powering possibilities. comcast business. four years after donald trump supporters invaded the capital trying to stop the certification of president biden's electoral victory, congress met again today this time to confirm trump's returned to the white house and we will show you how it was marked by lawmakers and the unprecedented security inside the halls of congress. plus

trump's legal battles may be far from over and how the defense team wants the sentencing for his hush money conviction to be set for friday delayed. he agreed to set it aside two weeks away. plus president biden heading to new orleans the site of last week's terrorist attack but with only days left in office, he is adding more to the to do list in ways pick -- his successor may not like. we are following those stories and many more coming in here to cnn news central. ♪ thank you for sharing the afternoon with us. we have a major snowstorm hitting the nation's capital overnight but members of congress converged on capitol hill to carry out a routine task that shook the democracy to its core exactly 4 weeks ago and on this january

six no drama or disruption is lawmakers certified president elect trump's victory in the electoral college and a stark contrast to 2021 and violent mob of trump supporters stormed the capital protesting his loss, delaying certification of his free and fair win and putting democracy to the test. this time congress turning to a sense of normalcy and the ceremony signaling the peaceful transfer of power largely unremarkable. vice president harris whom trump defeated in november despite her warnings that he was a danger to american democracy today presiding over today's historic certification. >> mr. speaker and members of congress, pursuant to the constitution and laws of the united states, the senate and

house of representatives are meeting in a joint session to verify the certificates and count the votes of the elect tors of several states for president and vice president of the united states. >> we have a team covering today's developments and we are live on capitol hill but let's start in west palm beach florida tracking former presidents trump response and i should say president elect trump. how is he processing the events today? >> reporter: there is no question this is another step in the remarkable comeback over four years that donald trump has been at the center of of course leaving washington four years ago and political defeat and rising again oddly turning january six in the aftermath of that into a political strength. i am told he was watching the proceedings and one advisor described it is pure vindication but it is clear

soon to be donald trump's government and the confirmation hearings will be coming in the senate and certainly the burden is now on the republicans in control of congress and indeed the white house to carry on and carry out what they promise to the american people but for today at least certainly watching this with very normal proceedings on capitol hill which is how this is normally been and even former vice president mike pence putting up a statement saying, i welcome the return to order and stability and he gave a nod to vice president harris for doing her duty and presiding over, of course her own defeat. >> i did also want to ask you about one of the latest public statements from the president elect who privately had been suggesting for weeks we understand that canada should become a u.s. state but today with the announcement that justin trudeau is resigning, he

is now speaking more openly about this idea? >> right. taking at a state further a short time after the canadian prime minister said he would step down as the leader of his party, the president-elect continued to poke the neighbors to the north by saying this in truth social and we will read it together. he said many people in canada love being the 51st state and if canada merged with the united states, there would be no tariffs and taxes would go down and they would be secure from the threat of russian and chinese ships constantly surrounding them and together what a great nation it would be. and of course canada is its own nation and this is north america but not one country and it is a continent. there is no chance of course that canada will join united states but the president-elect continuing to take a stab at this but the question is with the new leadership and the leadership vacuum in canada how that

impacts the politics there as well as the plan for tariffs here and we should see all of that playing out and so many questions about that but certainly the president-elect taking a moment to once again renew the call to claim canada again not possible. >> quite a sales pitch and we are live not far from mar-a-lago. >> let's go now to mono raw shoe -- mono raw shoe -- what stood out? >> i think a lot of republicans and democrats are happy and democrats are more willing to speak out about all the events and i asked republicans about whether or not they agreed with this downplaying the violence calling it a day of love as donald trump has said and the senate majority leader said i am moving forward and that is

how a lot of republicans are who don't want to talk about what happened but want to talk about the plan for what they will do now rather than what happened then but there are still some republicans who are making it very clear they disagree with how trump has characterized the events from january six of 2021. >> the president-elect refers to it as a day of love. >> not for me. >> why. >> it was not our country's best day and not a good look for us. >> does he bear any responsibility? >> we still don't have answers about what happened that day or didn't happen. i wish we did. >> four years ago was a dark day in american history and that election was certified. >> there was a famous speech

