Inauguration. Due to an uncontrolled pandemic, the American People have been told to stay away. Due to the attack on the u. S. Capital, 25,000 troops will surround the proceedings because of the threat to our fellow americans. Donald trump is likely to issue his final pardons within the hour. This afternoon, donald trump who has not been seen in public in seven days, released a videotaped farewell message instead. He again condemned the attack on the capital without taking any personal responsibility, and an attempt to frame the administration as a success. We inaugurate a new administration and pray for its success in keeping america safe and prosperous. We extend our best wishes and we also want them to have luck, a very important word. All americans were horrified by the assault on our capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as americans. It can never be tolerated. Our agenda was not right or left, republican or democratic but the good of a nation. Im especially proud to be the first president in decade who has start nod new wars. Now, as i prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on wednesday, i want toud know that movement we started is only just beginning. Trump also thanked his loyal Vice President mike pence who had made a target for the mob thain vaded the Capitol Building almost two weeks ea go now. Pence not expected to be in the send off. But will attend bidens inauguration. Tonight, biden arrived in washington. Biden made the trip from his home state of delaware where the emotion of the depar chaur got the most of it. The entire biden family that is here today, i want to express how much you mean to me and every one of us. I am proud, proud, proud, proud to be a son of delaware, and i am even more proud to be standing here doing this from the major beau biden. So ladies and gentlemen, i only have one regret. Its not here. Because we should be introducing him as president. This evening, biden and Vice President elect harris held a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial to remember the now over 400,000 americans lost in in pandemic. It was the First Ever National gesture to honor and remember the dead. An uncontrolled pandemic of course just one challenge for the new president. The new administration. Today, five of bidens cabinet nominees were grilled in Senate Confirmation hearing. Senator josh hawley will object to the Homeland Security nominee. He is concerned about joe bidens immigration policy. Meanwhile, the thousands of National Guard troofs are on duty to protect the buildings where the hearings are going on, 12 Service Members have been removed from duty after a fbi screening. As we mentioned, the inauguration will take place two weeks after the mob in the capitol. Today, Mitch Mcconnell who perpetuated the big lie for weeks, finally laid the blame for the insurrection that took over his beloved chamber. The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government. With that, lets bring in our leadoff guests on this inauguration eve. Carol ledding, and phil rucker, coauthor of the book a very stable genius. Kimberly atkins, from the Boston Herald and now a member of the boston globe. And joyce vance who spend 25 years as federal prosecutor, and peter baker, among the coauthors of impeachment, good evening and welcome to you all. Peter baker, because of your seniority on the beat, i want to begin with you. We have been told the list of pardons would be within the hour. What do you think the president has been doing on the last day, this last night in office . Well, the pardon power is one of his favorites over the last four years because its uncheckable. Its the one power he has where he doesnt have to ask anybody else for permission. He doesnt have to win over allies. Convince a congressman or issue an agenda rule. He can sign a piece of paper. The lives he affects are people ho are close to him or close to people who were close to him. He has not used it in great measure for people he dont know or had a connection with. And what we hear, the last few hours, he is going through the list. He has a list of dozen, maybe a hundred or so possible recipients of the pardons, including the latest report, possibly steve bannon, his strategist who was arrested for scanning trump supporters. We are going through the list, to see who he is going to give forgiveness to, who he is not going to give forgiveness to. Its the last act in a presidency that has been keeping us to tender hooks. We if news breaks we will have to break in and interrupt our conversation. Carol, let me go to your beat. Is there a way of telling our audience what about the feds are learning about the length and breadth and planning that went into the insurrection at the capitol . Yes, brian, my colleagues and i at the post, washington post, i have been hearing a lot about that. But you can read some of it in our pages. There have been several members of a group called the oath keepers that have been arrested, some charged with very specific and scary federal charges of inciting, organizing. One of them, mr. Caldwell, is described by his colleagues as commander. He said in messages to a group of 8 to 10 members that these are some hotels they should stay at. He made suggestions and said they are good places if they had to quote unquote hunt at night. The oath keepers as you know, they have been very much at the forefront of an altright extremist movement, arguing that the Election Results were rigged in some way. Though that is false, and they were at the forefront along with several members of qanon, another far right conspiracy organization that was in the seize on the capitol. Indeed, donald trump today in his taped remarks did acknowledge the assault on the capitol. He renounced violence. He toed that line without taking any responsibility. This is