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with you. i'm katy tur. we're watching the funeral motorcade for jimmy carter in washington, d.c. our 39 th president who came to power with a promise of hope, positivity and transparency. and an answer to the lies, corruption and the negativity of the nixon era. and while there are almost no parallels between jimmy carter and incoming president donald trump, as leaders or men, there is one exact parallel when it comes to the people who voted them in. this is true of nearly every presidential election. an american -- tendency to -- the reactionary by nature and in this moment the reaction is to a system americans no longer believe is working for them, not the government, not the business, not tech, not science, not education, not journalism, not elite expertise. so they elected the party and leader that validated what they

were already feeling was true, that you really can't trust anyone, nothing works, and as the infamous saying goes, i alone can fix it. but this reaction does feel different because the guy who won is different. he's different from every other president americans have elected in our modern times. he is fundamentally more interested in his own fortune, his own reputation, his own legend and his own sense of strength and power. he demands loyalty and to prove it, he demands accommodation. don't just tell me, show me. today it is meta that is showing him, doing away with fact-checking, citing a cultural tipping point, their words, marked by the november election. it is also judge aileen cannon who blocked attorney general merrick garland from releasing jack smith's final report into donald trump and it has been and

continue to be republican lawmakers who seem to swallow their own beliefs or goals in favor of whatever donald trump wants, be it an unusual cabinet pick or a sudden shift in policy. america as we know it is changing. it is changing as we speak. and donald trump is amassing a whole lot of power to force that change, as he alone sees fit. let's get into it. joining us, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard near the president-elect's home, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin' with us, jonathan altar, staff writer to the atlantic and msnbc political contributor mark leibovich and carnegie endowment senior fell aaron david. we will be doing two things, talking about president carter and the funeral that is being in washington. they're watching the motorcade right now. [ inaudible ] we're going to talk about donald trump and what

[ inaudible ] and to start on that conversation i want to go to you mark. i'm having a hard time setting my own expectations for what to expect going forward because as we've already seen, donald trump is not yet even in office, but he's already trying to force people to accommodate him, force institutions institutions to accommodate him, force big business to saying th with fact-checking. you can say the fact-checking was never all that successful to begin with, but at the same time the message that zuckerberg and that company is sending, it's pretty clear. >> yeah. i mean, look, i mean i think if you want to sort of set expectations here, i mean you can go as far to the bad side of this as you want, but basically, how he wants to amass power. he's amassed total power within the republican party. that's usually one of the first

checks and balances that a president has. he, obviously, won the popular vote in the last election. that itself gives you a great deal of power. the presidency itself is an extremely powerful office with all kinds of powerful prerogatives. what we've seen recently is certainly, as you said, big business, whether it's play, whether it's journalism, whether it's institutions like say abc or "the washington post" or what have you, seem to be bending towards him which seems to be very much in keeping with what could be an extremely aggressive presidency of someone who doesn't look like there's any sort of traditional mechanism that could stop him if, in fact, he wants to go and, you know, invade countries or just sort of violate even more norms than he did the last time around. >> on that note, especially today, jonathan, as we're watching the funeral begin in washington for president carter, i started by saying there's almost no parallels between the two men. they were both outsiders. there is one parallel there.

outsider to describe jimmy carter and outsider to describe donald trump, those two words seem to be defined differently based on those two men. how do you kind of square that circle today watching this and trying to set your own expectations for how to cover donald trump as he comes into office? >> well, i mean, there's a lot of different ways to be an outsider, so jimmy carter was an outsider in saying we need a government as good as its people. that was his line in 1976. he wanted to try to restore decency that had been lost during vietnam and watergate, the decency, integrity, respect for the law. watergate was a lot worse than i think some people understand. we went -- journalists are nervous right now. during watergate nixon wire-tapped us. in some limited ways we have been here before.

