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Inside Politics
House Dems Plan To Introduce Impeachment Resolution Monday; Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) Is Interviewed On Impeaching Trump And Capitol Hill Riots; Congress Certifies Election After Violent Mob Descends On Capitol; Republican Face A Post-Trump Future; Interview With Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC); Coronavirus Pandemic. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired January 10, 2021 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:32]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The deadly Capitol mayhem spurs a final days impeachment push.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president has committed an unspeakable assault on our nation and our people.
KING: Stunning insurrection indelibly stains the Trump legacy.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to walk down to the Capitol. We've got to get rid of the weak Congress people.
KING: Plus, Georgia makes history and flips the Senate blue.
SEN.-ELECT RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): Eighty-two-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator.
KING: And giant challenges for the president-elect, the economy is bleeding jobs, COVID cases and deaths setting numbing records.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't seen anything like this. We're at maximum capacity most of the time. We have patients in the hallways.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
KING (on camera): Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King in Washington. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing this important Sunday.
This city and this country are rattled, four days after what you see right there, a violent deadly insurrection at the United States capitol building. What many understandably see as an attempted coup organized and encouraged by the president of the United States.
It was beyond horrifying. Five people are dead. Police officers among those injured. This insurrection failed and history will forever record it as a stain
on this president and those who helped him incite the madness by repeatedly lying about the election.
Joe Biden will assume office in ten days and the repudiation of Trump now includes two Georgia Senate flips that give Democrats control of the United States Senate, an economy bleeding jobs and a pandemic raging stronger than ever awaits the new president. Now add a nation on edge and a world watching as our democracy is tested.
Mr. Biden will take the oath at the capitol now fortified against another possible attack. The authorities have already arrested at least 83 people including the rioter who celebrated at a desk in Nancy Pelosi's office and the man photographed walking off with the speaker's podium.
But the outrage continues. Authorities say they are tracking posts promising more violence and anarchy, and a lawyer who works for President Trump posted this, time for firing squads beginning with Vice President Pence.
There is no question who started this fire. The president called his supporters to Washington on Wednesday after weeks of trying to get officials in Georgia and elsewhere to help him cheat and to overturn the election results.
And then the president of the United States spoke plainly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country.
We're going to walk down to the Capitol because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
We've got to get rid of the weak Congress people, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The president now ignoring demands from Democrats and some Republicans that he resign. The vice president is not willing at least not yet to call the cabinet together to remove the president.
So, tomorrow, the House will move to impeach him, again, with a vote planned by midweek.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Is anybody running the executive branch of the government? Who is running the executive branch?
PELOSI: Well, sadly the person who is running the executive branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States, and only a number of days until we can be protected from him. But he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Kaitlan Collins, CNN's Phil Mattingly, and Jonathan Martin of the "New York Times."
A lot of moving parts to get through and let's get to you first, Phil, on the idea that the House Democratic leadership had a call last night, Speaker Pelosi sent a letter telling them they should get back to Washington.
It is this impeachment train on a fast track or do the Democrats have any pause about doing this in the president's final days?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think doing something is on a fast track, I think there's a reality right now inside the Democratic caucus and frankly I think it's nationwide, that after what happened and what the president did to incite what occurred last Wednesday, that Congress needs to do something to try to hold him accountable.
[08:05:04]
What that is is the open question.
And these are the dynamics here and it's very, very complicated and this was the crux of the call between Democratic headers, House Democratic leaders last night and that is right now, the Democratic caucus is more unified in moving forward on impeachment than they ever were back in 2019, which is an interesting element of all of this. Obviously, very personal and visceral experiences.
However, a Senate impeachment trial would almost certainly not start until President Trump had left office. That would mean President-elect Joe Biden would be in office, that would mean Chuck Schumer would be the Senate Democratic leader and what's being weighed right now is that once you get into a Senate impeachment trial literally nothing else can happen.
And so do they want to pursue something that would hamstring Joe Biden's opening days in office, it would be a problem for his cabinet nomination confirmations, it would be a problem for perhaps his first major legislative item which is expected to be a trillion dollar plus stimulus package? How do you maneuver around those things right now?
So, no final decisions have been made on that issue and Speaker Pelosi in a letter she sent to her colleagues last night made clear they are continuing to talk to constitutional lawyers inside and outside the Congress, trying to figure out some pathway here to do something, but also weighing the realities of President Trump only has ten days left in office and if you go down that road of impeachment, particularly if you end up in a Senate trial that is correct lands on Joe Biden's lap and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer's lap and that could have problems.
KING: And so, Kaitlan, one part of this Democratic unity push is to try to convince the vice president to call the cabinet together. He has been cool to that idea. I know the reporting of our White House team is that he hasn't fully ruled it out.