you gave on the floor saying you were done. to stand by that? >> i accepted the results of the last election and i heard the court cases and are the challenges and i voted to certify. >> you were talking about trump when you said i was done. >> i was done challenging the results of the last election. >> lindsey graham also weighed in the idea of pardoning january six prisoners as donald trump said he would do and he and other republicans are indicating that they would prefer this isn't done in a way that is a blanket pardon that deals with the most violent offenders on that day rather than being a more targeted approach and donald trump has an indicated how he plans to proceed with all of these pardons but that is an area in which republicans are not certain about how the president-elect may add when he takes office and if he takes a step that may go too far for some republicans who believe that some of these prisoners shouldn't get pardoned or

should remain in jail to serve out prison time. >> a major campaign promise that he made and we will see how we follows up on that once he is inaugurated. >> thank you so much. joining us now lives is the pennsylvania democrat and former impeachment manager for the second impeachment and thank you so much for being here. you have describe your experience in vivid detail and vowed to never forget what transpired on that day and i do wonder four years later what it is like for you to be in the chamber as donald trump and his election victory are being certified . >> it is good to be with you on this beautiful snowy day here in washington dc which is a strange backdrop for what we just did which was to be part of a joint session to certify the electoral count coming out of every state which did prove

the people chose donald trump to be the next president. we did our constitutional duty and much more important than me participating and sitting there next to jamie raskin for example which is what the vice president did and in her role as president. she did exactly as she was required and as difficult as that task had been and she did it is a patriot and did it as a citizen and according to her oath. as i sat there i do have to tell you i kept thinking back to four years ago how different it was and how we didn't go through a ministerial administrative process but instead based on a title wave of lies by the former president that the election had somehow been stolen with a mob coming leaving in the former presidents lies and the lies told by those around him and

they came and attacked the capitol. they killed and maimed 140 police officers injured with hundreds of them losing careers, those they worked hard for. this is a day i have to tell you that i think you know and i was here in the gallery on that day taken out and a gas mask held out for hours as the attack on the capital took place where american citizens using trump flags and american flags beat police officers, chanted they wanted to hang mike pence or kill nancy pelosi and hunt down anyone of us and i remember it was very startling to me as we were taken out somebody hollered take your congressional 10 because they won't care if you are a democrat or a republican because they will hurt or kill anyone of you. to me i'm having a very hard time processing this crowd of what the vice president did. i am proud of her and how difficult

it was personally but she didn't reveal that. she had a constitutional duty but still trying to resolve why it is that four years later we do have a former president or about to be president again unwilling to acknowledge the truth of what he incited that day and sadly so many others trying to rewrite the truth. >> to that point, how does it feel when you hear some republicans come out and support pardons for some of the january six rioters? we did hear suggestions that there were grandmothers on an unauthorized tour of the hill and do you think there has been prosecutorial overreach? is there any part of you that seeks to re-examine those cases? >> i want the justice department to do its job as it has been doing and take a look at the videos and look at the guilty pleas or verdicts in these cases and the beating of

capital police officers and how can that be a day of love and our eyes don't deceive us and the tapes don't lie but sadly the people around the former president have chosen to lie and in terms of pardons, if the president and president-elect chooses to pardon anybody who was rightfully convicted and that is what i am saying, rightfully convicted of what is taking place here, the crimes that took place or because they are crimes and our eyes aren't deceiving us but i do know what it is is actually an attempt to pardon himself and that is what it is. i really call upon our leaders and i was listening to things over the weekend and unfamiliar with his voice and i do want to get to know his voice but i was stunned at how he had an inability on sunday to answer the question how he felt if the president-elect word issue blanket pardons. i call upon the leaders now as i did as an impeachment manager