but jimmy carter was inspiring to people's -- the better angels of their nature in that campaign. trump is the opposite. he appeals to fear and hate, and he uses those fears as an outsider to scapegoat people, whether it's migrants or ceos who aren't doing his bidding, both of them are strangely enough the richest people in the world and the poorest people in the world, are both putty in his hands, at least right now. the good news is -- i know people think he's going to be there for the rest of his life, but the 22nd amendment is not vague. he is not president for life. he is term limited now. he's a lame duck starting january 20th. and there will be political weaknesses to him that we don't see quite yet that his krits cr

will be able to exploit. the idea he will be able to consolidate power and shut down any opposition is inconsistent with the fate of two-term presidents. >> i understand that, and i think that that is 100% correct statement to make and also a correct setting of expectations because it is only four years. how much can you do in four years >> i guess i'm more nervous about -- i'll give this to you aaron david miller -- where we go in terms of a shared set of values, a shared truth? we've already been living in this post-truth landscape now for a little while, but it seems to be or it is getting worse by the day. it's getting harder to differentiate between what is true and not because americans don't trust anybody any longer. they don't trust people like me, they don't trust the media. they don't trust our institutions. they don't trust experts. they don't trust doctors. they don't trust educators. they trust people they see on

social media, but now that social media is saying we're not going to fact-check anybody -- it wasn't that successful to begin with, but taking away yet another guardrail, how -- what do we do when there's no shared truth? and it's even worse than it is today. >> first of all, thanks for having me. happy new year even under these circumstances. look, i think it's a serious challenge to sell governance. how can have effective self-governance when you have americans in disagreement with others not over the direction of policy but empirical reality. how can you have good governance when citizens shed their contract out literally, rather than assuming responsibility for their own education and getting to know -- they've contracted their politics out, their favorite television studio or their favorite commentator or largely expressing themselves very often incredibly

inappropriately in social media. so that, i think, is a huge challenge. i also worry about something else, and that is this, the capacity of this nation which i have extraordinary hope and faith in, to grieve together and/or to celebrate together, i'm wondering, i really wonder -- i was 12 when jack kennedy was shot. i'll never forget the day or the moment. the nation grieved. there was a shared sense of values, shared commitment and a shared purpose. [ inaudible ] the '60s were turbulent times and yet there was a profound faith in institutions. just one other point. october 22nd, 1962, kennedy addresses the nation. the height of the cuban missile crisis. he spoke for an hour. after he finished speaking at the most fraught moment in the cold war with two nations poised on the possibility of a nuclear exchange, the networks literally

went back to normal programming. that meant my parents had to listen what jack kennedy had to say for an hour. there was not a bank of cnn, msnbc, fox journalists telling the viewers, telling my parents what they think. the president should have said this, should have said that. i worry greatly about that because i think, you know, america is not an atm machine. people have serious responsibilities and obligations citizenship. >> yeah. i wonder that. but yes, i agree with all that, but mark, i want to go back to that same point, donald trump is controlling the levers of power and communication and information, i just don't know what that means going forward and where -- and how a competing political party cuts through that, you know? if donald trump is getting social media to let anyone say whatever they want, let anyone find whatever truth they want, if he's getting the courts to agree with him or doing his

bidding as we're seeing with judge aileen cannon, maybe they didn't a conversation, but it was clear donald trump didn't want the special counsel report out there, he made it clear, he said so, and also the way he works with congress and lawmakers, telling them what to do, intervene when he doesn't agree with something. even intervene before he won the white house with the immigration bill. when you have control over all of those avenues of our life and the way we think, the way we consume what we believe, how do you, as a democrat, or anyone else, or republican that want to run against an independent, how to you cut through that? how do you find a way to get your voice heard, to get your opinions out there, your beliefs, your goals? >> yeah. i mean, obviously, i mean the republican party has had no success whatsoever trying to do this. this is a party that over -- systemically over the last eight years has completely with a few small exceptions, now very

