hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king in washington. this is a special martin luther king jr. day edition in the newsroom. it's a monumental week. in 48 hours the trump presidency ends and the biden administration ends. there is a quiet chill in washington right now. security hovers over our inauguration preparations. the nation's capitol is a view of checkpoints and bomb-sniffing dogs. a guard contingent deployed across the city under complete scrutiny at this hour. people worry about insider

attacks, that some those in charge of protecting the inaugural is where the president's focus lies and the inaugural could be interrupted. the president-elect today spending this holiday morning, you see him there, packing goods for families in need. that's in philadelphia. joe biden enters the office wednesday with a big challenge. americans believe his win is illegitimate. an empty cabinet that counts on a more competent, and yes, more active government. critical agencies finally get senate hearings tomorrow. one day one issue, rebooting the coronavirus strategy. >> nearly 4,000 deaths a day, almost 400,000 deaths total by the middle of february.

we expect half a million deaths in this country. and we still yet haven't seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel, from holiday gathering in terms of high rates of hospitalizations and the deaths thereafter. so, yes, i think we still have some dark weeks ahead. >> president trump refuses to reach out to the president-elect or to extend to him the normal transition courtesies. aides say instead president trump is anxious for a big send-off wednesday morning and we are told to expect a long list of pardons and kcommutatios in the long hours of the end of the president's term. still two big questions. when will house speaker nancy pelosi send over the articles of impeachment? and when will that senate trial start? let's go to kaitlan collins at the white house. kaitlan, i guess from beginning to end, trump has been norm busting, so it just rolls away. but he still, still has not

called president-elect joe biden. the state department had to extend the invitation for the bidens to spend the night before the inauguration at blair house because the president just refuses. >> even the vice president, it took him over ten weeks to call the vice president-elect and talk to her about that transition. still no contact between president trump and joe biden. yet we are still not expecting it. typically what you've seen in the last several successions of the presidency, the former president leaves a letter for his successor. we have not heard any reporting on whether or not president trump intends to do that. it seems incredibly unlikely given he hasn't even called joe biden yet, so this comes as the president is making his last-minute moves for his last few days in office. one of the big things we're expecting today or tomorrow is going through that list of pardons which we are told is about 100 people long, and of course, there could still be some last-minute tweaks to it, but there's been intensive

lobbying going on on behalf of former officials, close allies, to make sure the people they want on that list is on that list. it's unclear what the president plans to do about pardoning himself or his family. one person currently on the list is a prominent eye doctor from west palm beach, dr. selma morgan. he was convicted on dozens of charges of health care fraud. he's serving about 17 years in prison. he was notable because he was the co-conspirator named in the senate trial of bob menendez. the president often complains about him, but melgen is up to be pardoned, but that's still up in the air because when they had the meeting at the white house with the president, ivanka trump, jared kushner, a few

others, remember saturday we saw rudy giuliani at the white house, so that raised questions on whether or not he would be representing the president on this impeachment trial when we find out when it is going to happen, but he said he is not going to be representing the president. we heard him on abc news that because he spoke at that insurrection rally on capitol hill, he cannot represent the president, but we've heard there are a lot of tensions going on between the president and rudy giuliani, so they are still finalizing what that legal team is going to look like. john, this is going to be when the president is out of office. he's going back to florida on wednesday, leaving wednesday morning. we saw moving trucks from a d.c.-based company today at mar-a-lago looking like they're getting prepared for the president's arrival there before joe biden is sworn in on wednesday. >> it will be a remarkable 48 hours and we will watch the president's actions to the very end as the new team comes in. kaitlan collins, thank you. we're grateful for your reporting and insights.

the challe lnges for the ne administration are many, but the new president takes over at a historic disadvantage. he has no cabinet officials ready to immediately take over government operations. with us, jackie kusinoch of "the daily beast" and jeff zeleny. jackie, normally the senate would start confirmation hearings so the president has a defense secretary, has a treasury secretary, in the last dozen years or so, has a secretary of homeland security on day one. janet yellen for treasury, alejandro mayorkas, but those hearings will be tomorrow. joe biden will step into office and have to name actings at a moment of so many crises in the government. how much of an obstacle is that? >> not only that, john, for

somebody who has this unity message, he also has an impeachment trial hanging over his head. obviously to keep the focus on president trump, perhaps on the fishers among republicans and democrats instead of this message we're expecting him to put forward on wednesday. but surely they've been having these transition teams trying to, you know, brief these incoming bureaucrats coming into these various positions, but you can't substitute actually having someone foundationally there. it's just another layer of uncertainty that biden is going to have to face going into the government. i'm sure they're going to say they'll be able to push through this like they pushed through some of the other delays, but, again, they're looking at a playing field that is very difficult going into their new administration. >> it is understandable, jeff, that tha that they're asking for some patience. they haven't had confirmation hearings yet. they're coming into a raging