to stand upon the truth and call out simple right and wrong and constitutional crimes, criminal acts by the united states citizens who beat police officers and would have killed anyone of us. >> before we let you go i do want to focus on the future and messaging from democrats on the future specifically around donald trump and james carville a former democrat offered some advice in the wake of this last election and in one section he said, first of all we have to stop making mr. trump himself the main focus and he can't be elected again and furthermore it is clear many americans don't give a rat's tail about his indictments even if they are justified or about his antidemocratic impulses or social issues if they can't provide for themselves or their

families. from a political perspective, do you think democrats have to approach the next four years and even the next few years going into midterms as they seek to untangle the republican control of congress and send a democrat back to the white house? >> i did read that op-ed as well and i agree with mr. carville and i like his colorful language and i agree. we are in a different place. this isn't donald trump's first administration. this is his second administration and we are not under threat that he can run for reelection. that is why i approach this especially is a democrat so subliminally in the minority with an open heart that we could try to work on things together and there are things we almost passed at the end of the last congress around a.i. and protection of our kids online and many things we could work on in a bipartisan way and the way i would approach it. and less than a focus but not forgetting the past and we are doomed if

we forget the past and mindful of the truth but i do approach this differently and mr. trump was in the middle of those a very difficult terms >> we appreciate your sharing your perspective and i have to say i don't agree with it being a lovely snowy day and i hope you stay warm. >> thank you. it's very difficult for everybody else. you as well. >> a deadly winter storm is stranding drivers and knocking out power and forcing thousands of flight cancellations and we are following this. >> plus president biden en route to new orleans after the deadly attack on bourbon street and what we need about his plans to grieve with families and the latest on the

investigation. manhattan da has just responded to the request to delay president trump's sentencing in his hush money trial. these stories and more on the way on cnn news central.

this avalanche in utah is one of the major dangers triggered by a powerful winter storm that has already killed four people in kansas and missouri all victims of car accidents and in missouri 600 some motorists were stranded by the extreme ice and snow over the weekend and today this is done more -- dumped more than five inches, and more than 300,000 households are out of power in the southeast and midwest in 1900 flights canceled according to flightaware. let's go to the weather center. tell us where this system is headed and what it is expected to do.

>> most of it is headed off shore but i do agree with the pretty pleasant day in dc and i don't get that when you have a wind chill in the teens and i am on board. it snowed across parts of maryland and here all the way down to the ocean and nine and half inches right there so this was a significantly cold storm and a lot more snow fell out west where in kansas you had over 20 inches in the ice even in parts of bloomfield some of this is bringing power lines down and branches it down and the electricity and we still see some snow across parts of west virginia and pennsylvania but for dc it is really just about gone and we won't see anything else and that earth cam shot we showed you earlier and we see the visibility picking up and we can see across the river and not the visibility down to a quarter-mile delaying or canceling but likely less than two or three inches of snow but

look at this stripe all the way from kansas somewhere between 10 inches and one foot of this his own all the way to the east coast so it was a widespread long track the storm with warnings in effect but they will likely be canceled or expire somewhere around midnight and we still see some of that snow and west virginia passing on by dc for one last fluffy look and probably philadelphia as well but that will be over by midnight. >> i am glad to hear it won't be her tomorrow. thank you. thank you for the update. president elect trump says that he will undo a permanent ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling that president biden announced today. executive action prevents any future development across 625 million acres of ocean but the white house said that includes the water off the entire east coast

and the eastern gulf of mexico and the pacific coast and portions of the northern bering sea and alaska and while trump is promising to reverse the new ban it would take an act of congress to make it happen. we are here to explain and first talk to us about the environmental impact of this and what it means for new offshore drilling. >> it would pretty much stop them for good and cement joe biden's environmental legacy is the president who protected the most acreage around the country but let me show you some maps to get perspective. this is before the ban courtesy of the biggest ocean advocacy nonprofit and everything in red was not protected but that mustard colored area around the eastern gulf of mexico and the states along florida and georgia, those were offshore drilling bans put in place by donald trump set to expire in

