it is 4:00 in the east and i'm john heilemann in washington, d.c., sitting in for nicolle wallace on a day when very little is normal ahead of an inauguration that will in many ways define the term abnormal at the end of a presidency bent, it often seemed, on the destruction of anything and everything that was normal and the very nature of normalcy itself. today, a dramatic departure from what we usually expect to see in washington in the days leading up to an inauguration ceremony and all the pomp and circumstance that has accompanied these occasions throughout our nation's history, whether in times of crisis, in rain or sleet or snow. now, in the final waning hours of the donald trump era, in a washington that is being compared to the baghdad green zone, it is clearer than ever

this will not be an unag ration like any this country has seen. already, the transfer of power is not a peaceful one, in the aftermath of a coordinated insurrection, attempted coup d'etat at the capital. today, the associated press reporting that u.s. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack, or a threat from service members involved in securing joe biden's inauguration. prompting the fbi to vet all of the 25,000 national guard troops who are in washington to keep this thing safe and sound. and just to underscore the magnitude of the general level of alarm, this morning, the capitol was again put on lockdown, causing many people here to freak out over what turned out to be a small fire under a nearby bridge. and if it seems like d.c. and our entire federal government is on edge, that might be because the more we learn about the insurrection of january 6th, the worse the state of our nation is revealed to be. new video captured by "the new yorker" reveals the closest look at the maga mob that we have

seen thus far as they set up camp in the senate chamber, all of it, they appear to believe, with the blessing of the president and his allies in congress. here is some more of that disturbing video. >> whose house? >> our house! >> there's a [ bleep ] million of us out there and we are -- >> we're here! >> is this the senate? >> where the [ bleep ] are they? where are they? >> while we're here, we might as well set up a government. >> hey, let's take a seat, people. let's take a seat. >> [ bleep ] nancy pelosi. >> we paid for it. this is our house.

>> there's got to be something in here we can [ bleep ] use against these [ bleep ]. >> oh, no, this is good stuff. >> quit acting a fool! >> yeah! >> this is incredible. >> let me honestly do this. i think we're good. >> donald trump eventually put out a message condemning the violence that we saw in the riot that left at least five dead, but trump has not acknowledged that the election was free and fair. in other words, he has not backed cown from the big lie that led his supporters to breach the capital. neither has ted cruz nor josh

hawley, which is why the violent extremist right may very well remain emboldened and why america is left on high alert for potential attack. we should point out that war footing in washington is only one of the not normal things hanging over wednesday's inauguration there is also the matter of the president's impeachment trial, which is likely to prominently feature everything that we just talked about as evidence that trump incited the insurrection. and the question of pardons for the growing hundreds of people arrested and charged with crimes for their actions on january 6th. not to mention pardons for trump's inner circle and potentially even an attempted pardon for himself for any number of crimes. "the washington post" says we can expect 100 pardons or sentence commutations sometime in the next 44 hours. and it's the collision of these three enormous stories the nation on guard from an attack from within, a second looming impeachment trial for donald trump and the possibility of a pardon blizzard to close out his term that brings donald trump's tenure as commander in chief to

its natural and predictable, maybe even inevitable end. and that is where we begin today, joining us now, msnbc national security contributor jeremy bash, the former chief of staff to the cia. also with us, carol leddic and national security analyst frank figliuzzi, former assistant director of counter intelligence at the fbi and author of "the fbi way: inside the bureau's code of excellence." jeremy bash, i want to start with you. there's been a lot of discussion in the past days about the comparison between what happened on january 6th and 9/11 and i think one of the things that sets them apart is that people are more, i think, disturbs in some ways by the notion of domestic terrorism than they are foreign terrorism. and we're talking about domestic terrorism that has an inside element to it, the notion that people on the inside of our government have been working with domestic terrorists to try

to stage this insurrection and whatever comes next. talk to me a little bit just about how kind of disturbing that is and the way in which the entire trump tenure is connected to it. >> it's scary, john, i mean, when you think about an insider threat, you think about pakistan, you think about other countries. you don't think about the united states, you don't think about our inauguration day. i actually think inauguration day is going to go well. i think the national guard is going to be responsible for the large perimeter surrounding the entire federal enclave in washington. i think the secret service is going to be responsible for the first family and the protectees and the second family. and i think the inauguration is going to happen safely and securely. but it is important to note, you can't vet 25,000 people in three days. whoever told "the washington post" they're going to do that, that's an impossibility. and i think the reality is that the main adversary, the main enemy is those people, the maga crowd who stormed the capitol in

an armed attack who brought molotov cocktails, who killed a police officer, who engaged in violence. and just to your broader point, john, which is, any time you have a domestic insurrection, a domestic terrorist element, you have to be sensitive. you have to be sensitive about first amendment issues, about criminal laws and national security authorities against them. they do have certain rights as american citizens. i think the only answer to them is going to be the political repudiation of the big lie, as you referenced. the idea that somehow trump won the election -- that has to be repudiated at all levels, by kevin mccarthy, by much mitch mcconnell, otherwise, the security aspects are never going to be solved. >> frank, i just heard jeremy bash, who knows a few things about these matters, say there's no way the fbi can vet 25,000 in three days. i want to hear you respond to that. is that the case that this is

kind of being misreported or blown up in some wake? if we take there's a basis for the notion the fbi looking at these national guardsmen, national guardspeople, what is the fbi doing right now to try to make sure that there isn't an inside attack from the people who are supposed to be securing this inauguration? >> so, first, jeremy bash knows more than just a few things and he's got this absolutely right. look, the vetting of 25,000 individuals is looking something like this. criminal record and are you on a terror watch list and that's about it. if you think that we're looking, the bureau is looking at 25,000 individuals social media posts over the years, even if they identify what their screen name is, what their handle is, where they are in some encrypted place in the dark web, that's not happening. and that's too bad, because that's exactly where you need to

look for radicalization. this is a radicalization that took place largely online, that's where you'll find evidence of it and that's not happening. the fact that we even have to do, have to see national guard troops vetted through criminal and terror watch lists is, we're not a monolith. the police, they reflect the polarization in our society. we have a deeply imbedded problem. and this problem started well beyond the trump administration. we've seen within the police ranks and the military ranks white supremacy and extremism develop over the years. >> carol ledding, everybody's freaking out. democrats are freaking out, republicans are freaking out, americans are freaking out, everyone's on edge. the one person who is not freaking out or at least not freaking out for the same reasons, the president of the united states. a colleague of yours talking about donald trump's state of mind. "trump remains fixated on getting revenge on republican members who voted against him on

impeachment, per several advisers. has begun to closely watch and praise rep fifth marjorie taylor greene" who is a qanon person, he didn't say that, i did. "talking about pardons nonstop and still telling advisers that he really won the election." so, carol, talk to us a little bit about the state of mind of donald trump in this moment. >> i'm glad you flagged my colleague josh's tweet. we've been spending a lot of time late at night writing about pardons at midnight last night and how many pardons the president is considering. the president keeps telling people over and over again is that he actually won the election sees a little late in the day to keep saying it, but he does keep saying it. and despite his attorney general telling him that is a pile of junk, he still insists that it's true. and it infuriates him that people don't agree.