Take us inside this remarkable atmosphere at the White House where the president's relationship with the vice president is over. The vice president has not ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment but what's the test? What's the barrier? Pressure from Democrats or the president doing something else erratic and reckless?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't see Mike Pence actually doing that. If you talk to people around him, they don't either. That would be a really big 180 coming from the vice president to actually bring that effort together no matter how hopeful Democrats are that he would.
But we are seeing a low point for the president and the vice president and their relationship, at a level that we have never seen throughout their entire time in office together and campaigning together on the trail. Not after "Access Hollywood" or Charlottesville have we ever seen a moment where the president and vice president are not on speaking terms currently.
They have not talked based on our latest reporting since Wednesday when Mike Pence went to the capitol knowing how the president felt about the role that he was going to play in that process and, of course, was subverted by that pro-Trump mob breaching the Hill and some of them chanting that they wanted to hang the vice president. You know, he never called in to check on him, anything like that.
And so, we've seen where the vice president has been here at work, they are not communicating currently, which is a stunning and it really speaks of what their relationship looks like in their final days in office. People around the president and Mike Pence are shocked by that. You know, they never thought that the relationship would come to that level even though the president had been there with chiefs of staff before, the attorney general, never had that -- have we seen that with the vice president.
So I think that's why people think that maybe we can get somewhere with the 25th Amendment but I do not think that Mike Pence is going to do that based on where he currently stands, but you are seeing him take other steps, you know, saying he's going to go to the inauguration, things that the president of course has said he is not going to do.
KING: But, Jonathan, there is an accountability question here, one reason the Democrats are pushing ahead with impeachment is so many Republicans are silent, not all Republicans.
I want you to listen to Senator Pat Toomey. I think what we have before us right now is a house and Senate Republican divide. There are a number of Republican senators who have long been critics of the president who say something should be done. They're not quite sure it's the impeachment question.
Listen to Senator Toomey.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA): I have to say I do think the president's behavior this week does disqualify him from serving but we have ten days left, 11 days left. He is not going to be serving after that time. One of the things that I'm concerned about, frankly, is whether the House would completely politicize something. I do think the president committed impeachable offenses, but I don't know what is going to land on the Senate floor, if anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: A brand-new ABC/Ipsos poll out just moments ago: 56 percent of Americans believe the president should be removed from office, even though he has only 10 days left, 56 percent, a clear majority believe he should be removed from office, 67 percent say he is to blame for this insurrection.
So, Jonathan, the question is, if Republicans don't support impeachment, do they support sticking their heads in the sand? Is there the grand ostrich party, the president should leave no accountable or will they step forward and say, hey, Democrats, let's censure him, let's come together and do something short of impeachment?
JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So, it's a good question. I speak to a few lawmakers yesterday in both parties and I think there is an appetite for some kind of censure movement, a recognition among certainly Republicans, more quietly Democrats, it could be hard to do impeachment and conviction which means removal from office in the next basically nine days.
But I -- there is some appetite to at least censure him.
[08:10:02]
And I'm not sure that Pelosi would bring that up for a vote because obviously House Democrats want to do impeachment, but I think that there is a willingness to do that. And that would be a good reveal, I think, in the Senate especially. I think you can get the vast majority of the Senate to vote for a censure of President Trump, depending on the wording.
But, John, you raise a good point. In the House and the House GOP caucus, there is much more allegiance to President Trump and if we're being candid, there's more fear of his base and of them, you know, unseating whoever votes for impeachment or even a censure in next year's primaries. So I think that is a challenge.
KING: I'm sorry to interrupt.
And, Phil, to that point, the House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy supported the president's lies, his number two Steve Scalise supported the president's lies, dozens of House Republicans supported the president's lies even after their building was attacked. Their building was attacked.
Is there no accountability among House Republicans to at least come forward and say we are sorry?
MATTINGLY: Yeah, so I think there's a couple dynamics and J-Mart hits on the key point here. If you look at the rank and file of House Republicans which are a very, very different beast than Senate Republicans in terms of the dynamics of their conference, that is the vast majority of them would have a bigger problem going against President Trump back in their districts than they would regardless of what they think about things.
However, there is frustration inside the Republican ranks for how far Leader McCarthy and Steve Scalise and others were willing to take this backing the president.
Look, here is the reality right now on Capitol Hill, you have Kevin McCarthy calling Joe Biden and saying that unity is what's necessary right now. The same Kevin McCarthy that helped lead house Republicans to vote twice to object to electors to overturn the election.
So the idea that they are on any type of ground to be able to call for unity or call for everybody coming together or say impeachment isn't necessary is completely absurd and I think that any type of, for lack of a better term, CYA movement that's going on right now in wake of what happened on Wednesday should be rejected and frankly laughed out of office, but I do think the dynamics in the Republican conference are just different right now because when you talk to members, they will tell you -- well, Trump doesn't have the platform of Twitter anymore. If the president says something about a specific member, the odds are if they're from a Republican district, they are in very big trouble.
