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 completely

empty. the fbi is vetting thousands of national guardsmen, deployed to protect the insurrection threat. some were veterans, some were military. during the charge, an army reservist was described by a federal foreman in court documents as a nazi sympathizer and a white supremacist. silence has blank eeted the whi house. the president hasn't been seen in public in a week. the president's term will end with him issuing 100 pardons and commutations. the president will leave office with the lowest approval rating. even though, trump has orchestrated a flashy sendoff that belies his time in office. a big white house event is

unlikely because of the intense security around d.c. which is, of course, a consequence of the insurrection he incited. this is where we're going to begin. d.c. on edge transformed into a fortress to ensure a safe transition of power. shimon prokupecz is at the capitol. shimon, tell us what you're hearing about these ongoing threats. >> reporter: we're just outside the capitol, brianna, and much of the capitol look like a military compound. you see the national guard troops outside, but also this fencing with razor wiring encircling the entire capitol and dozens of national guard troops standing outside patrolling. more national guard troops arriving just this morning. we've been out here for the last few whours and troops arriving y the bus loads or so coming to this area, and to deal with one of the issues concerning it"the

insider" threat, what we ever seen out here this morning, bomb-sniffing dogs are here. they are bringing these bomb-sniffing dogs over to smell the buses to make sure they're not carrying any bombs. also military vehicles. we've actually seen the bomb dogs sniffing these military vehicles as they were entering the compound. there are several layers of security from the perimeter, from the outer perimeter to the inside of the capitol and at every entrance, and at every intersection, military vehicles. now secret service agents as well who are checking i.d.s, checking vehicles. the secret service running the security operation here, so that is why they are at every intersection. really, it's kind of striking to see these bomb-sniffing dogs as they are checking the military vehicles. that's been certainly interesting to watch here this morning and this afternoon. as you said, the insider threat is of concern until the secret service and the fbi is vetting

the national guard troops that are coming here from really all over the country. they are still arriving, and as i've said, we've seen several buses still arriving here this afternoon, brianna. >> all right, shimon. we know that things are going to be moving quite a bit here, so we'll be checking in with you. thank you. prosecutors have been issuing a flurry of charges. they revealed some bizarre details about some people who infiltrated the capitol two weeks ago. some said they were the former riot partner in pennsylvania identified williams inside the capitol building directing people upstairs to nancy pelosi's office, which is, according to an affidavit filed sunday, supporting williams' arrest. the tipster also claimed and showed a video of williams taking a laptop with a computer hard drive from nancy pelosi's office, although there is no

proof that a laptop was taken from nancy pelosi's office. riley has not been arrested. there is also john schaafer of columbus, south carolina. an arrest affidavit said he sprayed capitol police with bear spray during the siege. schaaf has six charges related to the attack. they are also charging an army reservist to have security level clearance. timothy rale-cusanelli is described as an avowed white supremacist and nazi sympathizer. he gave directions to mob via both voice and hand signals. it is unclear if he will be

arrested. and robert gieswein apparently runs his own private paramilitary training group. he wore a military-style vest, helmet, goggles and camo as he climbed through the window of the capitol. there is a stunning video and it shows the mob relishing in their rebellion. we do want to warn you that some of the video you're about to see is disturbing and it contains vulgar language. >> there's a fucking military out there! >> this is our chair. >> i agree with you, brother, but it isn't ours. it belongs to the vice president of the united states. it's not our chair. look, i love you guys, you're brothers, but we can't be disrespectful. >> even with a new election, we can't sit in their chair?

>> no. it's a pr war. it's an i.o. war. we can't lose the i.o. war. >> we're better than that. >> information operation. >> we can't do it. >> can you get a snap of that? >> i took a picture. >> look. >> ted cruz's objection to -- >> objection, he was going to sell us out all along. >> really? >> objection to counting electoral votes of the state of arizona. >> no, wait, that's a good thing. >> oh, wait, okay. >> what else is here from those scumbags?