marginal exceptions, given themselves over to his vision. if there was ever a president in need of checks and balances, whether from within his own party, within his own administration, within, you know, certainly the media, it's donald trump. i mean, this is someone who will go as far as he can go unless he is stopped. and look, i mean it does look like he has a whole glide path through a lot of what used to be very formidable institutions, beginning with his own party. then there was the courts and everything you just mentioned, to do all kinds of things antithetical to the basic values of america. yeah, you can certainly draw out a worse case scenario and it could be starting right now, but certainly, i mean, all of the sort of the coners to are cont >> vaughn, give us a decision about meta. what is it the trump team know about this? were they asking for this? >> i think it's a really good

question and the president-elect was asked during this press conference this afternoon whether he thought specifically it was in reaction to the threats that he and the criticisms that he had levied against mark zuckerberg and the company, and he responded, the president-elect, quote, probably. folks will recall there's a book that was published by donald trump just about a month before the election in which he very explicitly in written word threatened to jail mark zuckerberg if he were to, in his words, tamper with the 2024 presidential election. within a matter of, what, three months we went from having a published book about mark zuckerberg potentially going to jail, to dana white, of course, the ufc chief, who spoke at madison square garden, has been a long-time ally of donald trump, friend of donald trump, being put on to the board of meta and here today, a complete pivot from a moment in time in which meta had put donald trump

and his campaign under suspension on instagram and facebook, to welcoming them back to the platforms, to now, you know, all but changing the trajectory of the way in which they're going to try to harness the type of speech that is on these platforms that has come under scrutiny and criticisms of those on the right to make it look more like what it's currently on x. i think there's, obviously, a lot of serious questions about the way in which the community notes work on x and the algorithms on x under elon musk have put -- allowed for, you know, apologist tweets to appear unsearched on people's accounts to filter it with right wing propaganda. i think there's a lot of questions, but now under deep scrutiny, suddenly mark zuckerberg goes from a dinner here at mar-a-lago during this transition to having this change that donald trump has called for. >> go ahead, john.

>> it's just appalling what zuckerberg did on bended knee. this is some of the worst news in quite a while because basically what we have is anticipatory owe bedense, whether it's viktor orban in hungary or vladimir putin in russia, that's what they depend on. it's not just putting your enemies in jail, it's creating a situation where they in advance go on bended knee. the question you asked, how do the rest of us respond? it's not easy, the same way it's not easy to make sure that the real story of january 6th stays in people's minds, but it can be done if people are committed to pushing back. that means employees quitting facebook. i hope this leads to some resignations of senior talented people from facebook. you might say that by itself isn't going to do any good, but the spirit of that, of pushing back, and doing some of what was

done by shaye moss to rudy giuliani, suing people who are talking trash about you. you know, people assume because of immunity that the president can't be sued. the paula jones versus clinton case is still the law of the land. donald trump can be sued in civil court if he lies about people the way e. jean carroll sued him and shaye moss. so there are still ways of pushing back, and everybody who is in a position where they might be able to contribute to the pushback, has to think about how they can do that. >> lisa, i want to get you in on the other side but sneak in a quick break, and talk about the real world or tangible consequences of re-electing donald trump might be and that is the comments about greenland and about the panama canal, his expansionist aims and how seriously to take those and what it means given what we're

talking about in the way that he's, you know, pressuring the levers of power within this country, both information power and congressional power and legal power. we are also at the same time watching the funeral procession of president jimmy carter. he is on his way right now to washington, d.c. this is him actually in washington, d.c. he's soon going to get out of the hearse and then taken by horse carriage to the capitol rotunda where he will begin lying in state within it. we're going to bring you there in just a moment. don't go anywhere. we will be back in 90 seconds. s. r for it becoming severe. it does not prevent covid-19. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid must be taken within the first 5 days of symptoms... and helps stop the virus from multiplying in your body. taking paxlovid with certain medicines can lead... to serious or life- threatening side effects or affect how it... or other medicines work, including hormonal birth control. tell your doctor about all medicines, vitamins,

