see you. across the board this is very disappointing, right? here we are, january 2021. the reality of the pandemic being challenged by our very own president. my answer to this, is let's invite both president trump, governor desantis, to come spend a day in the life with a frontline worker. i would love to see them join me in my clinic, in the ucu, assist in the indubation of a patient,

look them in the eye, go outside in the waiting room and talk to the family members who have questions, who want to know how it happened, how it could have been prevented, and why their loved one died. this is the reality of what we're dealing with. our political leadership needs to step into the shoes of a frontline worker, really experience it, and add that perspective to their policies i think it's sometimes unfathomable, but then you have the trauma of a lot of frontline workers you are describing. these are their daily experiences. i want to get your assessment. the first recipient of the u.s. just gout her second and time dose. now there's debate over delaying the second dose for other folks in order to speed up

distribution of the first dose. is that a good idea? >> the bottom line is this has been anything but warp speed, right? what we're seeing here in florida, frontline workers, many community physicians have not been able to get the vaccine. they advertised to seniors 65 and older they could get the vaccines. folks with sitting outlook it was black friday, only to have the doors open and there's no vaccine realized e we have to's assess our weaknesses two thirds of every vaccine that's distributed is sitting in a freezer instead of getting into individuals' arms. the first arms they need to get into is frontline workers. we are failing at this. we need to look at the logistics, and the coordination of care that's failing so we can get to 100. if my little one came home with a score of 20%, right? we were promised 20 million

americans would be vaccinated by the end of the year. the reality is we've done 4 million an change. that's a failing grade. for the record my daughter is an a-plus student, but our leaders need to be held accountable. when you're failing, you stop, you assess, look for the weaknesses and aim for 100. we have the opportunity to change this we've got to work together, acknowledge our weaknesses, and then we can get better each and every day. we cannot fail at there. dr. gee, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. next it's the final 24 hours before a vote in georgia determines of balance of power in congress. both trump and biden are making campaign stops there today, but republicans officials are worried the president will do more harm than good after that disastrous call. we're going to take you to georgia live.

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georgia voters go to the polls tomorrow in a runoff election to determine who has a control of the senate. both president trump and president-elect biden will be in the state today, and it also explains the enormous amount of money being spent there. almost half a billion from both sides. arlette saenz is there. everything hangs in the balance for joe biden, about what his

term will look like as president. what will he say to georgia voters to try to get them to the polls? >> reporter: brianna, president-elect biden left delaware a few moments ago to make his way here to atlanta, where he broadband campaigned with jon ossoff and rafael warnock, as these senate runoffs will determine the course and control of the senate, and also how successful president-elect biden's agenda will be in congress. we will see the president-elect campaigning here in these runoffs for the sect time later today, and this will also be the first time that we see the president-elect and hear from him since that explosive audio showed president trump pressures georgia officials to find votes to alter the course of the election. the president-elect himself has not commented on that just yet, but vice president elect camera harris was in georgia, in

savannah yesterday, where she had a blunt assessment of the call. >> have you all heard about that recorded conversation? it was certainly the voice of desperation, most certainly that, and it was a bold-faced, bold abuse of power by the president of the united states. >>. >> reporter: so we will see if president-elect biden will issue his own comments here, but really what the president-elect is trying to do here is mobilize the same voters that turned out for him in november, that helped him flip the state from red to blue back in the general election. so much of what the president-elect hopes to accomplish could hinge on this race, which will determine control of the senate. if the two democratic candidates were to win, that would set up

vice president-elect kamala harris to be the tiebreaking votes in the senate. there's so much from climate change to immigration and health care that the president-elect is hoping to push forward that would be easier to do if the democrats win here in georgia tomorrow. >> yes, instead. thank you, arlette. and vice president pence just wrapped up a -- now as georgia's governor puts it, the phone call has become a distraction. cnn's robin -- ryan nobles -- hello, i know your name, ryan. sorry i messed that up. but you're in milner, georgia, where the vice president just spoke to supporters. how concerned are the campaigns over the impact of this call from president trump, and also what he might say tonight? >> reporter: well, i would say