Now, the bigger question, of course, is how do you weigh your political future verse the realities of history in this moment and I think that more than anything else is what's going to start to kind of trickle out over the course of the next several days. You've seen Republicans in the House, in the Senate kind of pick their heads up for the first time and raise these concerns. You have had some that have done it for a while like Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
But I just -- the dynamics right now it's not -- while it would seem so obvious that everybody would be behind something going against the president right now it's just not for them.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Right, saying something is -- say something is horrible is horrible, doing something about it is what the moment requires.
Go ahead, Jonathan.
MARTIN: Yeah, I was going to say I think what Phil is talking about is a group of members were making a political judgment based upon the power that Trump has had and the party for the last four years and certainly the primary voters. What they're not doing necessarily because in part this is difficult, is weighing whether or not he's going to still have that sort of clout in the spring and summer of 2022 when they are in their primaries.
We just don't know. Is he going to be a spent force politically even within the Republican coalition given the events of the last two months and certainly the last week by this time next year, or is he going to still have the kind of clout among primary voters that he can actually hurt these members?
KING: Right, that's a legitimate question but to me the bigger question is how about I don't care about that. The country needs me to take a stand right now and if I get wiped out in an election down the road, so be it. It's important to take a stand. That would be -- that would be an interesting moment the country might demand.
Kaitlan, Phil mentioned the president has been knocked off Twitter. The Parler has also been knocked off Google Play and the Apple website because that is place where when Twitter was shut down for many of these people, including the president, they had been planning additional attacks, including a lawyer who works for the president he said it's just hyperbole saying it's time for firing squads beginning with the vice president of the United States.
And so, we're 14 minutes into the program. Often, we know on Sunday mornings what the president is thinking about because he has started tweeting sometimes at 5:00 in the morning. He is eerily silent now, in some ways that's calming in other ways to those who are worried about his erratic behavior, it is unnerving, because they don't have that transparency.
What do we know about the president's mindset now that he has lost cudgel of Twitter?
COLLINS: Well, I think it's also unnerving to people around the president, because right now this weekend, he is sitting inside the White House, he has not gone anywhere, is not going golfing, he doesn't have access to, of course, Twitter which is so often where even some of the president's own staffers learn a lot about what he is thinking and where he is on a given situation.
[08:15:04]
And so what you're seeing is the president increasingly isolated from the people around him as we noted with the vice president and he is, you know, more desperate than ever over what has been going on since he is losing Republican support for the efforts that he had been taking. We talked about Republicans who aren't coming out and condemning him, but he is losing a lot of Republican support from people like Lindsey Graham types.
And what we should note as people are talking about could we actually get impeachment through this, could we get it to a Senate trial and remove the president from office, are we going to censure him, the president does not have regret over what happened last week and he has actually told people he regretted making that video where he denounced the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Hill, something that he only did because his top aides warned that he was at the risk of being removed from office.
And so, if the president is -- if you are looking at his mindset, he has not changed the way he viewed what happened last Wednesday since when it happened when we reported that the president was pleased by what his supporters were doing by thwarting that process.
KING: It is a contentious and nervous moment in town.
Grateful to all of you -- Kaitlan Collins, Phil Mattingly, Jonathan Martin -- for being with us this Sunday to share your reporting and your insights.
One point we didn't get to, the president apparently considering sending Rudy Giuliani up for an impeachment of the defense team. You want to get Republican votes to convict him in the Senate, send Giuliani up to Capitol Hill at this moment after his combat remarks at that rally.
Up next for us, inside the House Democratic impeachment push. Lawmakers say President Trump must pay a price for insurrection. Many are also demanding action against Republicans who supported the president's election lies.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: No American president has been impeached twice. By midweek, that seems almost certain to change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): I think it is absolutely necessary that we for the security and safety of this country do everything we can to remove this president and if that means we have to impeach him, then I believe we should do that.
REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D-CA): If we are not willing to state that the acts by the president of the United States to incite domestic terrorism and insurrection is an impeachable offense, then nothing is an impeachable offense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Most Republicans say it's bet for just run out the clock and let Mr. Trump leave town in ten days, but Democrats pushing impeachment say if he don't resign, he must be held accountable.
[08:20:05]
Newly elected Congressman Mondaire Jones of New York is among those Democrats. He's with us this Sunday.
Congressman, grateful for your time and welcome to Washington at a very contentious time. Are you open to any compromise here? If Republicans said we can't
impeach our president, but we would censure him, is that good enough? Or do you believe he deserves the second stain of impeachment because of what happened the other day?