>> this is good stuff. >> quit acting a fool! >> this is all good. [ yelling in background ] >> i think cruz would want us to do this, so i think we're good. >> now, it's truly terrifying to see this firsthand account. it is worth noting that the reporter behind the camera, luke mogelson, is a veteran war correspondent. i want to bring in a former fbi chief for a counter espionage section, and he's also an author of a book called "compromised, counter intelligence and threat of donald j. trump. peter, when you saw this, did it

tell you anything you didn't know? >> it told me a lot of things. first was the scope of what was going on. this wasn't a small number of people. you had a variety of actors, some peaceful, some very, very violent all engaged at the same time. what particularly bothers me both as a former army officer as well as a career army enforcement officer are the number of people i see demonstrating behavior that resembles a certain amount of tactical training. so not only are they looking at past violations of these seditionists, they're also looking at remaining threats out there and what we need to be prepared to protect against. >> there were several far right extremist groups involved. you can kind of see paraphernalia, you can see tattoos, markings and badges of a lot of them, and that includes the oath keepers and the 3 percenters. what do we know about these groups and how dangerous could

they be? >> they can be quite dangerous, and you can see they have rhetoric and acts of violence that is motivated by, in many cases, a white supremacist idealogy. you see an organization of activity bringing people together and planning not one-off individual acts of violence but engaging in a conspiracy to act together, and that certainly is a concern. one, what did they do back on the 6th with regard to the capitol, but as importantly, probably even more importantly, what are their intentions moving forward? what sort of threat do they impose moving forward? that's what the fbi is digging into right now, and part of the reason you see such a massive response to security on the capitol right now. >> right now as we're watching the national guard secure this city here, they're actually being vetted by the fbi ahead of biden's inauguration to make sure they don't have any extremist connections, because there were a number of veterans and even active duty or reservists who were current participating in the siege.

what should disqualify someone from service, in your opinion? >> well, i think absolutely there is -- any time you engage in what is an insurrection, when you are interrupting the peaceful act of our government when certifying the president of the united states, that's disqualifying. there is something every person in the u.s. government fills out, and there is a question that says, have you ever been engaged in overthrowing the government by force? we all used to chuckle at that question. if someone said yes, we have another big problem other than whether to grant them a security clearance. but now there are hundreds and hundreds of people if they answer that question honestly, they'll have to say yes. this is absolutely a disqualifier for security clearance, it should be a disqualifier for government service, and that's something the government has to get its arms around and look at the

scope of the problem it causes now. >> in this video by "the new yorker," we hear one saying they were sent to the capitol by president trump. and one said cruz would approve of what they're doing when they're going through cruz' desk. the rhetoric that contributed to the riot, one of the questions that will be asked, certainly one of the questions that will be considered is if a reasonable person would have interpreted their words as a call to action. does this inform that? >> i think absolutely, it does. there are a couple issues there. one is whether or not someone is incited, that doesn't mean they were acting in a way that was legal. so, you know, the commonality of all these folks who stormed the capitol, many of them came directly from a speech by president trump where he encouraged them to go to the capitol and incited them to violence in many ways. whether or not they're going to claim that as a defense, this

doesn't mean that by entering into the capitol and, again, by interrupting the exercise of our constitutional government that that's some sort of justification. but i think certainly when you look at trump, people who absolutely should have known better, senator cruz, senator hawley, these are people with law degrees from harvard and yale. in senator hawley's case, he was a supreme court justice for the united states of america. they know better. when he gifves a blood-stained fist pump when he walks into the chambers that day, he's doing that to people who are cop killers. that's inexcusable and something he needs to pay for. >> peter strzok, thank you for coming on. >> thank you for having me. there are some details of the transition of power that president trump refuses to be a part of. here's what he's planning to do in his final hours of presidency. plus news on how many pardons the president is expected to grant in the next 24 hours. and president-elect joe

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as joe biden prepares to take his oath of office on wednesday here at the nation's capitol, cnn learned the president is planning a splashy sendoff at air force base andrews. he has asked for a flashy farewell to mar-a-lago as he and the first lady exit. what do we know about the president's farewell plans? >> reporter: we're less than 48

hours before president biden is inaugurated. the president is going to break that tradition we haven't seen broken by any president, not being in a transfer of power. president trump has his own plans. over at joint base andrews, you're familiar with that place, brianna, just outside washington, d.c. air force one will be taking president trump off to mar-a-lago and he's planning a departure ceremony that is akin to a former head of state who leaves town. you're going to see, we're told, a military band, a color guard, potentially a 21-gun salute, close family members, friends, allies of the president, out going president, will be there. the invitations have been going out over the last 24 hours, and our understanding is -- i talked to a trump adviser about this

earlier this morning, outgoing president trump wants a big sendoff over there. whether or not he gets it remains to be seen, but it remains an infamous me sassagem brianna, i think, because this is a president who doesn't want to leave and he will be leaving with sommer of disgrace, no doubt about it. >> we're also learning, jim, that the president is planning to issue many pardons and commutations tomorrow. tell us about this, and do we know who this might include? >> reporter: i think the names may surprise us, perhaps shock us. maybe not so surprising knowing this president. there are going to be people who are close allies, potentially, of the president. they're going to be white collar criminals in there, there are going to be some clemency actions in there, i think, that will follow under the category of criminal justice reform. talking to our sources, the president wants to go out with