2035 so now in these waning days joe biden went ahead and did everything that will protect it due to the 1953 outer continental shelf act and now you can see all of it is protected, over 600,000 square miles and they call this a total ocean victory and celebrating this is many environmentalists are in the gas lobby isn't and today president elect trump about to roll it back and take a listen. >> it is ridiculous and i will undo it immediately and i have the right to do that and what is he doing and why is he doing it? we have something that nobody else has. nobody has to the extent we have in it will be more by the time we finished and we will expand our country and he doesn't even know what 625 million acres would look like and we can't let that happen. it's really our greatest economic asset.

>> but just for context under joe biden they for actin drilled and exported more fossil fuel than any other nation in history and you know as we showed you president trump actually banned offshore drilling as political favors in the southeast but it could take the act of congress and the judge that the president has the power to ratchet up protections but only one way it can't go the other way and that could end up in the high court and the senate republican said they could use reconciliation to open up especially the gulf of mexico and right now but again this has zero effect on gas prices and it takes 10 years to build an offshore oil plat form in the global market determines prices that the trump administration sticks with the campaign rhetoric of drill baby

drill. >> it is so important. thank you for bringing that down -- breaking that down. >> still ahead president biden heading to new orleans just days after a man's deadly attack on bourbon street and facing a crisis, the prime minister of one of america's est al is said to resign and what is next for canada and justin trudeau.

let's say you're deep in a show or a game or the game. on a train, at home, at work. okay, maybe not at work. point is at xfinity. we're constantly engineering new ways to get the entertainment you love to you faster and easier than ever. that's what i do. is that love island? in the next hour, president biden will touched down in new orleans. he and the first lady are said to take part in a prayer service but the president will deliver remarks and grieve with the community still reeling from the tragic new year's day attack. in the

meantime, new details are emerging about the man who rammed the truck into bourbon street revelers killing 14 people. the fbi said the u.s. army veteran that is -- visited the city twice and used smart glasses the plan his attack. investigators also say they're looking into his trips to egypt and canada for possible ties to this deadly rampage. we are live in new orleans and what new details are officials revealing about this attacker. >> one of the questions that surfaced in the days after the attack was about how long in advance the assailant was planning to kill innocent people using that pickup truck as a weapon and based on the weapon -- information provided by the fbi, it seems it could be weeks or years and it is the fbi has revealed that the attackers came to new orleans

in the months proceeding at the end of october and when he rode a bicycle through the streets of the french quarter recording video using metaclasses. once again, in november he also traveled in a nationally and he went to cairo, egypt. a few days later he did go to ontario, canada. i had an opportunity to ask the special agent in charge of the fbi here in new orleans whether he believed that a terrorist organization may have financed those trips for him or who he met with and this is what he said. let's take a listen. >> at this time we are trying to determine the answers and that is what our priority is for this international trips. we're looking at who he had encountered during those trips or meeting with and where has he traveled in those specific

countries and whether or not any visits to those countries may or may not may have any indication as to the reasons behind the attack. >> the new orleans mayor had said that she is asking the white house for tactical experts review these measures and some are in the works of course and president biden himself in the first lady will arrive here in new orleans in about an hour and they will attend an interfaith service here at the church behind me, the cathedral . they will meet face-to-face with families of the victims as well as local officials and the president said previously that he has already spoken by phone with some of the families of the victims. back to you. >> thank you so much. >> let's dig deeper now with the senior law enforcement

analyst chief charles ramsey and thank you for sharing part of your afternoon with us. we have learned the attacker planted these two improvised explosive devices on bourbon street but apparently used the wrong device to detonate them and what does that tell you? >> first of all that is good but it would've been worse had he been able to detonate those devices but this is the person who planned this and scouted out and sought is a soft target and it was and he was able to penetrate easily the defense that they had four bourbon street on that night and he was prepared to do some serious damage far more than he was able to do with just his truck. >> he did post five videos in the hours leading up to this attack and local officials are