but over the weekend, he was working hard, down to the final wire in the hours -- final hours of his presidency, going through the list of people who are seeking his clemency. and some of them have well heeled lawyers, some of them don't and they just have advocating saying, these people were wrongly convicted. and the president is not freaking out about this, because he said he really relishes this power. the power to grant this relief. and so, he's pretty psyched about it. >> yeah, carol, just to be clear, i know you know what i meant but he's freaking out but he's not freaking about the same things the rest of us are freaking out about. and i do want to ask you, just as long as we're talking about pardons and you guys are so deep in that, there is a lot of discussion about not just the fact that he's -- he has said before that he loves this power, it's the -- kind of how he thinks the presidency should work, i think, in some cases, how he thought it did work on all fronts, he can do whatever he wants, he's unrestrained and

unconstrained, but do you think he's seriously considering pardoning any of the capitol insurrectionist us, is that being seriously considered by the president at this hour? >> we have not heard that and one of the problems for the president in that regard is, it's really hard to pardon, you know, 10,000 people, many of whom you don't know their names unless the fbi turned them over to you. that would be pretty tricky for the president to do. we have heard some intense discussions, near fist-fights going on in the white house, at least verbal fist-fights, about whether or not the president should pardon himself or pardon his family members. there's been a lot of anxiety about donald trump and the president's role in inciting the violence that took place on january 6th. jim comey told me this week that he, forgive me, last week, that he would investigate them for

that federal crime if he were fbi director now. and the fbi is looking at that issue. no indication that any u.s. attorney is thinking about prosecuting it, but it is relevant, john, to pardons. because if you think you've got exposure, this is the time to get the blanket. >> right. frank, jeremy, i want to ask you a similar question, which is, you know, this video from "the new yorker" that has -- staggering piece of reporting, congratulations to the reporter and to the magazine for having both the video and the piece that it yielded, you know, there's a lot in it, and i'd like you guys both, i'll start with you, frank, and we'll go to jeremy, having listened to what we hear these guys saying, the intent focus on trying to find nancy pelosi, the constant references to donald trump, the constant references to whether ted cruz would or wouldn't approve of what they're doing, tell me what, when you watch this video, again, i'll start with frank, what did you see in

this video that helps to build a legal case against the rioters and more importantly, potentially build a case on the impeachment front against donald trump? >> yeah, well, look, this puts to rest -- these videos put to rest any myth that this was some spontaneously come busted random event. we're seeing signs in the videos that keep coming out of planning, organization and intentions, intentions to hurt individuals in the highest office in our land. and so, when you see more trump flags than american flags, when you see people saying, ted cruz would be okay that we're doing this and trump sent me and combine it with the beatings of police officers and the damage to the symbol of our democracy, this springboards into the fbi and u.s. attorney investigations that indicate there was planning, there was coordination and probably at a much higher level. and there's reporting, john, as

recently as today that people very close to trump, including people who staffed and rain his campaign and received large payments of up to $1 million for him for their work, were actually the names associated with the permit for the rally that led to the riot. >> jeremy, i was going -- rather than having you answer the same question i asked before, i want to focus on one more specific thing, another specific thing, which is this headline i read, this nbc news piece about the fbi probing, saying fbi probing if foreign governments and groups funded the extremists who helped execute the capitol attack. so, given your areas of expertise and you know a few things, you know a vast amount. tell me what your thinking about this is and your connection to foreign entities. i saw a story that talked about bitcoin deposits coming from foreign actors into some of the accounts of the

insurrectionists. where do we stand and that story right now? >> well, and so does frank, because counterintelligence is what we're talking about here. i think there's two potentials here. one is that these individuals received some foreign assistance and they knew they were getting it from foreign entities and the other possibility is that they were unwitting, that maybe in the same way that in 2016 the russians, for example, masked themselves as americans, organizing on social media, organizing rallies and things like that, maybe there was some foreign help there, or of course the possibility is there was no foreign assistance at all and this is purely domestic, but i think there's also a criminal case in which one of the alleged defendants here, or the defendants, the alleged perpetrators said she took a laptop or computer hardware from pelosi's office and she was going to send it to russia, send it to the svr. we got to peel that apart, because if there was any aspect of russian or foreign

intervention on behalf of trump, to overthrow the election results through an armed attack on our capitol, that brings us into an entirely different realm. that may be an act of war against the united states and we have to respond very aggressively if we find out the facts bear that out, which we don't know yet at this hour. >> well, especially combination with the ongoing, the fact this large cyber incursion by russia that was already going to be a giant issue for the bide inadministration going forward, if russia was involved with this, it just compounds the extent of the hostilities. >> no doubt. >> carol, i want to ask you a domestic question related to joe biden, the way donald trump is about to take off out of this capital shortly, but he leaves behind a lot of toxicity and one element that he leaves behind is reflected in the nbc news poll about whether joe biden won legitimately. i said before he hadn't

repudiated the big lie, donald trump hadn't. overall, the country says that biden won legitimately, overall, 61%. republicans, 21% yes. 74% of republicans, carol, think that joe biden is an illegitimate president. i want you to talk about how much of a challenge it poses to biden, as he tries to unite the country, which he says is his stated purpose, and just how much of the blame for that can only be laid in one place, which is at the doorstep of donald j. trump. >> you know, john, i think this is the most interesting question and the most worrisome challenge for the president-elect. i think you teed that up perfectly. i would also say, i remember and i'm sure you do, too, when the incredible message machine of the bush white house only surpassed by the incredible message machine of the obama

white house, but george w. bush's white house was really good at messaging and they kept insisting via the vice president cheney, that, you know, saddam hussein was a terrible threat to us in the wake of 9/11. two-thirds of americans believed that saddam hussein had a role in bringing down the towers in the 9/11 attack. absolutely, 100% bologna. so, what's going to happen now, biden has to look at republican leaders to help sound the call for honest facts. those leaders in those communities, colorado, montana, florida, those people have to talk to their communities and remind them of what really happened. there are a lot of people that will not want to resist this holding that they have, this believe that they hold so dear, because it will be embarrassing to give it up after insisting it

for so long. there are serious people, legitimate human beings who say over and over again, i think the election was rigged. and they need leaders around them and communities to take responsibility and say what's right. >> carol, i -- i take your point, though, obama white house had an incredible message machine and yet for all of its power, it still the case that when donald trump and others stood up and said barack obama was born in kenya, we saw the right wing, the conservative message machine convince an overwhelming number of republicans that barack obama was an illegitimate president. that's the other antesee dent to what we're seeing right now and points to the power of a president but also the power in particular, i think, of the echo chamber and the noise machine specific to the right. we're going to have to leave it there. great to see you today. carol, jeremy, guys, you see around town. frank is sticking around with us on the tv. when we come back, four years of the trump administration's xenophobia led to a rise in

right wing extremism that brought us to where we are right now, plus, president-elect joe biden and jill biden on this mlk day volunteering to fill food boxes in philadelphia, just hours from taking the oath of office and intending to take a blow torch to all things trump. we will take a look at the plans for biden's first days in office and donald trump today in seclusion for a sixth straight day. how his plans for inauguration are shaping up and whatcould be in store for him in the sunshine state, his new home, florida. all that and more coming up. do not go anywhere.

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law enforcement efforts at what we refer to as countering violent extremism here at home, that is something that we began to focus on in the obama administration through grants, through a lot of time and attention. i spent a lot of time and attention personally on our cbe issue, and it's something, frankly, that went off the rails in the last four years during the trump administration. we need to rededicate our focus. our homeland security threat picture has evolved dramatically, as you note. the years after 9/11, we were focused on foreign-based violent extremism, foreign-based terrorism, now the principle threat comes from within. >> that was obama administration homeland security secretary jeh johnson with a warning for us all, that the united states is unprepared to handle the greatest threats to national

security right now. right wing extremism, turbo charged by the trump presidency and donald trump's lies about a rigged election. former dhs officials tell nbc news that the agency's focus on implementing trump's hard line immigration agenda came at the expense of tracking and fighting that growing threat from the far right. joining us now to discuss all of this is the reverend al sharpton, host of "politics nation" and the president of the national action network and frank figliuzzi is back. guys, rev, i guess i start with you here. there is -- the notion, you know, we've commented for four years about the -- about the blatant and less blatant xenophobia that was kind of baked into trump's immigration policy. the notion that we now look back on this period and say, dhs was focused on that and not on this, this thing that is now caused the insurrection in the capitol and poses this enormous threat

