with the house committee investigating the capitol insurrection. in just minutes we'll hear from mccarthy at his weekly news conference, and you can be sure he'll face questions if he takes them about why he's going back on his promise to cooperate with the committee. the panel wants to speak to him because of his repeated contacts and calls with donald trump on the day of the violence siege. investigators believe mccarthy has valuable insight into trump's state of mind in the lead-up on the day of and in the days after the attack. but mccarthy now says he won't cooperate, calling the probe illegitimate and an abuse of power. the committee's vice chairman, republican liz cheney, she is now accusing mccarthy of trying to cover up what happened that day. and that is exactly one year to the day the house of representatives impeached trump a second time for inciting the insurrection. mccarthy, well, he seems to have forgotten his own words from one year ago today. >> the president is responsible for this. he should have immediately broken up the mob. >> evan perez, what is kartd saying with his response to the committee? >> reporter: kate, he believes that the committee is ill legitimate simply because nancy pelosi declined to appoint members that he had chosen including jim jordan, who, of course, is one of the people that the committee has asked for voluntary interviews from. so he's a witness. and that's the reason why he was not appointed to this committee, which has two republicans. mccarthy is using the argument that a lot of the trump allies are using in court, which is that this committee doesn't have a legislative purpose, that there is no legitimacy to this committee. listen to him on fox news today. >> i had a conversation with the president that was minutes, that i went on national news not one but many. there is nothing i can add to this committee going forward. >> reporter: kate, what this committee wants from him is more detail about those conversations conversations. he had multiple conversations with the former president. he's talked about that. one of the things the committee mentions in their letter to him is they'd like him to shed some light on the state of mind of the former president during those key days after the riot at the capitol. kate? >> evan, than you for that. joining me for more is cnn chief congressional correspondent manu raju and former prosecutor jennifer rogers. manu, first off, do you have the sense that the committee had any expectation mccarthy would agree to speak to them voluntarily when they sent this letter? >> reporter: i think they had very little expectation. even know mccarthy indicated he had nothing to hide, i'd ask him last may if he'd be willing to go and testify about his conversations with trump. he said sure. he'd been saying something similar to that in the weeks after that, too, that he had nothing to hide here. but in the aftermath of two of his other colleagues, congressman scott perry and congressman jim jordan, both of whom had been targ edmtargeted committee because they wanted them to voluntarily testify, those two congressmen made clear they will not cooperate voluntarily. they attacked the committee. it appeared that would be the direction of all house republicans including kevin mccarthy. kate, it's important to remember, mccarthy has battled an investigation here from the very beginning. he battled the creation of the outside commission, which would have been stacked evenly between democratic and republican appointee who is had even subpoena power. he put forward committee members who would serve on this committee that were rejected by nancy pelosi, which was unprecedented for pelosi to do. then he said he was not going to name any of his own members here and would not cooperate voluntarily. he's been clear he does not want investigation to go forward no matter how it's conducted here. >> jennifer, dive into what the committee is doing in this letter nape quote mccarthy extensively. they really lay out something of a case. what case are try trying to make is what i want to get at. they put in here public statements he made from january 6th, january 13th, then private statements that he made to house republicans that have been reported on and quoted from other house members from january 11th, just for an example. they all put responsibility for the attack on trump, like this statement. listen to this. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob rioters. he should have immediately demou denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. these facts required immediate action from president trump. accept his share of responsibility, quell the growing unrest, and ensure president-elect biden is able to successfully begin his term. >> jennifer, what are they doing here in this letter? >> they're making a couple of cases, kate, to your point. they are trying to say he has a lot of information that's really important for the committee to get, information where he spoke directly to the president during january 6th, after january 6th, even before january 6th. and they're making the case there was a time he wasn't reluctant to share that information for the good of the country. and now he is. clearly, his loyalties are to trump above country, and that's what they're trying to emphasize here, that if he doesn't share