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all right. we still have everybody here and talking about donald trump the way he's changing our culture, changing this country, changing every one of us and what it's going to mean tangibly as we go forward. there are little cuts that we're all taking every day, those little changes that are subtle they might not be easy to identify in the moment, but there's also some of the bigger stuff at play and donald trump talked about this a little bit earlier today when he held a news conference. he was asked about the aims he had toward greenland, toward the panama canal, whether he would use military force or economic force to try to take those over. his expansionist goals. here's what he said. >> can you assure the world as you try to get control with

these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? >> no. >> can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? are you going to negotiate a new treaty? are you going to ask the canadians to hold a vote? what is the strategy? >> i can't assure you. you're talking about panama and greenland. i can't assure you on either of those two. i can say this, we need them for economic security. >> is it even -- aaron, is it crazy to think donald trump might want to actually take over greenland? is it crazy to ask that? >> no. not in view of the trump movie where he essentially imposed a muslim ban, withdrew from paris climate, walk out of the iran nuclear agreement, probably would have tried to wreck nato if he had the wherewithal to do that. should we take him literally and seriously? >> i never understand what that

means, honestly. >> look, governing is about choosing. he can amass the power he wants but the power has to be deployed in a way that is going to be effective and to benefit him. the reality is, it's not four years. it's two years until the trifecta that the republican party has basically is going to be challenges and this guy has a big agenda. he's got to turn the economy around, break inflation. he has to make good on his positions on immigration. he's got to solve the russia-ukraine war. he's got a lot to do. the question is whether or not he really wants to get into what would be an extraordinary distraction of threatening to deploy american power and forces to take back the canal, renegotiate a new treaty, or find a way to economically besiege greenland so that somehow the dans or the people of greenland who are sovereign would basically agree to be taken over by the united states,

let alone canada. so, again, he's got a lot to do and i don't think greenland and panama canal are going to be atop of the agenda. he just loves, loves to pontificate and bully and be unpredictable. he's got all of us falling into line. >> when i say that the way he's changing us, this is one of the ways where you don't really know what to believe, you don't know how seriously to take one proclamation over another declaration. let's talk about the courts now. lisa rubin', there's been some news in the special counsel investigation. those cases were dropped, but there's still a congressional or a mandated report that jack smith must give to a.g. merrick garland and a.g. merrick garland is supposed to give it to congress, right? >> that's correct. but then there's the question of whether a.g. merrick garland is going to release it to the public and that's where we get into this trouble with the courts because donald trump went to court to try and block any

public release of the draft report, which he and his lawyers have already seen. they reviewed it over the weekend. there's something in it that they don't want the public to see. whether it's new content, which we don't understand these reports contain, or just simply the fact that it refocuses us on what i think is the most pernicious of his alleged crimes. there's a debate, i think, among people who have watched all these trump legal dramas, which is worse, the things he allegedly did on january 6th or the classified documents case. i would submit the classified documents case, because it is so much neater and cleaner in some ways, it has a lack of ambiguity about it. there is no telling of that story in which donald trump did not violate the law and did not compromise our national security, and so to read a report that is about that drama and his role within it, as well as the alleged obstruction of justice at the heart of that case, that's -- those are facts he doesn't want us to focus on

again. >> i don't know, though. we know all of this. and as we've been reporting from our understanding, there's nothing new in these investigative reports that jack smith has that we haven't really already gone over. am i wrong about that? >> yes and no. i think we know the core of the story, but think about what we knew about the russia investigation and then what we learned about the russia investigation after the mueller report. certainly many of the allegations and facts contained therein have been public through reporting. what i'm talking about here is the sort of documentation of what has already been alleged. the proof, the proof is not something that we are necessarily [ inaudible ] with as the american public. i couldn't cite chapter and verse on grand jury testimony or witness interviews or e-mails or voicemails exchanged by some of the people at the heart of this drama. that's the sort of stuff i would expect to find in a special counsel report. >> donald trump has been so able to weather all of these storms, i wonder, vaughn, i wonder before we go to this funeral,