going forward. it is both a tragic and also an irony, i would say. talk a little bit about that, about the misplaced priorities of the trump administration in this regard. >> it is obvious that they were misplaced priorities. but the question has become, were they doing what they were sworn and hired to do? and that is protect those in the homeland. so, if they were not doing their job as homeland security, or following the political agenda based on bias, bigotry and xenophobia of the president, then they were not operating and serving the public that they were sworn to serve. how do you have right wing extremists that are all over the internet that are saying every day all day in every kind of way, some of the most hateful things, demonstrating weapons, putting out these kinds of things in broad daylight. the president saying, after one

of the most visual attacks we've ever seen in virginia, there were good people on both sides, every signal that could have been sent was sent. this wasn't dog whistles, there were loud sirens. this had to be intentional for seeking what was an agenda. and i think we've got to stop making excuss for them. >> frank, i want you to talk about this nbc news report. the capitol riot exposed flaws of trump's dhs, focused on immigration and not extremists, say exofficials. as more experienced and senate-confirmed homeland security secretaries like john kelly and kirstjen nielsen left the trump administration, trump loyalists replaced them with minimal experience. most have had one important qualification, loyalty to white house adviser and stephen miller

and anti-immigration hawk. frank, explain it to me. how do you think we got to this place where we took our eye completely off the ball. do you think the rev is right, that this is actually a conscious agenda that kind of fed into some of the priorities that coddled and ignored white nationalism or do you think there were a complex set of factors that led us to that conclusion, but without that level of intent? >> so, first, as the reverend knows, racism and hate was not unique to the trump administration, it's been with us an infection throughout the fabric of our society and our history, however, however, racism and hate, as a strategy, as a policy, came to its ultimate fruition during this administration and yes, indeed, they fueled their policy and strategy with hate, racism and appealing to a base they knew

that they concept without resonate with. there's no question about it. so, let's move on now to the concept of consequences and accountability for those enablers, facile day torps and leaders, and here's where i break with people who say, in order to heal, in order to get better, we somehow need to cover up the infection and hope for the best that it goes away, but that's not what happens with an insidious infection. you have to treat it aggressively, and that mikes consequences and accountability, in the form of impeachment, banning from future office and prosecution of those who actually enacted the strategy. >> rev, you have obviously, in your movements at the national action network and your -- the various causes you take up on behalf of people who have been victims of police violence, particularly african-americans, you've looked into the ways and means, so to speak, of a lot of police departments around the

country. so, when i read stories that say that military law enforcement agencies have long known that there has been active duty recruitment by the far right within their ranks and that police departments right now across the country are investigating their own members involvements in the capitol riot, i find that unsurprising, given what we know. to you, it must be, like, are you guys -- like, what have you guys been doing? if you didn't realize this was a problem, you are, again, kind of willfully blind to it. seems like the least surprising thing in the world. >> absolutely the least surprising thing to me and many of us that have been involved in these movements. when you look at the fact that you saw policemen, law enforcement people, being assaulted in the nation's capitol, one scene where we saw the video of a policeman crushed between a door and those assaulting him -- what happened to the people in law enforcement

that were screaming at us that we're raising the voice of police reform, saying blue lives matter? i'm at national action netwroshg where senator schumer and others spoke here today, maybe we need to have a blue lives matter for them that were abused on the capitol steps. because had the people in law enforcement done their jobs and went after groups that were criminal, whether they agreed with their politics or not, we may not have had the situation we had. they felt they had a license to do what they did. they felt it from the very top. let's remember, if anybody in the black lives matter movement, civil rights movement, any of us had made a speech, called for a march and that march resulted in violence against the property of the united states, we would have had been arrested and indicted. but the keynote speaker at the

rally that sent them off with the president of the united states. that's why they felt they were operating with total immunity. and that is where we say this was an attempted coup, led by the sitting head of state. >> so, i want -- i just -- i got to -- they're going to kill me for going too long here but i really want to play this sound, from this "new yorker" video of all the shocking things in it, this is not the most shocking, but it really pulled me up short when i saw it the first time. it's really short. let's play this. frank, i want to ask you about it on the other side. >> any chance i could get you guys to leave the senate wing. >> we will, i'm making sure they ain't disrespecting the place. >> okay, i want to let you know this is the sacredest place. >> i know, i'm going to sit in this chair, because mike pence is a [ bleep ] traitor. >> so, frank, there's -- a member of the capitol police -- is there any chance, guys, that

you can maybe, if you wouldn't mind, like, not desecraing this -- i don't know, is there something i'm messing? that seems like not really the -- not a -- it seems like a pussyfooting. he's handling these guys with kid gloves. maybe there's some reason why he's behaving the way he's behaving. but that seems awfully friendly to me. am i wrong? >> yeah, look, my law enforcement colleagues scratch their heads over this entire response, but there's a couple of things both good and bad that might help explain this. that officer is trying to survive. he knows full well there are insufficient resources to battle this mob and he's trying to get home alive tonight, so, that's one aspect. but look, no one in law enforcement can any longer ignore the disparity with which law enforcement treats different groups differently. so, not only was the posture insufficient for the risk and threat articulated, but once they started overtaking the iconic building of democracy,

even then how they treated it was indicative of losing your oath, your code. i wrote a book about core values, code, conservancy, keeping what matters most. those officers did not keep their oath that day. many of them were heroic, as the reverend said, even tortured and killed that day, but many of them decided they were signed up for something else. >> rev, we do not have time, but i'll just say, i know exactly what we all know here, which is that if those guys in the well of that senate chamber had been black, that cop's reaction to them would have not been nearly so polite. reverend al sharpton and frank figliuzzi, thank you. up next, from pledging to root out american carnage to promising to unite, how is biden's first daises in office, how they will be different.

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unity is not some pie in the sky dream. it's a practical step to getting things done. we didn't get into all this overnight. we won't get out of it overnight, either. but we will get through it and we'll get through it together. >> nbc news has learned that president-elect joe biden's inaugural address will echo healing and buy partisan unity.

in biden's first week and a half, the new president will take a blow torch to the past four years, starting with executive actions to reverse the trump era travel ban and departure from the paris climate change agreement and political precedent that masks are required on federal property. and that is just on day one, which starts noon on wednesday. robert gibbs joins us and jennifer palmieri, former white house communications director for hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. fabulous to see you both. jen, talk to me about how important it is and the ways in which you understand the biden campaign trying to draw a straight line between the message that worked for him in the 2016 campaign -- in the 2020 campaign and what he's going to say from the dais on wednesday, like, why is that so important and do you think that it will

work, it will be effective in the face of this giant divide that we see so visible, to painfully visible in the past couple of weeks. >> sometimes new presidents inherent new crises that they didn't anticipate. but this is why joe biden got into the race. he thought that was somebody that could better unite the country. it's what he's built for, it's what he thinks his whole leaf has been leading to. and so, in that way, they are able to take their campaign strategy and adapt it to the inaugural platform and also to an executive action strategy backing up what the president-elect will say on wednesday back at the white house. and, you know, you had four years ago, you had a president be inaugurated that talked about american carnage. you had a president that ran on division in the form of trump and continued to use political

divides to further his agenda. we're going to have a president that talks about unity and bringing people together. and we've learned about how much the president's words matter and it's a long road for biden, but starting with these kinds of unifying words on wednesday to the democrats, the independents and the people who voted for trump who are willing to hear them is the place to start. >> robert, in addition to unity, there's also themes of competence and themes of leadership, like someone's in charge, right? someone's actually going to be trying to run the country in a way that tries to help people when a lot of help is necessary, a kind of help is on the way theme. we have some nbc reporting from kristen welker and mike memoli. they say people are just yearning for a little bit of normalcy and someone who knows what they're doing.