REP. MONDAIRE JONES (D), NEW YORK: This president must be impeached and removed and anything less than that is an abdication of Congress' constitutional responsibility to be a check on the executive branch and to protect the American people from a very dangerous, unhinged, lawless chief executive.
KING: You also want to have some sanctions against the Republicans. We can show you 139 House Republicans, I believe is the number, who voted to object to the election results.
The president had ample opportunity in state after state, in court after court to prove fraud and he proved none. He proved no widespread fraud. Yet 139 Republicans even on the day the country was attacked, the Capitol was attacked, they voted against the electoral count.
You believe they should be censured. I saw your tweets against the Republican newly elected in the New York delegation in which you served. You're saying she should resign.
What should they do?
JONES: Well, I'm proud to have co-sponsored Corey Bush's resolution directing Congress specifically the house administration committee and the House Ethics Committee to investigate and if appropriate expel those members of Congress who through their perpetuation of this myth of voter fraud helped to incite the violent insurrection that we saw last week.
It is not just the responsibility of President Donald Trump to be ethical and to ensure that our laws are faithfully executed and to protect the American people and run this government. That responsibility also calls on my colleagues who are co-conspirators unfortunately with this president in the violent insurrection that we saw. So, there had to be consequences for them as well.
KING: You worked in the Justice Department before you got involved in elective politics. I want you to listen. This is the president-elect. In ten days, Joe Biden will be the president. He rolled out his Justice Department team last week and he says he wants to make a clear break from how President Trump operated this. That the Justice Department in Joe Biden's view is independent, doesn't work for him, works for the Constitution.
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: There's no more important place for us to do this work than the Department of Justice that has been so politicized. More than anything we need to restore the honor, the integrity, the independence of the Department of Justice in this nation that's been so badly damaged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It has been warped if not broken in the last four years, but it is an American tradition when the president leaves office let it be. Let it be. We don't prosecute political opponents or have recriminations.
There are a lot of Democrats saying, do you know what, after what happened the other day the Justice Department should investigate the president.
Do you think it should or should those decisions be left to the states? For example, we've seen new reporting from the "Wall Street Journal," "Washington Post" and others about the president's phone calls to try to get a lot of election officials, not just secretary of state in Georgia, to help him cheat.
Should this be left to the states or should the Justice Department open an investigation of the former president -- soon to be former president of the United States?
JONES: Well, John, let's be clear. The norm that we have is that we don't prosecute people based on political motivations. That doesn't mean that you're inoculated from being prosecuted simply because you've previously served office.
We know it has been demonstrated most recently just a few days ago that this president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors including under federal law. And so, of course, the Justice Department if it so determines that those crimes have been committed should prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.
KING: You were terrorized the other day, Democrats, Republicans, black, white, male, women, the staffers, the country was terrorized the other day, and there are a lot of people asking, how the hell did these people so easily get into the United States Capitol? A lot of comparisons being made that there were National Guard troops out there in riot gear when the Black Lives Matter protesters showed up last year and it was very different this time around.
Do you believe, do you have any evidence or just suspicions there was some kind of an inside job here, or the Capitol police went easy because these were Trump supporters?
JONES: Well, I've seen the same footage that the American people have seen shared on various social media platforms consisting of several Capitol police officers opening barricades to allow the mob and domestic terrorists to get closer to the Capitol. Of course, there's been public reporting now that Capitol police officers have also helped to, again, just some, Capitol police officers have helped to usher people into certain offices.
You know, Jim Clyburn mentioned publicly that they found his office -- the office on the third floor that's far more obscure than the one that is open to the public. [08:25:07]
And so, it's just very clear that there was inside information that was shared with these individuals and there has to be an investigation of that.
The vast majority of the Capitol police officers bravely defended members of Congress and staff persons on Wednesday and I don't want us to lose sight of that, either.
KING: Yeah.
JONES: But there were some bad apples in the bunch, and you have already seen resignations in connection with Wednesday's event. There needs to be a full investigation and it's why I also agreed to co- sponsor Jamaal Bowman's legislation to investigate precisely what went wrong on Wednesday with respect to the security apparatus, including any infiltration by white nationalists in the Capitol police force.
KING: Let's hope there can be bipartisan agreement at least on that, investigating exactly what happened and putting new security measures in place and cleaning up whatever needs to be cleaned up.
Congressman Jones, grateful for your time this morning, a newly elected member of Congress. I hope we can continue the conversation in the very important weeks and months ahead. Appreciate your time this Sunday.
JONES: Thank you.
KING: Up next for us, Joe Biden now leads the Democratic Party so why is the President-elect punting when asked if he agrees with this new Trump impeachment push?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: This right here, this map, that is what the riot was about Wednesday, Congress was meeting to formally accept the election results, ratified by each of the states, 306 electoral votes for the Democrats, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, 232 for Mike Pence and Donald Trump.