pandemic. listen to ron klain, the chief of staff in 48 hours, saying, we're going as fast as we can but we inherited some problems. >> we inherited some huge problems, jake. but the president-elect named some steps to move forward, to make pace with the vaccination. >> i get it, and they're right, they are hearing several messages from the current administration. however, when joe biden takes his hand off that bible 48 hours from now, he's accountable. >> no question, it will become his mess, and they realize that, john, no question. the fact there are no cabinet secretaries in these key positions is important and it does matter. i guess the bright side for the biden team coming in that come wednesday as well in the afternoon, democrats will now effectively control the senate, a 50-50 split with then vice president-elect kamala harris splitting the difference there.

so that's the bright side. but there is really, you know, no -- it's unfortunate and a sign of the times in washington that these cabinet secretaries, at least some of them, have not already had hearings and been confirmed. one of them was supposed to be last week. a senator objected saying they wanted to have the hearing in person as opposed to virtually, which is the way almost all the business has been conducted. so the republicans have been dragging their feet on this for weeks now. come wednesday the democrats are in charge, but that doesn't mean the problems are any less. the fact of the matter is there are so many challenges that the biden team is inheriting. they realize that, but two days from now joe biden is president. they're looking across the government to find acting secretaries, to identify acting secretaries, people from the existing government who are, you know, essentially going to be in charge, at least until president biden's own nominees can be

confirmed. so that is precarious in any situation. and given all of the things going on right now, all the threats going on right now, it is particularly dangerous. >> which is why, jackie kucinich, every new president wants to turn the page. they want to say here's our agenda from hour one. biden probably wants to turn the page more than obama wanted to turn the page on bush. they released a memo of these executive actions, we will get right out of the box, rejoining the paris climate accords, requiring acts on federal property, meaning federal transportation as well, extending evictions and foreclosures because of the covid crisis, extending a pause on student loan payments because of the covid crisis. given the fact you're still waiting for the senate to flip from republican control to democratic control, that will happen this week. how important is it for joe biden to have these executive actions showing there is a new

sheriff in town? >> it's critical, because it's something he can actually do himself with the sign of a pen rather than having congress pass some of his initiatives. that said, even that's going to be difficult. yes, you're absolutely right, it is -- as jeff said, it is a positive thing for joe biden that he will have control of the house and the senate. but that doesn't mean his agenda items are going to sail through. these majorities are razor, razor thin. something like some of the stimulus he's talking about supporting and helping push through, there are pockets of the democratic party that that might not go over with. so this is going to be tooth and nail and difficult. these 100 days -- there's going to be no honeymoon, i guess, is the fastest way to say this, for joe biden. it's going to be tough from day one. >> no honeymoon. we'll see a return to normalcy and someone who respects the government. maybe that will help a bit. jackie and jeff, thank you for

t your insights. a possible stolen laptop from speaker pelosi's office and russia. it was on this day two years ago kamala harris, soon to be the vice president, announced her run for president. >> the future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our american values. that's why i'm running for president of the united states. i'm running to lift those voices, to bring our voices together. . with service i could trust. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ it was 1961 when nellie young lost her devoted husband. without him, things were tough. her last option was to sell her home, but... her home meant everything to her.

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way to discourage attacks on the day of the biden inauguration is by the investigators. jessica watkins, donovan crowel, and robert gieswen, an avowed white supremacist and nazi sympathizer. a woman likely stole a laptop from the desk of nancy pelosi, with plans to possibly sell that laptop to russia. when you read reports that the fbi is vetting members of the national guard because it is

worried about possible insider attacks, that is chilling. >> reporter: it really is, john. you can kind of understand the concern, right? you have about 25,000 national guard troops coming from all over the country. i've seen people here from pennsylvania, from other states, all across the country. there are still national guard troops arriving here today. i just saw several buses heading into the capitol compound here. the secret service is at the gate, actually, with dogs. the u.s. capitol police sniffing even buses bringing in national guard troops and military vehicles as they were entering the capitol compound, they were being swept for bombs. i just want to give you a picture -- show you what's going on here at the capitol. we are closer to the capitol here now, and you can see the razor wire fencing, and there are about a dozen or so national guard troops, heavily armed

national guard troops here standing. not every national guard troop is heavily armed, some on the outer perimeter don't have some of the heavy weaponry. as you said, john, there is this concern of the insider threat. the head of the washington, d.c. national guard addressed that this morning. >> a regular background check is enhanced with more screening, more details and it's layered. so the fbi is part of it, the secret service is part of it, and once they are certain that there is no insider threat, then that soldier, guardsman or airman is given a credential. >> reporter: so we have seen that. we have seen the national guard troops wearing credentials. but to enter the more secure areas, there is security for law enforcement officials and national guard troops to get deeper inside the capitol.