going to be joe biden because unity is part of who joe biden is, that's what he believes, the source told kristen and mike. it's really important, i think -- i think you'd agree, because you worked for barack obama for whom one of the key elements of obama's success was that -- it was this consistency, consistency from the campaign and into the administration and consistency of what -- of who barack obama was in private, what his character -- the character of the man in connection to his political -- the political face that he showed the world, his public face. and i just -- i want you to talk about that. we've talked about this a million times before, how important it was for obama and whether you think it is, especially in this moment, so key for joe biden. >> yeah, john, absolutely. i think back to the first video that we saw announcing the biden campaign, oh so many months ago,

and it was this idea of the battle for the soul of the nation and this idea of bringing people together for something, part of a greater good, and that's the through line that you see from that announcement video to what you'll see on the west side of the capitol on inauguration day. and, you know, what you read that is reported by nbc, this idea of competence, this idea of a government that can run well, again, has a foundation in what biden has worked on for more than four decades. and quite frankly, i think what he sees that desperately this country needs more than anything. and that particularly as it relates to the covid pandemic and how we get this vaccine distribution to be much more rational, how we get the whole response to be much more competent, i think that will go a long way towards understanding the ability that biden has to make and bring about real change

going forward, if he gets the up front stuff as right as he can. >> jen, it's -- you know, it's the case that there's always -- there's as some continuity between administrations and then there's some disjuncture, right? this time, the degree of disjuncture is going to be extraordinarily high and the fact that the biden team is making very clear that they plan to, as i said before, kind of take a blow torch to some of the most controversial elements of trump's time in office, especially some of his executive actions, it's also the case, there's kind of a shock and awe quality of this. they are really going big, both on the legislative front and executive action front. i want to put up this list. on wednesday, inauguration day, rejoin the paris climate agreement. reverse the travel ban on muslim majority countries. mandate mask wearing on federal property and interstate travel. extent eviction and foe closure restrictions. extend pause on student loan payments. and on thursday, expand covid-19

testing. establish clear public health standards. move toward safely reopening schools and businesses and worker protections against covid-19. and friday, the cabinet agencies are going to get directed to take action on economic relief. that's the first two and a half days in office. it's a lot. >> yeah, and they've had -- i mean, democrats have had these poli policies, legislation, ready to go for years, but i think the biden -- the biden team strategy is really smart, because they're taking action immediately. that's always welcome, but particularly when you're going to have a tough situation in congress, senate is 50/50, dealing with an impeachment trial, it may be hard to get big things done quickly, they are still moving on the executive action front. same thing with the vaccine, right? that could be -- that's not going to be easy to administer. they're going to encounter a lot of logistical problems in doing that, but they have a whole list

of executive actions that while we're waiting for the vaccine, while we're working through the legislature process, progress is being made. and they've been really smart about the four sort of issue areas they're going to focus on. covid, the economic crisis related to covid, racial justice and climate change. and so basically these are confounding and overlapping crises, you can't work on one without addressing the other if you really want to get america moving forward and they're covering all their political bases. they're going to have a really, really hard time but i think they've done a lot of thinking about how they can keep making progress even as they're fighting out things in congress, dealing with impeachment and dealing with vaccines. >> robert and jennifer are both sticking around. i have a lot nor ask them about, particularly related to how donald trump is breaking with tradition for one last time on inauguration morning. he's getting on air force one and out of town a little earlier than presidents normally do. we'll look at his plans right

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if you printed out directions to get here today, you're in the right place. my seminars are a great tool to help young homeowners who are turning into their parents. now, remember, they're not programs. they're tv shows. you woke up early. no one cares. yes. so, i was using something called homequote explorer from progressive to easily compare home insurance rates. was i hashtagging? progressive can't help you from becoming your parents, but we can help you compare rates on home insurance with homequote explorer. guess what. the waiter doesn't need to know your name. when donald trump leaves office on wednesday morning, he will leave washington a pariah in both washington in itself and his old hometown of new york city. with nowhere else to turn, the president will head to florida where an alternate maga-laden world awaits him at mar-a-lago. "the washington post" writes this, by migrating instead to

palm beach, florida, trump plans to inhabit an alternative reality. the defeated president will take up residence at his gilded mar-a-lago club where dues-paying members applaud him. despite impeachment and other legal troubles, trump and his aides are attempting to build an operation in florida that will give the president sway over politics in 2022 and beyond. gibbs, how weird do you think all this -- just how weird do you think this is, the notion -- i mean, it breaks with all tradition, right, that trump is going to leave, not doing any of the things that the president is normally expected to do. we all know that, right? do you think this -- did you expect anything different? i mean, i sort of always assumed that trump would in some way not want to be around for joe biden's inauguration and not want to do any of the stuff that, you know, have the coffee with joe biden, write the letter for joe biden. it doesn't surprise me at all but it's still sort of shocking. >> yeah, i tend to agree, john. i mean, you think in some ways

that the higher nature of the office might come through, but donald trump proves that even on the last day, that's simply just not going to happen, and if you look back at any moment since we've had this election, donald trump is certainly not only yet to say that he lost this election, but he's yet to even acknowledge that while the administration will change that that change is coming to the biden administration. so, i think it's very predictable that he rushes to florida in this sort of cocoon of adoration, people telling him that he was robbed, the continued sort of disinformation that we've seen that caused part of those riots to happen on january 6th, but i'm, for one, very happy that we're going to still have, despite the pandemic and the security concerns, bipartisan former presidents standing with joe biden on the west side of that capitol so the world can see the peaceful transfer of power in the united states. >> jen, you and i were talking about this earlier.

on this question of pardons, which is that, you know, every time a president leaves office, there is always a last-minute -- there are a few pardons, sometimes more than a few, and some of them are controversial. bill clinton, when he pardoned mark rich, did himself some real damage in terms of his public standing and yet this is a totally different order of magnitude here, and yet, this president, more than any president, even more than bill clinton, more than any of them, just seems so, like, a moth to a flame when it comes to the pardon power. he loves this unconstrained ability to do this. how do you think he will end up striking that balance? there's so much peril in going crazy on the pardon front for trump, politically, with impeachment, et cetera. and yet, at the same time, you know he just wants to pardon -- he wants to set a record, more pardons than anyone's ever issued. you can just imagine that's what his thoughts are right now. >> yeah, because it is -- you were saying this to me earlier. it's like what he thought being president was going to be like, which is that he had total power, he could do whatever he wants, and really, the pardon power is one of the few places where that's true.

there's just very little oversight. there aren't -- there's very little guardrails. it's not built for somebody with a judgment of trump, and i'm not sure if what's in his mind is what will aggrandize me financially the most, what will make me the most money? there's reporting about people, you know, this -- there's -- could be some significant pay to play coming in with getting -- with getting some pardons or is he thinking, what's going to make me -- what's going to aggrandize me in the eyes of my supporters? which, you know, i know would be difficult to sort of pre-pardon people that were part of the insurrection on capitol hill, but that could be, you know, that could be part of it. so, it does seem to be the most -- one of the most corrupt things to be able to do on the way out the door if it's about grift and making money or, you know, family members of his family making money or if he's thinking about trying to repair his own stature and doing things related to the insurrection on the hill, but that is going to

hurt him when it comes to the impeachment trial. and you know, i think that probably is in his head. he does seem sort of focused on the impeachment trial, but there's going to be -- i think that we can see a flurry of them expected in the next few days. >> robert, we have very little time left but i will ask you this. donald trump says he's going to raise $2 billion to build the donald trump presidential library and going to put dan scavino, his social media manager in charge of it. i want to ask you whether that is a library that you'll be taking your children to as soon as it's built. >> i don't think i need to be planning any big trips because that sounds like it might take an attention span that exceeds what donald trump can think through in a post-presidency. >> sounds like, to me, kind of like epcot center on the very, very far right if you're on way too much acid. robert gibbs, jennifer palmeri, thank you for spending time with us. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts right after this quick break. white house" starts right after this quick break.

