tonight, less than one day left in the twitter presidency. >> if we had a fair press in this country, there's nothing i'd rather do than get rid of my whole twitter account. >> how the social media platform defined the trump administration. those once on the inside now speaking out. >> the president is spinning the big lie that this was not a free and fair election, that it was a stolen election. >> to sit there and celebrate the success of this pandemic, the response was just shocking. plus a new day for america. >> in our family, the values we share, the character we strive for, the way we view the world, it all comes from home. it all comes from delaware. >> joe biden and kamala harris on the eve of an historic event

that will look unlike anything in our nation's history. and the fields of flags lighting the path to a better tomorrow. this special edition of "nightline" will be right back. . and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein... -with 20 grams of protein for muscle health- -versus only 16 grams in ensure® high protein. and now enjoy boost® high protein in café mocha flavor. [♪] every time you touch a surface, bacteria is left behind. try microban 24. it kills 99.9% of bacteria and viruses initially, and keeps killing bacteria for 24 hours, even after multiple touches. try microban.

♪ thanks for joining us.

tonight on this final night of the trump administration, we reflect on the complicated legacy of a president often seen through the prism of tweet storms. from record-low unemployment and a booming economy, to the covid pandemic and racial unrest. the president often spoke to world leaders and his ardent supporters 280 characters at a time. all these moments, including the lies about the election, which led to a deadly insurrection, now forever immortalized on social media. when a mob of trump supporters violently attacked the u.s. capitol, the repercussions, swift and significant. the president impeached again. nearly 150 insurrectionists arrested. and one stunning consequence, the silencing of donald trump's twitter presidency. the riders themselves saying they were whipped into a frenzy

after being fed lies about a rigged election. >> they rigged it like they've never rigged an election before. >> reporter: on the day of attack, instead of condemning the violence, the president tweeting more lies about a landslide election victory so unceremoniously stripped away, referring to them as great patriots. his twitter account a steady drumbeat of lies that he, and not joe biden, won the presidency. >> twitter fueled the rage, the suspicion, the righteousness, and the lie that donald trump won the election. it was absolutely crucial he kept encouraging them. his followers, especially the most extremes ones of his followers, followe every tweet like it was scripture. >> by continuing to retweet the lies, by continuing to tell people the election was stolen, what he is doing is making sure that even though he won't be in the white house, that many of his supporters will not support or view president biden as a

legitimate president. >> reporter: for months, twitter flagged some of the president's tweets as misleading. after the cap to titol riots, c risk of further violence, they banned him for life. >> when donald trump was banned for twitter, the word everyone tweeted to me was "gutted." it ripped his heart out. he wanted to see how many people were retweeting, liking, commenting. that's what he loved. even if it was somebody attacking him for the tweet, he didn't care, he liked to churn up the controversy. >> reporter: it was a bully pulpit that seemed a perfect fit for this president. >> i have such power in terms of numbers with facebook, twitter, instagram, et cetera. i think it helped me win all of these races. >> let me tell you about twitter. i think maybe i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for twitter. >> if we had a fair press in this country, i would do that in a heartbeat. there's nothing i'd rather do than get rid of my whole twitter account. >> reporter: his mastery of social media revolutionized and

some argued degraded presidential communications. trump tweeted more than 15,000 times as president to his 88 million followers, while he was quick to tweet outments stock ma rallies and supreme court nonees, heevust to fire cabinet secretaries, rail against his enemies, and spew lies far and wide. there was perhaps no bigger lie than his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. do you believe president trump's tweets undermined confidence in the democratic process? >> there's no question in my mind that the president is spinning the big lie. the big lie that this was not a free and fair election, that it was a stolen election, that it was a rigged election. this is doing great, great harm, great danger to our democracy. >> reporter: chris krebs is the former chief of cybersecurity at the department of homeland security. how do you feel, looking in the rear-view mirror at the american election of 2020? >> i know that it was, in fact, a secure election.