what he knows, he's going against the best interests of the people and against what he previously suggested he would do. they also point out the meeting that he had down at mar-a-lago and ask about any suggestion or persuasion that the president, the former president, may have given to him so that he changed course. that's kind of an interesting nod to a potential obstruction of justice case down the road. >> they're interested in statements on the day of and the lead-up to, right, manu? also as jennifer laid out, they want to know about after the fact. they're focused on some of those conversations like they write this. additionally, the committee would like to question you regarding your communication with president trump, white house staff and others the week after the january 6th attack, particularly regarding president trump's state of mind at that time. what is your sense of why the committee is focusing in? it makes why before and on the day of the insurrection. why are they focusing in on conversations well after the attack took place? >> clearly they're trying to build a case about whether or not donald trump tried to tamp we are any of the witnesses who may have testified about what donald trump was saying, his mind-set at the time, both during the attack as well as after the attack. the question they have is what skwlen jennifer is talking about, can they build a case to charge donald trump, anybody else in the justice department, obstruction charges and any evidence that suggests president trump told kevin mccarthy to shape his testimony in any way could give them some evidence. we'll see whether that happened or not or if they discussed this. mccarthy has said previously that he and trump had not spoken about this and the aftermath of january 6th. but there was, of course, that infamous meeting just days after mccarthy went to the floor a year ago today and said that donald trump bore responsibility for this attack. they came out afterwards smiling for the cameras and saying that they're on the same page politically. we have not heard mccarthy offer much criticism at all of donald trump in the months and the years since then. the committee wants to know what did kevin mccarthy say afterwards and why did he change his tone so dramatically since last year. >> let me read that part of the letter. they say, "your public statements regarding january 6th have changed markedly since you met with trump. at that meeting or at any meeting -- or at any other time did donald trump's representatives suggest what you should say publicly during the impeachment trial if called as a witness or in any later conversations with him on january 6th?" what specifically do you think they're getting at and what do they do with it now? what do they do with this now that he's refusing to cooperate? >> well, right now they're just trying to apply public pressure to him. if they subpoena him and he refuses, then they have the option to refer a criminal contempt of congress as they did with steve bannon and mark meadows. what they're really trying to do is dig into the notion of whether former president trump obstructed justice telling people to change their testimony. the problem is the timing. this is at a time when the select committee hadn't been formed. there wasn't discussion around investigating this. so to me it's going to come down to even if they had a conversation around, kevin, you should change your tune and come back on board and support me, the question is, is that a political calculation having to do with the 2020 midterms and president trump's, you know, leadership of the party going forward, or is that about the possibility of a hypothetical investigation down the road? the select committee ultimately, doj would have to prove it's latter in order to think about a prosecution based on that. >> jennifer thank you. manu, thank you so much. i mentioned kevin mccarthy will be taking questions from reporters. also developing today, president biden will head to capitol hill this afternoon to make another push for voting rights legislation. the president will be meeting face-to-face were lunch with senate democrats to try to convince them to change senate rules and then pass the two voting bills that have been languishing in the senate and really have no prospect for passage for months. in a new interview this morning, vice president kamala harris insists that there is still time to get all democrats on board. >> madam vice president, how are you going to get it done? >> well, when we have the discussion about who's responsible, i will not absolve the 50 republicans in the united states senate from responsibility for upholding one of the most basic and important tenets of our democracy, which is free and fair elections and access to the ballot for all eligible voters. >> what about senator manchin and sinema sn. >> i don't think anyone should be absolved from their responsibility of preserving and protecting our democracy, especially when they took an oath to protect and defend our constitution. >> why has the administration not been able to get senate democrats on board? >> we don't give up and we will not give up. >> chuck schumer has set a monday deadline to make a move on this one way or the other so we'll see. coming up, president biden's pledge to help hospitals. and put 48 hour freshness and 1 quarter moisturizers in. dove 0% aluminum deodorant lasting protection that's kinder on skin. do your eyes bother you? my eyes feel like a combo of stressed, dry and sandpaper. strypaper? 