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you're outnumbered. there's a [ bleep ] million of us out there. we are listening to trump. >> hey, we were invited here. >> they swore an oath. >> they're leading so you can take that oath. >> we were invited by the president of the united states. >> i thought i was following my president. i thought i was following what we were called to do. he asked us to be there so i was doing what he asked us to do. >> aloha and namase again, everyone.

i'm sitting in for nicole wallace. donald trump may have just a little bit of trouble getting out of this one. we are hearing direct ties being made between the president's wishes and the capitol insurrection from trump supporters themselves, from the "new york times," quote, in court papers and interviews, at least four pro-trump rioters have said that joined the march that spiralled into violence in part because the president encouraged them to do so. the more responsible trump is found to be for his supporters storming the capitol, the more legal jeopardy he could be facing. this from the "washington post." quote, while legal experts are split on whether trump could face criminal liability for his role in the events of january 6th, testimony from rioters who felt directed to take part in illegal acts by his speech could inform decision by prosecutors about whether to attempt to build a case. short of that, the testimony from rioters is likely to be cited in trump's upcoming impeachment trial in the senate and could become evidence should people injured in the capitol attack seek to file lawsuits

against trump. so far, there have been 124 arrests and a law enforcement official tells nbc news there are still more than 300 open cases. the fbi says it has received tips containing more than 195,000 separate photos and videos. rioters implicating trump in the attack on the capitol adds more fuel to democrats' argument for a conviction in the upcoming senate impeachment trial. lead impeachment manager congressman jamie raskin stressed the senate vote has consequences both for trump and the long-term health of our nation. >> i don't think anybody would seriously argue that we should establish a precedent where every president on the way out the door has two weeks or three weeks or four weeks to try to incite an armed insurrection against the union. >> donald trump is indeed on the door -- indeed on the way out the door and president-elect joe biden will be inaugurated just two days from now but that won't stop trump from holding on to

whatever he can until then. he is reportedly trying to turn one of his favorite -- his favorite presidential powers that he has at his disposal, the absolute power of pardon. "the new york times" is reporting, quote, as president trump prepares to leave office in a few days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the white house for clemency according to documents and interviews with more than a dozen lobbyists and lawyers. while there is nothing illegal about trump associates being paid to lobby for clemency and there's no evidence the president has been offered money directly, a rash of pardons for trump allies or those who could help trump once he leaves office would cement trump's assault on justice and the rule of law. the case against trump taking shape as he clings to power is where we start this hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends, olivia troy worked in the trump administration until august on the coronavirus task force as an advisor to vice president mike

pence as well as an advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, she is now the director of the republican accountability project. also with us, eugene robinson, "washington post," pulitzer prize winning columnist and the one and only jonathan lemire, associated press white house reporter. eugene and jonathan are both msnbc political analysts. jonathan, the position of the trump administration, the position that trump is in now is that these rioters are saying, you know, we were following you. like, you can come out now, mr. president, and say you condemn the violence and that violence has no place in our movement, but, like, the clear statements that they're making is that, you know, the only reason we were there is because the president told us to be here and this is what he wanted us to do. what does the white house have to say about that? >> well, john, first of all, since every day that's followed since the january 6th insurrection of the capitol, what we have learned has grown more and more terrifying.

each day seems to bring with it a new video, new testimony, as to just how dire things were in that day and they were bad from the beginning. obviously, five americans have lost their lives connected to what happened that day. and it certainly seems like a few wrong turns or a few acts of heroism from a handful of capitol police officers prevented it from being that much more. these rioters were in there looking for blood, it would seem, and they are saying, to a person, that they were doing so at the behest of president donald trump, that he inspired them, he incited them, he fueled that riotous mob, though insurrection that stormed the capitol that day. the white house is saying very little right now. first of all, there's barely anyone who works at the white house anymore. i was there earlier today. the place is a ghost town. only a handful of staffers are left. most, you know, others are departing, of course, in the next 36 hours or so, as president trump himself leaves. and his circle of advisors, informal or formal, has shrunk by the day. they are, right now, they are aware, though, of these

ramifications, and they're keeping their eye on the impeachment trial coming in the senate. they recognize that if -- that there could be momentum and it would be started most likely by majority leader mcconnell, that if he were to vote to remove the president from office, a number of republicans could follow suit and if he were to be convicted, and kicked out, there also would likely be a measure preventing him from ever running again and that is part of the problem here for this president and his advisors. there are two things on their mind. first is whether he is indeed -- could be found criminally liable or face civil penalties, civil cases for what happened two weeks ago at the capitol, but second, if he is prevented from running again, well, there goes a lot of his clout and his attempt to keep a firm grip on the republican party going forward. if he can't run in '24, even hint at running in '24, that hurts his ability to be relevant and of course it hurts his ability to raise money, so they are watching all of these developments, and seemingly growing worse by the day for him.

>> you gene, it's, you know, lemire makes a very powerful point here. which is, there was a lot of discussion last week about the fact that mitch mcconnell has decided not to do a snap trial in the senate, not to go along with an expedited trial and people said, well, mcconnell, looks like he said he let it be leaked that he might want to impeach trump but see the real mcconnell, he doesn't want to do anything, he's just slow walking this and for the moment, i saw it, i thought, you know, there's another way to interpret this. potentially, mcconnell understands that the more reporting that happens, the more testimony that occurs, the deeper we dig, the worse this is going to get for donald trump, and that this is the way, if you want to get trump convicted in the senate. where process matters a lot and there are a lot -- the senate always wants to slow everything down. you know, mcconnell, knowing his colleagues would be reticent about convicting trump, moving as fast as the house did on the impeachment side, that it seems to me that if mcconnell wants to

get trump out, he may have understood that waiting a little bit was the best way to set up that case and get that job done. >> that's, i think you're absolutely right, john, and actually, you know, every smart lawyer i talked to, asking that very question, has pointed out that the longer we wait before the beginning of the trial, the more evidence accumulates, and i mean, not that you necessarily need a whole lot more, because he stood there, you know, in front of the cameras and told them to go and sack the capitol, basically. i mean, we have it all on tape. but they'll be tracing the financing, for example. and you know, how were these -- the groups, the organized groups that participated in this, how were they financed? where did the money come from? and again, these people who participated in this outrage, this assault on our democracy, will continue to say, well, i did it because the president told me to do it.

which is probably a pretty good defense for them, but it's not at all a good testimony for president trump. and i would just add one thing, which is, you know, 43 hours. i mean, i'm watching the clock at this point. counting down hour-by-hour. so we don't have that much longer. >> eugene, i hope, you know, they say a watched pot never boils. i hope that's not true in this case, because we're all watching that pot right now and waiting for it to boil. olivia, eugene was talking about how the notion that we're looking to start to look at things like the financing of this, as we dig a little deeper, that the case gets darker and worse for donald trump. one of the other things we're learning about is the fact that, as always, with any story related to donald trump, there is a russia connection, and in particular, there is a story that we're now reporting out here about one of the capitol rioters who was planning to sell the laptop of nancy pelosi's, planning to sell it to russian intelligence.

let's take a look at this here. a pennsylvania woman accused of being one of the capitol rioters told a former romantic partner she planned to steal a laptop computer from nancy pelosi's office and sell it to russian intelligence. court documents revealed on monday. this woman's name is riley june williams. she's been charged. we don't know if she's in custody yet. i just -- i'm curious, you know, given what -- there she is. given your background, olivia, what do you make of this story and its significance and its implications? >> well, i think riley has been paying close attention to her president, right? she knows that this is a president who has been in cahoots, i would say, with russia, from day one. so, when i saw that story, i actually thought back to the first impeachment and thought about the fact that no republican voted to impeach him, given, though, the evidence that was there at hand, and so when i look at that, i see a trump supporter who was all in, who

was participating in this insurrection and this domestic terrorist attack at the capitol, in support of this president's words, and now, she's got this information, right? and she's going to go give it to russia because that's what she thinks the president would want. i mean, how much clearer is it here? >> i'm not sure it could be any clearer. and as always, it's like all things in trump world seem to in some way lead back to russia, the other thing that all things in trump world always lead back to is donald trump's sympathy for, encouragement of a particular brand of white nationalist, violent extremist. so i was waiting after this story broke, i've been waiting to find out, what happened to the proud boys? the proud boys. donald trump, remember, in the debate, he gave a signal to the proud boys to stand back and stand by, and then thankfully, we have this piece in the "wall street journal" i want to read to you from in which we learn exactly what the proud boys were doing on january 6th.