that being highlighted as part of his legacy, so i think you'll see that in the category of clemency and pardons that you'll see on this day before inauguration day. the question, brianna, that everybody has been asking is whether or not the president will pardon himself, whether there will be a self-pardon. we're talking to our sources. we're hearing at this point that that is not expected. the likelihood that he will pardon his adult children, the likelihood of that is going down. but, again, brianna, you know all too well with this president, you don't take anything to the bank until he's done with being president of the united states. and so before he leaves power, i suppose anything is possible. he could write on a piece of paper in the oval office, i hereby pardon myself. i suppose that is a potential around here, though at this point we're being told not to expect that the prof the presid. his advisers and others around him have been trying to talk him out of doing something like that.

but there will be several pardons of clemency and we'll be looking to see who is on there, brianna. president-elect biden has some plans on his first day, and we'll look at them. trump loyalists are in a key position that makes it hard for biden to remove him. one calls it corrupt. and the new distribution of coronavirus vaccines. the new number is 400,000 lives lost.

when joe biden is sworn in as president on wednesday, look for him to immediately get to work, casting aside much of what the trump administration brought the country. on day one of his presidency, biden plans to sign about a dozen executive orders, many of them dealing with what his team calls the four crises that are facing the u.s.: covid-19, the economy, racial injustice and climate change. cnn political director david chalian is joining us now. david, tell us what is on biden's day one to-do list. >> the incoming chief ron klain put out a memo for the senior staff of the biden administration, detailing what some of these initial out of the gate actions would be.

i would look at them in two different buckets. there are the things related to covid-19 and the economic fallout and then some other priorities that the president-elect made clear throughout the campaign. let's start with the covid-19 day one priorities. you're going to see that mask mandate on federal property and on interstate travel that joe biden has talked so much about, that challenge to mask up for the first 100 days. the $1.9 trillion rescue package and economic relief package that biden talked about to the country last week, this is going to be the first big legislative push for the biden team, and it deals with all of that economic fallout, also helping in the vaccine administration, delivering on that promise for 100 million shots in those first 100 days. biden is going to extend the limits limits evictions and student loan payments all related to covid and dealing with that. and reopening schools with some

sense of normalcy for america. the non-covid-related items that will be prioritized as day one items out of the gate. a comprehensive immigration bill will include a pathway for citizenship to 11 million undocumented citizens who are here. the goal is to get that passed in the first 100 days. biden is going to revoke that travel plan that president trump put in place. rejoining the paris climate accord that the obama administration joined, and trump reversed course there. and then halting any of the mexico border construction that is happening. that is the non-covid-19 related items on biden's first day, brianna. >> david chalian, thank you for

running us through that. coming up, as we are rolling the tape on president trump, we're going to roll the tape on president trump's presidency then versus now. plus the country could reach nearly half a million covid-related deaths by next month. what top medical experts are warning about dark days ahead. research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's one that'll really take you back. it's customized home insurance from liberty mutual! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ loves me. loves me not. new neutrogena® skin balancing! 3 made-for-you formulas with 2% pha exfoliate and condition for soft, balanced skin. find the one. neutrogena®

the trump presidency will likely be defined by its assault on truth, its damage to

democracy and its denial to science that experts say would have saved american lives from coronavirus. as we near the end of trump's final week in the white house, we're taking a look back at the beginning of his presidency, how it started with a big show of his business councils attracting some of the biggest names in corporate america to visit the white house, like apple ceo tim cook and amazon ceo jeff bezos. the my pillow guy is the biggest in business to grace the logs these days in circling planet trump. in week two of the trump presidency, he announced the nomination of his first pick to the supreme court. >> today i am keeping another promise to the american people by nominating judge neil gorsuch of the united states supreme court to be of the united states supreme court. >> there would also be two more, and now the supreme court with

three trump picks on it ended trump's efforts to overturn the election in the courts, throwing out a texas lawsuit. how it started with two of his highest profile cabinet picks confirmed in the senate, retired marine generals james mattis at the pentagon . mattis calls the president a man without a country. he says, quote, he poisoned the people's minds with lies. >> things he says has just been outrageous from the president. >> if you were in the cabinet right now, would you vote to remove him from office? >> yes, i would. >> it also began with rex tillerson's confirmation for secretary of state moving forward in the senate. and now secretary tillerson said

last week that the u.s. is in a much worse place now than it was when he entered office, that the president lacked understanding of global events in history and lacked the attention span to learn it. tillerson also said, quote, it's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even understand the concept for why we're talking about this. how it started, trump's first news conference with america's closest ally. >> i am honored to have prime minister teresa may here for our first official visit from a foreign leader. >> and how it's going, britain putting trump on blast. >> what president trump has been saying about this, that it's completely wrong, and i am condemned encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way they did in the capitol.