the way he has been communicating as kind of these released videotapes. We go days without seeing him. Its all going to be over tomorrow. What else stood out to you watching this edited video tonight . Yes, well, aside from it being heavily scripted and not sounding like the trump we have seen for the most part over the four year, he is more himself when he is off the teleprompter and now when he is recording videos. I thought it was interesting. It was an attempt to sort of normalize and give a normal Farewell Speech for a presidency that was anything but traditional. It claimed a lot of falsehoods. I was struck by him saying he was the only recent president to have started no new wars. I mean, washington, d. C. Where i live right now, looks like a war zone with the National Reserves men all over the city. And you cant get any where near the capitol. It doesnt look anything like a normal inauguration. The one thing he did say that was true, did what we came here to do. If you look back on President Trumps term, its as advertised with his campaign. He campaigned on fear, calls for a muslim ban, saying peek from mexico were murderers and rapist. He campaigned on divisiveness, and he came in focused mostly on himself, and blaming others for anything that went wrong, and failing to take accountability, right up to the end where he is failing to take accountability from the and that video today, bore no resemblance to what we have been watching the last four years. All of this, joyce, brings us to you and the news we will get at some point tonight. That is pardons. There are different kinds of pardons and on the humanitarian ground, the nop nonviolent offender who has been serving 20, 30 years, a model prison nor. I dont know anyone who is so cold harded that is that kind of thing. On the other side, theres steve bannon. Talk about the kind of pardons that destroy morale and break the backs of the feds who work day and night to administer justice . Youre exactly right about that. The pardon power is meant to permit the fought do justice and to offer mercy to people who dont have a legal option but deserve to be out of prison, reunited with their families out from under the incumbrance of a conviction. And the most recent commutation came a few days ago, the pardon of a wealthy businessman in who engaged in 300 million in fraud, swindling investors for money. Not really the candidate we think about what when we think about mercy, and steve bannon is trumps abducation of rule of and almost no longer belongs there based on what we know now. Bannon faces a serious term in prison. He defrauded many members of trumps base in connection to a project that was designed to collect money to build a federal wall. He is under federal indictment. He will go to prison for a long time if he is convicted. One way he can reduce his exposure is by cooperating and bannon has access to many of the president s innermost thoughts. We dont know if the president committed any crimes but we know the most difficult thing for prosecutors is to get inside a dependents head to know what they were thinking and why they acted the way they did, bannon might be able to offer evidence like that. A pardon will be perceived as this president s contempt and abuse of the rule of law. Bannon was swept up, lounging on a deck of a vessel owned by a chinese billionaire off the coast of connecticut, as one does. Peter baker, we are reminded this is the closing hours, there is talk tonight in washington of a new political party. Mr. Trump discussed the matter with several aides and other people close to him last week. He would want to call the new party the patriot party. Peter, this opens up a lot of issues and questions. Well, it does of course and it indicates how deep the civil war within the Republican Party is now. He no longer thinks the party is sufficiently behind him. And that is fine with a lot of republicans. Mitch mcconnell has basically wiped his hands of President Trump and says the party needs to purge his presence at this point and move on beyond him. This would be obviously a blow to the Republican Party and probably split it apart in the past when Teddy Roosevelt split off from the Republican Party in 1912 and cost the election to wood row wilson. It would to the fact that its not a unified, coherent organization right now. There is a schism between the ones who see trump as their avatar, their type of leader they want, and those two find trump loathe some and repugnant, and its a party that is held together with everyone holding their nose at the clubhouse meetings in effect. And it would be fascinating to see why they pull it out. It would require an enormous amount of dedication, organization and discipline to make it work. We havent had a new party in the country since the 1850s. Ross perot tried it. He had a lot of money. And it goes to show how things are in the Republican Party. Carol, im also remembers john anderson, and if peter hadnt invoked ross perot, i was prepared to do so. Parties are hard and this would be complicated. Especially if trump is unwilling or unable to serve as the head of that party on a ballot. Lets talk, carol, about the Mitch Mcconnell dynamic. How is he likely to receive news of a spinoff party that comes out of his base and not, say, joe bidens and Chuck Schumers . You can tell by Mitch Mcconnells body language that he is reacting with an ulcerous feeling. There have been many people that many republicans got their foreheads smacked for what they have been enabling in trump for four years when they began clamoring for an exit when armed intruders broke in the capitol. And the idea of mcconnell being saddled with donald trump for much longer i will not speak for the Senate Leader but know many of his aides would like it to be the last involvement with trump. And the civil war, its