the fight that donald trump wants. it's to prove he has the power to say no and to have people, courts, to have the institutions, doj, listen to him, that he will get his way? >> well, those -- there are those who have reaped the benefits of it. judge aileen cannon got a shout-out from him here, and as a young judge, i don't think that having the president of the united states speak out publicly in support of you is a judge, such a bad thing to happen. for speaker johnson, from j.d. vance, i think from the decade of donald trump's political relevance, he has shown that there is benefit to standing by his side. i go back to 2019, it was tim cook who said why was he the tech executive that had such a good relationship with donald trump. donald trump said it was because tim cook calls me. he calls donald trump directly. i think that was a good

indication that five years later so many in politics and tech and beyond are learning for themselves there's benefit in being in touch with donald trump. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you very much. mark leibovitz, thank you very much. lisa rubin', thank you very much. we're going to stick with jonathan and aaron david miller, because coming up next, we're going to go back to washington where the state funeral procession for former president jimmy carter is about to get officially under way. don't go anywhere. ficially undey don't go anywhere. hi, i'm damian clark. i'm here to help you understand how to get the most from medicare. if you're eligible for medicare, it's a good idea to have original medicare.

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we're remembering president jimmy carter, our 39th president. this is the beginning of the pre session toward the state funeral where he will lie in state on -- at the rotunda. there's the motorcade right now. a lot of the trappings, a lot of the pomp and circumstance we're seeing today is exactly what jimmy carter shunned in life, but in death he returns to washington for what is an elaborate national sendoff that, again, is beginning today. [ inaudible ] also a remarkable legacy. carter who died last week at age 100 has just arrived at the u.s. navy memorial after being flown from atlanta to washington. this ceremony will transfer his casket to a horse drawn caisson.

he will lie in state ahead of a national funeral service at the washington national cathedral on thursday. thousands are expected to make their way through frigid temperatures to honor the 39th president and his lifetime really truly lifetime of service, his lifetime of dedication to peace and his personal commitment to making the world a better place, even if that meant trying to make it a better place himself. joining us now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles, reporter at the atlanta journal constitution greg bluestein, who covered carter's work post-presidency. back with me aaron david miller who worked in the state department during the carter administration, and is the -- and also the author of his very best "jimmy carter a life" and jonathan altar. john, you did write the definitive book on president carter. it came out last year.

how would you say -- what would he think of this funeral procession, first of all? would he be into this? >> well, he approved it. >> yeah. >> he was a bit of a control freak. >> this is not him. >> no. but he knew exactly what would happen after he died. this is all very carefully planned. actually about 15 years ago, they drew the initial plans for this. so this -- jimmy carter was very complicated. on the one hand he didn't want them to play "hail to the chief." he carried his own bags. some of that was to convey an image. he lives in a modest home in plains, georgia. he is a modest man. eats off paper plates. at the same time, he wants to be -- he wanted to be recognized and appreciated and i think he was convinced that assuming the

mantle of the presidency, including the pomp and circumstance, was not only appropriate, but that it -- in his case it was well deserved. >> is his legacy remembered correctly? >> no. the conventional wisdom, mediocre president, inspirational former president. that makes him the most misunderstood president in american history. >> how should we understand him? >> we should understand him as a political failure. he got beat badly by ronald reagan. as a substantive and often visionary success. he signed 15 major pieces of environmental legislation. people know about the solar packages on the roof of the white house, but that was almost symbolic. there was a lot behind that. if he had been re-elected, we would have moved to electric vehicles in the 1980s. think about that. you know, he was talking about climate change before anybody else, and i could go down the

