Supreme court. Theyve just finished hearing virtual arguments in a case seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care act as virus cases surge to record levels. Its a busy day. But we begin with a live look at the white house and capitol hill where the president is pushing republicans to back him in challenging or trying to discredit the results of this election. So far, just four of the 53 Senate Republicans have recognized joe biden as president elect of the United States. And the four that have are sort of weve gotten used to those four senators bucking this president , murkowski, collins, romney and in this case also ben sasse. Heres why that matters. Even though hes lost the election, the Republican Party is still acting like its loyal to this president or being held captive by him. Meanwhile, they both appear to be toying with a constitutional crisis. Mitch mcconnell basically shrugged off the president s efforts to challenge the Election Results which so far have been rooted in fals
All this while covid continues to rage across the i didncountr promise of vaccines a cold comfort to the families of 300,000 americans we have lost to the virus. The goal is bittersweet. At the same time as were moving ahead with what will ultimately be the answer and the final solution to this, were living through very, very difficult times. Joining me now, nbcs Garrett Haake on capitol hill and weekend today cohost Kristen Welker at the white house. Garrett, first to you, what is this hangup . The last note i saw involved Federal Reserve lending facilities at least held up by senator toomey of pennsylvania. Reporter yeah, there are a couple of things going on. First, at some point aides will have to put down their pencils and go with what theyve got. Writing a 900 billion bill takes time, the language is important so you dont trip over yourself at the last minute. The toomey provision is what democrats are blaming for the holdup. The idea is that a fed Lending Authority that was set
Will shake the Political Landscape for the rest of the year, and potentially you could argue for the next four. Once the trial begins in earnest tuesday, it will likely run two weeks at minimum. At the same time, President Trump will try to stay focused on his job. He is heading to the davos World Economic forum, and then having rallies. The caucus is coming up february 3rd. And the very next day, february 4th is the president s state of the union speech. One he may deliver while he is still on trial. Lets get more on whats going on now. Garrett hague is on capitol hill. Kristin welker is at the white house. Garrett, what do we know about what the democratic Impeachment Team is doing behind closed doors, what do we know about their preps . Reporter they kept preps and planning tight lipped. We expect seven impeachment managers to work through the weekend, some of them in washington, some of them back in their districts remotely. They have a lot of work to do, they have to prepare legal
I dont think the nation is going to allow us to lose the momentum. Thats good news. Ive had multiple conversations with senator booker. No conversations with senator harris. And i look forward to finding a middle ground where the motion to proceed will has arct articulated already, 100 votes, how to make the legislation better and serve the American People. I hope that he is willing to cooperate on getting us there, but certainly without any democrat support, that means that this is only a symbolic moment and not a moment for us to make a law. Are you open to any national mandates at all, whether it is mandating the use of body cameras, requiring banning no knock warrants and drug cases, or banning chokeholds . Are you open in all to any of those national mandates that democrats are proposing . I think we achieve some of the same ends by our approach. If you think about the inability to have any grants if your department has chokeholds, that frankly is by default a ban on chokeholds. T
Lower 49 and how close they are to that. Give us sort of an assessment, does the pentagon have a timetable as to when north korea could reach that viability . That it could have a long range missal to reach the lower 49. They dont have anything firm. By the time that north korea has the ability to hit the lower 48 or the lower 49 because there are some areas where hawaii would be in range. By the time they do that, its too late. So when they think of intercepting this program, they think about it before they get to the icbm range. Now when they tested that antimissile system last month or even in may out at the air force base, that they said thought they bought them a little more time in 2020 is what were hearing about, but the technology on that, even though they did have a successful intercept last time, its still complicated technology, and its really only designrded for one or two missiles heading towards the state. Not a full barrage when you dont have any antimissile defenses cap