asking why he was not stopped or caught after the videos were posted and why do you think that is? >> can you imagine how many videos were posted on social media and the police can't look at every one of them. that is why when people see this kind of stuff on social media they need to reach out and contact authorities because it is absolutely impossible to look at every single video posted on social media around the country and you can't do it. you have to rely on the public that if they see something that does not appear to be quite right or somebody who is saying things of a threatening nature notify authorities so we do have a chance to dig a little deeper and find out exactly what it is going on dealer individual but we will never be able to monitor every single social media site nor do i think the public wants us to. >> am also curious about some new reporting indicative of

bureaucracy hampering efforts to secure the french quarter back in 2019 it was this consulting firm that found security was being hampered by politicking among stakeholders and how do you see officials overcoming issues of politics when there are the security challenges going forward. >> now that i am retired, i do a lot of consulting work and one of the things that really is very frustrating is you put in a lot of work and do your research and you make recommendations and then a report sits on the shelf and that's not true in every city and every client we have, but it isn't unusual for us to go into a location and they say you know we had a study done about six years ago. and then we look at that. and then nothing has changed. why bother to hire somebody to come in and take a look at what you are doing if you won't follow the recommendations? it makes no sense. politics plays and everything and it becomes a

cost thing and about money and it will cost us too much to do this that or the other but now you have a tragedy. guess what? you have to spend the money, probably more than you would have had to spend had you taken indented initially and you could've done it a little bit over time and now you have to do it all at once and they have some big events and they have mardi gras and super bowl coming up so time is not on their side and have to make changes and make them fairly quickly. >> we will see how they respond. chief ramsey, appreciate the perspective. thank you for joining us. a last-minute eagle battle and the manhattan da has responded to president trump's attempt to hold off his criminal sentencing ahead of inauguration. we will be right back.

the manhattan district attorney has just responded to president elect trump's request for a delay in his sentencing over his hush money convictions. he is set to be sentenced on 34 counts of falsifying business records this friday weeks for his inauguration and let's bring in paula reid. what are they saying? >> let me translate. they say don't grant this delay and they are saying you won't suffer any prejudice from this sentencing because the judge said you won't see any penalties but they say you can do this virtually instead of in person and also a reminder that you need this sentencing and the entry of judgment so you can pursue the appeals that you have repeatedly said you want to pursue. since trump has been convicted he has been trying to get this tossed and since reelected they have been using his status as president-elect to get it tossed and they have also tried to get it tossed

based on the supreme court's immunity ruling arguing some of the evidence that came in could be official ask and therefore it should be tossed and and this has worked with the judge but on friday they conceded that there was one thing to the team and he said i get there are physical and mental demands on you as the president-elect so i will let you attend this sentencing the virtually and he also did make it clear he will not apply any penalties to the president-elect and it isn't clear if this will be successful and unlikely it will be successful but if there is any delay it makes it highly unlikely that trump would be sentenced before inauguration day, which means it would be hovering over him for about four years and the judge. >> it would be interesting to see if it happened and what the scenarios are. >> i don't think you will go for this. >> thank you. let's talk further now with the defense attorney misty. the da in manhattan is urging the judge to deny this request by trump to delay the sentencing and i wonder what you make of that. what

potentially is next? >> i wasn't surprised they were going to opposed the application to delay the sentencing and what they laid out in their response is legal standards for what is called a stay and that is what president elect trump is looking for, looking for this to be postponed and this requires a showing of irreparable harm so if this did go forward there would be irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits and demerits would be the underlying appeal that they intend to make with respect to the immunity ruling and we know the judge denied the request to overturn the conviction based on the supreme court's decision about immunity but the trump team wants to bring it up to the higher level courts in new york state to make that determination so you do see them attacking that standard as well as the thing that's really the most compelling which in order for him to