list. toxic waste cleanup. of the things he did where he was thinking about the future. he was a legitimate visionary. in foreign policy he was enormously successful. people just think of the iran hostage rescue mission, which failed. they think of the fact that the hostages weren't released until just after he left office, even though he negotiated release. they forget about the other major accomplishments. >> aaron, bring us back to that. you were in the state department during that time. tell us about the accomplishments. >> you know, it's extraordinary. you could count on one hand, i think, the number of diplomatic successful negotiations driven by an american president in the last 50 years. maybe you could talk good friday agreement, maybe an arms control agreement. jimmy carter produced something quite extraordinary, which frankly, is a cut above any of

his other foreign policy, including the two canal treaties and his contribution to arms control. at a time when there was literally no incentive, no crisis, no opportunity, in the middle east, jimmy carter largely powered, i think, by the advice of brzezinski, but also by his own upbringing -- when i interviewed him he said since the age of 3, the holy land has figured prominently in the religious aspects of my life, and he really did drive the egyptian-israeli peace process to a conclusion. i interviewed almost everyone at camp david and had my experience with clinton at camp david in july of 2000, we talked about that as well, but without jimmy carter and his risk readiness both at camp david and to take that fateful trip in february, which produced the finishing touches on what would be the peace treaty, there would have been no peace treaty.

that's an extraordinary testament, not just to carter's competency, the text by the way at camp david went through 23 drafts which he controlled. it's a testament to his perseverance and his determination. >> john, what are we looking at here? >> that's jeff carter. that's jimmy carter's third son. he had three sons and amy who came along 13 years after jeff, and the other two sons are jack carter and chip carter. the entire family, the grandchildren, a close family, took family vacations together where jimmy carter would insist that everybody be prompt and when the bus left, it left. if you didn't catch it, you were left behind. there was only one person who got an exemption from that and that was rosalyn carter, and he

was a woodworker and made her a plaque that entitled her to be late. she said it was the best present she ever received. but you also have -- you can see in the -- in the crowd there, in addition to family members, there's some people from the carter center, the chair of the board of the carter center is jason carter, jimmy's grandson, who is a peace corps veteran and former candidate for governor of georgia. very impressive heir to carter's responsibilities at the carter center. and i think the other thing to keep in mind about the carter's circle, when jimmy and rosalyn carter celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary, my wife emily, and i went to plains and we were expecting it to be like one of these big clinton or

obama parties jammed with celebrities. garth brooks was there. nancy pelosi came. the clintons came to the shock of everybody, and everybody else were friends, normal people, and normal occupations, were friends of theirs from plains, georgia. this tells you something about them. >> a testament to who he was and what he valued. what we're watching right now is the beginning of the funeral procession. this is where he -- his casket will be taken from this hearse and placed on a horse-drawn carriage where it will be brought to the capitol where it will then lie -- he will lie in state for the next few days until the funeral begins on thursday, a funeral that we do expect to see every remaining living president that does include donald trump who is also now the president-elect once again, donald trump not usually a participant in this sort of thing. he's been absent at some of

these larger state funerals in recent history. he was not there for john mccain, very notably, and it's going to be -- you can say it might be a little bit awkward given the way he's talking about president biden certainly of late, the way that president biden has spoken about him. that being said, this is a tradition and this is what past presidents do to honor the death of a former president and they all are expected to be there on thursday to remember the remarkable -- and that is a word for it -- the remarkable life of jimmy carter, our 39th president, somebody who valued family, who valued honesty, who valued sacrifice, who valued giving, trying to make the world a better place, more than any of the, you know, pomp and circumstance, as we said, of the presidency. he was just a whole lot different than anybody else we've had in washington, and potentially a whole lot

different than anyone else we might have in washington in the future. >> i think so. i think that's a little too pessimistic. >> that can vote for a jimmy carter again? >> i think we are. so one of the disturbing things about trump is that if he had just been elected once, you could say aberration. now you have to say, alas, donald trump is in the american grain. we do have a, you know, history of liars and con men in certain periods in our history, but that's not the entire american grain. we're a decent people. we respect honesty. we still have good values, including many, many -- maybe most trump supporters. so we can get back to a better place. jimmy carter can lead us back to a better america. >> let's dive in here and let's listen as the casket is being transferred to the horse-drawn

carriage. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

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>> ready.