on the exterior is one thing. but as you get closer and more inside to the capitol and certainly that inauguration stage, the level of security, john, just increases. >> sad to see it but necessary given what happened at the capitol just about two weeks ago. shimon prokupecz, grateful to your reporting on the scene there, and we are grateful to the number of national guard troops and others who are protecting the capitol at this moment. up next, it is choosing time for loyalists, stick with the maga crowd or seek a little distance? a vaccine. rpls, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible.

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a quick count of the president's public events in recent days gives us a window into his final days' isolation. president trump has not made a public appearance in six days, back when he blamed democrats, yes, blamed democrats, for the country's division. he has stayed tight to the script since his aides have had tight restrictions on that script. the president has done just one camera interview and has spent the same amount of days of no briefings with the immemedia: 1.

>> i have faith that the day will come when we put these challenging times in the past and emerge stronger and better than ever. we will heal our land. >> joining us now, tony to tony oligupula. talula. he talks about the president and doesn't do his job. >> mike pence is finding himself in the opposite ends of

president trump who he has been in lockstep in the previous years. this is one of them where they're not on the same page, and mike pence has to choose between the constitution and president trump. this time he's choosing to abide by the constitution after claims of election fraud. when push came to shove, mike pence realized he had to follow the constitution. he could not overturn the will of 81 voters when the president said otherwise. potentially he is putting his future at risk if he wants some kind of political life in the future. right now the republican party still seems to be in the throes of president trump. looking at polls, republicans still want president trump to be the leader and the president is happy to play that role and

damage anybody who wants to push for a pro-trump era. he has had a good relationship with mike pence the last four years, but he hasn't had enough of it, and right now it looks like mike pence is on his way out and it will be difficult for him to be a political future after this presidency. >> what will the post-trump political party look like? in the post-trump era, whatever that looks like. the secretary of state, the man you cover quite well and quite closely, tweeting, in two days we will experience a transition of power. i hope america will stay the course and keep putting america first as we have the the past four years. follow me. where does this go? >> the secretary has spent the greater part of the last two

weeks focused on tweeting about the former accomplishments, as he views them, of the trump administration. i think we have some images of those for you, but he has showcased things like president trump's meeting with kim jong-un even though there was no success on denuclearization there. he has posted pictures of himself with benjamin netanyahu that was a real fundamental shift in the policy realm for the trump administration. he has also celebrated things like the new mexico-canada trade agreement. there has been a real shallow transition of power from the trump team to the biden team. it is important to note that the secretary has seen a number of changes in the foreign policy round for the trump administration. iran, israel, afghanistan, china. there are some real serious policies that were implemented, and the secretary wants to showcase those. but as we've done some looking

at what the secretary and his legacy really mean here, as you pointed out, he has been a really tried and true soldier of president trump's since the beginning. he came into the administration as a director of the cia. he has stayed on as secretary of state, and he has at times been silent when the president has gone after u.s. diplomats. morale in the state department as a result of secretary of state mike pompeo has plummeted. but what the secretary has done is really remained in a close relationship with president trump. just last week when president trump was being impeached by the house for the second time, secretary pompeo was tweeting, suggesting that president trump should be awarded the nobel peace prize. that is really a big part of his legacy, remaining lockstep with the president even when there have been issues at home that have impacted the u.s. diplomatic core. >> the president incited an

insurrection at the united states capitol. i don't think you get the nobel peace prize for that. for the vice president, i want to read this from amy walter in the "politico" report. when you have people running through the capitol yelling, "hang mike pence," you don't have much to lose with the incoming administration. mike pence has legitimate anger at his boss and at those people who were storming the capitol looking for him. and yet he thinks he has to be careful. >> yeah, his life was put in danger as a result of this insurrection, and these rioters came pretty close to actually getting to the place where mike pence was. but now he has to think about his political life and that is in a precarious state as well, because if he breaks with president trump, he doesn't have much of a future in the current state of the republican party. there have been very few republicans whov have been able to break with president trump and have any kind of national

platform or national profile. that's why you see republicans who are ambitious and hope for a run for president in 2024 or further down the road. they're the ones thavt have bee able to abide by president trump's rules, and mike pence has found himself on the outs with the trump base, and if he does that, he'll have a very tough time trying to chart a political life forward in 2024 or beyond. he is in a very tough spot, and as he has been close to president trump over the past four years, that does not seem to be enough with president trump not endorsing him, not supporting him saying he has not shown the type of political courage that he needs. that is a death knell for his political career in the republican party as it is constituted as party of trump. >> in 48 hours from now we will watch them both, president trump