the challenge we had, though, is the fact that the president of the united states and his supporters continued to propagate, promulgate, those lies. and that is a very challenging opponent in this sense. >> reporter: when krebs, a lifelong republican, announced that there was no evidence the election was stolen or rigged, he was fired by trump. in a tweet. >> i had just gotten home. it was approximately -- it was exactly 7:06 p.m. on november 17th. i got a text from a colleague that said, you just got fired by tweet. and i said, no way, that's not possible. lo and behold, i fire up twitter, and there it is in all its glory, that i had been terminated. >> what was it like for you to get the backlash from trump supporters? >> it's always upsetting to get -- you know, potentially intimidating, to get death threats and other character assassinations. but i, you know -- i always rest

on the fact that we did the right thing, that we put country over party, and my sense is that when they write the history books on this, that we're going to come out on the right side of history. i can live with that. >> reporter: another trump official turned critic, olivia troy, who served as vice president pence's top adviser on the covid-19 task force. she says she wasn't the only one appalled that the president repeatedly minimized the threat of the virus, often via tweets. >> and i remember thinking, those governors, what are they feeling right now? reading that tweet, knowing that they have been bullied, knowing that the supplies promised to them repeatedly sometimes did not arrive, knowing that this pandemic was raging across the u.s. and there was no end in sight? and so to sit there and celebrate the success of this pandemic, the response, when this pandemic was just only gearing up and getting worse, was just shocking. >> one day it's like a miracle, it will disappear.

>> reporter: the president shrugging off the danger. when you look at that tweet, comparing it to the flu, what goes through your mind? >> i think about the task force meeting where the president himself asked that question. he specifically asked, is this worse than the flu? and he was told, yes, this is incredibly more dangerous than the flu. it spreads, it is more contagious, we are looking at a very different situation when it comes to this virus. >> reporter: on the morning of october 2nd, the president tweeted that he and the first lady had covid-19. later that day, the president was airlifted to the hospital for treatment. for three days he was given advanced experimental treatments. still, he told his followers, don't be afraid of covid, don't let it dominate your life. what was the ultimate cost of this mismanagement of the pandemic? >> you're seeing it every single day right now. you're seeing the loss of life,

the suffering, an economy that is going to continue to struggle. >> reporter: with two safe and effective vaccines developed and approved in less than a year, trump celebrating on twitter. still, it was not enough to prevent 400,000 deaths, a grim milestone the country reached this week. troye, who left the administration in september, lays the blame for the severity of the pandemic squarely at trump's feet. >> if i were grading the president himself, i would give him an "f." because the legacy he has left right now is a country that is fundamentally divided on an issue such as mask wearing. so the fact that this vaccine was developed, they've had several months to plan on how to allocate this and get this out. and here we are. right? you're seeing this colossal failure of not being -- not being able to actually implement this thing that was supposed to be the crowning achievement for this president.

>> reporter: as the nation was brought to its knees by the pandemic, it was also gripped by a racial reckoning after george floyd's death at the hands of minneapolis police. >> what's his name? >> george floyd! >> reporter: as protesters took to the streets in all 50 states the president took to twitter, inflaming tensions. >> president trump's tweets during racial reconciliation were simply just more fuel to slowly burning embers that have been burning for centuries. he did very little to extinguish anything. >> what trump often does in his words and his tweets, they are designed to elicit shock, they're designed to elicit attention, because that is the currency that he understands. >> reporter: throughout the summer, president trump used his twitter feed to amplify fringe voices and conspiracy theories, even retweeting a video of a florida man yelling "white power." he hastily deleted it three hours later after facing an outcry. >> reality is that we know, his

supporters know, the world knows that the apology or deleted tweet isn't coming from a sincere place, and that the damage being caused by the initial tweet has already been done. >> it sistet our country back, t the president by retweeting things, the dregs of political hatred, racist hatred, throwing it out on his twitter feed, set us back. and encouraged the worst instincts. >> reporter: but it wasn't just domestic issues that got the twitter treatment. american foreign policy was often conducted on social media for all the world to see. talking tough about iran. taking a hard line on china. touting his progress in the middle east. sever >> several heads of state say they have a hard time taking the united states seriously because they're talking about somebody who conducts foreign policy through firing off a series of tweets. >> reporter: as the minutes tick down on a tumultuous four years,

president trump's very last tweet before he was banned announced that he's skipping joe biden's inauguration. >> what a baby. i mean, seriously. no president has refused to go to his successor's inaugural for 150 years. trump's last tweet is fitting, because that's who he was. he was more about himself than he was about the country, and that tweet sums it up. coming up, how joe biden's life tragedies have prepared him for tomorrow's big day. to be honest...a little dust? it never bothered me. until i found out what it actually was. dust mite droppings? ewww. dead skin cells? gross! so now, i grab my swiffer heavy duty sweeper and dusters. dusters extends to 6 feet to reach way up high... to grab, trap and lock away gross dust. nice! for dust on my floors, i switch to sweeper. the heavy duty cloths reach deep in grooves to grab,