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>> jeremy, thanks for that. specifically when it comes to the hospitals facing these surges and the help that the president says is on the way, how will these military medical teams help these overwhelmed hospitals? shimon prokupecz is live at university hospital in newark, new jersey, one of the hospitals getting this federal help. what are you learning there? >> we spock to the ceo here of the hospital. this is such great news for them, such welcome news for them. they are inundated. they have been so busy working hard through the pandemic and then of course this surge. so the fact that they are going to get this help is certainly very welcomed and they want it. they need the help. the nurses here, the staff here have been inundated. 10% of the staff he says has been out because of covid, whether it's because they need to take care of their kids or whether it's because they themselves are getting sick. so they are looking forward. they'll get about 23 or so members of the military of this surge in personnel. here is the ceo who we poke to this morning talking about how he reacted to getting the news that help was coming. >> i was jumping for joy to be honest with you. it is something that i've been telling my staff we've been trying to do for weeks. we put in their request last week. fema came on monday, which gave me a lot of optimism. but we didn't get confirmation until this morning. i was frankly in the car on the way to work when i heard and i wanted to jump for joy. it is just going to be so, so helpful to us at a critical time. >> reporter: so he's going to be spending the day letting the staff know -- he'll spend the day letting the staff know how this is going to work. obviously very excited to get the help. they expect some of the reinforcements to start coming in next week, kate. >> shimon, thank you so much. great to hear from the hospital ceo on that. joining me for more is cnn's chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta. that hospital ceo, sanjay, says he was jumping for joy when he heard the announcement. this deployment to get military medical personnel in hospitals, what do you see them doing? how much help can it offer? how long will they need it? how will this help fight the surge? >> well, you're dealing with two sort of situations at the same time. we have all-time record high hospitalizations throughout this pandemic. at the same time, there's a lot of critical shortages in terms of actual personnel. so these two things at the same time, more patients, less staff. simple things like triaging, you know, before patients are actually determining whether they'll go to a general care floor, basic care, you have patients coming in non-covid-related as well having a hard time accessing care because hospitals are so full. we're seeing that in my own hospital. you're having up to 100 patients sometimes waiting to get a bed in the e.r. it's taking care of those things. it's a real burden i think physically, mentally, everything, on these health care workers. this provide some relief in those places. >> on masks, the vice president was asked this morning about masks, if americans should be wearing n-95s or kn-95s. this is what she said. >> the cdc is making their decisions. i don't make the cdc's decisions. you want to wear a tight-fitting mask. that is clear. we want to urge everybody to do that. in terms of the n-95 masks, they are available. there is a stockpile of i believe over 700 million of those masks. so the supply is there as necessary and as needed. >> and then the president just also said just a short time ago next week they're going to announce a plan to make high quality masks available for free. we need more details on this, but how important is this? >> well, i think it's very important. you know, we've been talk about this for a long time. people should wear masks and if you're going to wear a mask, which you should, it should be the most protective mas that can you can. we've showed this before, but if you look at in the context of omicron now, given how transmissible this is, a cloth mask versus a surgical mask versus an n-95 mask, it's skrr clear. i don't think anyone disputes the fact that the n-95 mask will be the most protected here, 1% to 10% from the n-95 escaping versus more from the cloth mask. the vice president said there's a huge stockpile, 700 million. i'm not sure what the confusion still is in terms of the messaging here because you're hearing, yes, next-95 masks are the best masks. we're in the middle of a storm of a very transmissible virus yet they're not saying you should wear n-95 masks and we're going to send them out to households or make them available for free. we'll sort of see what that means. but it's very clear from lots of viral dynamics experts, kate, if people wore these types of masks in public for even a few weeks, it would have a significant impact on bringing these numbers much lower. >> and you make a good point because one of the assumptions was maybe they're not recommending it because they're hard to come by and they're expens expensive, these higher