here's the story. "wall street journal," proud boys seizing trump's call to washington helped lead capitol attack. on january 3rd, three days before the attack on the capitol, enrique tarrio shared a cryptic post on the messaging app, telegram. what if we invaded? the message was sent to his more than 7,000 followers on the app with the first reply leading, january 6th is d-day in america. the "wall street journal" reviewed thousands of posts from the proud boys and their members across parler, telegram, and gab, social media platforms where they rallied supporters online after mostly being banned from facebook and twitter. the messages showed the group repeatedly invoking trump's rhetoric as they built momentum toward what became a violent showdown, and if you read that story, eugene, it goes back to that moment on the debate stage. again, this is just one more way in which the deeper we look, the worse it gets for donald trump. >> right. absolutely. it looks really bad. i mean, you know, stand back and

stand by. so, told them, stand by, and they stood by and waited to hear him point to january 6th as d-day, basically. he didn't use the word d-day, but he promoted -- president trump promoted january 6th as the day that everything was going to change, as the day when mike pence was going to reverse the election, but everybody had to come to the capitol and put on pressure and we have to show strength and we have to, you know, everybody come, it's going to be wild. the president said. and so, what more? i mean, this is not speaking in code. this is, like, just speaking in plain english, saying, come and do it. and you know, i'm curious, just in terms of potential criminal prosecutions, obviously, and civil liability, i think maybe not just president trump has to worry. i would worry. but the people in his inner

circle, the people who were at that watch party, you know, laughing it up and yukking and having such a great time as this was going on. donald trump jr. and kimberly gilfoyle and all those in the closest circle around him, boy, if i were a prosecutor, i would really want to know what potential contacts they had with any of these people who ended up committing this act of violence against our democracy. so stay tuned. stay tuned. >> jonathan, i ask you, you know, if you think back to last week when the president finally, after a number of halfhearted attempts to denounce the violence at the capitol, finally put that video out that was a little bit more on script, at least apparently something that was closer to what his advisors wanted him to do, i want you to talk a little bit about not just what -- we've been talking for a week about this, what the motivations were behind it and that trump is clearly focused on

the senate and conviction, also focused on criminal liability. at this juncture, as we're now a few days later, is there a sense in the white house that that video had the positive effect they hoped it would have? or do you think there's more clean-up to do around donald trump, anybody around him suggesting that maybe he should come out and say that the election was free and fair, that maybe he should mention joe biden's name? any subject of discussion in the white house, or does everybody realize that is something that will never get done by donald trump so it's not even worth making the argument internally to him on that front? >> yeah, the consensus, john, is that they got about as much as they're going to get from the president on this subject, and in fact, we reported last week, within hours of releasing that video, which, as you know, was carefully scripted and edited, it was the message that his advisors wanted to deliver to try to ward off possible criminal or civil penalties, to also be aimed at mcconnell to say, i'm learning from this, i'm not going to incite any more violence, that within hours of delivering that message, which

his aides all took a sigh of relief, glad he did, the president was questioning whether it was the right thing to do. he was privately wondering if it looked like he had turned his back on his supporters. mind you, supporters in this sense meaning those who stormed the capitol. he also, since then, privately continues to say that he won the election, that this is something he does believe was rigged. and that's part of the evolution here is in the immediate aftermath of november 3rd, those first few days, though the president was publicly saying that he thought the election was rigged and he could still win it, privately, he was suggesting, look, he understood he probably had lost. what has happened is he started to believe the conspiracy theories. he exists solely in an echo chamber with the sidney powells and rudy giulianis and others in his ear with the feedback with the conservative media and the increasingly fringy conservative media that he is now watching, he had convinced himself that he had won. so, i would not anticipate, barring something that an aide convinces him that because that it would be such -- he would be

in such jeopardy if he didn't, i would be very surprised if we were to hear him ever congratulate joe biden, use biden's name, actually use the words "concede" or admit that he was beaten. the fact that last week he acknowledged a new administration would be coming in, that's as far as he's going to go, and i think what we have to watch here for the last 43 or whatever number of hours gene touted a few minutes ago is what else does he have to do? we know he's going to have a bit of a farewell wednesday morning, leaving the white house and then again at joint base andrews as he steps on air force one the final time. we are expecting a number of pardons still coming and though he's now, we can report, leaning against trying to pardon himself or his immediate allies or family members, you know, some of them are sure to raise headlines and some aides worry, whether it's the pardons or something else, could he do something here in his last day and a half or so in office to further alienate mcconnell and make a conviction more likely? >> olivia, real quick, on the question of pardons, we have some new reporting at nbc news here that says three sources familiar with the president's

thinking are saying that trump, at this point, is not expected to issue protective pardons for himself or his family. that's been a subject of enormous debate and we know a subject of enormous interest for the president for months where he has been floating this notion, exploring it, bouncing it off people. i'm curious whether you think -- whether you think at this point, given the way the trump thinks and how he calculates, whether we're kind of in now kind of the -- that reporting will -- may hold. and secondly, what you think about the other area of enormous controversy when it comes to pardons, about the question of whether trump might decide to pardon some of the capitol rioters and whether the only thing that might be restraining him from doing that is the notion that if he pardoned them, he would be admitting in some sense his own complicity in the riot. >> well, the thing about donald trump is a tiger doesn't change its stripes, right? i think that he is going to do what he thinks will garner him the most support and fame, and

it's been very well reported that people would be upset if he pardoned his own family. i mean, they should be convicted for their crimes and what happened in the pandemic and all sorts of other issues. but that's a separate issue, right? but i think what he might do is i have no doubt that he may consider pardoning some of the more outspoken supporters who have come forward and said, i did this for you, this is classic radicalization, talking to their leader, i did this for you. i sacrificed this moment because i came to support you. and so, i think if he thinks that that will garner the base and keep this favor and his stardom around him by these people, and enable the support of others, right, who are out there in this movement, these trump supporters who are unwaveringly devoted, i think that's what he'll do. >> eugene, whatever that number of hours was that you mentioned before, subtract one from it and that's the hour at which steve bannon's going to get his

pardon, i predict. olivia troy, eugene robinson, and jonathan lemire, thank you for starting us off. when we return, a funny thing happened after twitter banned donald trump. disinformation on social media plummeted. but the long-term damage may have already been done. that is ahead. plus, pressure is growing to bar trump from receiving intelligence briefings once he's out of office. it's something that biden's white house chief of staff is not ruling out. and later, the death toll from coronavirus is soaring, and health experts warn that it's going to get a whole lot worse. "deadline white house" continues after this brief break. continus after this brief break keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

in the wake of the attack on the capitol on january 6th, major social media companies finally, at last, took away donald trump's megaphone. twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, all of them banned the president from their platforms, cutting him off from millions of his followers. one incredible statistic shows just how much of an impact those bans have had on the internet. from the "washington post," quote, online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73% after several social media sites suspended president trump and key allies last week. research firm zignal labs has found. joining our conversation on this incredibly important topic is clint watts, former fbi special agent, and msnbc national security analyst and nbc news correspondent heidi. guys, good to see you today. clint, you know, let's, you

know, you have been on top of the misinformation, disinformation beat for as long as you and i have known each other and longer than most people have even realized it was a problem. these stats -- i mean, this is stunning to me. the degree to which it seems that removing donald trump -- i know other people were banned. some of his followers have been deplatformed. it's not just donald trump. but man, it seems like it's a pretty straight line between the statistics, between what we've seen between trump's removal and the effect. the cause and effect are pretty clear. does it strike you as surprising at all that the number is this big, that the decrease, in percentage terms, is that large? >> no, not at all. and really, john, i mean, president trump could spread more misinformation, disinformation than all the bots in the world combined at any given moment and i think that's something that kind of got lost in the technical discussion over the last three to four years. whether it was the russians or political campaign today, you're