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administration is warning this crisis is likely to get worse before vaccines can make it better. let's take a look at the latest numbers. they're actually interesting when you take a look. this map looks favorable at first glance. green means trending down. 38 states reporting less coronavirus cases and heading down. that is an encouraging number. the hard part is you have to remember, those states are heading down from a horrific point. they were very high spiking cases. however, cases are down from one week ago. the question is, are we plateauing and starting to come down, or is this temporary? that's what we'll see in the days and weeks ahead. you see here sunday, 177,119 new infekctions reported. that's down under 200,000 since the horrific days of december and january. that's a terrible spot to

plateau at, but you have to plateau before you can come down. yesterday we were at 397,600. you see the numbers on your screen, 397,672 and counting. hospitalizations, we need this number to go down. there is evidence it's coming down a little. the peak was at 124,000 hospitalized as of yesterday. let's watch the week ahead. hopefully a plateau will begin into a decline. if you look at the vaccine numbers, this is the hope, get the vaccines out more quickly, and this has been a problem. more than 31 million doses distrib distributed, but only 12.3 million put into arms. if you look at some of the states, these nine states plus the district of columbia, at

least 50% or more. the doses distributed have been administered. colorado, louisiana, kentucky. d.c. doing a good job. alabama and georgia, clearly officials there need to work on the plan to get those doses they have in stock, get them into arms. the biden administration says the trump team has messed this up, and they will reboot the vaccination rollout on day one. the head of the trump health and human services department says, it's not our fault. >> this is a concerted effort by the new team to downtalk where things are so they can look like heroes when they come in and just carry for the momentum we have established. we're at 900,000 vaccinations administered per day. this whole president-elect biden, we'll have 100 million shots in arms the first 100

days. we will have distributed 250 million doses of vaccine by the end of april. if they've only done 100 million vaccinations by then, it will be a tragic squandering of the opportunity we have had. >> dr. megan ranney, researcher. i'm really not interested in the blame game, but sorting through who is telling the truth does help as we try to figure out what can the biden team do on day one to accelerate this vaccine rollout? >> the biden team has a tremendous mess to sort out. this feels like the ppe crisis all over again. i know i was with you in early march talking about the challenges and getting personal protective equipment for front line providers. it's the same thing. we don't even know how many doses are being held in reserve by the federal government right now. one day they say they're going to release all of them, the next day they say, oops, we made a

mistake, there aren't actually any left. so the biden administration will have to come in and figure out what they have, make a playbook for states based on those states that have done a good job getting shots in arms, and then fund the logistics. get the pharmacists and the community clinics and the volunteers and the public campaigns up and going so we can put a shot in the arm of this vaccination effort. our country cannot afford to wait and to mess this up any longer. >> so walk through what you see is most imperative on day one. it's obvious it's going to take a few days, if not a few weeks, for the new president to get his team in place. what can you do -- is there anything you can do on day one and day two, and as you see best practices in states, are there things states should be doing while they wait, before team biden can get its act together? >> i think team biden already has a very strong team in place of great scientists, great logistics experts, folks ranging

from andy slavitt to sceline gounder to smith. they have the team there. the first thing they need to do is figure out what vaccine is available and get them distributed. second, create that playbook for states, and third, work on that vaccine campaign. we've already seen president-elect biden and dr. biden receive shots on camera. that's essential. they're going to engage black and latino physicians and other health care workers to help message to our most at-risk communities to increase the uptake of vaccines. and then those strategies that have worked. it's about using pharmacies. it's about setting up community vaccination clinics. it's about making sure we're not throwing out doses because we're trying to be so perfectionist in who gets the next shot that we waste these life-saving doses of vaccine. those are things they can start doing on wednesday, but, as you say, are going to take a few

weeks, or even a month or so to see any effect. >> doctor, thank you for your insights. we'll keep in touch. less than 48 hours from now, the new team will be in charge and we'll watch how it goes. up next, the next trump chapter in the role of the conspiracy in the role of the gop. wow! what'd you get, ryan? it's customized home insurance from liberty mutual! what does it do bud? it customizes our home insurance so we only pay for what we need! and what did you get, mike? i got a bike. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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president trump came to washington four years ago with the republican house and a republican senate. he leaves with democrats in charge at the white house and at both chambers of congress. and he leaves with republicans in a very public fight over trump's future role in the party. shoving him to the sidelines