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james joyce was said to have told a friend to pass, when he he said, dublin -- dublin be written on my heart. well -- excuse the emotion. but -- when i die, delaware w be written on my heart. >> president-elect joe biden right there bidding farewell to supporters in his home state of delaware before heading to his new home in d.c. where he will be sworn in tomorrow as the 46th president of the united states. inheriting one of the most challenging legacies left behind by any predecessor. here's rachel scott, our soon to be new congressional correspondent. >> reporter: when biden is sworn in into the highest office, in a deeply divided nation, he will be faced with the daunting task

of healing our country. >> to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. they are not our enemies, they are americans. they are americans. >> reporter: democratic congressman jim clyburn says he's the right person for the job. >> leadership is as leadership does. and i think that is what joe biden will demonstrate. he will not lay out preseptembers as our current occupant of the white house does. he will practice what he preaches. he will lead by precept and example. >> reporter: when the election was projected for president-elect joe biden, it was 48 years to the day that he won his first senate race. >> this is the time to heal in america. >> reporter: his road to the white house filled with decades of public service, marked by delays, setbacks, and personal tragedy. but biden has embraced struggle all his life. >> my dad used to say, the

measure of success is not whether you get knocked down, it's how quickly you get up sglrn born november 20th, 1932, in scranton, pennsylvania, he was teased in gradeor his r. really humiliated and people r make fun of you. >> reporter: the self-described scrappy kid from scranton had big dreams of one day becoming president. first stepping onto the national stage at 29 years old, running for u.s. senate. then he was both the newcomer and an underdog. >> we have a projection, joseph biden, 29 years of age, a democrat, according to our abc decision desk, has beaten his opponent. >> reporter: one of the youngest senators ever elected would go on to serve in the chamber for 36 years. just as he was starting his political career, tragedy. his wife and infant daughter killed in a car crash. his two young sons, beau and hunter, badly injured. he was sworn in at their

hospital bedside. >> so help you, god? >> i do. >> reporter: biden would remarry, meeting his second wife, jill on a blind date in 1975. the couple welcomed daughter ashley in 1981. >> i'm jill's husband. and i would not be here without their love and tireless support of jill. >> reporter: the childhood dream of one day becoming president came to a halt twice. first in 1987 after a plagiarism scandal, and again in 2007. he did get to the white house, serving as vice president to barack obama. >> i will support and defend the constitution of the united states -- >> reporter: and three decade is after his first bid, he ran again. >> we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. >> reporter: that rallying cry became a cornerstone of his campaign, fighting to push forward even after suffering losses in iowa, new hampshire, and nevada. >> is your campaign viable? how do you make the case you're the most electable candidate? >> i keep running and i win. >> reporter: the turning point,

south carolina. and that endorsement from congressman jim clyburn. >> biden was out-fund-raised, he was out-spent. you came in and your endorsement changed everything. >> our thing was to create a surge and see if it would work in south carolina, then go across the south. it did work. won by 29 points. and the rest is history. >> reporter: as the nominee coming under fire for comments like these -- >> if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or trump, then you ain't black. >> reporter: after contentious debates and a campaign sidelined by a raging pandemic, americans waited days for election results. >> joe, joe! >> reporter: as word of the biden/harris victory spread, supporters across the country celebrated in the streets. the day after declaring victory, biden visited his son beau's gravesite. in the end, it was biden's home state of pennsylvania that pushed him over the edge.

>> hello, philadelphia! >> reporter: on election day he wrote this message on his childhood home. from this house to the white house with the grace of god. the white house already being prepared for its new occupant who faces the most divided and diverse america in modern times. >> we love differently, we worship differently. the only way this country works is if we're willing to accept those differences in each other. >> reporter: those differences right now putting americans at odds. so can joe biden be the uniter in chief? >> our thanks to rachel. up next, a nation honors the americans lost to covid-19. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (quiet piano music)

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from. >> finally tonight, remembering those we lost. in d.c. tonight, for the first event of the biden inauguration, a somber reflection on the national mall. ♪ amazing grace ♪ >> president-elect joe biden and vice president-elect kamala harris honoring the more than

400,000 of our fellow americans now dead from covid-19. >> let is shine lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection to remember all whom we lost. >> 400 lights around the reflecting pool, each representing 1,000 americans. and across the country, a moment of silence. and that sea of lights from the empire state building in new york to the gm building in the heart of detroit. we will never forget. that's "nightline." you can watch all of our full episodes on hulu, and we'll see you