they're very concerned, brianna. this entire runoff has been spent by republicans trying to explain away president trump's behavior since the election, because they do not want to alienate trump supporters here in georgia, while the republican party is very strong in this state, traditionally a red state for quite some time, there's no doubt that president trump holds an unequal sway on some of these republican voters. it's been a difficult asking to try to tell the republican voters that a, the election is filled with fraud, which it's not, but then try to convince them they still need to vote on tuesday. the vice president mike pence tried to strike that balance during his speech here a few hours ago. take a listen. >> i want to assure you, i share the concerns of millions of americans about voting irregularities. i promise you, come this wednesday, we'll have our day in congress. we'll hear the objections. we'll hear the evidence, but

tomorrow is georgia's day. so for our faith, for our freedom, we need you to vote georgia, vote to send david perdue and kelly loeffler back to the united states senate. >> reporter: what you hear there from vice president pence is very similar to what you've heard from david perdue and kelly loeffler. they continue to lean into the president's conspiracy theories about the election that was run here in georgia, despite the republican leaders stating emphatically nothing was wrong, there was no evidence of fraud, and that joe biden won that election. what is interesting, though, the secretary of state's call has a new wrinkle to this, which means tonight could get a little crazy at the president's event. i talked to one republican official who said, if the president came and just delivered a message that was to get these republican voters -- or senators reelected, that it

would just frankly be dumb luck. what they are hoping for, brianna is that the president's rhetoric is already baked into the cake, there isn't anything more he can do to turn off voters. what is interesting, i tried to talk to about half a dozen republicans as they left this event today. very few had any idea about this call with the secretary of state. it's just not something in their orbit. we probably won't know until tomorrow night. >> very interesting, thank you for sharing that with us. ryan nobles in georgia, we appreciate it. next, a former aide to isn't says the senators willing to object to the electoral votes are signs of a weak and rotten party. he's going to join us to talk about where the party goes in the post-trump era.

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does it carry his mantle, or try to return to some semblance of sanity? senator josh hawley isn't just engaging in civic vandalism, emblem of a weak, and author of this piece is with es, peter will talk to us about what he wrote there. he's worked for three republican presidents, ronald reagan and both of the bush presidents, also the author of "death of politics." thank you so much for being with us. >> you bet. thanks for having me on. >> first up, what is your reaction. i'm sure this plays very much into the thesis of what you wrote. >> yeah, it does. i mean, both shocked and not shocked. shocked in the sense that the president of the united states would pull a stunt like this, talk essentially like on mob

boss, and apply such pressure. what he does was clearly an abuse of power, may very well have been illegal as well. that's on the shocking side. what is not on the shocking side is donald trump did this. this is exactly the kind of thing one would expect from donald trump. this is what he was like before he became president. it is what he's been like since he's president and what he will be like after the presidency. he was acting in type. anybody that is surprised by where we've ended. any republicans who is surprised, this trump presidency, all the corruption, has had their head in the sand. it has to be willful blindness. this was almost inevitable, that trump, gives think sociopathic tendencies would bring us to this. >> you write -- the problem with the republican establishment, quote, is not that they are crazy or they don't know any

better, it's that they are cowards and weak. they are far more ambitious than principled, and willing to damage american politics and society rather than being criticized by their own tribe. i mean, it's a pretty stunning statement, but it's also sort of -- i don't want to say it's cynical, but it's sort of they know what they're doing, but doing it anyway our ambition. >> i think it's an objective assessment of the facts. i should say there's a few honorable exceptions. mitt romney among those. but look, beyond that, i've had conversations with republican lawmakers, and i nope other people who have. they do know better. they are not trumpian. they don't like trump. they don't like dealing with him, but they're afraid of him or the base, and some of them are acting in ways driven by a their hyper-ambition, and we had

people like ted cruz, josh hawley and others, who want to take advantage of that, and who because of their own ambitions, are willing to do real damage to the country. >> you write about what an acquaintance of hawley told you, that what you willie wants to pretend the lies are true. explain that thinking there. >> well, you know, josh hawley is not tommy tuberville, he went to stanford law school -- graduated from stanford, went to yale law school, clerked for the supreme court. he knows this effort to overthrow the election and all the charges of fraud, these are insane conspiracy theories. he knows it, but he's saying the opposite. he's playing to this attitude in the base, which trump, of course, is inflaming, which is this notion that the election was stolen and there was fraud. we floe that that was not the