And during the riot this map as the riot was playing out this map turned even more blue. We move to Georgia, we move to the Senate races. As the riot was playing out, Jon Ossoff pulled away in the runoff, the Democrat right there. The day previously, we had already seen Raphael Warnock, the other Democrat, winning. With both of those Georgia Senate seats, Democrats will control the presidency, the House and the Senate now.
Now, those congressional majorities are tiny so things get easier for President Biden --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:29:25] KING: This right here, this map -- that is what the riot was about Wednesday. Congress was meeting to formally accept the election results, ratified by each of the states. 306 electoral votes for the Democrats, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; 232 for Mike Pence and Donald Trump. And during the riot this map, right as the riot was playing out, this map turned even more blue.
We move to Georgia, we move to the Senate races. As the riot was playing out Jon Ossoff pulled away in the runoff, the Democrat right there. The day previously, we had already seen Rafael Warnock the other Democrat winning. With both of those Georgia Senate seats Democrats will control the presidency, the House and the Senate now.
Now, those congressional majorities are tiny so things get easier for President Biden, absolutely, but by no means easy. He will need Republican help on many if not most big issues, which is why, listen, he's pretty cool to this late Trump impeachment push.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I'm focused on the virus, the vaccine and economic growth. What the Congress decides to do is for them to decide. I think it's important we get on with the business getting him out of office. The quickest way that that will happen is us being sworn in on the 20th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us to share their reporting and their insights: CNN's Nia- Malika Henderson and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report.
Nia, take us inside that. Joe Biden clearly, if you read between the lines there and it's pretty evident, would prefer that this not be happening. He campaigned on unity. He wants to get started on big things. He's going to need Republican votes. And yet it seems like he is not willing to stand up to the base of his party right now probably because there are more fights to come down the road and say please don't do this. Is that right?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: I think that's right. I mean, this is classic Biden. He essentially is telling the base of the Democratic party, listen, if this was six months ago and, you know, there were -- this had happened and there was a long time to get him out of office, to have a trial, sure.
But now given that there is such a slim amount of time and likely any impeachment process would bleed into the first weeks or maybe even months of his presidency. So that is not the way he wants to begin his presidency.
And in some ways it is an echo of what a debate that Barack Obama was having with his base when he ascended to the White House. They wanted him to look at what was going on in the Bush administration, torture, the financial collapse, and maybe go after some folks in the Bush administration. And he said it's time to move forward and not look backwards. And that's essentially what you hear from Joe Biden. He, of course, is a creature of the Senate where cooler heads prevail and in some ways I think that is what he is embodying by saying, listen, let's go forward, Democratic Party. The best way to get him out of office is to have him inaugurated which we'll see, of course, on January 20th.
KING: And so Amy, there is a debate in the town about how now a late Trump impeachment push after this horrific insurrection inspired publicly by the president and his language affects the climate here in Washington.
There are some who're saying now you're going to have another impeachment that who could believe it, we could become even more polarized and off in our corners. There are others who say, you know, even a lot of Republicans especially on the Senate side are going to say when Biden is elected, look, we need to prove -- we need to prove that this town can do things.
So you go through the Biden agenda. He wants to confirm judges and nominees. The Georgia elections certainly make that a little bit easier. He wants to pass a coronavirus relief package including stimulus checks, $2,000. The Supreme Court is going to hand this to him any way and he also says he wants to improve Obamacare to begin with. Climate change legislation, infrastructure, student debt relief.
Will Joe Biden get some grace from Republicans or is this late impeachment push and the president's conduct, I do not want to take that out of the conversation, are going to make things even harder?
AMY WALTER, NATIONAL REPORT, THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Well, Nia raised a great point about 2008 and 2009 and the frustration within the Democratic caucus about all of what they saw were the, you know, terrible things that the Bush administration was able to get away with, as well as a lot of the people who they believe perpetrated the economic crisis who were not prosecuted, who were not -- there was not more punishment for them.
And so that's resonating in the minds of many of those folks who said, you know, President Obama came into office with a similar message, there is no red and blue America, we're going to unify and didn't get that unification, didn't get that support from Republicans on the stimulus, on other pieces of legislation.
And so I think there are many in Washington, many folks who are coming back saying we've been here before. I think also, John, if you look at what happened and you mentioned this earlier, the fact that even after the riots that happened on Capitol Hill, majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives came back and continued to -- and voted for, supported the idea that this election was done illegally, that electoral votes should be thrown out.
So that's a very challenging place to say, well, look, I guess everything is ok. We'll just go back to normal.
KING: Right. You mentioned that in your column. I want to stick with you for a second because you mentioned that in one of your columns -- one of your very smart columns. A pre-election poll 54 percent of Republicans say they identified with Trump more than the Republican party, 57 percent of Republican lawmakers voted for at least one or more of the certification challenges and the top two Republicans voted for the challenge.