quality masks. they say there's huge stockpile and they will be free, where is the confusion in the messaging is a good question at this point as well. the other news from the president is he is pushing the government to order an additional 500 million rapid antigen tests to distribute to americans. that's to meet future demand. the first half billion still haven't gone out, though. what do you think of the announcement? >> yeah. i mean, you know, as jeremy diamond was saying, you know, it's over 60 days i think he said for the first 500 million tests will go out. i guess, kate, it's one of these things. i feel like this is how i talk to my own kids sometimes. yes, we're moving in the right direction but we're nowhere near where we need to be. i mean, summer of last year we sort of came to the realization based on the virus that we should be testing, you know, maybe a billion tests or even more a month, that people should be able to test themselves and their home a couple times a week. you're talking 600 million, 700 million tests a week should be done in this country. that sounds crazy, right? fantastical even. but that was the projection of where we needed to be headed. now we're say 5g 00 million tests roughly a month. it's much, much better. the thing is that so many times throughout this pandemic, kate, these things do come. testing, maybe we'll is a about the masks. but they may come at a time when the numbers are lower. they need to be there for the surges. >> good to see you, sanjay. thank you. >> you too, kate. >> coming up, live pictures from capitol hill. kevin mccarthy is going to be there speaking in just a few minutes after refusing to comply with the house panel investigating the insurrection. he'll face some questions on that today for sure. we'll bring that yo to you live. . that means that i earn 5% on our rental car, i earn 5% on our cabin. i mean, c'mon! hello cashback! hello, kevin hart! i'm scared. in a good way. i'm lying. let's get inside. earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? 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nah, we're gonna get creamed... but we'll be on t-mobile! the pandemic made teaching and learning really hard. but instead of working to help students safely return to the classroom, the san francisco school board focused on renaming schools and playing politics. and they've even saddled our district with a $125 million deficit. our children can't wait for new leadership. here's our chance for a fresh start. on february 15th, please recall school board members collins, lópez and moliga before our kids fall even further behind. developing at this hour, the draw is out for the australian open and novak djokovic not surprisingly is the number-one seed. but what is not known is if he'll play or if he'll be deported still. cnn's paula hancocks is live in melbourne, israeli. again for much more on this. how up in the air is this still? >> reporter: kate, it's up in the air. it's the early hours of friday morning now. we were expecting to hear something from the immigration minister on thursday. it didn't happen. it could be today. but he is running out of time if he is going to decide to step in personally and revoke the visa of novak djokovic. the australian open starts on monday. djokovic is already in -- as you say, he's the number-one seed. he's in the draw. he knows he will be playing a fellow countryman. we heard from the prime minister scott morrison today, and he was talking about how as he said before rules are rules and how you have to be vaccinated to come into this country or have a medical exemption showing there's a medical reason why you can't have the covid-19 vaccinations, saying that he hopes his government will stick to that policy. now, it is his immigration minister that's able to make that decision. now, we understand when djokovic gave those revelations that he had gone and talked to a journalist when covid-19 positive. he gave lot more documentation. maybe that is slowing things down. >> paula, thank you so much for that. joining me for more on this former professional tennis player patrick mcenroe, host of "the holding court" podcast. former tennis player. you are a former davis cup captain, a top official, you have played the australian open. this is my way of saying you know better than anyone what kind of chaos will happen if suddenly djokovic is thrown out of the country at this point? >> i may know a lot about tennis, kate, but i've gotten a real education in the last week on the politics inside of australia. and i think that's really what's going to determine whether or not novak djokovic can actually take to court. trust me, as you know, if he takes the court, it will be an absolute cie. it will be kays chaos on both s from the australian public who's rankled with how this went down. i don't think they liked his latest instagram post. i think the tide was turning a little bit in his favor because the australian government certainly didn't treat him that well. the aussies felt a little embarrassed by that. when novak put out his instagram post, admitted making some mistakes, started by saying i want to clear up the misinformation, well, there's really not that much misinformation out there. this there's information out there. that doesn't make him look particularly good. so they keep pushing