case. so hawley is pretending this is true. they're going through this dance, this kabuki dance, they have entered the world of makebelieve, so they talk about -- so he's lying. he's lying. he knows better. he knows what the truth is, but is telling falsehoods instead. it's a shame. he's a bright guy, and in a different republican party, he could have a bright future. as it happens, he's fundamentally week weak, and at the date i think unpatriotic, and casting his lot to the forces that are doing real damage to the country, and as a lifelong republicans, working in three administrations, it's painful and discouraging to see. >> it's a fascinating piece, and thank for you coming on to talk

about it, and happy new year. >> happy new year to you, too, and good luck to us all. minutes from now, the georgia secretary of state will hold a news conference in the wake of that brazen phone call where the president asked limb to find enough votes to overturn a free and fair election. we'll bring it to you live. stand by. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees so you can start investing today, wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood.

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schedule and it's become comically sad at this point. since the election, he's had no events listed on his schedule for 36 days, only public appearances open to the press, only two of those where he took questions and one on-camera interview on fox, of course. since christmas eve, cnn has released these two sentences. quote, during the holiday season, president trump will continue working tirelessly for the american people. his schedule includes many meetings and calls. five of those days he actually spent golfing. one of those days he did make a call, one where he potentially committed an illegal act by asking georgia election officials to find votes and overturn the election, but this isn't a president working tirelessly for the american people, this is nero playing the fiddle while rome burns. only it's trump and there is no fiddle. he's just tapping out mean tweets on his iphone and taking

pu putts and gimmes while americans die of the coronavirus. he is being compared to president nixon. this is a comparison by carl bernstein as well, the team that broke the american scandal. >> this is far worse than the nixon presidency. what we have just heard is that in any other conceivable moment in our history, this would result in the leadership of both parties calling for the resignation of the president of the united states immediately. what we're listening to here is the president composing a conspiracy to steal the election. >> my next guest has spent the past year writing on nixon and watergate. garrett graff it also a cnn contributor. you called this dangerous and more damaging to american democracy than watergate. tell us why? >> it already is, brianna.

i think carl bernstein is exactly right, that this tape is in many ways worse than anything that we saw in watergate. and there's a big reason for that. at its fundamental core, richard nixon and all the criminality and corruption that surrounded him was about corrupting the game of politics, corrupting the playing field where the campaign was going to take place. what we have seen donald trump do repeatedly and most recently in this tape but hardly only on this tape is tried to corrupt the institutions of democracy. these are the traditions and rituals that bind us together as americans generation after generation, the things that make our democracy work. and that's the type of damage that is hard to rebuild, and it's particularly troubling to watch the republican party, which has, for decades and

centuries, played along according to this agreed-upon set of rules for our democracy, play along now with donald trump to undermine the very democracy, the very types of traditions that we need in order to function as a country going forward. >> nixon also didn't have this disinformation campaign that trump has fueled over the past five years and that also has existed separate from him, and republicans as well on board pushing lies and conspiracies. when it came to nixon, he actually lost the support of the american people, and that was really the turning point of losing support from republicans. >> absolutely. and one of the things that's remarkable is that richard nixon's depths of his disapproval with the american people were not that much lower than donald trump's disapproval. but the republican party then had a shared commitment to

democracy and was willing, for the good of the country, to remove and push for the removal of their own party's leader, understanding that it was important for the country and that it was important for the ability of their party to govern and participate in politics in the future. this republican party today is making a very different choice, choosing authoritarianism and this illegal attempt to overthrow the election over the basic rights and traditions of our democracy. >> garrett, it is great to see you. thank you so much for talking to us about this, garrett graff. >> always a pleasure. next we'll bring you a live news conference from the georgia secretary of state. you'll hear his response to president trump's efforts to get him to steal the election. the experts at safelite autoglass came right to me... with service i could trust. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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hi there, you're watching cnn on this monday. thank you so much for being with me. i'm brooke baldwin. i want to begin with just the unthinkable. just 16 days before the inauguration of a successor, a new extreme and a new low from this president all laid bare in audio obtained by cnn. so when this hour-long phone call happened, president trump repeatedly pushes georgia's secretary of state to find more votes for him, the bullying is belligerent, the threats are blatant, and the demands in the center of it are possibly illegal. >> the people of georgia