The top two Republicans even though the president lost in court after court, court after court after court. There were no facts behind this. So if you are Joe Biden, do you think you can work with Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise or is it a nonstarter?
[08:34:58]
WALTER: Right. I guess the way -- if you are Joe Biden you look at it this way which is the one person who's going to be the most important person in Washington is in the United States Senate. And that's where having crossover votes will be more important.
And Mitch McConnell did stand up before all of this started the morning on Wednesday to say we shouldn't take this vote. This is a very dangerous path that we're going down.
So there is theoretically an opportunity for Biden to work with McConnell and others in the Senate. Also, John, as you very well know we have elections coming up in a year and you have seats in Florida -- I'm sorry, that Republicans hold in Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania that are on the ballot.
McConnell knows that he wants to be able to not only hold on to those seats but hope to pick up the majority.
KING: And Nia-Malika Henderson we have a global audience on Sunday mornings. And the world watched with horror and we can show you some of the headlines.
In Canada, "Attack on Democracy", in Argentina, "Attack on Democracy", In Brazil "Trump Instigates Coup in Capitol against Biden Certification", in Croatia "Trump supporters tried to stage a coup".
Around the world everyone is watching with the question: what's going to happen to President Trump for inciting this and how can this new president or can this new president bring the country together and prove the American democracy might be stressed a little bit at the seams but is solid. What is the challenge?
HENDERSON: It's a huge challenge and Amy talked about those lawmakers who are with Trump. And you saw on Wednesday how many people are with Trump as well. 74 million people obviously voted for him.
You know, many millions of those are die-hard Trumpers and believe that this was stolen from him. How does Joe Biden reach those people?
The other sort of underlying thing that's going on is there obviously is a kind of rebellion against a multi-racial democracy, I think that in many ways was what those people were so enraged about. That there is a period we're in now where you're seeing black and brown people rise and show their political power. That's obviously what happened in Georgia when they talk about taking our country back. They're really talking about this fear that they have about this new America that's much more diverse than the America they are comfortable in.
And so Joe Biden is going to have to really address that and you see him talking about race even in a way that somebody like Barack Obama didn't. So he's got enormous challenges piecing this country together that quite frankly has in many ways always been divided, particularly along racial lines.
So here he is with an enormous challenge and to really try to project a different kind of America around the world.
KING: It is a remarkable moment. It will be a remarkable ten days ahead.
Nia-Malika Henderson, Amy Walter -- grateful for the reporting and the insights.
And up next for us, Republicans grapple with, yes, the Trump factor.
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[08:39:57]
KING: It is testing time for Republicans. President Trump will be out of Washington in ten days, but he has a committed following. His hand- picked team still runs the Republican Party and he used election lies to raise millions of dollars for a post-presidency war chest.
So it is risky to defy him even after his incitement of last week's chaos at the Capitol.
Our next guest has blazed uncomfortable trails before and says it is critical that Republicans stand up to the president now.
21 years ago, Nancy Mace was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel Military Academy. She is congresswoman Nancy Mace now, a Republican just elected from South Carolina.
Congresswoman, grateful for your time this morning.
I want to start with a human moment because, as I said to your Democratic colleague earlier, you were terrorized this week. The Democrats were terrorized. Your staff was terrorized. Everybody in that building was terrorized and I wanted to show a tweet of you hugging your two children when you got home Friday night and you were mentioning as we came on the air that you had to do that with a security detail.
The president of the United States calls those protesters patriots. You retweeted one of my colleagues Josh Campbell video of them busting through the door and you called them "domestic terrorists".
How critical is it at this moment that Republicans like you stand up to the president and say just what you say right there, "This is domestic terrorism. Mr. President, you are responsible."
REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Right, if we want to save our country, if we want to save the future for our children in this country you have to stand up. In times of crisis we need leadership right now.
And I was attacked and threatened before the vote on January 6th, just because I wasn't, quote, "fighting for the president".
And I wasn't fighting for the president because I wasn't going to participate in the big lie that was being told to the American people. They truly believed that Congress in a single ceremonial vote to certify the Electoral College that the election outcome could change.
They were lied to that -- they were told that the vice president could overturn the results of the election as well and thank God Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday stood up and said no, that's just not true.
My life was at risk, all of my colleagues. We were sitting ducks in the halls of Congress on Wednesday and it was terrifying.
And I had to have a security detail on my home on Friday night. I'm still receiving threats right now online and on social media. And our words are sometimes taken literally, quite literally. And every one was put at risk unnecessarily so.
So I'm calling upon my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that, one, in this country we have seen violence not just Wednesday but for the last several months that we all take responsibility in order to earn the trust back of the American people. We first need to admit -- all of us need to admit that we have a problem in this country.