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>> president jimmy carter's casket is now on that horse-drawn carriage. it will go from here on pennsylvania avenue to capitol hill to lie in state in the capitol rotunda. this procession is designed to mirror the inaugural parade. jimmy carter was the very first president to get out of the limousine and to walk pennsylvania avenue from the capitol to the white house. it was a big surprise at the time. nobody expected it. the secret service didn't even know about it. they wouldn't have let him do it if they were told in advance. but he did it. he got out with his family, and

he walked it, and the crowd clearly liked it. >> yeah. the secret service was -- so that we're accurate -- a little bit ahead of time they were told. it had been released publicly they would have prevented it from happening. >> because in. >> because if it was known he was going to be exposed like this, remember this was just 13 years after the kennedy assassination, when kennedy was in an open car, they would have been worried about sharp shooters. oswald types in the building. so it was -- i was at the inauguration. i was a college student, and when word passed that he had gotten out of the car, it was -- you could hear the word, it was joyful. no cell phones. you heard the crowd start -- >> telephone. >> did i hear? he got out of the car. he did what is this he's walking. you're kidding. he's walking. it was one of those few spontaneous historic events that was fun to watch.

>> it's amazing. i didn't know until recently he was the first one to have done it. i just presumed it was the history of walking pennsylvania avenue, went on before that. i feel like i had a memory of jfk doing it, but you're right, as you say, it was jimmy carter to do it first trying to emphasize he was a regular person. >> yeah. a signal of openness and it was the idea of senator william proxmeyer, some might remember from isconsin, thought it would be good as a which of encouraging physical fitness and openness at the same time. >> all right. let's go to capitol hill where we find ryan nobles. president carter's casket is on its way there along with president carter's extended family who have also flown to washington to be here for the day's events. ryan, what is it like over there? >> well, first off, it is freezing cold. katy, we should point out, it is

roughly 20 degrees in washington, d.c., but there's a whipping wind, wind gusts that are at times 20 to 30 miles an hour. it feels even colder. so keep that in mind as you see many of these members of the military without their ears covered. those -- that group does, but many people tending to the president's casket and guarding the caisson that's going to bring him up here to capitol hill they are dealing with frigid temperatures here in washington, d.c. we should also point out the significance of the navy memorial, why this particular procession is beginning here. first off it marks roughly the halfway point along pennsylvania avenue, between the white house and capitol hill. but also the navy memorial plays an important role in president carter's history. of course he was a graduate of the naval academy. he was a lieutenant in the united states navy. he also was president and signed into law the law that declared the navy memorial this place to honor and remember those that had served in the united states

navy in washington, d.c. so he was responsible for the creation of the navy memorial, which is a very important stop along pennsylvania avenue in washington, d.c., and it's a place where tourists can come and members of the navy can come to honor and remember those who have served in that particular branch of government. and then he will make his way up pennsylvania avenue and up capitol hill and a lot of credit has to go to washington, d.c.'s government to get this area completely cleared out to make it possible for this horse drawn caisson to make it up capitol hill. the past couple days in washington from a weather perspective have just been heck stick. there was basically a nonstop snow starting sunday night into monday morning. it snowed for a good portion of monday. stopped for a little bit and then kicked back up again last night. it was a -- basically a snow globe when i woke up in washington, d.c., here this morning. the idea that they were able to get this all cleared up and