this down to road, kate, whether or not they're going to actually try and deport him out of the country. but remember, even if they do so, he'll still appeal it again. tennis, anyone? >> it's unbelievable what it would mean for the tournament. either way it will be total and utter chaos if he plays or gets thrown out. >> yeah. and you wonder -- i have to admit, i'm starting to wonder this myself, okay, from the australian perspective, you know, they look at this. this is an unbelievable tournament. they do a great job. it promotes the country. it's one of the four major tournaments all year that happens in tennis. the australians rightly so very proud of what is a tremendous event. but let's take a step back now. if they kick djokovic out of the country, that's sort of a black eye for the whole country, for the way the government miscommunicated, certainly for tennis australia, who has to take some responsibility for allowing djokovic to come in the way that he did. but the public -- the ratings are going to be through the roof. that's what i'm getting at, kate, with this whole idea. >> right. >> it's going to be a ratings bonanza. you start to wonder, hmm, maybe that's playing into the decision as well because australia as a country, they want to reopen up. they've closed their borders, just reopened them. they want to get their country and economy moving again. if they throw djokovic out, that throws things sort of off kilter. i think their overall plan to reopen this society in general. >> the answer is just do what is right. there cannot be that much gray area. it's either follow the rules or don't wherever that may lead you. that's the only answer to avoid -- to diminish the black eye that will be on everybody on this. one thing i've been thinking about as well focusing on djokovic, is this has overshadowed this tournament for sure, put a spotlight on and overshadowed this tournament for sure. what else it's also overshadowed is the other crisis the tennis world has been dealing with, chinese tennis star shuai peng. wca doesn't know if she's safe and sound. what is happening with this? >> first of all, your first point, yes, rules are rules. the problem for this situation as the rules keep changing and we're not sure what they are. for peng, most of the time we say no news is good news, but in this situation, no news is not good news for her. here's why. china has a familiar pattern when something like this happens -- deny it, number one, completely squash all information from the internet, which they've done, number two, and then start to blame others, like the international community, like the women's tennis association, like us in the media. it's your fault. you're trying to attack china. that's what's happening now. their game plan at the moment is working to a "t." i find that very, very disconcerting right now. >> yeah. and then number three, wait it out. wait for people to find something else and put their focus elsewhere, which is, again, part of the playbook. patrick, let's see what happens. i have a feeling i might need you back on tv tomorrow. great to see you. thank you. >> anytime, kate. thanks again. coming up for us, house republican leader kevin mccarthy is about to speak, about to take questions after refusing to comply with the insurrection investigators in the house, requesting to speak with him about what he knew about that day after he promised he'd cooperate. what now? 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>> the big question is why he decided not to cooperate with the january 6th select committee, which is asked for his voluntary cooperation. they want to meet with him, want him to turn over documents. he put out a statement last night saying he is not planning to cooperate, citing a couple reasons. one, he said this was an illegitimate investigation. two, he said he has nothing relevant to offer the committee. but both claims are disingenuous at best. on the first one, whether or not this is legitimate, nancy pelosi vetoed some of mccarthy's picks for the committee. it wasn't precedent bud that was well within her authority. on the topic of whether mccarthy has anything to offer the committee, he spoke to president trump on january 6th, was urging him to call off the riots. there are conflicting accounts of what trump said back to him. one republican said trump, according to kevin mccarthy, was saying, well, kevin, i guess these rioters care more about the election than you. if that is true, that suggests trump had no plan to stop the insurrection. >> john, your perspective on this because i wonder what you make of the fact that he is a member of congress, a member of house leadership, is calling congressional investigation illegitimate and abuse of power and not serving any legislative purpose. that statement may come back to bite him, i don't know, after the next election. >> reporter: kate, kevin mccarthy doesn't care about tradition of the house. he doesn't care about telling the truth before the committee. he doesn't care about getting to the bottom of the insurrection. he cares about one thing. he wants to become the house speaker. he knows that to become the house speaker he cannot be seen as cooperating with democrats against the interests of former president trump, who we know incited the insurrection on january 6th because kevin