And then secondly, we need to take responsibility and be accountable to that problem. There's no other way I see it going forward to earn the trust back of the American people. And I'm praying for a peaceful transition of power. I think it's very important to the Biden administration that that happens.
There are ten more days in the presidency and we should all be working toward that together.
KING: Yet you signed a letter with seven of your Republican -- you are one of House Republicans who signed a letter to the president-elect saying please stop the impeachment. You think it would make things even worse right now.
You may have some standing to do that because you did not vote to support the election lies but, you know, many of your colleagues are saying oh, the Democrats are being divisive now. That's what they stood on the floor for weeks supporting the president's lies.
If not impeachment what then? Should Republicans do something to hold the president of the United States accountable? Is it censure? Is it what?
MACE: Absolutely. We need to do something. Right now if we do a snap impeachment on Wednesday in a few hours after a debate and voting I feel like it's pouring gasoline on the fire.
Some of us are still receiving threats online. The threats are real. In fact, I was reading earlier today in some coverage of the events that the young lady that was shot and killed by a Capitol Hill police officer, some of the president's supporters were calling this an execution.
Some people are in severe denial about what happened on Wednesday. And I think that we need to be very careful about the rhetoric, about being divisive right now in the next ten days.
I am talking to my Republican colleagues and I will be reaching out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle that what measures can we take to hold some of these folks accountable because it wasn't just the president. There were other folks within my own party even that were stoking the flames of violence.
And our lives were put at risk. This is serious. This is not going away anytime soon. We have time in the days, the weeks and the months ahead to address it. I want to be thoughtful about how we go about doing it without further tearing our nation apart because the last thing I want to see is more violence in our country in any of our cities.
You shouldn't have to fear going to work or going to an event and fear that something might happen to you.
KING: Nearly 140 of your Republican colleagues including the top two House Republicans voted to support these objections even after your building was attacked, even after you were terrorized. Do they need to be held accountable?
Democrats say they should be censured. What do you think should happen? Do they at least owe the American people an apology?
[08:44:52]
MACE: I think the folks that did this, that participated, I will tell you I've been very vocal the last couple of days. I was very disappointed with what we did in the chamber following the events on Wednesday.
I literally had to walk by a crime scene to get into the chamber where that young woman was shot and killed to take those votes. And we continued to object to states when we all knew that we were not overturning the election. That this vote was a futile vote and that you could not adjudicate any allegations of voter fraud in an hour- long debate on the floor of the house.
It was very disappointing. I do believe people need to be held accountable. I am talking to my colleagues about what some of those next steps are. I'm a freshman and I'm on day seven and I know that there are several ways to go about doing it, several paths forward.
And I want to ensure that I am thoughtful about how we go about doing that. I want to be vocal about it because now is not the time to cower. Now is the time to stand up and show some leadership to the American people. Admit that there is a problem, take responsibility for it and be part of the solution and not continue to be divisive and not continue this problem moving forward.
KING: Congresswoman Nancy Mace, appreciate your time this morning. And I want to continue this conversation. You are in an odd position, difficult position, you have courage to stand up now.
We will watch as this plays out in the weeks and months ahead and I hope we can continue that conversation. Thank you for your time today.
MACE: Thank you, John.
KING: And up next for us -- thank you.
Up next, a divide over how to speed up coronavirus vaccinations as the case and the death counts climb to simply numbing levels.
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ADM. BRETT GIROIR, CORONAVIRUS TESTING CZAR: : Walking out of the door, there were three flash bangs going off. Helicopters overhead, sirens -- a truly surreal sight that I hoped I would have never seen.
But at the same time yesterday we had another reality. And that is almost 4,000 Americans died of COVID.
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[08:49:50]
KING: A reminder there from the Trump administration's testing czar of the many crises facing the country right now. Our democracy being stressed by the rioting and insurrection and the coronavirus raging, the numbers simply numbing -- beyond numbing.
Let's look at the latest right here. And you begin with cases, these case numbers have been a pretty good GPS of where we are heading. When they go up like this, we are heading into horrible territory.
Remember, we thought the summer surge was horrific, that was 50,000 -- 60,000 cases as day.
Now, Friday 283,000 new infections. You see the new infections, well above 250,000, many days approaching 300,000. The case count keeps growing. And we know what happens from there sadly.
Sadly, case counts up means the death count will go up. On Thursday, the highest death toll from the coronavirus as the United States dealt with the insurrection -- more than 4,100 of your fellow Americans died from COVID -- died from COVID. You see the death toll now, up well above 3,000, approaching 4,000 every day now. The crisis is mounting.
And again, that number won't go down until this number goes down -- hospitalizations. 130,000 Americans plus on average right now in U.S. hospitals because of COVID-19.
And again, the first peak, the second peak, this is horrific. It is horrific as it goes up. And it is horrible everywhere, and it is horrific -- more horrific I guess in some places, you might say.