looking for people with outsized influence that when they say something in the real world, it goes viral in the online world and vice versa. and so, it is remarkable. i can feel it when i get on twitter today. it hasn't felt like this since 2014. i mean, you can feel a very different internet, and if you went to where those people have gone since they have been deplatformed, since parler's gone down, it is an alternative reality information sewage system like i've never seen. it's a complete false world that's out there, and it's struggling to get traction. so, i am hopeful in a way that this removal will also reset the stage kind of conversation. twitter has always said they wanted to be the town corner, essentially, for the internet. maybe we can kind of go back to that a little bit and there can be more discussion and dialogue there. >> heidi, the -- the fact that donald trump is no longer on twitter has changed twitter. right? the fact that 70,000 accounts

that are affiliated with qanon were taken off twitter has changed twitter. a lot of republicans have pointed to their followers -- seeing their followings shrink on twitter in a dramatic way so it's changed the character of twitter and for a lot of people, to a lot of people's mind, changed it for the better. i guess the question i have for you, just to start with, is a political one. the president and his allies and a lot of folks on the right have seized on this as another way to make the argument about a culture war. they seize on it and say it's censorship. they say it's another part of their argument that social media companies and silicone valley is out to get them, out to silence conservative voices. maybe there's a -- maybe it's worth it. it probably is worth it to clean up these social media environments but there is a political -- there's a little bit of political risk involved in this too, it seems to me. what are you seeing and hearing from those on the right as they try to exploit -- to try to turn this ban to their advantage, politically?

>> well, such an important point, jon, because the question is, right now, where does donald trump go from here? where do all of his compatriots go from here who have been spilling this disinformation, frankly for four years and social scientists are already putting out reports, there was a good one today that said while they may have lost this broader universe like twitter, like facebook, what happens in situations like this, where they're deplatformed, is that they can become smaller but more radicalized, and here's the situation facing us right now since we're talking about spills and they've been spilling this disinformation for four years. here's the thing about spills. it's hard to clean them up if they've sat and marinated for so long and what we have here is a situation where there's an entire infrastructure that hasn't been shut down. were you watching fox news today? i was. they were talking about carter page and fisa warrants. it's not just fox news.

there's news max. there's an entire infrastructure that's still operating out there and another thing that we have to remember is we're not just talking about the united states of america here. this broader trend that we've seen of populist leaders who are lying to the public, who are showmen who entertain with their lies, who whip up fear of immigrants, fear of crime, this is happening all over the world in places like philippines, brazil, hungary. we were shocked that it could happen here, but it did, and so these are the things that we're up against. in terms of where we're going right now, i agree with clint. there's some hopeful signs. we've seen some republicans who stood up here, like the canvassing board member in michigan, the georgia secretary of state. i think we're in a sensitive moment here where our future will be determined on how those people are treated versus the people who whipped this up, who fanned it. there were 147 republicans who voted to overturn the will of the american people, who voted to overturn a democratically --

a democratic election here. that's not going to go away overnight. >> right. i hear you guys both. there's some hopeful signs, okay? i agree. there's some hopeful signs. here's a not hopeful sign. let's put up this poll, the nbc poll about whether joe biden won the election legitimately. here's what the stats show. all voters, 61%, only 61% of all voters think that joe biden is the legitimate president-elect, soon to be president of the united states. let's look at republican voters now. here's the republican voters' numbers. yes, 21%. 74% of republican voters think that joe biden is an illegitimate president. so, i come back to my point about hopefulness. clint, i'll start with you. the damage has been profound, and though some of the harm may be mitigated, and obviously it's good to clean up the toxic sewer that some of these social platforms had become over the

last four years, to clean it up to some extent, it does feel like this damage is pretty deeply baked into the cake, and it's a huge challenge for joe biden going forward. how do you fix this problem, that 71% of republican voters think joe biden is an illegitimate president? >> john, i think we're in trouble, to be honest. this won't fix itself. the one way we could have done it is if we didn't have however many -- 100-something congressmen basically say this fallacy is correct. that's the number one thing. they're still riding it. hawley and cruz are two great examples of people that are just riding this for their own personal benefit, their own pursuit of power and as long as they continue to do that, they'll continue to perpetuate it. i am hopeful to some degree that going across the aisle could happen a little bit more easy in the coming years. but the pandemic still makes this worse. there is a culture war around the pandemic and vaccines. there's a culture war around

technology and censorship. an ironic one considering the first time i testified in the senate, they were very worried about what isis was saying on social media and they wanted that removed because it was inciting violence. i would love to play some of the transcripts of that and see how it mirrors what we're seeing today. ultimately, the biggest riffs that i worry about in the case of this, the real extreme ones, are the riffs in the military and law enforcement, which is playing out this weekend, which is worries about insider threat or people having crossing allegiance. the president over the last three, four years and his supporters in the republican party have played on this wedge to try and garner support, but that also creates some very troubling things when you're trying to bring the country together, particularly with regards to criminal justice and racial issues in the united states and would we defend our country or would we be able to work with allies, which seems to be the cornerstone of the new incoming biden administration. i don't think it can be patched up together unless we have some republican leaders who commit to

an actual reality, and i'm hopeful in some ways that even mitch mcconnell, i know this is a crazy thing, but he has actually turned, and i thought his speech actually on the night of january 6th was inspiring to a degree and maybe set the tone that we can move past this point. we'll see how that plays out in the coming weeks. >> and yet, the case is that the vast majority of house republicans, the overwhelming majority of them continue to aid and abet the big lie, and josh hawley and ted cruz, even though you hear their voices among -- in these videos that we've now seen on the capitol insurrectionists, seem to have, at least publicly so far, seem to exhibit no remorse and no regrets. heidi, thank you for coming on. clint watts, you're sticking around. when we return, the calls are growing among democrats to stop president trump from getting classified intelligence briefings once he is out of office. e is out of office when they told me my work wasn't essential walls enclosed around me

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there's no circumstance in which this president should get another intelligence briefing, not now, and not in the future. i don't think he can be trusted with it now and in the future, he certainly can't be trusted. indeed, there were, i think, any number of intelligence partners of ours around the world who probably started withholding information from us because they didn't trust the president would safeguard that information and protect their sources and methods, and that makes us less safe.

>> for the past four years, this president, donald trump, has had access to the most highly classified intelligence there is, but on wednesday, he becomes a former president. that would normally mean that he is granted continued access to american intelligence, but some highly placed national security officials are starting to ask the question as to whether trump can be trusted with that information going forward. and in answer to that question, courtesy of his own former deputy director of national intelligence, sue gordon in a "washington post" op-ed, gordon suggested that the answer is straightforward. no. trump can't be trusted. that decision is ultimately the biden administration's to make. on sunday, incoming chief of staff ron klain did not rule out keeping trump away from that intelligence. >> we'll certainly look for a recommendation from the intelligence professionals in the biden administration, biden-harris administration, once they're in place and we'll act on that recommendation. so obviously, we don't have those intelligence professionals in place yet. hope the senate moves to confirm

them quickly. and then we'll look at what they recommend in terms of intelligence sharing going forward. >> let's bring in nbc news correspondent mike memorily in wilmington, delaware, and clint watts is back with us. good to see you as always. this ball is right in the court of the biden administration. they're going to have to make a call on this. i'm curious if you have a sense of what their take is. they obviously have a very dim view of donald trump on almost every level. have you gotten any indication as to which way they're leaning on this question? >> well, john, i think what we just heard from ron klain is very typical of what we've seen from the president-elect throughout this transition, which is very much a punt, right? on the question of invoking the 25th amendment, on the question of whether to go ahead with an impeachment of president trump, whether to go ahead with a trial of president trump now. the constant posture on the part of the biden team is to try to disentangle themselves from these very complicated questions