pursue this bucket of appeals it's important to separate those one related to immunity and one an appeal of the verdict itself based on the evidentiary decisions and all of the other arguments existing federal supremacy and all of that and all of those appeals can't be done until the sentencing goes forward so that is the push pull we see between those two sides. >> i also wonder on trump's side what is the legal strategy behind wanting to avoid the sentencing even though he knows the outcome and he knows he won't face jail time? >> right. he would move those appeals to where he could attack the evidentiary issues which, of course has been spoken about in great detail by his team in legal filings about the trial. so i do think it's less of a legal question and more of the impact of what this means from the public perception perspective because the difference now is he is

technically not a convicted felon until this moves forward. if he is going through this sentencing proceeding, this would be the difference, that label of convicted felon. it seems the legal team is trying to hunt this out so it is up in the air and not something, a label that would be on him as he is inaugurated. >> while we have you, there was some news that came down which is a federal judge has a found route -- rudy giuliani in contempt for failing to turn over information to two former election workers he defamed after the 2020 election and they are pursuing him for $150 million in damages and they had a hard time trying to collect that and rudy giuliani had a lot of issues after he was found liable in court over this. what would be next in the case? >> right now this was an issue

about his palm beach residence and whether or not that can be used to satisfy the judgment and his argument is this is his private residence and the laws in florida could help shield your private residence from being something that would be subject to judgment collection and that is what it stems from. and this is about all of this document and evidence that he would establish whether or not it would qualify under these restrictions as far as collections and he did admit it is contempt or he that he did feel evidence and information that he was supposed to and he gave excuses but he said he did not do it and that was really the nail in the coffin because at that point it was almost inevitable that we would see this contempt finding which means additional charges could be added and there will be additional penalties relating to this and also now all of that stuff he needs to turn over has to be done asap. there

is a lot of legal repercussions coming down the pike with respect to this contempt hearing that is outside of all of his other legal troubles. >> thank you so much for being with us. >> when we come back, it is the end of an era in canadian politics. prime minierti trudeau saying he will resign. we will explain his thinking in just a moment.

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and already had underlying health issues. the cdc said the risk to the population is low with no evidence so far of any human to human transition. >> in the meantime after nearly a decade of canada's prime minister, justin trudeau said he plans to step down and here is his announcement earlier today. >> i do intend to resign as party leader, prime minister. after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process. last night i asked the president to begin that process. >> his decision comes as he faces tariff threats from donald trump and some disastrous opinion polls. we are live in ottawa and why is he resigning now? >> reporter: the bottom line is his own party doesn't think he could win the next election and he said he is a fighter but he wanted to stay in this but the members of his cabinet and members of parliament and his own party said, look, we don't think you have it in you and the conservative party had

opened up a 20% lead in the polls and an election has to be held at the latest this fall and at issue and i know this rings true for so many but inflation and rising legal immigration putting a strain on public services and then as well the issue of affordable housing which has now come home especially as canadians are looking for what will be economic challenges ahead as president elect trump takes office and i want you to listen now to justin trudeau talking about some of these regrets. >> if i have a regret particularly as we approach the selection and there are probably many regrets that i will think of but i do wish that we had been able to change the way we elect our governments in this country so people can choose a second or third choice on the same ballot so that parties would spend more time trying to be people second and third choices and

people would have been looking for things they have in common instead of trying to polarize and divide canadians against each other. >> you can see, boris, prime minister believes that is what would cure canada of a lot of the polarization they see and many canadians are saying if we just had some relief from inflation how -- had a government that understood kitchen table issues and perhaps we would not be in this situation and again a lot of runway and the liberal party needing to pick a new leader and prime minister. >> thank you so much for that update, paula, from ottawa. stay with us. we will be right back.

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at president- elect trump returns to the white house, a critic will assume an important post nearby. pope francis as appointed cardinal mcelroy as the new archbishop of washington, d.c. he had been a staunch defender of refugees, the environment and catholics in the lgbtq movement. it comes as president biden prepares to meet pope francis