Look at this in giant Los Angeles County. One in eight people in Los Angeles County have tested positive since the turn of the year. One in 845 in that populous county have died from COVID-19 -- have died from COVID-19.
So what can be done now? Joining us now with his insight and his expertise is Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
And Dr. Jha, let's start with that and I'll go back to these case counts and put it up here for us on the screen. You believe more urgent measures are necessary, especially with this new variant or variants making its way around the world but including here in the United States.
You write in a memo this past week, "Without significant changes in behavior to once again flatten the curve each new case will result in a greater number of subsequent infections than in the past, making super spreader events more likely and more risky and making even smaller outbreaks more explosive and harder to contain."
So what then? What then? The current president in office for ten more days says nothing about this. He simply ignores his country's pain. What should Joe Biden do on day one?
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: He, good morning John. Thanks for having me on.
Yes. We are in a dire situation because we are already having quite a few new infections, as you laid, and hospitalizations and deaths. And this new variant is starting to take off.
And while it represents about 1 percent of all infections today, the best estimates are it is going to be more than half of all infections by early to mid-March.
So we've got to get ahead of it. So what do we do? We know how to slow the spread of the virus. We need mask mandates. We need people to really stay at home and avoid any indoor gatherings.
But we have one more tool in our tool box, which is the vaccine, but getting vaccines out and into people's arms is critical and yet a vast majority of vaccines we have made are still sitting on freezer shelves.
We have got to start getting people vaccinated far more quickly. It has been a month since we authorized the Pfizer vaccine, about six -- seven million people have gotten vaccinated so far. Way too little.
KING: Well, let me look at those numbers up. Let me put those numbers up here as we look at the vaccine. Because you are right, 22 million doses have been distributed. More than that -- 22.1. And only 6.6 million just shy of 7 million administered so there's a hiccup somewhere in the system.
A lot of governors are blaming Trump administration. The Trump administration saying this is on the states right now.
You have suggested similar to the Biden team that perhaps take them all off all the shelves, give as many first doses as you can and then count on the manufacturing to catch up in time with the second dose.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says listen, he is worried about that approach.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: To stretch out and you don't get your second dose until maybe three or four months, there is no scientific data that prove that. And since we want to maintain our credibility and do things right according to the science we want to do it exactly the way it was shown in the clinical trial.
Right now we don't have a problem that we need more vaccines. We have a problem to get logistically get the vaccine in the arm of people.
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KING: You have, for the most part been on the same page over the last 11 months with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Why the difference now?
DR. JHA: No. Dr. Anthony Fauci is right. There is no reason to wait three or four months for the second dose. People need the second dose.
I guess what I am saying, I think what we are hearing from the Biden team is that states have vaccines for certain things. They are a little bit backlogged. But as they make their way through the backlog, having more vaccines means they can get it out to more people.
And I do believe that the manufacturing is going to hold up. There is no reason to believe we are going to have a national collapse of our manufacturing of vaccine.
So I don't know that I disagree so much with Dr. Anthony Fauci as much as I would put emphasis on getting vaccines out quickly and count on that second dose showing up in plenty of time for people to get vaccinated with their second dose, which everybody needs.
KING: I want to show you the -- I want to show our viewers some of what you are concerned about when you mentioned the variant or variants.
[08:54:53]
KING: We see -- saw what happened in the U.K. The U.K. went up in the winter. They started to come down. And then this variant. Boom, look at their case count.
The United Kingdom is the blue, the United States trailing it.
Your concern is as this variant spreads, that U.S. number will spike up as well.
So let's walk through this. The new administration has said number one, speed up the vaccine distribution. Number two, use the president's power to require a mask in federal transportation and things like that.
But what else? Should there be a national lockdown? Should the administration be even bolder, even more restrictive than the team is thinking about right now>
DR. JHA: Yes. So I think U.K. -- what U.K. did was a national lockdown. I don't see a national lockdown happening here any time soon.
So what I think the administration can do, a third area, I think masks are right, vaccines are right. Testing remains a critical element. I think there is a lot the administration can do there.
And then more relief for Americans so we can have bars and restaurants under relatively substantial restrictions. Let's provide the relief they need.
I do think there is a way through this. It is not going to be easy but it will require federal leadership.
KING: I hope you are right. And I hope one of these Sundays we are having a more pleasant conversation.
But Dr. Jha, as always grateful for your important expertise and insights. Appreciate it beyond words.
And that's it for us on INSIDE POLITICS this Sunday. Hope you can catch us weekdays as well. We are here at noon eastern. Don't go anywhere, busy news day and a busy "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" up next. Including House Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn; Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey; Maryland Governor Larry Hogan; and West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.
Thanks again for sharing your Sunday. Have a good day. Please, stay safe.
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