a civil war that donald trump has stoked in there. Is no question there is division in this country. But he has lit that match, and our inauguration tomorrow is an illustration, a very sorrowful illustration of that civil war. We have National Guardsmen who are there to guard the perimeter but a certain very small subset have been asked to leave because they have ties to groups that the National Security teams were in charge of making sure that joe biden doesnt get shot tomorrow. They are concerned about any single individual who would be a tiny breach in the security perimeter, no matter how tiny. And it just tells you how ruptured our country is. And that may be the legacy of donald trump. Yeah, indeed. I said at the top of the broadcast, when it occurs to you the threat they are protecting you from are americans, its bracing and still new. Al qaeda is not the threat tomorrow, but al from up state new york or al from arkansas may test 25,000 uniformed troops. Lets take a break from the the conversation. We have asked all of the guests to stay with us. Coming up when we continue, after trafficking for weeking in the big league, as we said, Mitch Mcconnell now blaming the president for the mob this attacked the capitol along with several other powerful people. You did does that mean Mitch Mcconnell is a vote to convict . We will talk about that many 346 and michael bestlaw and pete sousa for a picture of what test really like. All of it as the 11th hour is just getting under way. Ay a migraine hope from aimovig. To show up. For the sweet. The hectic. The tender. The tense. And the fiery. But for many, migraine keeps them. From saying. i am here. we aim to change that. With. Aimovig, a preventive treatment. For migraine in adults. One dose. Once a month. Is proven to reduce monthly migraine days. For some, by half or more. Dont take aimovig if youre allergic to it. Allergic reactions like rash or swelling can happen hours to days after use. Severe constipation can happen. Sometimes with serious complications. High Blood Pressure can happen or worsen with aimovig. Common side effects include injection site reactions and constipation. It doesnt matter what each day brings. So long as you can say. I am here. Aim. To be there more. Talk to your doctor about aimovig. The events on january 6th make no mistake about it were not a spontaneous demonstration. So let me be clear. There will be an impeachment trial in the United States senate. There will be a vote on conflicting the president for high crimes and disdemeanors and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote from barring flim running again. So if there were any doubts that president would face impeachment, Chuck Schumer led them back today. We are back with our guests. Kim, this ones for you. I think if memory serves, bill crystal has an hpd in the classics from harvard so he has established loving a good story line. He tweeted this today. Quote, i think mitch is look forg ward to hanging back on the role call and then being the 67th vote for conflicting trump. Does this only happen in the world of crystal and sorkin . Im not that convinced. Im not as convinced as bill is. We know Mitch Mcconnell does a very good job keeping what he will do close to the vest and i was listening to what he said today. He said the president provoked this mob. Is provocation the same as incitement . I dont know. That is up to leader mcconnell. He also talked about other people also provoking it. Does that take culpability away from trump in me chooses worth carefully. I didnt get a definitive answer from that but it left open the possibility he could a vote in favor of removal and the second vote, which would be very important, the majority vote to prevent donald trump from running for office again and presumably being part of a fictitious party. We dont know yet. Its a big haul to get enough republicans to convict him but if anyone can, Mitch Mcconnell can. Waves of excitement on fox news as donald trump on the last day and night, released a tranche of declassified documents having to do with cross fire hurricane. Especially for viewers who dont the ins and outs, can you give us the overbrief and remind us what the case was . And talk about the logistics, ethics of tearing off the label of some of the documents, once protected for a reason. Weve all speculated about damage the president could do on his way out the front door of the white house, and this purported release really falls within that classification. This is donald trump at his worst trying to use the power of the presidency in order to insulate himself from any further historical damage down the road because cross fire hurricane is the story of his campaigns cross over with russia in an effort to seek ep election. And this is the core of his allegation that the Intelligence Community came over him, witch hunted him in a way that was inappropriate. This is questionable whether any of the documents will see the light of day though. The fbi pushed back strongly on National Security grounds any sort of release like that has a risk of methods so the fbi pushed back and said we dont believe any of this should be released. If it does, it should be redakted. And if it was released, it would be incomplete. But it takes time. Declassification is not automatic, and with the clock running on this presidency, its not clear to me that it happens in a meaningful way. Perhaps it can be countermanted, and requred and the president will not get the benefit in a last ditch effort to get him selfserving purposes. Quick last word with peter baker, who we started with tonight. And it says a lot about our new cycle, you dont have the luxury of hitting send on that last sentence. Your last take on the trump administration. I guess until 11 59 50 a. M. Look, he has made very clear hes not very eager