>> the trump insurgency began with hundreds of thousands of women descending on the nation's capitol and in cities across america to demonstrate against the newly elected president. now nearly 60% of women voted against the president in the election, according to cnn exit polls. how it started, the president showed up at cnn headquarters to give a speech, and he went off on grudges and politics in a campaign style rant instead of talking about sacrifice or service. >> probably almost everybody in this room voted for me, but i will not ask you to raise your hands if you did. is donald trump an intellectual? trust me, i'm like a smart person. and i have been on the cover 14 or 15 times. i think we have the all-time record in the history of "time" magazine. >> how it's going?

gina haspel reportedly threatened to quit recently if trump made a conspiracy theorist her deputy to ax "axios." >> as you know, i have a running meeting with them. >> it wasn't insurrection, it was a political protest that got completely out of control. whatever you thought happened yesterday, what was racist about it? nothing, of course. there was nothing racist about it. >> how it started, the president's travel ban got predictably messy in airports and the courts. he promised extreme vetting of visitors from several predominantly muslim nations. how it's going, his successor

announced he will reverse the ban on day one. extreme vetting underway is of the national guard assigned to washington in the wake of president trump's incitement of violence at the capitol. day one of the trump presidency began with an absurd, unnecessary lie. >> this was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe. >> and that was followed by a lying absurdity. >> you're saying it's a falsehood, and they're giving sean spicer, our secretary, gave alternative facts to that. >> but now in the middle of a deadly pandemic in the wake of the capitol siege, trump can be assured that joe biden's crowd won't compare to his, but it's really irrelevant, anyway, since this is actually the crowd that is going to define trump's legacy, the crowd at the capitol. how it started? with a lie about telling the

truth. >> it's an honor to do this, and, yes, i believe that we have to be honest with the american people. our intention is never to lie to you. >> that one of the first press secretary's successors repeated. >> i will never lie to you, you have my word on that. >> how it's going? countless lies later, the credibility of every trump spokesperson is in tatters, and mcenany is a trump secretary departing the white house like someone leaving a party without saying goodbye. even though he clearly won the electoral college, trump began by falsely pushing fraud to try to explain away his nearly 3 million-vote overwhelming popularity vote loss to hillary clinton. he tweeted that he would be launching an investigation, but that investigation was disbanded after finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud. and now, much of the same, except his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud are how

he explains losing the election rather than winning it. this time his lies led to dozens of failed lawsuits, republican allies trying to overturn democracy, and, of course, the insurrection at the capitol. how it started, the president's tax returns hidden from the public. the president's excuses that they're under audit, and this one from kellyanne conway. >> he's not going to release his tax returns. we litigated this all through the election. people didn't care. >> how is it going? a "new york times" investigation revealed that the president only paid a grand total of $1,500 in taxes in 2016 and 2017. he owes banks hundreds of millions on loans that will come due soon, and he is a prolific loser of money, lots of money, perhaps the real reason that the president did not release his taxes. his term also started with a headline raising questions about the president's national security adviser michael flynn. and now, following a conviction, trump has pardoned flynn, who is

now spitting out conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory on fringe outlets as he suggests that the president implement martial law in the nation's capitol. but the moment that fully encapsulates how this all started was this line from trump's inaugural speech. >> this american carnage stops right here and stops right now. >> he was referring u.s. crime, abandoned factories and america first. but the real american carnage was only beginning. from charlottesville to the white house and now to the capitol. a rampage incited by the president and organized by his supporters costing several of their lives and the lives of at least one police officer. and even after all of that, the president wanted a farewell spectacle with all the fanfare of a military sendoff.

he seemed aunaware that he was already getting one in this city, now guarded by more military presence in afghanistan, syria and iraq combined, where the president will skip the city without attending joe biden's inauguration and entering a war zone of his own creation. ahead, a top spy agency is moving forward with hiring a trump loyalist as its top new lawyer, and it's creating a problem for the incoming biden administration. isn't real milk. i guess those cows must actually be big dogs. sit! i said sit! alright, i brought in ensure max protein to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. woohoo! 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. with nutrients to support immune health. i give to shriners hospitals for children because i want to be a part of something amazing.