about what to do with their predecessor and i think that's exactly the posture that the biden team wants to take into is this white house. they don't want his administration to be consumed by questions of what to do with his predecessor. we've all spent four years being held hostage, frankly, by president trump's twitter feed and by other statements on a regular basis from him, and i think that's the biden team's view is they want to very much clear the decks. i think this question also begs another question, which is, just how much attention was president trump paying attention to his own intelligence briefings up until now? there's questions and endless number of stories written during the course of his presidency about his indifference to the briefings he was being given, the degree to which they had to present information to him in creative ways to hope that it went through. so, in some ways, this question might not be one that really merits much attention, but clearly, i think the larger question for the biden team is how to handle investigations of this president, how to

potentially corral congressional democrats, especially senate democrats who are all of a sudden going to have chairmanships and the gavels and the subpoena power that comes with that so that all of them are moving forward with the business of their country while also being seen as holding trump accountable for very much wrongdoing that they feel he's responsible for. >> so, clint, it's pretty stunning that sue gordon says the answer to this question is no, and she points to a couple of reasons why that are very -- that aren't just, you know, trump's untrustworthy but get to something more kind of rigorous analysis than that. the first is that trump has indicated that he wants to continue to be a political actor going forward. that's unlike most -- almost all of his predecessors, they finish their terms and they're done, they say they're not going to run for office again or they've been ruled out by the constitution. there's the question of trump's businesses. i'm going to read this to you here, what gordon wrote. she said, trump has significant business entanglements that involve foreign entities. many of these current business

relationships are in parts of the world that are vulnerable to intelligence services from other nation states and it's not clear that he understands the trade craft to which he's been exposed. the reasons the knowledge he has acquired must be protected from disclosure or the intentions and capabilities of adversaries and competitors who will use any means to advance their interests at the expense of ours. so, i ask you, clint, just, like, unpack this a little bit. again, beyond, we don't trust trump. it seems like these are two very specific and very good reasons why even if trump wasn't trump, if another president who had the -- who was set up in the way trump is, with business entanglements and with the potential political future, you might have the same ruling on that president for those reasons. >> sue gordon is absolutely right, john. her reasons are point on. a couple things. sure, the president never listened to his intel briefs before and even when he got them, he probably misunderstood a lot of them.

we've seen that in terms of how he talks. but this is a person who may not be in the best financial circumstance whenever he leaves office. this is a person, as you said, may want to run again, and i would not be surprised if president trump goes to places like the middle east or russia or to foreign countries bartering on his own businesses or his own influence back in the united states with republicans, and if he had that information, he could use it as an asset. it would also be one of these situations where the intel community would have to constantly be monitoring what they give to the president -- the former president, trump, and how it is deseminated around the world. imagine you're counterintelligence against the last president. well, we've seen this happen before. remember, there was a general flynn who made an unsecure phone call from a third country to an ambassador who was in russia, right? so, these sorts of dynamics would be so painful to deal with, and he could seek to undermine or box in, we've already seen behavior from this administration with trying to install loyalists over the nsa

and with trying to box in the biden administration, that they would try and keep the biden administration -- >> i believe, unfortunately, we lost clint there at the very end but i think we were just about to wrap up with that question anyway. mime memoli, great to see you. i have a hundred questions but no time to ask them. i will call you. mike and clint, thanks for being on. when we return the coronavirus pandemic is hitting its most dangerous point yet with cases soaring, deaths rising and even new covid variants giving health experts reasons to worry. that grim news is next. reasons y that grim news is next of of

good morning, mr. sun. good morning, blair. [ chuckles ] whoo. i'm gonna grow big and strong. yes, you are. i'm gonna get this place all clean. i'll give you a hand. and i'm gonna put lisa on crutches! wait, what? said she's gonna need crutches. she fell pretty hard. you might want to clean that up, girl. excuse us. when owning a small business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. -and i'm gonna -- -eh, eh, eh. -donny, no. -oh. as the coronavirus continues its rage across the country, president-elect joe biden's incoming white house chief of staff warns that more than 100,000 more american lives will be lost by the end of next month. yesterday, the u.s. surpassed 24

million coronavirus cases and california became the first state to surpass 3 million cases as officials there warn about another variant that's been popping up around the state since november. they say it is too soon to know if the variant, so far found in 12 counties, is more contagious, and that news comes as the cdc warns the highly transmission uk strain could become the predominant one here in the u.s. by march. so far, 76 cases have been identified in 10 states. joining us now, nbc news medical contributor and global health policy expert dr. vin gupta. dr. gupta, great to see you. although i sense that we're about to have a conversation that's going to be depressing, given the -- where we are right now. it's just been an astonishing period of time here, dr. gupta, where, you know, we have been losing 3.5 -- 3,500 people a day, and yet we're not really paying attention to it anymore.

there's been so much going on in politics. just give us a sense of, as everyone has had their head turned away to some extent from covid because of the events here in washington, how terrible they have been, what is the trajectory right now and how alarmed are you by that trajectory? john, good to see you. the trajectory is alarming but there is hope and so that's the top line. listen, for all the viewers out there, there is a worry with this new strain that sounds like it's more transmissible but people obviously getting tired of all the mitigation measures and staying at home with now schools reopening for in-person instruction. i'll get to that in just a moment. but that also is deeply worrisome, given all this evolution of new data. what we're seeing here and these are forecasts from the university of washington, is that there is likely going to be well past a half a million souls lost by may 1st. we're estimating approximately 600,000 souls lost by may 1st, regardless of what's really

happening with the vaccination program. so what does that mean? that means vaccination is going to provide relief, but that relief is going to be in the medium term, john. that means towards the summer, we're going to start seeing this pandemic shift, but in the interim, we need to focus on ho transmission of this virus? whether it's the new strain or the wild type old strain. that really goes back to the same mitigation measures we've been talking about, high-quality masking and then minimizing any congregation indoors. and i've been messaging on this for the last week and i know some of my colleagues have been. we should really be revisiting opening up in-person instruction right now for teachers and other adult staff that are going to be in school environments that might have a bad outcome if exposed to covid-19. they should get vaccinate so we can mitigate any unnecessary loss of life and then we can resume once teachers and other adult staff negligenceal settings have been fully protected. but john, the next few months ahead are worrisome but there's relief in the medium term.

>> all right. so dr. redfield, the cdc director, says we're about to be in the worst of it. he said that on npr on friday. if you just look at the trajectories, it seems like that's incontrovertibly true. and i think for most people the prospect of the vaccine obviously is just the headline hope. right? and yet we're now becoming much more -- it's becoming much more clear the failures on that front in terms of the trump administration. as we sit here just a couple days before joe biden takes office, what are you -- what do you point to? not just kind of at the general level of how hopeful should we be about biden's ability to ramp up vaccine distribution quickly but what are the key failure points on the trump administration's part that the biden administration must address if they're to have any hope of being able to ramp up vaccine distributions at the level that we should be able to ramp it up to to get to the medium term?

hope that you just laid out. >> well, i had the pleasure of talking to the vaccine coordinator, dr. bashara truhari, early this morning. and i have to say i am very confident with this leadership and just a new administration that they're going to get more shots in more people's arms in these first 100 days. truhari is an expert when it comes to community health and family medicine. we're going to be actually leveraging resources like federally qualified community health centers, certifying more vaccinators. and it's going to be part of a broader approach here, john, to make sure we reach 100 million doses in 100 days. >> dr. vin gupta, it's always good to see you even when the things you're saying sometimes scare me. it's nice to hear you think there's some hope in the medium term. let's hope that you're correct. when we return, as we do every day, we will be remembering lives well lived. ering lives well lived ♪ ♪

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honesty but also for profound compassion and care. james spent the final weeks of his leitch in the hospital, diagnosed with covid-19, and last weekend he passed with his beloved husband by his side. in james's honor really you all should consider supporting the local arts around you. they have been so hard hit by this pandemic. just like his friend said, james knew all along that music is therapy and the importance of keeping on singing. thank you for being with us this afternoon. nicolle will be back tomorrow. "the beat" with ari melber starts right after this quick break. lber starts right after this quick break. the experts at safelite autoglass came right to me... with service i could trust. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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