mccarthy himself said so when he thought it was going to be politically advantageous for him to say so. then he has changed his mind and changed his tune after meeting with trump. he realizes that trump can hurt him. he doesn't want to be hurt. we know a few months ago he told our colleague manu raju, sure, i'll cooperate with the committee. now, of course, when he realizes it's disadvantageous for him to do so, he says he's not going to cooperate. kevin mccarthy's words don't really mean anything beyond the three seconds after he says them depend bing on his next calculation of what is going to serve his interest and political ambition at the moment. >> when he does take questions, we will head back in to hear how he answers them, at least in this moment. good to see you, john. melanie, thanks so much. melanie will stick by as well. in the meantime, the omicron su virus surging schools to move back to at-home learning. los angeles -- we'll head back to capitol hill. kevin mccarthy is taking questions. >> do you stand by those comments? and you visited the former president in mar-a-lago. what changed? why did you make that trip? >> what changed? why did i make the trip? >> you criticized him saying -- >> my criticism went to everyone on that day. why was the capitol so ill prepared that day? >> you made those comments directly about the president. >> why was the capitol so ill prepared that day? and how do we make sure it will never be ill prepared again? i just had a conference with our members and the santiago of arms and the capitol police. you weren't in the room, but let me give you an answer to some of the questions that were asked. some of the questions that were asked to the capitol police, the chief said that was above his pay grade to make the answer. i asked him, well, who's above you? simple question about magnetometers coming before the chambers. he said, well, if another speaker comes in and decides they go, they go. another question to the agent of arms was has the gymnastics committee asked for any of the communications from the former sergeant of arms to the speaker that day? to the best of his knowledge, they have not asked for any of them. the more we learn about the situation, the more we find that from investigation to investigation the change is made in the capitol police intel department in november of not providing information going further has been a real problem on the basis for that day. and the call of what we need to have happen here is why was this building so ill prepared? and how do we make sure that never happens again? yes, ma'am. [ inaudible question ] i'm not sure what call you're talking about, so. yes, sir. how is cnn doing? are you guys okay? good. all right. [ inaudible question ] that's not true. ask your question. i'll verify what's true in there. >> you said sure, you'd be willing to testify about your conversations -- >> what was the date of that? >> that was last -- >> okay. >> and you now say you won't appear voluntarily. >> okay. >> so it seems you're trying to hide something here. >> great question. i hope everything gets corrected at cnn. work through all that with your employees. after january 6th, you can state this, who was the first person to offer a bipartisan commission to look at that day? was it me? i'll help you. the answer is yes. nancy pelosi waited four months. and that time period, as we came here and discussed many times, you were here, you would ask me questions, my fear began to erode that she'd play politics with this. you watched it unfold. she would prepare who can have a subpoena power, who can have the scope, continuing to fight it all along the way that we now found she just played politics while the senate had two committees, bipartisan, look at what happened on january 6th. january 6th, and we had a role of congress, and the only role we have is legislative. you asked me that question in may. that was two months before nancy pelosi decided by any minority to put the list together, and never did i believe that such a speaker would play such politics and never that a chairman of any committee would say that the any person out of bounds is the speaker and now that we find to preserve that information with the sergeant of arms that they will not provide it. maybe if nancy pelosi had done what other speakers would do and not play politics with it, it could have been a different answer. yes, sir? yes, sir? go right ahead, sir. >> you have a unique window into the president on that day, january 6th. you were one of the only few people who spoke to him that day. doesn't the american public have a right to know what the president of the united states was thinking and doing while the u.s. capitol was under attack? >> you know that is a great question. and the great thing about that, i didn't wait a year later. on january 6th, i spoke to american public not by one network, but by many networks. my conversation was very short. advising the president of what was happening here. there is nothing that i can provide the january 6th committee for legislation of them moving forward. there is nothing in that realm. it is pure politics of what they are playing. yes, sir? yes. >> moving forward the only oversight that you plan is oversight that you plan to rate bills from is legislating the oversight, and it is not necessarily absolving