prepared for this procession that's just starting to take place now is nothing short of remarkable, but will make this process a lot easier not only for the caisson itself but for the carter family that will be walking behind the caisson as they make their way to capitol hill. >> greg, carter is coming from atlanta where he was lying in state down there. can you tell us about what that was like? who showed up and how he was honored? >> well, a bipartisan political elite showed up to celebrate his legacy. that's saying something. georgia is one of those competitive political states in the nation. maga republicans, mainstream conservatives, liberal democrats unite over something, but they were able to unite over jimmy carter and his legacy. we had trump appointees here in georgia saying jimmy carter was not just a good man, but a great man. it's something that we're seeing throughout georgia. we're hearing remembrances of people who recall special

moments, impromptu gatherings where jimmy carter showed up, a surprise invitation to have dinners at his house. people recalling having tomato sandwiches with the former president. we talked about him earlier as this man of the people, but in georgia, that really rings true. >> all right. greg, we're going to listen in one more time to this funeral procession. again, it is -- it's a rare thing to see a president honored like this, to see the death of a president. there haven't been that many. jimmy carter was the 39th president. made it a whole long time. 100 years old. and this is his final trip back to washington, a place he had a very uncomfortable relationship with, but a place that is nonetheless honoring him and his legacy. in fact, let's -- let's talk a little bit more about that legacy because the image is a little harder to see right now. the uncomfortable relationship,

john, with washington, why did it never thaw? usually -- what we've had outsider presidents before. they've come in and started to learn the ways of washington, they understood that you have to play the game, cynical, but you have to make relationships and build trust between you and congress. why did it never defrost for carter? >> well, it actually did defrost after the first couple of years, but the problem was, by the time it defrosted and carter hired some old-time washington power brokers to come into the white house, the most prominent a lawyer named lloyd cutler, by that time the democratic party was deeply divided because ted kennedy believed that jimmy carter wasn't liberal enough, and he challenged him -- >> can you explain that, because we remember jimmy carter as the most liberal president -- >> oh, no, not at all. >> jimmy carter was a southern moderate, and he wasn't liberal enough for the liberal or conservative enough for the

conservatives. on each issue he looked at the merits of the issue, not where it was ideologically, and this caused him some problems because he had to put together new coalitions, often bipartisan coalitions, on a whole array of different issues. and when kennedy felt that carter wasn't doing enough on health care to get national health insurance, and carter felt, hey, ted, if you're so big on this, why can't you even move a bill out of your own committee, like so don't come at me on health care, at that point the relationship deteriorated. there was enough blame to go around. kennedy, who i think always wanted to run for president but wasn't emotionally capable of doing it in 1968, '72 or '76, he finally in 1980 went after him

and carter was able to beat him, but it was very, very divisive in washington. >> and hurt him in the '80 election. >> it definitely hurt him. and democrats throughout washington were picking up -- joe biden, even though he was very close to ted kennedy, who had been in the hospital when biden's -- when beau and hunter were, you know, injured in that horrible accident in late 1972 and ted kennedy came to the hospital where joe biden was sworn in as a 30-year-old senator and that's how close he was to ted kennedy. joe biden and ted kennedy. biden sided with carter, and he stayed loyal to carter during that huge division inside the democratic party. so that hurt him. a lot of the wounds were self-inflicted. carter was high handed. he was -- he was very abrupt with members of congress. he didn't really like

politicians very much. i looked at some of the logs of his calls trying to get votes on various issues, 30 seconds the call would last. no pleasantries. he invited a couple powerful senators to play tennis on the white house court and then he said goodbye have a drink. >> he saw his constituency as the people who voted for him. that's what he had to do. deal with the issues of the people who voted for him. he didn't see the need to work with washington to play the games of washington to get it done. >> they got a lot more done. many bills were passed and signed. >> is a chance to write the record at least. this opportunity just over lining here. president jimmy carter, 100 years old. the beginnings of his state funeral in washington, d.c. is what you been watching. that will do it for me today. deadline white house will continue our coverage.