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the end of the trump administration, they are hiring a republican as their new top lawyer. michael ellis is expected to start serving in his new role tomorrow. nancy pelosi sent a letter to chris miller demanding he halt this hiring. correspondent vivian salama is with me with more reporting on this. vivian, what are nancy pelosi's concerns here? >> brianna, the concerns are twofold among democrats in congress. one, the timing of this move obviously coming two days before president trump leaves office and also michael ellis' inperspective.

to folks at home, michael ellis probably not a household name, but those of us who cover national security have been following him very closely because he was one of these more inexperienced younger people who rose in the ranks of the administration primarily because he was a staunch loyalist to president trump. we saw in the early days when he was still a national security counsel at the white house, he allowed access to intelligence and later refused to testify during the first impeachment. he name came up on numerous occasions. in recent months moved over to go with acting secretary of state chris miller to the department of defense and chris miller since has wanted him to rise to ranks within the national security agency, which is the intelligence agency within the pentagon. chris miller demanded over the weekend that michael ellis again, very junior, take on the top lawyer role at the national

security agency. in fact, other candidates were seemingly more qualified for the job, but chris miller demand the that it goes to michael ellis. now, it's important to note, brianna, that this is a career position. michael ellis previously was a political staffer. the difference to folks at home to understand, career jobs come with a lot of career protections. civil service protections. that's the job that now this loyalist to trump will have and he will continue on during the biden administration. >> this is such a unprecedented move. i wonder if it is going to be difficult for the biden administration to remove ellis from this post? can they? >> reporter: it's going to be very hard. that's the whole point of these career jobs. they come with a series of protections that make it really hard to remove them. they could probably demote him if they found cause to do so, but removing him from the job is going to be very difficult. remember, this is the head lawyer job for the national

security agency. this is a job that comes with extreme responsibility as far as national security intelligence, very sensitive matters. also a very senior job. all in all, a lot of questions surrounding why this candidate in particular at this time is being installed in that job. brianna? >> definitely. vivian, great reporting. vivian salama live in washington. next, president-elect biden will also be inheriting the worsen the covid-19 crisis. what experts are warning as the u.s. is nearing 400,000 american deaths. plus, we are live in d.c. as the capitol is on lockdown and the fbi is screening national guard troops to ss to weed out potential insider threats. between what is hoped for and what can be, there's a bridge. between endangered and protected,

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the country's coronavirus death toll is on the verge of crossing the 400,000 mark. to put it in perspective more than the number of american whose died in world war i, the vietnam war and korean war combined and it's going to get worse beforegets better. cnn medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is here with us. americans are getting vaccines

but incoming director for the centers decease control and prevention tells us there are still dark weeks ahead. tell us why. >> because we're seeing a dramatic increase in cases and the doctor knows when you see a dramatic increase of cases, hospitalizations follow, and deaths follow that. let's take a look at a graph that puts this all too well, which is that you can see that line as it's rising, rising, rising. it takes this sharp rise around november. so as people started to celebrate the holidays, travel, gather together, the number of people with covid went way up. thank goodness most of those recover but a certainly percentage end up in the hospital, a certain percentage of those on ventilators and a certain percentage end up dieing and why the doctor talking about the dark days ahead. talking about the vaccine. it's not going to help much in the short term unfortunately. only 12 million americans have had any dose of the vaccine, and that's just not a big enough

percentage to really kind of put, get that line down. brianna? >> elizabeth, thank you so much for that update. appreciate it. it is the top of the hour. i'm brianna keilar and i welcome viewers in the united states and around the world. we are less than 48 hours away from a transfer of power unlike anything we've seen before. should be an excitement buildy were parades and inaugural balls organized, inside, a security lockdown and president trump's legacy on full display. leaving office with a country dieing from the thousands of coronavirus and so bitterly divided it needs national guardsmen and women to protect its capitol and insurre insurrectionists. his last days issuing pardons and com mutations.

a big white house event is unlikely because of intense security around d.c., which is a consequence of the insurrection that trump incited. i begin in d.c., which turned into a fortress ahead of president-elect joe biden the inauguration, where we find cnn's pete muntean. what are you hearing about security preparations and the ongoing threats? >> reporter: things get more and more restricted all the time here. in fact, this is as close as one can get on the capitol on foot. we are blocks away from the complex. went through two national guard barricades to get here and just learned 21,000 members of the guard on d.c. grounds right now. it is the national park service that oversees the national mall now completely cleared out and closed through inauguration day, and this kind of protection is