legislation from, because you did it, and nancy pelosi did it and boehner did it -- >> really? how often have we gone after people's phone records -- >> and i am saying what you will do if you are speaker and conducting the oversight -- >> you know what we will do if we are entrusted with the majority? the first thing that we will do is talk about how do we lower the prices for the american public? how do we make gasoline price affordable again? how do we put food back on the shelves and how do we stop this rise of inflation of everything that you are dealing with? how do we secure the border? how do we stop government mandating and controlling our lives? how do we make cities safe again? and yes, we will hold this administration accountable. we just found this week, and i sent a letter with virginia fox, the secretary of education, asked the national school board to send them a letter so that he can go to attorney general to now investigate the parents who go to school board meetings of terrorism. afghanistan. we have 13 new gold star families, and that never had to happen. how many americans are still stuck there? have any of you asked that question? the president said just weeks before that he would not leave up until ri american was gone and the taxpayer who bought all of that weaponry that the taliban now has. you got any reporting or recording of where that is? where is that sold to now on the black market? irs releasing americans' tax returns. yes, we can do both, and we will. i hope that you a great weekend. take care and stay safe. >> kevin, can you call me? joining me right now is our guests back with us. john, your thoughts? >> liz cheney said yesterday that i wish that kevin mccarthy were a brave and honorable man, and he just demonstrated in the press conference why she does not see the qualities in him. he is not willing to talk about the events of january 6th in any reasonable way. he was deflecting and ducking and dodging about the things that he said that -- >> he was lying. he was lying. >> yes, when he condemned president trump. he evaded all attempts to explain why he had told manu raju a few months ago and gave a disingenuous answer of why he is not going to cooperate and why he changed his mind on donald trump's role. it is -- look, he is the leader of the party that is now driven by a lie about the 2020 election, and he is an apt leader of the party. >> melanie? >> one thing that stood tout me is the way that the gop is trying to use the new playbook of shifting to the security failures on january 6th. they are pledging to go after speaker nancy pelosi and pin the blame on her, and it is a really a way to shift the blame in that speaker pelosi does not have authority of the day-to-day operations of the capitol police, and the thing that the committee wants to hone in on is why did kevin mccarthy shift the tone so much when it comes to not only the obligations, but whether president trump bore any responsibility. he was asked by the reporter if he remembers a house call, and i reported at the time whenken mccarthy said that president trump accepted some blame for the riots. that is what he told the republicans, and what we reported at the time and he acts like he does not remember the phone call, and this is what the committee wants to dig in and did trump and the others dig into him, and if there is witness tampering. that is what the committee wants to know about. >> and these are the comments that he said after the insurrection. he said, my criticism is everybody that day, and why was the capitol so ill prepared that day. and this is what kevin mccarthy said from the house floor. >> the president bears responsibility for the attack on the capitol from mob rioters and he should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what unfolded and these acts require immediate action from president trump and accept his responsibility and quell the unrest and assure that president-elect biden can successfully begin his term. >> instead now, and i'm sorry, it is an attempt, failed attempt at gas lighting people, john. >> he is afraid to tell the truth, and so he is not going to tell the truth. as i mentioned before, he came on and took questions. at a moment when he thought that it was politically advantageous for him. >> exactly. >> that the events compelled him to criticize president trump he did so in the speech as did mitch mcconnell, but now because he realizes it would hurt him, and interfere with the ambition in order to if he were to tell the truth now, he is not going to do it, and going to try to cover up the reasons for why he is not telling the truth. it is sad that a leader of the republican party is behaving in that manner, but that is what we have got. >> well, it is exactly where it is right now. john, thank you. melanie, thank you. as always, really a appreciate it, guys. much more to come with this. 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(robert) thank you. subaru. more than a car company. superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. hello, everybody. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king and this is a remarkably busy news day. and john mccarthy offers no help and no coraoperation with the panel investigating january 6th. and the president promises more tests and more masks and sending the cavalry to