will be no easy task. the president received 74 million votes in the november election. and his conspiracy theories and lies now have deep roots in the gop. just two examples of first-term republicans. two of them are qanon's political influence. michael, i want to start with you. you have a fabulous piece, i urge everybody to read it, about this debate in the republican party, about lies, about conspiracy theories, about groups like qanon. on the one hand you have people like ben sasse, the conservative senator, saying they're a cancer, they need to shoved to the sidelines. but they tell this to "axios." you know, people say they're into all kinds of bad things and say all kinds of terrible things about them. but my understanding is they're basically just people who want good government. that's still the president's view of the qanon movement. >> that really helps us

understand exactly how this movement and how sort of broad conspiracy theories and ideas worming their way into the republican party, with the president giving a wink and a nod and sometimes a lot more than that to these folks. that's where it began. there was a calculation by party leaders, folks in the house and the senate to sort of play footsie a little bit with a tariff to this movement because there were votes to be gotten and there was a new constituency potentially for the republican party. the problem now that republicans find themselves in is those folks now have a seat at the table, and they're going to be wanting things. this is a discussion that's going on. i talked with former and current members of congress who say they're really concerned, republicans really concerned and think leadership needs to do something about this and make an example of supporters that are in the ranks and, of course, were behind a lot of the

insurrection and the attack on january 6th. >> and, deoney, you spend a lot of time on how this works. the qanon echoes his conspiracies. the president often echoes and lies about their conspiracies. the "washington post" said online information about election fraud fell 73% when trump was taken off social media. when you reduce the megaphone, you can reduce the spread of misinformation. >> reporter: that's right, your putting a precise figure on this is almost impossible, but a very good organization with this estimate. you're right, twitter cut off the head of this snake and so much information is coming from the top down. if you shut off president trump's account, you will see some misinformation at least for

a time online, but the challenges still persist, and we had new reporting in the past few minutes that on facebook, the tech conspiracy project, a tech watchdog group, have found posts since the insurrection on january 6th praising or calling for more violence on facebook. one of them reads, patriots january 20, 2021, inauguration day, a tiananmen square moment. another one talks about joining a militia. wars are won with guns. so this stuff is still circulating on facebook. shutting down president trump isn't going to solve the problem. i will say at least facebook has a team -- once we flagged this to facebook, they took it down, they are working on taking other things like this. twitter has a team that works on this. others arwho are embracing the darker corners of the internet have no rules and that could be a recipe for radicalization. >> so, michael, we're in one of

the biggest conundrum challenges of the moment. you can understand it when twitter shuts down the president, when twitter shuts down these other accounts after we saw something about the violent, deadly insurrection. when you lift your head, there is a longer term, first amendment. greene, the congresswoman, she was suspended briefly and she's back on twitter. she said, dear twitter, despite what you think of yourself, you are not the judge of humanity. god is. you do have censors and you have bans on the president and others, but then you have this big debate about how do you handle this in the long term? >> twitter, big tech, as conservatives like to call it, is an institution, but so are the parties. this is really where a lot of sort of republican party leaders, people who care about the party's future, are looking to their leaders and looking for some kind of institutional movement here.

there is a precedent for this, a very recent precedent, in fact, when the house republican stripped king of his committee assignments because of some white nationalist ideas and remarks that he made. there is some precedent for this, and this is something a lot of republicans are saying we have the mechanisms to sort of isolate this kind of thinking within our party. they say it's not a part of our party. the question really then comes down to, what do leaders do? what do leaders do to step up and say something? while president trump was president, they seemed unwilling to do that. i think there is a real question once he leaves office, does that change? >> it's never an easy conversation. perhaps it will be a less difficult conversation to get through once president trump is on the sidelines. speaker pelosi in a fight

now with the trump administration over a key national security post.

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there is a new salvo this hour in the final days, even final hours' fight over a key intel post and who the president-elect wants to put in that job. nancy pelosi sending a letter to the acting secretary telling him to stop what she calls a, quote, improper post process. he worked as a counsel lawyer in the trump white house. back in those days he refused to

testify in the ukraine inquiry. nancy pelosi says ellis is not fit for this job and his attempts are in the works in the incoming biden administration. brianna keilar picks up our coverage right now. have a good day. hello, i'm brianna keilar and i want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. in 48 hours, a divided and ailing nation on edge will feel the whiplash from the end of a disgraced president's chaotic tenure to the beginning of a new administration. a force of power lacking the usual dignity of transition between unions. martin luther king's "i have a dream" speech is complet